Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Cameron Outlines New Powers to Disrupt Terrorist Plans

Speaking a short time ago in the House of Commons, British Prime Minister David Cameron outlined new police powers to deal with the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS, also known as ISIL, replacing Syria with Levant]. The PM has opted to focus more on disruption than prosecution. This is, of course, the proper approach, so long as he can get legislation passed that protects individual rights and maintains Britain's obligations under international law.

Chief among the powers that the PM is requesting is the authority to seize passports of British citizens who have fought in foreign conflicts and to ban them from re-entering Britain for a time. The junior coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, don't particularly like these ideas because they are an infringement on the right to travel.

By and large, one sympathizes with the LibDems on matters of civil rights, but here, they are off-base. First and foremost, travel abroad on a British passport is not a right. It is a privilege. A great many common criminals can't get a passport for that very reason. Moreover, confiscating a passport is not the same as stripping a person of citizenship. The latter, if it creates a stateless situation for the person in question, is a violation of international and British law.

The PM also wants the police to have the right to halt people from entering or leaving a port and to confiscate personal effects. The hope is that such actions could disrupt terrorist timetables resulting in an abandonment of terrorist acts. If a person has tens of thousands of pounds confiscated at the port that would have purchased supplies and paid for expenses, the operation is not likely to come off. If a terrorist is delayed at the airport, missing a flight, the bad guys will have to regroup.

The key to all of this, of course, is intelligence gathering. With 4-500 Brits fighting with ISIS, it should be relatively easy to figure out who they are, where they lived while in the UK, and keep tabs on them when they return. The BBC reports that the Labour Party has gone so far as to say it wants to "allow authorities to put jihadists under closer surveillance and to disrupt their travel plans. They want the government to consider the case for re-introducing control orders - which were scrapped in 2011 - or to beef up the existing terrorism prevention and investigation measures which replaced them."

Nick Robinson, the Beeb's main political analyst on the story, said he believes "the UK was looking at working with Germany, Turkey and other countries through which suspected British jihadists travelled to and from the Middle East to alert them to their presence so they could be detained and questioned before setting foot on UK soil."

While the destructive power of ISIS and similar entities is intense at the center of their power, their ability to project their power beyond that center diminishes rapidly. They are, outside eastern Syria and western Iraq, no more than a jumped up Mafia crew. They need to be treated like the Gambino family in the New York area. To succeed as terrorists, they cannot come in the front door with guns blazing, ready for combat around the clock. They need to move in small teams, secure a base of operations, equip themselves, rehearse, and then execute a one-off attack. Defending against that is no different than preventing a few gangsters from robbing a bank. Surveillance and infiltration are the best weapons to use against them.

The PM may not have the details down, but he does have the right strategic paradigm. They are not warriors to be fought; they are criminals to be deterred and arrested.

© Copyright 2014 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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