"Is Scotland Yard truly "the envy of the policing world in relation to counter-terrorism" (as the current Met boss told Today on the morning of 7/7)? Don't know; rather doubt it. Has MI5 improved its contacts in the Muslim world? Same answer. Is this Muslims against the rest? Count the bodies in Sharm el-Sheikh before you decide who "the rest" are. Shoot to kill in Israeli style? That doesn't seem to have stopped Hamas. Go "draconian" the Rumsfeld way? Welcome to Guantánamo Bay."
and here:
"Anti-terrorist legislation has a proven record of catching just about anyone apart from those for whom it was originally designed. We knew this way before September 11. According to Home Office statistics, 97% of those arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act - a series of draconian measures supposed to thwart the IRA - between 1974 and 1988 were released without charge. Only 1% were convicted and imprisoned.
The strike rate since the declaration of the war on terror has not been particularly impressive either. More than 700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since September 11, but half have been released without charge and only 17 convicted. Only three of the convictions relate to allegations of extremism related to militant Islamic groups."
The moral must be that there are no easy answers - and beware of those who think there are.
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