The head of the British secret police, Eliza Manningham-Buller, recently made a speech in which she claimed that “Civil liberties may have to be ‘eroded’ to protect Britons from terrorism”. It’s not surprising that she thinks this; as a spook she must have spent much of her career being confounded by unwanted interference from people she probably sees as wishy-washy liberals. In fact, she has more in common with the people who planted the bombs in London on July the 7th than she has with the citizens who she says she wants to protect.
Although people usually characterise the “War on Terror” as being between Muslim militants and democratic governments it is actually a war between liberals and authoritarians. On one side the liberals wants all those things that liberals always want; equality for everyone, protection of civil liberties, tolerance of different opinions, all that sort of thing. On the other side the authoritarians want stricter laws, whether based on the Koran or the Bible or just general strictness, they don’t approve of women’s rights, they don’t like weirdos, they don’t care about civil liberties, they don’t like liberals. Terrorists are almost always authoritarian by instinct, so are policemen.
It’s such a sham when television programmes put together a discussion with a Muslim authoritarian on one side and a secular authoritarian on the other. It’s like two butchers arguing about whether to make pies or sausages, the animal that’s about to be killed doesn’t get a look-in. We liberals need to realise that it’s not just suicide bombers who want to change the world for the worse - the authoritarians from both sides are engaged in a sort of coalition to try and remove our freedoms. They are attacking on two fronts and Eliza Manningham-Buller is the enemy within.
Worthy argument indeed. Meanwhile what do you suggest we do to protect ourselves from furher attacks?
I don’t know much about how secret services work. The only spook I’ve ever met was trying to propagate a story about some other former spook being a pedophile. I suspect that’s the kind of thing that goes on a lot.
I do know that the majority of crimes that are solved are solved because of a tip-off from the public rather than the sort of detective work one sees on television. That suggests to me that secret policemen, like other policemen, must rely on the goodwill of the communities that they are policing if they are to be at all effective. Making people more scared and making them feel more angry is only going to reduce that goodwill and thus reduce the effectiveness of the security services.
It’s also worth mentioning that there were thirty four and a half thousand deaths and serious injuries on UK roads last year. What is our society prepared to sacrifice to save those lives? Not much as far as I can tell. It’s tempting to wonder how much that figure would fall if even half the budget of MI5 was spent on traffic policemen, with Eliza Manningham-Buller in charge of speed cameras.
Good post. I think you articulate what I’ve been thinking for sometime but have been unable to write coherently on. Thanks!