Is terrorism more driven by identity than extremist ideology?

How do you define, in the context of free speech, extremism? Is extremism a belief, opinion or world view beyond arbitrarily defined societal norms or merely an exaggerated response or attachment to a given ideological position? The general view is that extremism is the former:

“Extremism is the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and respect and tolerance for different faiths and beliefs. We also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremist.”

This comes from the UK government's counter extremism strategy, a document that gives rise to the much-criticised Prevent strategy which "...explicitly makes a causal link between ideology, extremist thought, and extremist actions." The criticism of Prevent has, in the main, been that it appears to (unfairly) target Muslim communities but there is a strong defence for the Home Office here since, not only are the majority of UK terrorist incidents associated with Islamist extremism but the proportion of Muslims identified through the programme has been falling:

The published figures also suggest the Home Office has developed more sophisticated methods of categorising risk. This has implications for improving relations with British Muslim communities. Previously, the Home Office relied on four categories of concern: “Islamist extremism”, “right-wing extremism”, “other extremism” and “unspecified”. Now a new category has been created: “mixed, unstable, or unclear ideology”. This increased willingness to consider disparate or uncertain motivations coincides with a reduction in the proportion of Islamic extremism referrals – down from 61% in 2016-17 to 44% in 2017-18 – and offers the grounds for tentative optimism.

The problem with Prevent (and other anti-extremism strategies) is, however, rather deeper than just the perception from one or other community that they're being targeted. The programme assumes that extremism is the result of radicalisation - “grooming and exploitation by terrorists” as the UK's security minister, Ben Wallace put it. The problem, as conflict expert, Dr Mike Martin observes is:

This understanding of the role of belonging should be considered alongside the facts that an overwhelming majority of those with extremist thoughts, far more than 99%, do not commit violent actions. What’s more, extremist thought, even were it adequately definable in a society that values free speech, is a very poor predictor of violent action. Defining extremism in this way lumps the supposed thinkers of extremism together with those targeted by the government for their criminal activity – actors of extremism.

Martin goes on to suggest that, because we have terrorism cause and effect in the wrong order (terrorists use extremist ideology to justify their violence rather than the ideology being the reason for that violence - this applies as much to animal rights violence as it does to Muslim terrorism) the Prevent strategy, far from reducing terrorism actually risks creating terrorists:

By seeking to find and punish those who harbour extremist thought, the actions of the government cause people to question their place in British society, when they might not have done so before. In short, it creates or exacerbates a crisis of belonging, even where one might not have existed.

I'm not entirely convinced by Martin's argument but it is (unlike the Prevent strategy) grounded in some good science and should be given due consideration. We need also to consider why it is that the government is so specific about some extremism ("right-wing" and "Muslim" but not "left-wing" or "vegan") as if only some ideologies are linked to terrorism. Which is odd given the long history of left-wing violence and the current spate of attacks founded on veganism or animal rights.

Two things strike me about Prevent's weakness (and Dr Martin's argument) - first that radicalisation may not create terrorism but it does provide a home for terrorism, and second that the boundary between terrorist and non-terrorist crime is very blurred especially when we come to individual acts of violence such as the murder of Jo Cox MP. For the first issue, however, we cannot be selective about ideology - it's perfectly possible to see how, in the current febrile Brexit environment, how pro-EU "extremists" could commit acts of violence (the doorstepping of Jacob Rees-Mogg gets ever closer to this, for example). Which brings us to the free speech question - who is defining what we mean by extreme. Is having a FBPE hashtag extremist?

In the second instance - when is violence classed as terrorism - we have to start with some sort of political or politio-religious rationale for the violence. So the man who murdered Jo Cox, because he appeared to have a political motive, is a terrorist whereas the man who killed Andy Pennington, aide to then Cheltenham MP, Nigel Jones, was not a terrorist because his motive was personal rather than ideological. The question Dr Martin poses is whether our distinction between these two murders is artificial. Jo Cox's murderer used extremist ideology to rationalise his act of murder leading to us seeking out radicalisation (literature, websites, far right organisation) as the problem rather than more personal motives.

I'll finish with Dr Martin's conclusion because it speaks to this very problem, to the personal rather than to the organised exploitation of people through radicalisation:

Globalisation, and particularly immigration, has detached people from the groups they once belonged to: their families, their ethnicities, and their nations. The modern world can be a profoundly lonely place. If individuals feel that they don’t belong, they are more likely to reach out for extreme ideas that will fill that vacuum, offering them a sense of identity.

