Sunday 4 June 2017

Playing Politics With Terrorism

Yet another minute silence for the victims of a terror attack is planned, this time the seven dead from last nights attack in London which saw three men ram pedestrians on London Bridge before launching stabbing rampage through bars and restaurants until short dead by armed police.
Theresa May’s 'enough is enough' speech this morning struck a more resolute tone than the one after the Manchester atrocity but what she said was as vauge as it was potentially frightening.
Indeed, the terror attacks do need to be stopped but the double of a knee-jerk reaction coupled with the final days of a general election campaign is not the atmosphere to be making such huge decisions on national security.
The blame was put squarely on 'far too much tolerance of Islamic extremism' and the Internet which would require 'difficult conversations' as she put it.
The worry part of her speech are the lines the Prime Minister said where she would 'increase prison terms for terrorism offences, even relatively minor ones' and 'action was needed in the UK as well as overseas'.
A form of Internet regulation seems to be the direction of travel which is a concern but it is the prison terms for terrorism that should get us worried. Terrorism, without a clear distinction of the term, covers a wide area and we all remember the elderly man heckling the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw over the Iraq War being held under the Terrorism Act not that long ago.
That Theresa May seemed fit to include the rider, 'even minor offences', in her speech should get is pondering just what she classes as terrorism.
Would demonstrators fall under the distinction, or anyone protesting against another ill-fated and badly thought out war which beings me to the last point of exactly what she means by action in the UK and overseas.
That the Islamic Extremism can be traced back directly to the Bush and Blair era and their atrocious actions after 9/11 seems to be overlooked, the idea that British foreign policy is reverberating on British soil is not even considered so if by action overseas she means to get us even more entrenched in Syria or another country in the Middle East then someone should be making the point loud
and long to her that it is exactly that which has got us to where we are today. 
This is not the right time to be making rash decisions which could be seen as playing politics and an opportunity to prop up a Government which has seen it's support collapse over the last few weeks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good God, i can see it now. It is the year 2200 and Lucy who has managed to live 250 years is still blaming Islamic terrorism on Bush and Blair instead of on Islam.

After all Islam was peacful until 2001. They didnt crash planes into towers or kill athletes at olympic games. That is all fake news.

No, all islamic terror is due to Bush and Blair.

Falling on a bruise said...

You obviously know more than all the intelligence services who said the same thing.