Dealing with the terrorist threat

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in Informer on Tue 15th Aug 2006

The fallout from the airport terror plots will last a long time. Already we are getting a flood of dangerous or stupid ideas from people who ought to know better.

One is the proposal from self-styled 'moderate' Muslim MPs, Peers and "community leaders" that Britain should shape its foreign policy because it, supposedly, inflames militant Muslim opinion. As it happens I, and my party, opposed Blair's war in Iraq and are critical of his subservience to the Bush administration over the Lebanon war. But in other areas Britain has supported persecuted Muslim groups (as in Kosovo) and it was entirely right to intervene in Afghanistan, with UN backing, against the dreadful Taliban which assisted Al Qaeda attacks well before the Iraq war started. The idea that foreign policy should be changed under threat from terror attacks is outrageous whatever we think of the foreign policy.

An equally misguided idea, this time from Sir John Stevens - former Metropolitan Police Commissioner - is "profiling" Muslim terror suspects rather than generally tightening of security. How on earth are Muslim suspects "profiled"? Men with beards? People with brown skins? Modestly dressed women? Many people of Asian appearance are not Muslims but Hindus, Sikhs, Christians or nothing at all. Many Muslims are white - converts or from European Muslim communities. Islam is enormously varied. Ahmadiya's are as different from Sunni Wahabis as Orthodox or Catholic Christians are from Quakers or Plymouth Brethren. The idea of your average security guard being able to profile potential Muslim terrorists is as dangerous as it is dotty.

We should have confidence that traditional British law, democracy and liberties are strong enough to withstand this latest threat. The British public is showing more patience and sense that these respected opinion formers.