It seems that our sense of identity - and the feeling that this identity is being denied or excluded - has more to do with terrorism than ideology or the promotion of ideology.

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Quote of the day: Vietnam

This is spot on:

The Vietnam War was the greatest U.S. military catastrophe of the 20th century. A conflict begun under false pretenses, based on ignorance and hubris, it killed 58,000 Americans and as many as 3 million Vietnamese. It ended in utter failure. Never in our history have so many lives been wasted on such monumental futility.

My generation (and those a year or so older who sang peace and love) associate the disaster of Vietnam with Richard Nixon - it sort of suits the more lefty-minded for it to be a shockingly corrupt Republican President who shoulders the blame for this awful war. Truth is that the origins of the problem* - at least as far as US involvement is concerned - rests rather with the sainted John F Kennedy.

I've always taken the view that, far from being some blessed individual, Kennedy was as committed to projecting US power as any Republican. Kennedy's knack was to wrap it up in the promotion of democracy rather than the less appealing and blunted cold war rhetoric of Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon.

*Interestingly the "strategic hamlet" approach developed by the French and US advisors whereby radicalised communities were relocated into controllable locations was a straight lift from the policy used by the British in Malaya. The main difference was that the Malay insurgency was by ethnic Chinese making it far easier to isolate the community hiding guerrillas and terrorists.

"Enough is enough" - responding to Islamism

Quite understandably there has been a fairly frantic response to the terrible and terrifying events last night on London Bridge and in the Borough. As ever the story is one of shock mixed in with tales of bravery from police, medics and the public. It will have refreshed the barely faded memory of Manchester in those recently scarred by that atrocity and reminds us that Islamist terrorism is a real and substantial threat in the UK as well as across Europe.

The Prime Minister responded and did so in a more robust, almost angry, manner when compared to the statement after Manchester - 'enough is enough' was the message as she talked about 'safe spaces' online, the continuing problems with ISIS's insurgency in Syria and Iraq, and the need for a renewed counter-terrorism strategy. The response suggests a subtle shift in what happens in the UK on this issue and indicates that the Prevent strategy becomes more significant in that overall counter-terrorism strategy:

"But it also means taking action here at home. While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is – to be frank – far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out – across the public sector and across society. That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations, but the whole of our country needs to come together to take on this extremism – and we need to live our lives not in a series of separated, segregated communities but as one truly United Kingdom."

The challenge is, as always, to transform this rhetoric into some sort of strategy that works on the ground and which has the buy-in (not mere 'support') of local government, education and police establishments - I'm guessing that this is what the Prime Minister alludes to when she says 'across the public sector'. Right now strategies to identify and respond to nascent extremism are widely disregarded, even opposed, by local political and bureaucratic leadership especially in those places where the strategy is most needed and important. This situation needs addressing and represents a failure in the strategy as well as a continuing preference of those elites for political posturing and cultural indulgence rather than the tough job of challenging extremism especially within Muslim communities.

Some are saying the right thing but, I suspect, aren't thinking about their response when the actions they propose are carried out:




I'm guessing that I'm a councillor in a city that might be considered one of those 'breeding grounds of terror', certainly a place that will feature in the thinking of those drawing up a new counter-terrorism strategy. The question I have for Kevin Holland and many others suggesting that we need to get into the communities where Islamist ideology is transmitted is whether they are prepared for the reaction from those communities to our 'interference'.

The Prevent strategy is pretty mild. It doesn't single out Islamism as its sole target - referrals through Prevent into the wider 'Channel' anti-terror programme show that just over half are Muslims referred as a result of activity linked to Islamist extremism. This hasn't stopped some politicians arguing, in effect, that Prevent is some sort of national anti-Muslim policy:

The government's anti-extremism programme Prevent should be paused, Baroness Warsi has said.

The former foreign office minister said the scheme had "huge problems", including the quality of its training, and said its "brand" had become "toxic".

She called for an independent review to look into where the programme had failed or proven successful.

It is true that the image of the Prevent strategy in Muslim communities - at least in Bradford - is pretty poor but we should appreciate that this is a consequence of many Muslim commenters echoing a dominant Islamist discourse. Here's writer Sara Khan:

While there are legitimate concerns about the delivery and effectiveness of Prevent, I evidence how British Islamist organisations have led on delivering a highly effective campaign in deliberately misinforming not only British Muslims but wider society about what Prevent is and is not. These Islamists have not only partnered with teaching unions, students, lawyers, teachers and academics in an attempt to end Prevent, they have sought to malign the many Muslim organisations who do support it creating a “toxic” climate where many Muslims do not want to openly admit their support for Prevent. As a result the loud anti-Prevent lobby end up dominating the discourse – and narrative about Prevent.

