The London Blasts: Media Review

ONE MONTH ON

DAY 33: Tuesday 9 August 2005

REPRESSION AND REGRESSION

DISTRACTION AND MISDIRECTION

Before surveying more of the media responses to the Prime Minister's Twelve Step programme for daily reprieve from terrorism, two fundamental points which we have not detected in the British media coverage.

Firstly, why is the Prime Minister so keen on announcing this package of draconian measures (literally medieval laws in the case of the 13th Step - treason)? And why is he so keen on announcing it now, instead of waiting another month or so for the Home Office to do the research and consultation necessary for a considered (though no doubt reactionary) approach to the problems we face?

Several commentators have suggested that Mr Blair is responding to public anger, and to the tabloid agenda. Perhaps. But the mood still appears rather muted and stunned, rather than furious and vengeful.

Let us recall that before last Friday's announcement, Mr Blair was, if not on the ropes, feeling around for them as he retreated a step or two. After initially denying (or evading) any link between the bombings and his own foreign policy, particularly the war on Iraq, the Prime Minister was forced to accept the fact that Iraq had affected recruitment into al Qaeda-type groups.

While performing complex maneouvres to avoid political damage, and particularly the conclusion that withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan would dramatically reduce the risk of further attacks in Britain, Mr Blair was on the defensive.

Now, by a fortunate turn of events, the question of the Iraq connection has been swept from the agenda.

A fortunate turn of events that benefits a beleaguered premier.

Yes, there is plenty of criticism of the hasty, ill-thought-out nature of the proposals. Yes, the cross-party consensus has been disrupted, probably permanently. Yes, there will be embarassment down the road when legal principles and judicial stubbornness frustrate the grand ideas.

But no one is now pressing on the Iraq connection.

SECURITY IS NOT THE POINT

Second point: there is no security benefit in these proposals, and none is intended. Security is not the objective, any more than it was when Tony Blair decided to invade Iraq despite being told that to do so would increase the risk of 9/11-style attacks in this country.

The proposals centre around the deportation or exclusion of foreign nationals on grounds including 'fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence,' and, in addition, being 'actively engaged' with a specified list of 'extremist websites, bookshops, networks, centres and particular organisations of concern'. (Here is the BBC summary of the package, and the full text of Mr Blair's statement.)

A nonviolent extremist political party is also being banned, control orders are now to be used also on British nationals, and further measures are being considered.

Back on 19 July, we noted the following report in the preceding Sunday Times (page 13):

'Downing Street officials admit that it is difficult to legislate against suicide bombers with no previous connection to terrorist groups or those unknown extremists who seem to pose no threat.'

' “How can you legislate against this kind of thing?” asked one official. “We have set out what you can do — ejecting the religious fundamentalists who preach hate and tackling criminality associated with terrorism, but what more can we do?"'

' "You have to announce these legislative measures because otherwise people will be afraid and say we’re not doing anything, but to a certain extent they are placebos." '

Placebos which just happen to have the coincidental effect of channelling public anger away from the government's foreign policy and towards demonized elements of a feared minority.

Two days ago, another important report appeared in the the Sunday Times:

'[S]enior police and counter-terrorism sources... said they had found no evidence linking the four July 7 London bombers to Al-Qaeda or any other known terrorist organisation. Instead, investigators involved in the painstaking reconstruction of the lives of the men have provisionally concluded they were “unaffiliated terrorists” who were most likely inspired rather than directed by Al-Qaeda...'

'In stark contrast to initial views that the attacks were centrally organised by the Al-Qaeda leadership under Osama Bin Laden, it now appears that both cells may have been “self-starters”; do-it-yourself groups of radicalised young men who decided to express their faith by plotting to blow themselves up, killing dozens of others in the process...'

'While surprising and still provisional, this assessment of the July attacks is the latest manifestation of an emerging consensus about the new Al-Qaeda threat to Britain. This has far-reaching implications for the ability of the security services to win the war on terror.'

'In the campaign against the IRA, a key strategy was infiltration of the republican command structure. If the new terrorist enemy has no such structure, where does the fight begin? Indeed, who and where is the enemy? It is so atomised it is invisible.'

