Re: House Arrest
 

That i am aware of, if someone is under house arrest I am sure they would be watched very step of the way, phone lines tapped, house bugged, directional mircophones, every letter outgoing read, people that come to house would be looked into. It would be hard/foolish for them to try and arrange something being so closely watched.

Re: House Arrest
 

The absolute numbers do not matter, one case is too many.

I made no reference to a smoke screen. I was referring to the comments about there being no smoke without fire. I think you'll find that there is an awful lot of smoke without any fire, hence the magic smoke machine.

Re: House Arrest
 

I beg to differ - please do read the link which was the source of my stats for the Northern Ireland troubles. In 1972, 249 civilians (i.e. not army, not police and not members of any terror group) were killed. In the following four years, the civilian death toll was 119, 192, 174 and 207.

To suggest that these figures are less significant than the Madrid train bomb because each set took 12 months to accumulate, rather than being incurred in any single event, is to wilfully misrepresent the seriousness of the situation in Northern Ireland. The fact that the Troubles occurred over 30 years and generally saw people die in ones, twos and sometimes tens, should not detract in any way from the seriousness of them. There was virtually a civil war on British territory and yet we did not start eroding liberties as we are now doing, or talk about threats to the very fabric of our nation.

As above, this is simply not true. In 1972, the single worst year, while there were 249 civilian deaths, there were 149 police and army deaths and 78 paramilitary deaths. Civilians took more than 50% of the total casualties. Civilians were the single biggest casualty group in 18 of the 29 years for which stats are available on this site.

IRA warnings were as often as not designed to confuse the security and emergency services, rather than to prevent loss of life. Security establishments were heavily fortified because they were the obvious targets, not because they were the only targets. Again, the statistics prove that soft, civilian targets were most frequently the target of IRA attacks. Canary Wharf, Warrington, Manchester, pubs in Guildford and Birmingham, the Grand Hotel, Brighton, good heavens, 10 Downing Street itself ... need I go on?

There is no 'new breed' of terrorist. Just the same bunch of religious nutters the world has endured throughout history. It so happens that one particular bunch of nutters were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time - just when an incredibly rich nutter with a grudge against the USA was looking for someone to do his dirty work for him.

The religious nutters may be still less respectful of life and property than were the IRA, but they are not fundamentally cleverer or more powerful. They are more disparate, which might make them harder to catch, but I am confident the security services will catch up with them the way they caught up with the IRA.

Re: House Arrest
 

Chris I feel you have taken my comments out of context, or maybe i didn't put it very well myself. I am in no way saying that the people that died in Northern Ireland are less signifigant and i would never say that. if it came across that way then I apologise.

Re: House Arrest
 

Sorry, maybe it's me that's not expressing clearly. I know you're not trying to lessen the seriousness of any loss of life, but what I think you are trying to do is suggest that the current situation is, for various reasons, of a different and more perilous nature than the Northern Ireland situation was.

What I am trying to say is that this is not true, the height of the Troubles were a very dark time ideed, and I think letting time dim the memory and the pain is dangerous because it allows people like Blair and Clarke to say we are facing something different when I do not believe we are.

Even nuclear terrorism is not a new idea. Let's not forget, Roger Cook and others were smuggling fake nuclear bombs into the Square Mile to prove a point on their TV shows long before anyone had ever heard of Al Qaeda.

Re: House Arrest
 

I think I understand what Chris is concerned about. He is concerned that these people will be under house arrest with NO right to trial.

There are two reasons this worries me.

What if the government is wrong (not necessarily in this case, but maybe in others)? There would be an attack. The government will have some people arrested. If they have the wrong people (as has happened in the past), then the real terrorists will still be free.

What if the government started classifying those who disagreed with the government as terrorists (after all, weren't the French resistance classed as terrorists in the second world war)? AFAIK, this has never happened in this country, but it HAS happened in other countries. You may argue that it would never happen in this country, and you may be right. However, the Government is rumoured to be very good at hiding it's actions from the population, so it's entirely possible they would do this.

Re: House Arrest
 

Brilliant post. As for 'no smoke without fire' type comments elsewhere; three years detention without proper legal representation and still not enough evidence to bring charges. There's no bleedin' smoke, let alone fire. Not forgetting that the people doing the detaining were the ones whose 'intelligence' said Iraq had WMDs, despite independent evidence to the contrary.

