John Redwood

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FREEDOM TODAY AUGUST 2007 RT HON JOHN REDWOOD MP SHOULD WE FIGHT A WAR AGAINST TERROR?

   This government has taken us to war for a generation. It has not told us how many  countries we might have to invade, how many terrorists groups we might need to confront. It has given us no idea how many enemies we might have in this war, how quickly they are recruiting more, and how we will tackle them all, wherever they may be hiding. We have just been told two things. The first is that  we have to lose some of our liberty to prosecute this war. The second is that it will last for at least a generation.

   Before the Brown government  commits us further to this new Thirty Years War commenced by the Blair/Brown government, we have a right to ask  more about what might be entailed and why they think it will have a happy ending. As we piece together from their actions the future shape of this war, it appears that the government is more muddled than resolved, and more stumbling than clear sighted.

   We have learnt that the war entails invading countries thought to be harbouring terrorists or weapons of mass destruction where we do not like the regimes in charge – unless we think those regimes are already too powerful. So we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, but have left North Korea alone. We send troops there to fight for regime change and democracy. We do not do the same for poor Zimbabwe. It appears that the government is most concerned about Islamic terrorism, and thinks the regimes that do most to harbour it lie in the Middle East. In  some cases, like Pakistan, the government thinks it can make progress by working with the incumbent government. In other cases, like Iraq, it felt it had to change the  government.

  In the last century this country faced a serious terrorist threat from the IRA. We did not then declare war on the terrorists. We certainly did not go off and bomb Dublin in retaliation everytime a bomb hit London or Birmingham even though there was evidence that the IRA was using the Republic of Ireland as a base. Instead we sought to deal with terrorism as a series of violent crimes, attempting to bring the criminals to justice. When Parliament  introduced short cuts from normal judicial process it gave the IRA more oxygen for their propaganda, and probably helped those who were raising money for the terrorists in the USA. The terrorist outrages were only brought to an end by a series of difficult negotiations and political changes.

  We are now told that the new terrorist threat is altogether more dangerous than the old one. I find this difficult to believe, knowing from personal experience how close the IRA came to killing most of the Cabinet, senior advisers and the Prime Minister at Brighton, and how many they killed in pubs, shops and homes during their long campaign. We are told that because the new terrorists are prepared to countenance their own martyrdom they should be treated differently. Apparently the way to remove the academies of crime is to bomb or destroy them. The way to stop new recruits is to change governments in the countries where some come from. The way to stop terrorists operating in London is to blanket London with an expensive and clumsy security, and to tear up time honoured freedoms as we legislate for a new snooper society and authoritarian state.

  I find it strange that the government should think any of this could possibly work. If those who ordered the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq had read any history they would have realised how difficult it is to extricate our troops, whilst  leaving behind a safe and harmonious democracy that no longer allows within its territories seminaries of violence. They would realise that if you do succeed in occupying and pacifying one country, the training grounds can migrate swiftly over borders to another country. Even this government must accept there has to be some limit to how many Middle Eastern countries we can invade. It appears they now draw the line at invading Iran, and the US looks less sure of its wish to do so than a year ago.
The first conclusion the USA should draw from Viet Nam is that you cannot stop an ideology or politically oriented version of a religion you do not like by placing your army in the offending country. Winning hearts and minds is easier if you do not invade and kill local people. We in the west changed hearts and minds in Eastern Europe without a shot being fired. Communism fell because the people living under it grew to loathe it.  The USA did not change hearts and minds in the way they intended in Viet Nam despite a huge commitment of lives and firepower.

  The second conclusion we should draw is you do not make people in the UK safe by imposing clumsy security controls and tags on all of us. The government wants us to believe that ID cards are a magic weapon against terrorism. When pushed, they often confess that they meant to say a weapon against identity theft, an entirely different kind of problem.  If terrorism is perpetrated by people coming into the UK from abroad, then we have a system of control that we could use to deal with it – passports and checks at borders. The truth is no passport – or ID card – has “terrorist” stamped on it. However, proper surveillance of those likely to be causing trouble by the secret services can use the presence of border checks to intercept visitors coming from abroad with a history of inciting violence or training terrorists, so we can keep them out. Those found guilty of such crimes should be expelled forthwith, and those  we think  might do so should be denied entry. Why has the government let us down over this?

  If terrorism is perpetrated by people born and resident in the UK it is more difficult. Again, selling them an expensive ID card is not going to stop them being terrorists. Anyone legally settled here will be entitled to one, just as they can buy a passport today. Intercepting these threats to our society also requires secret service surveillance. If young men are visiting training grounds or academies abroad which cause suspicion, or if they frequent places where they are likely to hear incitement to violence because the other checks have failed to stop such conduct, then they too must be monitored and observed until there is evidence to bring them to trial or good reason to regard them as innocent.

  This government has veered from an uncritical and naïve multiculturalism, to harsher rhetoric against the whole Islamic community, criticising dress style and telling the community to sort out its own radicals. This is  a very unwise way of proceeding. I did not regard my local Catholic community as a threat when the IRA were trying to blow me and my colleagues up, and did not seek to stigmatise the Catholic community because there was a terrorist organisation that claimed links to the Catholic movement. Similarly I do not regard my local Islamic neighbours as guilty of terrorism by association today. We have to make very clear that we will only spy on, pursue and prosecute those who give us grounds for suspicion. Just because all Islamic terrorists are by definition Muslims, it does not mean that most Muslims are terrorists.

  Some people say that if you are innocent you have nothing to fear from more cameras, more prying forms, ID cards and more checks at airports and places of work. ID cards worked in the war, some say. I suspect what worked in the war was the barbed wire on the beaches, the arrest of all Germans in the country, the absence of flights and ferries from the enemy countries and the vigilance of the Royal Navy and the RAF. This is where the wartime analogy is so false. We do not want to live in a world where movement is artificially restricted, where people cannot come and go to a whole range of overseas countries, and where everyone at home is treated as suspicious when they turn up to a garden party or a business meeting. The terrorists groups are well armed and well financed. They will not be stopped by ID cards or traffic controls, scanners or other physical checks. They will research whatever system the location is using before the action, and then will decide how they can get round it. They will be dab hands at printing ID cards just as they forge a mean passport – or they will use their own quite legally. If it becomes too difficult to be a passenger on a plane they will turn their attention to infiltrating the security service at the airport or the victualling, cleaning and maintenance companies that have access to the planes.
 
  The government needs to think again. The way to deal with terrorist criminality is to get smarter at infiltrating their networks, eavesdropping on the chatrooms of terrorism, and putting the likely perpetrators under surveillance. We will not win a grand war by bombing whole countries, invading nations, and putting more and more controls on our liberties. Nor will we earn favour by showing weakness whilst still keeping troops in Middle eastern countries. We need to win over the communities that might otherwise harbour terrorists, always seeking to isolate the criminals rather than giving them further cause to woo the law abiding to tolerate them.