Finally, someone says something sane about the so-called “war on terror.”

The director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, warned Wednesday of a “fear-driven and inappropriate response” to the new threat that could lead to the abandonment of respect for fair trials and due legal process.

In a speech to the Criminal Bar Association, reported by the Guardian newspaper, Macdonald rejected the assertion that a “war on terror” was being played out in Britain.

“On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’, said Macdonald, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

“The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by the infringement.”

The Director of Public Prosecutions is the top prosecutor in England and Wales. There’s not really an exact analog between the UK and United States, but it would be similar to the Director of the FBI saying something this here in the US.

I’ve always found it more than a little bit ironic that fear seems to be the number one driver of “anti-terror” measures which usually consist of nothing more than revoking civil liberties in an apparent attempt to create the same sort of repressive state which produces people frustrated and disempowered enough to resort to terrorism in the first place.

You speak as though you believe that the intention of the government is to spread fear in order to justify its secretive and malevolent intentions, headed by none other than that Arch-Fiend-Sith-Moron, George Bush. Please. People are afraid, its true. They have every reason to be after having seen the Twin Towers dropped and thousands of people killed, with promises of more to come and terrorism hitting all over the world. Why would you expect (or argue, really) that people are being made afraid intentionally by the government. It is the dismal lack of faith and loyalty of its citizens that is revealed by such rampant partisanship. But its futile to argue with madmen. Never mind. Think I’ll go have a drink.

Gofigure,

I’m not quite sure what to make of comments like yours, but I guess they come with the territory sometimes.

<rant>
You seem to have been serious about not arguing with me, since you didn’t present any arguments. Rather, you seem to be accusing me of being some sort of unpatriotic Star Wars fanboy. Despite your accusation, I am a patriot. I love my country and I love the United States Constitution which (combined with our status as a continental power, vast natural resources, and a historically innovative populace comprised almost 99% of immigrants) made the US great.

I would like to think that watching what the current administration has done to my proud country and Constitution would stir anyone at least to outrage, if not action. Obviously, though, I would be thinking wrong.

So do you think that the government should be scaring people, on the off chance that they didn’t scare themselves enough after 9/11? Are you implying that my lack of fear is driven by partisan posturing? Are you arguing that my loyalty to the U.S. Constitution as the pinnacle of our system of laws is somehow misguided?

Or did I somehow poke an unwelcome sharp corner on which you bashed your intellectual shin by merely pointing out the irony of “fighting terror with terror?”

Based on its behavior of the past five years, I do, in fact, believe that my government has secretive and malevolent intentions.

Consider the evidence:

• Denying that habeas corpus is even a right
• Domestic Spying
• Torture and Renditition
• “Free Speech Areas”
• Police militarization
• Katrina and New Orleans
• Obsessive government secrecy
• Utter disinterest in possible large-scale electronic voting fraud
• Rampant anti-intellectualism

These are a consistent pattern of behavior of a government with utter contempt for its citizenry. Any government which consistently acts outside the law and against the interests of those whom it governs should be feared by its people and replaced as soon as possible.

Getting back to terrorism, by way of comparison of actual risk, in 2005, over 43,000 Americans died in traffic accidents. That’s 12 times as many died on 9/11. Over 200,000 Americans have died in automobile accidents since 2001. Should we 60 times as scared of automobiles as we are of terrorism? Should we invade Detroit or Japan to stop them from using their weapons of automotive destruction against us? Why is our government not doing everything in its power to declare a “war on cars?”

Since you will apparently reject anything that I might say, you would perhaps be willing to read A False Sense of Insecurity, published by the Cato Institute. It provides a solid risk analysis of terrorism, including this fantastic quote:

Terrorists can be defeated simply by not
becoming terrified — that is, anything that enhances
fear effectively gives in to them.

</rant>