mercredi 16 avril 2008

War on Terra


It's a musty topic - but one that won't die a death. The "war on terror", though officially dissolved last year, is back in the 'news'. On the beeb's Today programme we hear that some 300 new anti-terror police are going to be ghosting around parts of Britain sniffing out terror plots and saving our sorry behinds. The whole propaganda fraud of the war, centres around the fact that it is a 'win-win' situation for the melting wax work caracatures that rule under us. If there is a genuine terror outrage, then the whole anti-terror apparatus rises from its slab and lumbers after the suspects, the undesirables and the in the wrong place and the wrong timers. The ministers get their testosterone boosts, their glow of self-importance and further extensions to their already South American detention limits. More pointedly, they get to say 'I told you so' to those who are too damned sceptical of the whole charade. And any further inquiries will be dismissed as being those of conspiracy nuts.



On the other hand, the less satisfactory outcome of a long lull in the "war" also makes them look quite good. It means that their policies, no matter how anti-democratic they may appear, are in fact working. And so, further such measures should be introduced forthwith.


Since New Labour came to power just at the time when politics ceased to matter, they have to be seen to be doing something and to prepare for the non existent time when they fear the lumpen will turn ugly and on them. The war on terror with its limitless time scale (its been going on, in its current garb, for almost as long as the Second World War now), its shifting 'enemies' and its sheer flexibility is something the ghouls in Whitehall will never be able to move on from.