Whenever the government hypes something up, you can almost guarantee that the end result will be less than the sum of its parts. So it is with the latest attempt by the Home Office to get to grips with something approaching an anti-terrorism strategy.

While in the past such doom-mongering was regular, both from politicians and police, this latest document mainly eschews scaremongering, as have the politicians promoting it. With the exception of the potentially worse than useless training of up to 60,000 people in how to act should they suddenly find themselves in the middle of a terrorist attack, which in reality amounts to an around 3 hour seminar session for business people, and the emphasis that has been put on the threat of some variety of “dirty” attack being launched increasing, it mostly keeps things in something approaching perspective.

One of the first facts it points out is that over 3,500 people died between 1969 and 1998 as a result of “Irish-related terrorism”, which is something well worth pointing out the next time someone tries telling you that the threat level posed by Islamic terrorists is far beyond that the IRA did; al-Qaida has after all as yet made no attempts whatsoever to murder political figures in the West, attempts on the life of former Pakistan president Musharraf not withstanding, while the IRA came incredibly close to killing much of the Thatcher government in Brighton in 1984.

In fact, the thing that perhaps undermines the entire document the most is that the government is essentially being forced to admit that the threat level is actually diminishing. After years of telling us that things were getting worse, that the “sky was dark” and that an attack could happen at any time, back in January we had the head of MI5 admitting that al-Qaida had no semi-autonomous structure in the country at this time, and that rather than attacks being actively planned, they only had the “intention to launch an attack here”.

Partly this may well be down to al-Qaida having to re-examine exactly where it’s going at this moment in time: with the “Islamic State of Iraq” all but defeated in that country, it being essentially flushed out of Saudi Arabia and with the only real encouraging signs for the organisation being the increased activity in places like Yemen, Algeria and Somalia, with there being a contradictory situation in Pakistan of the Pakistani Taliban increasingly in strength while the drone attacks have succeeded in killing many senior figures in the hierarchy, its supporters in Europe might well be their last concerns at the moment.

The document makes clear that should things continue the way they are, it may well be possible by next year to reduce the threat level, which has stayed at severe since 7/7 and gone up to critical on two separate occasions, to substantial.

The part on radicalisation which follows on draws heavily on the leaked MI5 document on understanding extremism in this country. This made clear that there was no single underlying cause, while at the same time dismantling the myths that had built up that it was all the work of extremist preachers. The main threat remains the small groupings which build up, often around a charismatic local leader voiced in radical Islam, whose influence on those around him is worth about 10 of any radical on the internet.

The only main parts where the document noticeably falls down is in the “principles” section and on the reasoning behind the idea that “dirty” attacks are becoming more likely. It’s impossible not to snigger at the very first principle in countering international terrorism:

Our approach to national security in general and to counter-terrorism in particular is grounded in a set of core values. They include human rights, the rule of law, legitimate and accountable government, justice, freedom, tolerance and opportunity for all.

This would be the same government currently up to its eyeballs in claims regarding security service collusion in torture of “terrorist suspects” abroad; which completely ignored the rule of law in detaining foreign suspects indefinitely without charged; which continues to defend the permanent deprivation of liberty associated with control orders as well as ensuring that those under them cannot properly find out what they are accused of or challenge that evidence; and which only gave in over extending the detention limit to 42 days after it became clear that it had no chance of pushing it through the House of Lords. If the government has any shame over any of this, it doesn’t show it.

While the government then deserves some acclaim for setting out clearly the origins of the threat, not dismissing out of hand the fact that foreign policy clearly has a distinct influence on it, and for also admitting that if anything it’s diminishing, all signs that the spin and playing politics with terrorism which flourished under Blair and which continued for a time under Brown might now have finally been decided to have been counter-productive, more work is still needed on really getting to grips with the origins of extremism, while also not denouncing but challenging those that hold views which can be seen as stepping stones towards full-blown Islamic fundamentalism.

Not overreacting stupidly to a dozen protesters at a homecoming parade would be a start, but to do that they would also have to challenge the media’s completely unhelpful obsession with extremists under the bed, something they have shown no intention of doing.

A longer version of the article is over here.

About the author
'Septicisle' is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He mostly blogs, poorly, over at Septicisle.info on politics and general media mendacity.
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Labour party ,Terrorism ,Westminster

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