So it's about god damn time cast the net wide again, away from the boring subject of self and out into this world of ours. The news still echoes with the story of something that didn't happen, the 'alleged terror plot'.
The police nicked a whole bunch of people for 'intent' and 'planning' and, so we're told, saved a great number of lives in the process. Now to be fair, and I think if we're going to claim to be sane and rational in our arguments then we have to be, I do believe that the police are motivated by public safety and I think they probably have stopped a lot of people dying. I can't argue with this.
My feelings re: the police are well documented in earlier in this blog(1), but I want to make it clear this post is not simply an exercise in bitching and giving the foot soldiers of the state the finger. What I'd like to do is look at three, obviously, difficulties inherent to the practice of locking people up for 'intent' and 'planning'.
This post began life when I caught the end of an interview on BBCN24 with a former anti-terrorist officer, (I believe he was anyway, certainly some kind of expert.) He was talking about the difference in approach between policing the current terrorist threat and the so quaintly named 'troubles' of Northern Ireland.
He related that, when dealing with an IRA bomber for example, the security services would follow the guy right up to the point where he loaded the bomb into his car. Then they would pull him, bang to rights. At least that was the idea anyway. Nick the guy with a car full of explosives, he's as busted as can be and it going down for a long time.
The difference now, he continued, was that the potential loss of life was so much greater that the security services daren't take such a risk. Now there's an argument to be had here about a utilitarian view of human life, (lifted that straight from the mouth of a philosophy grad friend, thanks for that, we should have this out sometime 
) vs the notion of proportionality.
Is the risk actually greater? Doesn't that somehow devalue the lives threatened by the car bomb? As valuable a debate as that is however, this is not the place for it. The point here is that our security service's approach being, rightly or wrongly, as it is, they are almost certainly going to end up trying to secure convictions on less and flimsier evidence.
The second angle on this strange creature comes is found through a question: how many of you, straw poll here please, have had a, probably drunken, conversation along the following lines:
"One day right I'm going to buy some big old building, live on the top floors and have the bottom ones as a giant nightclub. It'll be fucking ace, there'll be..."
Even as the words were leaving your slurring lips, did any part of you really believe it? With me yet? Ok, let's try another way in:
The last time I watched PMQs(2), before I got allergic, I declared to all who would listen that every bastard suit in there should be dragged out into the streets and hung from lamp posts by their ties. Now, being a pacifist, I clearly didn't mean this, but in anger I said it none the less.
I'm listening to the almighty Black Sabbath, grandfathers of modern metal and UK DOOM. A particularly choice verse from the classic opening track, "War Pigs" runs as follows:
"Politicians hide themselves away,
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that all to the poor.
"Time will tell on their power minds,
Making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
Wait 'til their judgement day comes."
Now I'd like you all to remember at this point that I wear a thick black beard. If my skin were a little darker and this music were in Arabic would my formally flippant actions suddenly cross the line and become treasonous intent?
What I'm getting at here is that we all say and think about doing things we never actually would. How then, combined with a limitation on the amount of hard evidence we can collect, do we define the crime of intent so definitely as to be able to justly deprive people of their liberty?
It's a tricky area but our guys seems confident they've walked that tightrope. Even putting these first two difficulties aside however, there is a third which I struggle to believe our authorities can overcome. A big, BIG problem with nicking people before they've actually done, or tried to do, something illegal is that you can't actually punish them for that crime.
The public of which we are a part appears, through the lens of our media at least, to be a pretty bloodthirsty bunch and, in the name of democracy, ignorant hatred and a thirst for brutality are just fine as long as the majority are up for it.
This, coupled with the fact that everyone who's actually succeeded in an '11th September style' attack has escaped punishment, via death, means that any just sentence handed down to those convicted of 'planning' or 'intent' is likely to be rejected outright by the scapegoat hunting mob.
The situation created by these three problems, and other besides I'm sure, is that, regardless of how hard they try, it makes it very hard for our security services and legal system not to end up locking up too many people for too long a time. And so our society becomes a little less just, there is a net increase in suffering, and down and round we go.
So what's the answer? Well, not to sound like a smart arse, but the only actual, realistic and practical solution to this whole mess is to remove the motivation for terrorism. Something else that drove me up the frigging wall recently was this 'debate' wherein 'Muslims'(3) said that our foreign policy contributes towards terrorism while our white politicians disagreed.
To my knowledge I don't currently know anyone who's a Muslim, but I know plenty of people who think our foreign policy is a dangerous disgrace. If you swagger about the world like an ignorant, arrogant motherfucker, treading all over peoples' lives, you will get bitten in the ass. That's the way the world works.
Not only have the proponents of this side of the argument utterly misrepresented, but a glaring error in the other side to the argument has passed completely without comment. Our government's rebuttal of the argument above is based on one single piece of utterly flawed logic:
if someone communicates in the wrong way then what they are trying to say must also be wrong
Our government states quite plainly that terrorism is a political activity, it is the use of terror to achieve political aims and we hear all the time about ideas and ideologies being behind these acts. Now let's say I come round your house, tie you up and threaten to kill you kids in front of you until you agree with me that it is wrong that millions of African children starve to death every year.
Quite clearly what I'm doing is wrong, but does that mean what I'm saying is wrong? Could it be possible that I might have a genuine grievance but am simply expressing it in the wrong way? Now for you hysterical polarised types out there, I'm not saying that terrorists groups are always right, I'm simply pointing out that you can't assume their ideas are wrong based simply on their methods.
I can't condone a single violent act the IRA committed for example but, especially having recently seen The Wind That Shakes The Barley which I highly recommend, I can certainly understand why Irish people might be a bit fucked off with the English government and want to rule themselves.
So yet again we get the thinking wrong and so put our hardworking people in impossible situations. We turn our best and brightest into war criminals by providing them with an inherently flawed system within which to work.
But then what would I know, I've got a beard after all, and that alone probably puts me on some list somewhere...
footnote
(1) for me the police fall into the same category as the armed forces, in this context anyway:
a) I believe what they do and what they enforce can only ultimately lead to a net increase in suffering,
b) I respect (most of) them as highly professional people who risk their lives for what they believe is right,
blind obedience is my main beef with these guys and that leads us straight to who is really to blame, the politicians who makes the laws and start the wars.
(2) ah life on the dole, waking up every Wednesday lunchtime by screaming at the telly, the rage inspired by Prime Minister's Questions set me up for the day!
(3) shame on anyone talking about 'British Muslims' or 'the Muslim Community', ie. slapping a single label on several million people based, practically speaking, on their ethnic origins, this is racist by its very definition and quite insanely naive,
)