Enough is Enough

Britain, and the rest of the world,  have suffered some horrendous terrorist attacks.  Our prayers are with those who are injured, bereaved or traumatised as a result. It happens too often, and I am interested in what can be done to reduce further occurances.  I doubt it will ever be possible to completely eliminate all attacks.  Someone who has a 'cause' to fight for and is mis-guided enough to think that killing and maiming people might somehow further their cause is going to be very difficult to detect and stop.

The aim of this terrorism, we are told, is to make us change our way of life - to remove our freedoms, to wreck our democracy, to turn us into oppressed citizens.  We must not go down that path, or implement any measures that lead in that direction, down the slippery slope into authoritarianism.  That way lies the terrorists victory.

The UK government 'Prevent' strategy is hailed by some as the answer and critisised by others as alienating the very people it is trying to engage.  Clearly some strategy must be found that treads the fine line between gaining people's trust quickly and causing further alienation.  One good way to establish trust is to do what you say you are going to do.  A common thread in the recent attacks has been people reporting that they have notified the authorities of their concerns about someone and apparently nothing (not enough?) was done, because here they are involved in an attack.

The intelligence services, I heard the other night on the news, have 3,000 people that are 'of interest' - that they are actively tracking, and a further 20,000 that are known to them (quite what that means I'm not sure).  Keeping an eye on that number of people is a challenge, but it is better than the alternatives.

Three options seem to come up regularly:

Internment
Why can't we round them all up (the 3,000) and lock them in an old airfiled?
This was one suggestion.  It is a bad idea - primarily because it does exactly what we don't want to do, it changes our way of life.  If the option is there for Islamist terrorist it is there for any others who might come under some sort of suspicion.  It is a bad idea because the friends of those who are locked up will see a reason to fight our system, istead of support our system, and may resort to the same tactics.  My memories of the trouble in Northern Ireland suggest that more support occurred for the terrorists after internment was introduced.

Deport them
They are British born, so where would they go?  To whereever their parents, grandparents or great grandparents came from.  Do you think those countries want them?  I wouldn't.  There is another problem too, we would probably be making them stateless, which means they can only go into countries illegally.  What if they come back into Britain - now it is even harder to keep them under survailance.

Arm the police / New Powers
In the Lodon Bridge / Borough Market attack police arrived within 8 minutes (very impressive) and shot the three men dead.  That is a shame, I would have liked to deny them martydom and seen them locked up for many years - that is more aof a deterrent.  In the process police report that 50 bullets were shot.  I heard only one report of someone being injured by a stray bullet.  I don't know how serious it was, and it hasn't been repeated, but it is a significant danger.  One of the marks of a civilised country is that the population obey the law by consent (mostly), so that lethal force is not required to be permanently and instantly available.  We should try to remain civilised as long as possible.  Sadiq Khan says we shouldn't be alarmed by more armed police on the streets.  I strongly disagree - I still remember John Charles Menezes.

Giving the polices new powers is another one of those doubtful steps.  We have had terrorism for years, surely by now enough powewrs have been given to the police.  There may be some (quite a lot) opportunity to improve the way existing powers are used.  That should certainly be investigated.

What can we do?
The Archbishop of  Canterbury is right, we cannot divorce Islamist terror entirely from Islam.  Just as we could not separate Catholicism and Protestantism entirely from the trouble in Northern Ireland.  To do so risks us being completly unable to undrerstand the context. Without the context no solution is possible.

Saying that it is our actions in declaring war on Iraq or other 'middle eastern adventures' is also unhelpful.  Sure there is some influence from what we do, but it isn't the whole story.  This approach should mean that the terrorists only hit 'western' targets, but the Philipines among other countries proves this to be false.

So a good understanding of history seems to be the first thing that we need before we can start to solve this problem.  Secondly, we should carefully review the intelligence and law enforcement approaches to determine whether there are better strategies - there almost certainly are.  Thirdly, review their resources to ensure they have adequate man power and computer power (what can some of this clever AI bring that would help?).  Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, we must engage with the communities that the terrorists come from.  It was good to see the Imams refuse to pray for the terrorists. Finally, we must ensure that the justice system works effectively to remove terrorists and their supporters from their communities and ensure they are out of action for a long time.

Charlie Hebdo Massacre - voices and reflections

From the title, you will already have picked up a little of my thought process.  The attack happened on 7 Jan, this entry was written 13 Jan.  Here is the Wiki article. 
The magazine has just published its first issue since the shootings.

First I should declare my position, I am a practising Christian, politically I am liberal, with both a small and capital 'L'.  We live in a Liberal Democracy, we are told.  It is a great achievement of many people in our history who have made sacrifices so that we can live like this.  Within the rule of law, we have 'free speech' and tolerance.  The only thing that is not tolerated is intolerance - that is described as 'not appropriate'.

I am going to offer some reflections on the attack and how we should respond.

I noted in the immediate aftermath that even the more extreme voices played down the 'blame' being put on all Muslims. We had rather ridiculous pictures of the KKK with the caption that not all Christians are responsible for their acts, next to a picture of the black ISIS flag with a similar Islamic caption.  Hardly worth saying?  Well, perhaps the obvious needs to be stated.

