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LIKE a hungry machine, political debate in Britain needs an endless supply of raw material. Just before Easter the arrest of 10 Pakistani “terror suspects” provided the fuel that kept the engines turning. Our student visa restrictions on Pakistanis were lax, came the cry. Our borders were too open. Our universities were hotbeds of Islamo-fascism.
So great was the commotion that it caused a diplomatic row when Pakistan's high commissioner to London accused the British of not asking for help with vetting potential suspects, while the British accused him of naivety.
Yet no one has been convicted of any crime. Now it seems that many of the arrested men won't even be charged, but deported back to Pakistan (assuming, that is, the British can get believable assurances that they won't be tortured on return).
They could yet be charged but already there is a temptation to regard this as another police cock-up. After the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 demonstrations and Bob Quick flashing official secrets to newspaper photographers, it is easy to believe the worst. Maybe of those arrested last week are innocent victims — in which case the argument for deporting them looks very shaky.
And yet there is another possibility I don't think the public fully grasps. The threat of suicide bombings forces the police on occasion to act before they have evidence that will stand up in court. Partly it is the nature of the crimes.
The 9/11, 7/7 and Iraqi atrocities were on such a scale that the authorities have a duty to snuff out the faintest chance of another crime against humanity, even if the resulting legal process ends with an embarrassing muddle.
A second repellent feature of jihadism also mandates haste. Ordinary criminals do not want to be caught as a rule. They spend time plotting how to cover their tracks and make a getaway. This gives the police more opportunities to monitor and plan arrests. By contrast, a suicide bomber does not care what happens to him after he has committed the crime.
As a result, I think that for a generation we will have to live with muddy and unsatisfying police operations. Detectives will rush in for fear that desperate men are planning a massacre, and the rest of us will not be sure if they are being prescient or alarmist.
Reader views (5)
Brown kept the borders open so massive immigration for a decade has spawned over 300 terrorist plots that are known. These make IRA bombers look amateur. Like the IRA in Ireland these 300 terrorist cells have home support and funding, making them almost invisible for police. Brown is totally responsible. He knew the threats. He knew the dangers. He did everything possible to make it easy for terorists. Like Brown stopping the FSA from limiting bank business plans which would have avoided the bank crash; So Brown stopped checks and limits on immigration and allowed growth of terrorist groups, sharia courts and no go areas.
- Mo, Bradford uk
All too frequently this government discovers a deadly terrorists plot when their own crimes are being uncovered by the media.
We are treated like cattle at the airports with mothers forced to drink from babies bottles.
- Caroline Carter, Weybridge UK
It was made clear to me as a young infantryman that there is no defence if you have carried out an order you know to be unlawful, I hope police officers are as aware.
- Wills, Soton
We are a police-state. From now on, everything gets worse.
- Clive Allen, Brighton, UK
"...muddy and unsatisfying police operations."
The public can live with that, as demonstrated during the decades of police, intelligence services and military action involving Northern Ireland. The vast majority of the public support these three groups and are very aware that they undertake difficult and dangerous roles for our protection.
What the public will no longer do is to provide blind and unquestioning acceptance of any explanations with regard to the activities of these groups. The trust and respect of the public has been taken for granted on too many occasions in the past, and that trust has been abused.
The public accept the need for operational secrecy but that does not mean carte blanche for anything goes. The tragic death of Ian Tomlinson was made worse by statements that the police had not had any contact with him, later found to be in correct, that they were subjected to a barrage of missiles as they tried to assist him, not true and that there was no CCTV footage available in that area that could give any insight into the events that led up to his death, also not true.
Following on from the denial of CCTV at or around Stockwell Tube made during the Jean de Menezes affair, the credibility of the police and the IPCC is now, quite rightly, being questioned.
Nobody wants to assume cock-up, conspiracy or cover-up, but the recent statements put out by the authorities make such assumptions more likely because the are repeatedly found to be incorrect
- Manny Goldstein, London, UK
