Matthew Parris: Let’s treat the plotters as common criminals, not soldiers in a global war
Have we forgotten the Cold War so fast? The laws and the law-enforcers, as well as our intelligence services, have centuries’ practice at cracking codes, tracing associations, and monitoring communications across the country or the world. Let this continue, but let us not pretend the need or the skills are new. Watch out for the commentary that “after this week’s discoveries, nothing will ever be quite the same again† and prepare to spit. There is nothing new here, only new configurations of ancient troubles.
(via Rachel, whose recent streak of cack luck followed her on holiday…)
Posted on August 12th, 2006 at 5:57pm under Chicken Nuggets, T.W.A.T.
[...] Meanwhile, it is via Rachel From North London, in turn via Chicken Yoghurt, that the latest column by the fantastic Matthew Parris: “Let’s treat the plotters as common criminals, not soldiers in a global war”: How sides seem to have been switched since the last century turned. Rebels and mutineers used to insist that there was a war on, and governments used to insist that there wasn’t. Hardliners took the view that people who blew things up were common criminals, to be dealt with case by case. Liberals argued that it was more useful to see them as idealists in a warped and misguided army … Now it’s the other way round. Hardliners see a war between opposing forces. Liberals see a more fractured picture, a rebel cast of dangerous but messed-up people, idiots, nutters and psychopaths, some organised, some clever, others out of control: essentially a matter, however grave, for the police. [...]