Raffaello Pantucci writing in CiF discusses the recent failures of the government’s anti-terror campaign. He comments on the matter of the trials that came to naught and begs the question;
…either the British government is chasing the wrong people, or the British legal system is unfit for purpose in effectively countering the terrorism the government thinks it is fighting.
I tend to lean towards the former, myself, given some of the recent raids that have supposed to have been against plotters when there was little or no evidence produced to substantiate the accusations. I am forever reminded of the great ricin plot where, in fact, there was no plot, there was no ricin and there was no terror cell. The government -and let’s not beat about the bush, here – flagrantly lied to us over what turned out to be one disaffected Algerian immigrant.
Pantucci then comments on the more recent terror raid where, it would appear there was no terror plot:
For those of a conspiratorial bent, this will all provide much sustenance to the belief that much of this so-called terrorism is in fact alarmism targeting innocent Muslims.
You don’t need to be of a conspiratorial bent to reach this conclusion. I regard conspiracy theorists as wild-eyed loonies who have little regard for facts and reality. Yet I am disinclined to believe the statements put out about terror plots that are clearly nothing of the sort (Forest Gate, anyone?). Recall also that summer a couple of years ago when we were supposed to believe that explosives would be smuggled onto aircraft in bottles? This sparked even more paranoid airport security. Indeed, such is the obsessive nature of airport check-ins these days, I won’t fly, rather than put myself through it.
Pantucci goes on:
The reality, however, is that aside from the Pakistani students, in each case a jury found some elements of the plots credible and the men guilty. The problem, however, lies more in the presentational aspect of how these are played out in the arena of public debate – the only one that really matters when fighting an ideology as well as individual terrorist cells.
Erm, no. The Ricin plot, for example; Kamel Bourgass was indeed guilty of the murder of Detective Constable Stephen Oake, but his subsequent conviction while already serving a gaol term for this crime was a convenient add-on. Juries don’t always get it right and is no justification for what has been going on. Forest Gate, again; having found no evidence that they could make stick, suddenly there was an allegation of kiddie porn. My, wasn’t that convenient? And, I repeat, I am no conspiracy theorist – I have simply learned to treat with contempt announcements by government agencies based upon nothing more than the evidence that subsequently calls bullshit.
I disagree with Pantucci that this has anything to do with presentation. It is about incompetence. If the intelligence services proceeded with caution and carried out effective investigations, they would only arrest those against whom they had verifiable evidence of malfeasance. Then, when an announcement was made, there would be a subsequent successful prosecution.
The UK continues to face a long-term threat from violent terrorism.
A very small but over hyped one.
The question must increasingly be asked about whether we are actually pursuing the strategy to counter this in a coherent way.
We are not.
Given the fight is ultimately one that will take a long time to conclude and will involve persuading a section of society that its government is not at war with it…
It will never be concluded. In a liberal democracy that values individual freedom, this is a risk we must be prepared to accept.
…the fewer blunders that are made along the way that seem to support this narrative, the better.
That, I suspect is about as likely as a conclusion to the “war on terror”, quite frankly.