|
| up a level post article search admin about rdf Karl's Fiction Writing Site |
from the dept. The British director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken MacDonald, has blasted the notion of a "war on terror." What he has said is relevant not only to British culture, but to any democracy that faces the threat of terrorism. His message is very simple: terrorism is not warfare, it is a crime. Dignifying terrorists by treating them as 'enemy combatants' is like throwing gasoline on a fire. Sir Ken pulls no punches in expressing exactly what we're dealing with: London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'. I've felt all along that it was insane for us to dignify criminality. I was asked to write an editorial for a local newspaper immediately after 9/11 and in it talked about a proportionate response by law enforcement and the importance of not associating the actions of a few with the will of any particular ethnic majority. The editorial was not published. MacDonald says, The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement. I admit that immediately after 9/11 it might have been hard to argue such a point persuasively. The experience of the past six years however--of secret trials, indefinite detentions, wiretapping of innocent citizens and, in the case of Canada, the illegal and unjustified abduction and export of at least two of our citizens to a totalitarian state by American authorities, where they were imprisoned and tortured--has driven home MacDonald's point empirically. We wouldn't get far in promoting a civilising culture of respect for rights amongst and between citizens if we set about undermining fair trials in the simple pursuit of greater numbers of inevitably less safe convictions. On the contrary, it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law - upon which everything else depends. What I wonder is, will we remember these words after the next major terrorist attack? < Retrocausality to be Tested | Beyond the Desktop: Computers for Animals >
|
|
||||
|
||||||
|
|
"Even if I should learn that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant this apple tree today." -- Martin Luther | |
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are
owned by their respective companies.
Comments are owned by the Poster.
The Rest is owned and distributed by Karl Schroeder under the following license: |
||