You only need look at the persistent vilification of moderate Muslim voices like Maajid Nawaz - by both Islamist apologists and left-wing opponents of US and UK foreign policy to appreciate how this works:

But Murtaza Husain at Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept site felt so aggrieved, so agitated, so angry at my decision to talk to those with whom I disagree, about my own religion, that he posted a photo of Sam and me in conversation using the words “nice shot of Sam and his well-coiffed talking monkey.” When challenged the writer doubled-down, deciding that I was in fact a “native informant,” and nothing but Sam’s “porch monkey.”

This doesn't means Nawaz is right in all he proposes but he does represent a voice that sees Islam within a pluralist, liberal world rather than as an absolute truth to be imposed on the unbeliever, by force if necessary. I've a feeling that most UK Muslims (if not those in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia) would rather be in this place but find it difficult to endorse such a position with an Islamic academe dominated by Wahhabi and Deobandi traditionalism.

So when an actual Muslim arguing for a more moderate understanding of Islam is reviled as some sort of Muslim 'Uncle Tom' those arguing that politicians like me should 'take to the streets in the breeding grounds of terror' need to be ready to provide cover for us when we're called Islamophobic, bigoted and racist by both the Islamist apologists and also a set of left-wing agitators who support Islamism because it positions itself against the 'neoliberal' world order.

ISIS have a concept of the 'grey zone' - where Muslims and non-Muslims coexist more-or-less peacefully - and the destruction of this 'grey zone' is close to the centre of their ideology. Here's another moderate Muslim writer, Nafeez Ahmed:

The imperative now is for citizens around the world to work together to safeguard what ISIS calls the "grey zone" – the arena of co-existence where people of all faith and none remain unified on the simple principles of our common humanity. Despite the protestations of extremists, the reality is that the vast majority of secular humanists and religious believers accept and embrace this heritage of mutual acceptance.

The extremists on the new right who call for expulsion, internment and limitations of Muslims in Europe or the USA are straightforwardly doing precisely what ISIS want the West to do - here in the terrorists own words:

“The Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize and adopt the kufrī [infidel] religion propagated by Bush, Obama, Blair, Cameron, Sarkozy, and Hollande in the name of Islam so as to live amongst the kuffār [infidels] without hardship, or they perform hijrah [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the crusader governments and citizens... Muslims in the crusader countries will find themselves driven to abandon their homes for a place to live in the Khilāfah, as the crusaders increase persecution against Muslims living in Western lands so as to force them into a tolerable sect of apostasy in the name of 'Islam' before forcing them into blatant Christianity and democracy.”

The whole point and purpose of Prevent (and other anti-extremism programmes) is to prevent - get it - this polarising of Islam and Not Islam in our society. And in doing so to allow Muslims to confront the evident division between the majority who are content to live in a plural, liberal society and the minority who want to create an absolutist, sharia-led polity. It isn't our job to try and control or direct that debate within Islam but rather to insist that we remain an open culture and a free society in which Muslims are welcome. And that we will act firmly to protect pluralism, liberty and secularism.

This will be a long slow process and I will close with a Tweet from historian Tom Holland that reminds us this is a theological debate as much as it a political challenge.




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Absolutely right - we shouldn't ever forget this...

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...Corbyn was a member of the board of Labour Briefing, a fringe magazine for diehard leftists that unequivocally supported the IRA’s bombing campaign. Corbyn organised the magazine’s mailing-list and was a regular speaker at its events. In December 1984, the magazine“reaffirmed its support for, and solidarity with, the Irish republican movement” noting that its “overwhelming priority as active members of the British labour movement is to fight for and secure an unconditional British withdrawal”. Only “an unconditional British withdrawal, including the disarming of the RUC and UDR, will allow for peace in Ireland. Labour briefing stands for peace, but we are not pacifists”. Moreover, “It certainly appears to be the case that the British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it”.

The current leader of the Labour Party supported the bombing of civilian targets by the IRA. it really is as bad as that and we should never stop telling the world the truth of his support for murderers.

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No we're not at war

Like many people, I vividly remember the Birmingham pub bombings. And, since I was only 13 and we didn't own a TV, it took quite something for a news story to get my attention. As the caption above shows, it was one of the very worst terrorist incidents in England - topped only by the London bombings of 2005.