'The new breed of unaffiliated terrorist is potentially far more dangerous than the IRA or even Al-Qaeda because he is almost impossible to identify. It also explains why the July 7 and July 21 attacks caught MI5 off guard, with none of the attackers on the intelligence radar. The gap - between what the security services know and what they need to know in order to prevent the next atrocity - has dramatically widened...'

If this is the nature of the problem, then the public, identifiable "preachers of hatred" are irrelevant to the solution, and surveillance of the points at which possible bombers initially congregate (bookshops, mosques and the like) is unlikely to catch the private discussions of closed friendship groups.

The Prime Minister and the government are well aware of these realities. But still they press on.

TREASON

The Daily Telegraph has some sensible comments on the raising of the 'treason' charge:

'We wonder why they [the government] should want to resuscitate the ancient Treason Acts, dating from 1351 to 1848, when there are plenty of newer laws under which suspected terrorists and their cheer-leaders can be prosecuted.'

'For example, there are clearly worded statutes that forbid incitement or solicitation to murder. Why should the Attorney-General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the CPS wish to fall back instead on obscure laws last used successfully to prosecute William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") at the end of the Second World War?'

'The only answer that presents itself is that New Labour and the prosecuting authorities are fond of that word "treason" for its own sake. They like it because it sounds so very tough.'

The Independent has a reasonable editorial today entitled, 'Offensive, but not illegal':

'The most depressing aspect of the Government's response to the London bombings has been its apparent desire to stretch the law to prosecute a handful of Islamist extremists. As well as plans to revivify the treason laws, there are plans in train to create new offences of "condoning" or "glorifying" terrorism. Yet what these amount to is little more than a clampdown on free speech... a liberal society should not create new laws to criminalise those who only offend us. If there is evidence of wrong-doing, prosecute such people under existing legislation. Otherwise this is merely a distration from the task of tracking down those actively plotting to commit acts of terrorism.'

As the FT comments, the raising of the 'treason' charge 'caused a political furore' yesterday, and in response 'government insiders played down the likelihood of a treason charge, which has not been used for 60 years and would involve practical difficulties.'

(Actually, the last time the treason charge was used was in 1984, against an MI5 official named Michael Bettany who attempted to sell secrets to the Soviets. Lord Haw Haw was the last person to be executed for treason.)

A sense of disarray, even panic, a rather slipshod approach to national security, but... no one is now pressing on the Iraq connection!

FT columnist Philip Stephens adds: 'The terrorist bombings in the capital might have proved [Mr Blair's] nemesis. Instead, they have shown his talents as a political strategist and public performer. Whatever is said about the link between the Iraq war and terrorism, British voters have thus far shown little inclination to blame Mr Blair above the suicide bombers.'

FREE SPEECH AND GLORIFICATION

The FT editorial today is a typically cautious warning against excessive repression, noting that, 'In the US, where the First Amendment bars Congress from abridging the right to free speech, such measures [as criminalising the 'glorification' or 'justification' of terrorist acts] rightly are viewed with unease. In any liberal democracy, extreme caution is called for when outlawing the expression of opinions; the risk being that the very principles underpinning our societies are undermined.'

When the state of Israel carries out terrorist acts against Palestinians, and British politicians or commentators justify such acts, will they be caught by such a 'counter-terror' law?

When the United States carries out an unlawful military attack in pursuit of a political objective (as happens every day in Iraq, as happened in Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998, as has happened countless times), and British politicians or commentators justify (and sometimes glorify) such acts, will they be caught by such a 'counter-terror' law?

The answer is obvious even as the question is posed.

The issue is not 'justifying' or 'glorifying' terrorism, otherwise the British political class would be on the run from the law. The issue is, as the Independent commented, that certain kinds of offensive speech are being criminalised, and the state is taking upon itself the role of deciding what may or may not be said.

This is a fundamental issue.

BACK TO BASICS

With apologies for repeating truisms, let us go back to the source, classical liberalism in the guise of J.S. Mill:

'Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error...'

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