(no subject)

[mrph]

I'm feeling very cynical today.

I'd like to think that our security forces have done their work well in the last couple of days, stopping a serious plot that could have caused hundreds of deaths.

I look forward to seeing some of these people convicted and sentenced to long jail terms. Assuming that they're guilty, of course.

The catch is that we really don't have the best track record on this sort of thing. Most recently we've had the Forest Gate "cyanide bomb" fiasco.

We've had tanks at Heathrow. Nobody seems quite sure how this would have helped to stop plain-clothes bombers, but it made for some good headlines at the time.

We've had that very unfortunate incident with Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly shot dead.

We've also had the ricin poisoning plot - which did have a man who was genuinely intending to commit acts of terror, but didn't seem to have a terrorist conspiracy (or any ricin...)

Not the best record, really. It doesn't inspire confidence.

As for the political side of things, I'd just like to remind people that this government famously described 9/11 as "a good day to bury bad news".

Even if the security forces did their job perfectly yesterday - and I'd like to believe that they did - then someone behind a desk will be working out how to turn this to their political advantage, to hide bad news or silence opposition.

Comments

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

cf: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/thinkprogress/1104811.html

[jruske.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of us are surprised politicians get mileage out of terrorism.

You'd think the terrorists would realise they are simply encouraging more and more hardline candidates by their attacks.

[livingarmchair.livejournal.com]

I don't trust the government in the slightest - John Reid on one had is telling us we have to lose freedoms to fight terrorism, and then on the other hand compares today situation to the time of Hitler.

Of course, Hitler came into power by use of The Enabling Act, itself an act designed to fight "Terrorism" by allowing the Nazi government to pass laws without going through Parliament... Something Labour have been trying to implement since the 1950s (As a means of allowing them to pass unpopular socialist policies without any opposition.).

"Papers, please!"

[redandfiery.livejournal.com]

Lately, I have been thinking about Orwell's 1984 a lot. All these extra (and often completely excessive) security measures are being brought in, and it's highly unlikely they will ever be stepped down again. We're on camera practically every minute we're outside our own homes. We're on hundreds of databases. Privacy, increasingly, is an illusion.

Getting thoroughly paranoid, how would one actually *know* there was any terrorist plot? We won't be shown any proof of it. We're just expected to take the word of the Government. And I wouldn't trust *them* as far as I could throw them.

When I read 1984 at school, I read it in the smug satisfaction of being completely sure that it could never happen, because, well, this is England, innit. Now? I think if George Orwell had called it 2010, he'd have got it bang on.

I'm scared, frankly. And it's not the *terrorists* who scare me.

[zotz]

this government famously described 9/11 as "a good day to bury bad news"

One member of the government said it privately, and got slapped down straight away by her boss. She, and the boss who'd overruled her, both had to resign. Your summary's more than a little inaccurate. The tabloids may have covered it that way, but that doesn't make it the truth.

I'm also looking forward to seeing how justified all of this is. As you say, sadly we can't just assume it's all true. Or even that much of it's true.

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

She was slapped down an eventually had to resign not because the government disagreed with her approach but because her explicit endorsement of the strategy got into the public domain and was playing badly in the press. ACtually her approach was entirely consistent with that of the rest of the government and its PR machine - which of course is precisely why they felt they had to distance themselves from her.

[zotz]

She got slapped down when she originally said it. It wasn't consistent with government strategy - her suggestion was not acted on.

Yes, when it got out into the papers the private dressing-down became a firing. This doesn't mean that her bosses took kindly to it originally.

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

I'm deeply suspicious (as well as deeply_spurious of course!).

My guess is that the raid and the plot were probably genuine - but that a decision was taken to try to maximise the publicity for it and increase the public's sense of threat by means of a very carefully choreographed series of announcements, press conferences etc. I don't know whether it was necessary on security grounds to raise the level to 'critical' or to impose all the restrictions on airports. Maybe it was, but I'll never know because like you I just don't know whether I can trust anything they say.

[jruske.livejournal.com]

Half the problem is that when you task law enforcement with "preventing" acts of terror, then you've really opened the floodgates for interpretation.

We've got a worse problem in the US. We aren't allowed here to use testimony from masked and unnamed intelligence agents in our courts. So no matter how many people we arrest and detain it's highly unlikely we will get any convictions. Just like when dealing with the mafia, we will probably ultimately have to resort to tax evasion and money laundering charges to incarcerate these folks.

Which probably explains the latest US bust depicted as "money laundering for Hezbollah."

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Even if the security forces did their job perfectly yesterday

Remember it was the Pakistani security forces, not the Brits, that led this one.

Because information provided from countries that practice torture is perfectly trustworthy, provided they're run by undemocratic authoritarian militia.

[lougarry.livejournal.com]

I did wonder if this was designed to take away attention from the middle east. They were protesting in Paris all of Thursday.

I dont think that preventing people taking on hand luggage is going to take away the threat. If some one is that determined to make a statement, then they will find away around it.

The security measures were a pain in the arse, and pretty useless really. Security is very tight going out of the uk but returning, well, the french certainly didn't give a damn. They said no hand luggage but did not enforce that and there were many people with handbags and mp3 players on the flight home this morning. In the uk they were physically removing contraband items from people as they went through security. To be fair to the french, they did search us sveral times, including just as we boarded the flight and we had a woman do a trace detection test on us to make sure we hadn't had contact with explosives, but other than that they did not enforce the no handluggage rule.

I did wonder if this was designed to take away attention from the middle east. They were protesting in Paris all of Thursday.