We weren't at war with the IRA. They were criminal terrorists who acted from a political motive and they wanted to be at war with the British government. They weren't.

So I am reminded of that wise choice when I hear this sort of comment:

Prime Minister Manuel Valls, speaking after a crisis meeting called by the French president, says “we are at war. We have been subjected for the last few months in Europe to acts of war.”

However terrible an act it may be - and this is a truly terrible act - these are still acts of criminal terrorism not acts of war. Yet we know - for this has been so for every terror group from the Black Hand Gang through the IRA, PLO and Baader-Meinhoff to today's Islamists - that the terrorists want us to believe we are at war. This legitimises their particular struggle, allows them political protection and validates the deicison to become a terrorist.

I care little about the motivations of criminal murderers except in so far as those motivations allow us to catch them and bring them to justice. Just because someone lays claim to religious or political justification for their acts of murder doesn't change the fact that they remain murdering terrorists to be dealt with through the criminal justice system not the rules of war.
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Endless war...

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As Joe Haldeman wrote:

“The 1143-year-long war had begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate."

So while you can't stop fighting just because you've decised to stop fighting, you can (while the fighting's going on) address yourself to the communication. Or not as this reminder of how limited many spies and spooks are in their thinking:

There may be no end to the war against terrorism that the US is leading, according to former CIA employee Paul R.Pillar. And one of the main reasons would be a misinterpretation of the notion of “terrorism”.

Now this might be true if we take the broadest definition of terrorism but that's not what Pillar is on about. He's speaking specifically about Sunni Islam as if it is inevitable that this particular faith will continue to churn out terrorists so long as it's around. Especially given that, for most of Sunni Islam's history, it hasn't been churning out said terrorists.

So we need to develop two sorts of communication - firstly one with Sunni Islam that doesn't start from the premise that this set of beliefs is culpable in the creation of terrorism, that somehow the prosecution of terror is inherent to Islam. And secondly one with the very small number of Sunni Muslims who are attracted, for whatever reason, by the violent Islamism of Daesh.

There really aren't very many terrorists of any sort but we really don't need very many to have a disproportionate impact on people's feelings of security, on attitudes to Islam and on the policies of governments in the West. The sort of situation that leads to this kind of story:

The National Crime Agency (NCA), which was critical in the operation to arrest the suspects in that case, had reportedly been given new orders amid fears of a Paris-style attack involving terrorists returning from Syria using heavy weaponry.

The unnamed minister was quoted as saying: “We used to plan for three simultaneous attacks but Paris has shown that you need to be ready for more than that.

“We are ready if someone tries with seven, eight, nine, ten.”

This manages to reinforce our worries about terrorism, show a 'tough' government response and suggest that the culprits in these putative attacks will be Muslims. None of this is to suggest that government shouldn't be prepared but rather that the strategy seems incomplete without recognising that Islam is - whether we like it or not - a significant religion in the UK and that nearly all its adherents are not terrorists or ever likely to be terrorists.

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Islamist terror is about political power not faith - which is why we must help Muslims defeat it

Eduard Steinbrück, Die Magdeburger Jungfrauen

Then was there naught but beating and burning, plundering, torture, rape and murder. Most especially was every enemy bent on securing much booty. When a marauding party entered a house, if its master had anything to give he might thereby purchase respite and protection for himself and his family till the next man, who also wanted something should come along. It was only when everything had been brought forth and there was nothing left to give that the real trouble commenced. Then, what with blows and threats of shooting, stabbing and hanging, the poor people were so terrified that if they had had anything left they would have brought it forth if it had been buried in the earth or hidden away.

In this frenzied rage, the great and splendid city that had stood like a fair princess in the land was now, in its hour of direst need and unutterable distress and woe, given over to flames, and thousands of innocent men, women and children, in the midst of a horrible din of heartrending shrieks and cries, were tortured and put to death in so cruel and shameful a manner that no words would suffice to describe, not no tears to bewail it… (from a personal account of the sacking of Magdeburg on May 20, 1631)

It's terrible. It's terrible wherever it happens. It was terrible when some young Irishmen blew up a pub in Birmingham. It was terrible when Brigate Rosso kidnapped and murdered Aldo Moro. Terrible when Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff murdered their way across German politics. It's terrible when a young woman blows herself up on a Tel Aviv bus. Or some young men do likewise on a tube train. And it was terrible when eight young Arabs machine-gunned their way across Paris last Friday.