Then the phrase "Je suis charlie"  (Spartacus has a lot to answer for) began to spread.  So while all Muslims must not be associated with the acts of terror, plenty of people were prepared to put themselves on the side of the satirists.  I am not one of them.  The satirists intent is to shock and offend to some degree to make a point. I cannot stand with them - it is not my intention to offend, though I may frequently do so, I do try to avoid it.  Points can be made politely.  I can though affirm their 'right' to say what they say, in the way that they say it.
I wonder if the "Je suis charlie" badge wearers realize that they are stating their preparedness to give offense?.

"Nobody said life was fair" is a common expression, it is also true that nobody can expect to get through life without being offended.  We are 'granted' many 'rights' in our country, nowhere does it say we have the right not to be offended.  As a Christian, I am regularly offended by various portrayals of Jesus, usually by people who don't understand what they are saying.  Mostly they are trying to be funny. Sometimes I can laugh with them, sometimes I am too disgusted.  My reaction is to pray for them, and sometimes myself.  So far I have not had the desire to kill any of them.  Even if I did, my understanding of how we are called to live (love your enemies) would ultimately prevent such an action.

Responses
As we grieve for the dead, and pray for those who have lost family members and good friends and as we recover from our shock and our anger subsides, what can we do to prevent something like this happening again?

If we are to protect our freedoms, and not undo the work of centuries of sacrifice, our best response is to "keep calm and carry on".  That seems to be pretty unlikely, as each time something like this happens there is a call for more security.  The French have flooded their country with armed troops.  David Cameron, our Prime Minister, is talking about reading all our e-mails, and giving extra powers to the security forces - despite the fact that it would not have made a jot of difference in this case.  I still remember the use made of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. It was used to evict a noisy, disruptive old man from a party conference - hardly appropriate.  We should not forget Lord Acton's comment "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

One comment I heard suggested that the cartoons showing pictures of the prophet should have been published everywhere.  The person who made the comment was a Muslim, I believe.  That would have put a very different shine on things a long while ago. 

We should also try to find ways to strengthen the Muslims in our society and bring them closer to our ways of thinking. (What a Christian who wants to convert people - surely not!)  I'm really not talking about conversion, but encouragements to improve the management of their faith so that radicalization becomes impossible.

The thing we should not do is to 'self censor' what we say and do - that would be a victory for the terrorists.

Too much in this debate becomes divisive, so perhaps if little or nothing happens that is our best way forward.

My only dismay is that the terrorists were shot dead, I would have much preferred for them to face the courts for the crimes they committed.

Osama Bin Laden is dead

My first reaction was "Good".  Please note the lack of an exclamation mark.  More accurately we should say Osama Bin Laden was executed - there was no sense in the News I have heard today that any attempt was made to capture him.  British leaders praised the actions of the Americans, perhaps because the destruction of the twin towers was also the worst terrorist atrocity to hit the British people.
After just a little thought I realised there is a serious problem here.  There is no justice. U.S. President Obama is wrong: Justice has not been done.  The intention should have been to capture and put him on trial.  We cannot tell which of these to options, execution or trail, would cause the most suffering in the world.  I suspect we have the worst of the two options. 
Worse that that was the unedifying sight of Americans gathered outside their seat of government chanting "U S A ... U S A".  Why?  You just killed an enemy, you just won a battle, but the war isn't over.  Someone in the baying crowd said to the interviewer "This is an end".  How wrong can you be.  This is neither an end nor a beginning, it may be an escalation.
It may be an escalation because an executed icon is a martyr.  Those left behind will, perhaps rightly, be aggrieved at the actions that have been taken.  They will respond in the only way they know how.  As a result more 'innocents' will die.
Now we are all on high alert looking for reprisals.

When they happen, then what?

We go and execute those who commit further acts of terrorism and each time there are 100 more ready to take their place.  We have understood this effect for centuries as the Hydra myth proves.

There is a better way - arrest and trial and then to attempt to win the peace, not the war.

Politician Bugged

So some politician has allegedly been bugged by the police while in a discussion with one of his friends. They are both Muslims - hence the paranoia. The rest of us have taken having our freedoms removed, and it seems that some of us have even supported it, now that it starts to affect politicians (the ones who have been removing our freedoms), there are calls for the re-instatement of civil liberties and the rights to privacy. Well what a surprise!
Perhaps the only way to remove the ridiculous 28 days incarceration without trial is to ensure that the first person to be the subject of such an action is an MP.

Reality check. MP's are people too. They are as likely to do bad things as anyone else - more likely perhaps, as they have both opportunity and motive. The law (good or bad) should apply to all the people in the same way.

Now we should see the next one who is caught being creative with their recording of funding for some campaign or other, or employing their family at unreasonable rates of pay, being arrested under the prevention of terrorism act.

Armed Police

Nothing in the news. I went for a walk at lunchtime, across the millenium bridge and followed a couple of armed policemen - sub-machine guns, flack jackets - the works. When I got to the station coming home from work there were three there as well.

If this is supposed to make the public feel safe it is having the opposite effect on me. I don't generally worry about the terrorist threat - there's nothing I personally can do, but get on with my life. All these police just keep the concern at the front of your mind. They can be at least as dangerous as the terrorist, if they get carried away.