The Clipboard: British terror powers expose 'tyranny'

From an article¹:

But in the 66 years that I have been alive, there has not been one hour, of one day, of one month, of one year, when there has not been a threat aimed at us.

My point is, the British have always coped without becoming a dictatorship.

We have coped with fear without becoming a state based on fear; we have coped with threat without turning our country into a land of state threat.

But that is what the Blair government now seeks to do - create a tyranny to defend us from the al-Qaeda tyranny.

Another threat

I was born on 25 August, 1938. The mortal threat back then was a scruffy little Austrian called Adolf Hitler.

A week after my first birthday, the threat had become reality. We were at war. My father wore a uniform for five years.

After 1945 we yearned for peace at last.

But in 1946 Winston Churchill told us - from the Baltic to the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across Europe. Behind the Iron Curtain, another genocidal psychopath, another threat.

Josef Stalin triggered the Cold War, with the Berlin blockade in 1948. My whole generation was blighted by it.

We were threatened by the nuclear holocaust, the nuclear wind, the nuclear winter.

We built shelters that would have sheltered nothing. We spent our treasure on weapons instead of hospitals.

We took silly precautions. Some fought it; some marched futilely against it. Some pretended it was not there.

The Cold War lasted 43 years, but we remained a parliamentary democracy.

By the early seventies it was terrorism as well. Al Fatah, Black September, Red Brigades, but most of all for us the IRA and the INLA.

Thirty more years; 300 policemen and women, over 600 soldiers, more than 3,000 civilians dead, but we won because even IRA bombs could not force us to become a tyranny. That was why the tyrants lost.

Civil rights were infringed as little as humanly possible. Evidence had to be taken in secret to protect covert sources; yes , and one judge, no-jury courts had to be instituted when juries were terrorised.

Informants had to be given immunity from their own crimes to win the bigger battle. But habeas corpus did not die; right of appeal was not abolished.

Now the threat is Islamic fundamentalism. Its leaders want to destroy our society; so did the IRA.

It is based and funded abroad; so was the IRA.

It has sleeper fanatics inside our society; so did the IRA.

It is extremely hard to penetrate with our agents; so was the IRA.

The prime movers are not easy to bring to trial; neither were the IRA. But we did. And without becoming a tyranny. (link)

This was written about Britain but much of it applies to the U.S. as well.

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Complete text of the article, Terror powers expose 'tyranny', by Frederick Forsyth

There is a mortal danger aimed at the heart of Britain. Or so says Home Secretary Charles Clarke. My reaction? So what?

It is not that I am cynical or just do not care. I care about this country very much.

But in the 66 years that I have been alive, there has not been one hour, of one day, of one month, of one year, when there has not been a threat aimed at us.

My point is, the British have always coped without becoming a dictatorship.

We have coped with fear without becoming a state based on fear; we have coped with threat without turning our country into a land of state threat.

But that is what the Blair government now seeks to do - create a tyranny to defend us from the al-Qaeda tyranny.

Another threat

I was born on 25 August, 1938. The mortal threat back then was a scruffy little Austrian called Adolf Hitler.

A week after my first birthday, the threat had become reality. We were at war. My father wore a uniform for five years.

After 1945 we yearned for peace at last.

But in 1946 Winston Churchill told us - from the Baltic to the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across Europe. Behind the Iron Curtain, another genocidal psychopath, another threat.

Josef Stalin triggered the Cold War, with the Berlin blockade in 1948. My whole generation was blighted by it.

We were threatened by the nuclear holocaust, the nuclear wind, the nuclear winter.

We built shelters that would have sheltered nothing. We spent our treasure on weapons instead of hospitals.

We took silly precautions. Some fought it; some marched futilely against it. Some pretended it was not there.

The Cold War lasted 43 years, but we remained a parliamentary democracy.

By the early seventies it was terrorism as well. Al Fatah, Black September, Red Brigades, but most of all for us the IRA and the INLA.

Thirty more years; 300 policemen and women, over 600 soldiers, more than 3,000 civilians dead, but we won because even IRA bombs could not force us to become a tyranny. That was why the tyrants lost.

Civil rights were infringed as little as humanly possible. Evidence had to be taken in secret to protect covert sources; yes , and one judge, no-jury courts had to be instituted when juries were terrorised.

Informants had to be given immunity from their own crimes to win the bigger battle. But habeas corpus did not die; right of appeal was not abolished.

Now the threat is Islamic fundamentalism. Its leaders want to destroy our society; so did the IRA.

It is based and funded abroad; so was the IRA.

It has sleeper fanatics inside our society; so did the IRA.

It is extremely hard to penetrate with our agents; so was the IRA.

The prime movers are not easy to bring to trial; neither were the IRA. But we did. And without becoming a tyranny.

Now the Blair government proposes the law system of fascism and communism.

The citizen can be arrested and held without charge or trial, not even on the careful consideration of an experienced judge, but the whim of a political activist called a government minister.

To be protected from terror the government says, we must become a tyranny.

But a tyranny is based on the citizen's terror. This is not victory; this is defeat before a shot is fired.

reference=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4220427.stm