Sometimes Less Blind Than Blinkered

Hot the heels of an appeals court ruling in London that freed five Muslims for possessing Jihadist propaganda, another court has given an Algerian pilot arrested after 9/11 permission to sue the British government.

The merits of the individual cases aside, this is what happens when a war is prosecuted as if it was merely a criminal case. Courts are intended to deal with ordinary criminals who try to prey upon society. They are not intended to deal with a military or terrorist enemy bent on the destruction of that society. To deal with terrorists as criminals because it is easier than facing up to the fact that war has come to Britain is to invite disaster further down the road. With this sort of mindset, the government is needlessly presenting itself with the appalling choices of turning the screws on the entire population in order to catch a handful of maniacs or resigning itself to being unable to do a thing about enemy attacks except wipe up the blood afterwards.

Update: The Royal United Services Institute isn't impressed either:

"The UK presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society," the report says, and is "increasingly divided" on its history, national aims, values and political identity.