The terror isn't simply because of the guns, the bombs, the violence. The terror is that it could be you or I sat there on the restaurant terrace, on a bus heading for a day's work, or letting our hair down at a rock concert. The effectiveness of terror is how close to home it is - and no-one knows this better than the innocent residents of middle eastern countries as suicide bombers target crowded markets, busy streets filled with outdoor cafes and even beaches.

We ask why? What possible purpose does this serve - the terrorists are facing any existential threat, this isn't a matter of kill or be killed. Yet they choose to commit foul acts of violence against the innocent to make a political point, to play a part in some deranged strategy dreamt up by persuasive maniacs (albeit persuasive maniacs safely ensconced elsewhere - it wasn't Gerry Adams who planted that bomb in the Mulberry Bush back in 1973 and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wasn't in Paris wearing a vest of explosives last Friday).

A simple and common response - we've seen it a thousand times over the past couple of days - is to say that somehow the terrible murders in Paris are a direct consequence of foreign policy decisions, that the ideology of Islamist violence would not exist had Bush and Blair not invaded Iraq, had France to taken part in air strikes against Syria. As if there is either excuse or justification in murdering people having a glass of wine at their favourite restaurant because you disagree with their government. Just as the IRA had no political justification for killing 21 people and injuring over 300 more on that day in 1973, the Islamists who rampaged through Paris had no political - let alone religious - justification for their murderous destruction.

Terrorists have agency. The decisions or actions of others do not - and never have - forced them to engage in acts of violence. The murders on Friday were a matter of choice - those men chose to arm themselves, chose to drape themselves in high explosive, chose to target unarmed people having a good night out, and chose to murder them. They were not made to do this by Tony Blair, Binyamin Netanyahu or Francois Hollande - they chose. And this choice was part of a political campaign not an act of defence or the consequence of vengeance. The leaders of ISIS want power just as all political leaders want power - but those Islamist leaders reject democracy and prefer violence as the route to that power. It's not about defending Muslims - after all most of the people killed by ISIS are Muslims - nor is it about protecting Muslim lands.

And because these terrorists have agency - they act out of choice not compulsion - the rest of us have every right to respond. And I assume this is the basis for Hollande's describing last Friday's terror as an act of war against France. That statement - just as with George Bush's 'war on terror' words after 9/11 - is one of intent. But one that - if the past fourteen years are a guide - requires us to be very clear about who the enemy in this war might be. And, in doing this, it is necessary to have the support of Muslims - those Muslims who are as shocked, scared and angry about ISIS as the rest of us. I'm not talking here about the governments of Muslim countries but about those millions of ordinary Muslims who hate ISIS just as much as many non-Muslims.

The problem is that this engagement seldom happens. To be sure, if you talk to a Muslim he or she will tell you they reject terrorism, loathe the terrorists and don't believe that the murderers are truly Muslim. But if you ask for their support for actions to defeat the terrorism - especially if that includes some form of military action - the response is 'no'. It's almost as if there's a preference for putting our head in our hands and hoping against hope that it will all end. The problem is that, as too many Muslims discover, the cost of doing nothing is abuse and hatred. You can choose to call it 'islamaphobia' but it's grounded in the belief that those who yell 'Allahu akbar' as they machine-gun innocent folk sun-bathing on a Tunisian beach are Muslims.

And so long as this situation persists, so long as young men and women decamp to Syria to join ISIS, so long as terrorists blow up innocents in a Beirut rush hour because they're the wrong sort of Muslim, many non-Muslims will still look on in horror asking how anyone could claim it's a 'religion of peace'. There's a job resisting this but that's not the only job, for unless the distinction is made between Islam and the warped creed of Islamism those non-Muslims will remain distrustful of Muslims and Islam.

At the top of this article is a description of how the army of the Catholic League destroyed Magdeburg - just one of the atrocities in Europe's last great religious war. This is, as it were, intended to make the point that we can come to live peacefully alongside those whose faith or race is different from ours. But to achieve this it's necessary to learn Europe's lesson that, so long as religion and government are one and the same, there is no chance of peace. Yesterday, writing on The Spectator blog, British Muslim doctor, Qanta Ahmed said this:

The repugnant creed of the Islamic State is certainly related to Islam – but it is also inimical to Islam. The scenes in Paris will shock Muslims world over; indeed, when we Muslims hear of gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar” before committing the very acts of murder explicitly prohibited by the Koran, our repugnance is joined with a sense of desecration. To assert that this Islamism is un-Islamic is not a kneejerk response to the atrocities we saw last night, and so many times around the world. It is the only conclusion that can be drawn after serious consideration of its principles.

