How is it that Rashid Raud, described as a "key suspect" in August, is now only facing charges of fraud and carrying explosives (possibly just hydrogen peroxide)? (Everyone's guilty of something.) Despite "indications of an Afghanistan-based Al-Qaeda connection" and "strict surveillance"?
What does this make of John Reid's claims at the time, that the "arrests have significantly disrupted the threat, yet we cannot be sure that the threat has been eliminated." The real question is, just what threat exists in the first place? Doesn't the inflated media coverage motivate the "other groups ... inspired to carry out their own attack"? Follow-up stories like this need to be made as public as the hype over the initial arrests, else we lapse into Reid's fundamentally flawed way of thinking:
"We must never make the mistake of thinking the danger of terrorism has passed."
The new terrorism-alert scale runs from Red (Terrorism very expected) to Black (Terrorism in progress), although the actual colour is permanently stuck somewhere in between, no matter what events occur. Question the reality of Reid, question the motives, question the fear you feel as you walk past that armed policeman. Question the news every time fresh reports of anti-terror arrests come in.
Be suspicious of them that seek suspects.
What does this make of John Reid's claims at the time, that the "arrests have significantly disrupted the threat, yet we cannot be sure that the threat has been eliminated." The real question is, just what threat exists in the first place? Doesn't the inflated media coverage motivate the "other groups ... inspired to carry out their own attack"? Follow-up stories like this need to be made as public as the hype over the initial arrests, else we lapse into Reid's fundamentally flawed way of thinking:
"We must never make the mistake of thinking the danger of terrorism has passed."
The new terrorism-alert scale runs from Red (Terrorism very expected) to Black (Terrorism in progress), although the actual colour is permanently stuck somewhere in between, no matter what events occur. Question the reality of Reid, question the motives, question the fear you feel as you walk past that armed policeman. Question the news every time fresh reports of anti-terror arrests come in.
Be suspicious of them that seek suspects.
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