Re: House Arrest
 

Fair enougth lets just sit back do nothing let them all go, and kick ourselfs if something did happen.

If only we did........

If only we where more CAREFULL.........

Have they knocked on your door yet?

Re: House Arrest
 

These "terrorists" actually do not cause me great concern. I know full well that my personal risk is only slightly higher now than it has been throughout my life as I simply do not buy into the FUD that gets thrown about like so much fact.

What does scare me and cause concern is the attitude that we should simply abandon all concept of human and civil rights in order to protect ourselves from a largely non-existant threat that has been cooked up by the powers that be. I`m not saying that there is no risk of terrorist attack but various governments have attempted to sell us a steaming pile of propaganda.

Re: House Arrest
 

Would you say the same if you lived in the USA?

Re: House Arrest
 

Detain people against whom you have evidence. But you can't go locking people up without good, just cause. Where's that going to end? And you seem to have remarkable faith in the US intelligence services despite their recent track record - and, I note, didn't bother to respond to the point re the quality of their 'intelligence' over Iraq which led to our going in which in turn led to our becoming a bigger target.
__________________

Praise be to the good doctor.

An Avian flu epidemic is probably a bigger risk. But as a dad of two, lunatic drivers top my list of things to worry about, not terrorists.

Re: House Arrest
 

At the end of the day as far as I'm concerned I don't care about innocent terrorist. I know full well that 'Big Brother' under no circumstance will be watching me. I know there will be no 'House arrest's' as far as me my family and I guess all of CF are concerned.

Quote:

didn't bother to respond to the point re the quality of their 'intelligence' over Iraq which led to our going on which in turn led to our becoming a bigger target.

I admit the whole thing is a scandal but what can the goverment do about? Put there hands up and say sorry we are all wrong lets leave the county in the mess its in and just go?

And as you said your not worried about terrorist. So whats with the bigger target thing?

Re: House Arrest
 

Either nature will whipe us out, or we will whipe ourselves out.

One thing is certain we need to deal with these people, they are clever and take months while in captivity to track down there contacts and find bombs etc, things take time. Far to many people expect results now and faster, won't work like this, this is 21st century warfare us agaisnt the terrorist networks. I agree locking them in a cell, in a island somewhere far away is a bloody good idea, I won't want them near to where I am living.

But for saying the above, they are human and have a right to a trial but we have to watch our backs and just because we only have "intelligence" we should be able to take them into custody, If they have nothing to hide and are innocent then a apology and a payout could be by the goverment awarded, sadly we all want this perfect world..but no one is willing to play ball or come up with the answers to how to get it. And with all the law's the goverment has to stick to they are working bloody hard.


awaits someone to rip his post into little quotes and slam there point in my face.. :D

Re: House Arrest
 

Oh here we go again.Round and round we go, where it stops nobody knows. :rolleyes:

I believe this is STILL a democracy here is it not?So what has happened to the ideas of justice ,truth and human rights?

If someone is guilty prosecute them then comes the sentence.Not sentence and if we get around to it we will give you a trial.

Sounds just like the Cardassian's form of Justice in Star Trek. :D

Re: House Arrest
 

Could you define the interesting concept of an 'innocent terrorist'?! Someone who just happens to be Muslim (or sometime ago Irish cf Birmingham Six) in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps? As has been repeatedly pointed, out there is no evidence against the Guantanamo captives just released which is why they have not been charged and are not terrorists.

Big Brother is already watching you; the average UK citizen is filmed 300 times a day by CCTV!

The issue of whether we should leave the mess we created in Iraq is an interesting one, but not for this thread.

And yes, of course we face a terrorist threat. That threat has increased as a result of us blundering, illegally, into Irag on the coat-tails of America. But as a parent I do worry much, much more about idiot drivers etc than I do about terrorism. And I certainly do not think victimising people and curtailing everyone's civil liberties is going to reduce that threat one iota. In fact it's likely to have the opposite effect. Certainly didn't work in Northern Ireland. Jury-less trials and detention created martyrs and achieved diddly squat except continuation of hostilities.