To win this war it's not enough to beat ISIS militarily. Nor can we win without defeating the men who would visit death on shoppers in Kenya, villagers in Nigeria and diners in Paris. And the war isn't a war against Islam but, I hope, a war to defend Islam from those who would use it - as with Christianity in 17th Century Europe - as a route to power and to the imposition of a violent totalitarian death cult. To win the war with ISIS - however it is conducted - requires Muslims everywhere to show why Islamism is a rejection of their faith. For it is - in truth - as much your war as it is ours.

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Quote of the day: Advice on anti-terrorism from James Thurber

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The moral from The Very Proper Gander:

Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.

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Freedom or security? Is this really the choice?

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It's OK folks, I'm not going to recycle that Ben Franklin quote but you'll all have noticed that the government, the possible next government and perhaps the last government too (not to mention governments in Europe and the USA) are all very keen to tell you that them having the power to stick their neb into any and every part of our lives is necessary for reasons of 'national security'.

You see, dear reader, some British people have decided that living in Birmingham or Billericay is dull and have headed off to Syria or some other part of the middle east to join in the excitingly murderous civil wars going on round there. These young folk are, in the jargon of today, "radicalised" and represent a serious existential threat to our civilisation and to that nebulous but convenient thing, 'national security'.

"It is the first duty of government to protect our national security and to act quickly when that security is compromised. As events in Iraq and Syria demonstrate, now is not the time to be scaling back on our ability to keep our people safe."

Now I rather understand why Prime Ministers are wont to say this sort of thing - after all when there is some sort of terrorist incident they're the ones who have to front up the government's response and deal with the media's inevitable "you didn't do enough" line.  And there are some British people fighting out there in the middle east who may well return to the UK puffed up with their radicalised ideas ready to do terrible things. It's not clear how many there are out there - some reports suggest 700 and other reports also suggest that a couple of hundred or so are already back in the UK.

So it seems eminently sensible for the security forces to keep an eye on these chaps so as to make sure they aren't up to nefarious stuff that threatens our security. This is what we employ spies to do, I think. But those spies have all the powers and systems they need to keep tabs on a relatively small number of dodgy radicalised men who've been out to Syria on some sort of jihad. I don't see how the ability to monitor people who have done nothing wrong and are doing nothing wrong adds to our security.

This intrusion makes us less secure. It doesn't make us safer from the terrorist or the murderer but it provides government with the means to interfere in the lives of innocent people. This is the world of micro-chipped waste bins, covert surveillance of parents, the use of anti-social behaviour orders to effect social control and the preference for the banning of anything that makes the police or security services have to do their core job of protecting us.

We are less secure because an ever widening collection of anonymous officials can order investigations, gather data and take action to enforce a mountain of controls and regulations. Everything from the smoking ban in pubs and the use of curfew orders on drinking through to legislation on speech that is so broadly written as to allow the authorities to arrest almost anyone on whatever pretext they want. And all this intervention in our lives is done to protect us, to prevent offence and to make sure that we all comply with the latest iteration of equalities-speak dreamt up by those with an interest in extending its scope.

For sure the government won't be earwigging you calling the local kebab shop for a delivery of doner and chips. Nor will they be routinely opening your post or giggling at your inane text messages. But they are giving themselves the power to do these things should they wish to. All on the basis of 'national security', a term so ill-defined as to place little or no limit on the scope of the security services and police.

If we are to have changes to surveillance rules and to give secret agencies powers to make greater use of such powers then this needs to be accompanied by two other significant additions - much greater openness and transparency from the security agencies and strong guarantees of free speech in legislation. Conducting a review of laws created for a pre-internet age does make some sense but this should not be undertaken without a wider public understanding of what any new rules might mean. Simply saying something akin to "look at the scary terrorist man with a beard" as the basis for new rules isn't right and gives me little comfort that my freedoms - especially my right to an opinion you may disagree with - will be protected.

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Simon Jenkins proposes the stupidest response to terrorism ever...

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I'm not joking. Simon Jenkins - usually a fairly thoughtful journalist was clearly drugged or drunk when he wrote this:

The slaughter of Christians in Peshawar this weekend showed that wherever crowds gather they are vulnerable to any group with a brainwashed youth and a bomb. It might be sensible to discourage like-minded crowds from gathering in one place, be they co-religionists or party faithful or merely the wealthy.

I am at a loss for words. And Jenkins then makes is worse by saying we shouldn't build shopping malls because they might be a terrorist target. I'm assuming that Simon would also close football stadiums, large hotels, nightclubs, markets, mosques and beaches?

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Taking sides in Syria - mad, bad and dangerous

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It seems to me an utter nonsense to seek to end a war by giving the side that appears to be losing more guns. Yet that is precisely - all wrapped up in weasel words about the situation and castigastion of the Assad regime - what we're saying;

Its joint statement said the members had agreed to "provide urgently all necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies".

And, as ever, this decision - essentially a decision to escalate violence in Syria - is promoted on the basis of the most bizarre judgement. It's not because giving the "Western-backed rebel military command" means supporting the good guys. Nope, we're doing this because some chemical weapons have been used and this was the 'red line' that mustn't be crossed or else!

I could get all geopolitical, talk about arming one or other side in the ever more divisive scrap been Sunni and Shia Muslims. Or argue that we're fighting a daft proxy war with Russia and Iran lining up against the USA and Saudi Arabia. But I'm not going to do that.

No, I'm going to say that, terrible though events in Syria are, it's absolutely none of our business. By all means send relief to refugees, medical equipment to save lives and food for the starving. Definitely clamber onto the moral high ground and tell those fighting to stop it and come and talk to each other to see if there's a way to sort the mess out without murdering half the population.

But arming the rebels. That's taking sides. And we know just how loved we are across the Middle East for taking sides! Before we know there will be a queue of comfortable Syrian exiles and a veritable platoon of ex-military and former diplomatic chaps calling for 'no fly zones', for blockades and for even bigger bombs and guns for the friendly jihadist rebels.

To say it again - it really is none of our business any more than it was any of Gaddafi's business (or for that matter Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton's business) that we fought a long campaign against terrorists in Northern Ireland.

Again. Giving arms to insurgents in Middle East countries - whether we consider them good guys or not - is a monumentally stupid idea. And not why we have a defence budget.

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Here be monsters...

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”  H. P. Lovecraft

Here we go again. Buoyed up by terrible things, the bureaucrats of the security state are out to persuade their political masters that, without them, we'd all be raped, pillaged, blown up and generally battered by the chthonic forces of evil that cluster round the gates into our civilised land.

"Indeed you will never be aware of all the things that these agencies are doing to stop your identity being stolen or to stop a terrorist blowing you up tomorrow." 

This fills me with such confidence - "you will never be aware" says the Minister. But surely the whole point is that we should be aware, we should know what these agencies are doing. Not every case, every investigation but the rules under which they operate and the manner in which those rules are applied.

Instead of understanding, openness and information what we get is fear and the feeding of fear. We are to be scared - of terrorists, of sinister identity thieves, of cunning fraudsters and international crime. And when the justification for all this frightening of the people is challenged, we regaled with 'facts' - unsubstantiated statistics of terrorist plots thwarted and spy networks broken, of criminal masterminds snared in their lairs and drug lords brought to justice.

Without these 'powers', without the snooping, poking about and pouring over data, the monsters would flood in - from a peaceful, quiet place we would tumble into barbarian chaos, into some dystopian dog-eat-dog nihilism where terrorists, criminals and fraudsters destroy the tranquillity of our world. The spooks and spies are guarding the gate to that dark underworld of evil.

And the spies, spooks and snoopers know their world must remain secret - without that secrecy the frightening things would wither and suddenly the billion pound industry of surveillance and espionage would seem less vital, less important. And that would never do!

Out there in the world are bad people akin to the monsters of old. I know this because the minister told me.

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America!

 

"...sudden burst of sunshine seemed to illuminate the Statue of Liberty, so that he saw it in a new light, although he had sighted it long before. The arm with the sword rose up as if newly stretched aloft, and round the figure blew the free winds of heaven."

OK, so Franz Kafka was wrong about the sword but the symbolism of arriving in America is so often written that we forget why so many arrived there. Today we seem only to hear the shrill, snide, judging voices of anti-American sentiment. And we forget. We forget that - almost uniquely - the USA was founded on the principle of freedom. On the idea that government has no right to rule. That rulers must act with the consent of the ruled. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are not merely the founding documents of the United States but represent a voice of liberty - symbolised by that statue - that echoes today.

Yet so many continue to condemn the USA. To cry foul at its every act. To point at its flaws and failings. To focus on its mistakes - or rather on the mistakes of its rulers. And they are wrong to condemn a whole nation - to claim that the aim of expanding liberty and freedom bequeathed to US government by John F Kennedy is somehow an evil force in the world. The United States remains a force for good - for all its errors a beacon of liberty in a world where too many still believe the state exists other than with the permission of the people, who want some role for priests in government and who prefer the disposition of bureaucracy to the choices of free men.

Today we remember a terrible attack on America. An act supposedly committed in the promotion of god's rule on earth. An act that chose terror over conversation, murder over persuasion. An unforgivable and inexcusable act that saw thousands killed without reason and, in a cry of collective pain, led Americans to acquiesce to a set of military adventures - some with good reason and some without. But the deaths the anti-Americans point to were not caused by America - they are the direct result of that unwarranted, that evil attack on New York and Washington in September 2001.

And that attack was an attack on liberty. On the ideas that founded the USA. On the principle of inalienable rights. And on the power of choice in the world of men. It was as much an attack on Bradford, on Paris and on Islamabad as it was an attack on the USA.

I will not forget. I will always remember the stunned silence in the room as we watched - over and over again - those planes crash into the twin towers. The images of smoke, fire, chaos and confusion will never go away. Nor will the quiet heroism of ordinary men and women faced with such an act of evil.

The United States of America is a great country - its very act of foundation brought more good to the world than the sum of its sins since that date. And the power of freedom and choice allowed the USA to lead man's advance to greater wealth, happiness and health. I am - and you should be - grateful not envious. Appreciative not condemnatory. Thankful not fearful.

Long live America!

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A dark day for Ireland - electing a terrorist and friend of murderers to its parliament

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Gerry Adams was a leading member of the IRA when the organisation received support and funding - probably arms, too - from Libya:

In 1972, 29-year-old Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi made contact with leading Irish republican Joe Cahill through the Breton artist and sculptor Yann Goulet. The purpose of the approach was an offer of material assistance to the IRA whose struggle against British occupation of the Six Counties was reaching a new intensity. 

I'm sure Gerry Adams knew about this. And the story continues.

In 1973, when Seamus Twomey was arrested Gerry Adams took over as commanding officer of the IRA in Belfast. The Adams leadership was well able to match the body count which occurred under Twomey in 1972 which read, 81 innocent Catholics and 41 innocent Protestants mainly murdered in no warning IRA bomb attacks.

I'm sure Gerry Adams knew about this - his entire political life has been spent around murderers, hoodlums and thieves. Criminals made worse in that they took over a noble cause - uniting Ireland - and brought it violence, death and terror.

Today, Gerry Adams is elected to the Dail - representing the County of Louth, a place he has never lived and has no interest in. It is a dark day for that County and for Ireland. It would be better were Adams rotting in some jail instead of parading his evil across the Republic.

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Muslim leader calls for ethnic profiling.

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You read that right - in today's Telegraph it is reported the Iqbal Wahhab a "leading Muslim businessman" and Government advisor...

"...urged the Government to introduce the controversial policy of 'passenger profiling' - singling out particular groups for security checks at airports or other transport hubs - in order to combat the threat posed from Islamist extremists.

"The stakes are too high to worry about my individual rights," he said. "What about the right not to be bombed?"

Now isn't that a good idea?

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This isn't security it's ritual magic

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Yesterday the Government – in the form of Home Secretary Alan Johnson – raised the security level to “severe” which apparently means the public needs to be more “aware”. And Mr Johnson said:

“…I would urge the public to remain vigilant and carry on reporting suspicious events to the appropriate authorities and to support the police and security services in their continuing efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity."

All well and good but what exactly has changed? We should be more aware of what exactly? Blokes with beards (or with evidence of having had a beard once) carrying backpacks? Suspicious photographers snapping random architectural features? Opposition members of parliament?

This isn’t scaremongering says professional scaremonger Lord Carlile (competing with Dr Evan Harris for the prize as the world’s most illiberal liberal):

"The government has quite rightly decided that if you don't tell the public to be vigilant, they're not going to be vigilant. The message from the current change of assessment is not that we should be more afraid, but that we should be a little bit more vigilant than we have been. It is crucial that the public report to the police anything suspicious they see."

So what are you going to do? Let me describe the typical official response:

1. Gather together briefing notes from police and Home Office
2. Hold meeting with door staff, security, reception and "management"
3. Change little cardboard sign in window from ‘green’ to ‘amber’
4. Write briefing note for superiors, police, home office
5. Issue press release saying we’re more “alert”

This entire exercise is just mumbo jumbo – little different from waving incense over the altar and probably less effective. We have replaced sensible, targeted and effective security with ritual magic.

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