The question that many people out there, including myself, need to ask themselves every now and then is, who gave me the monopoly on righteous indignation?
It seems that what with the seemingly inevitable ‘slide towards chaos’ and ‘end-times’ hypnosis overtaking our societies, old certainties like the bad guys wearing black shirts, or having sneaky looking, pencil-thin moustaches has gone out the window. In their stead we have this fear of guys with big beards and their pesky damn fanatical ways.
I mean, why is it that whenever the Middle East is shown on TV, and I mean anywhere in the Middle East, that it's always hirsute blokes with AK-47s, lots of shouting, jostling and 'the waving of the arms'. It's almost like the entire region is one long parade of 70s Mercedes sedans and pissed off guys called 'Mustapha' or 'Abu' someone or other.
By way of example, after writing the other day about all the examples of people being locked up for doing nothing, I got to see an interesting interview on the tube. It was of course Mamdouh Habib, and he was talking about his handling by our friends the Americans.
To be completely honest, while the story has been aired on all the major stations here in abbreviated form, and there's lots of denial by the Attorney General, including an effort to discredit Habib, they needn't have worried.
The AGs vain attempt in this regard was to indicate that Habib wouldn't talk about any trips to 'Afghanistan', as this implicated him in a nefarious region that obviously manifests terrorists by the simple evocation of its name. Go on, try this one at home, begin saying 'Afghanistan' very quietly to yourself. Then, gradually, very gradually, say 'Afghanistan' publicly in increasingly bitter tones. Add a little spit on the 'ghan' bit of the word, so you seem a little angrier. Finally, by the time you've really wound it up you'll be able to accuse your boss of 'having trained in Afghanistan' with such vehemence that the national Gestapo/spooks will be forced to do a Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, quietly removing the object of your bile and erasing memory of 'the incident' from the entire office, and all before lunchtime.
I suggest trying this one shortly after the Christmas party, ANY time you've been associated with either karaoke or cheap margaritas, or Feb.15, when Charlotte on reception has spurned your rose-bedecked chocolate advances, again.
The truth of the matter is that Habib said he was happy to talk, but would only do so in Court. Presumably he's going to sue the Crown. But, that didn't stop the AG from getting away a pre-emptive shot. Ah yes, Phillip Ruddock, doubtless the champion of the pre-emptive one.
Anyhow, to be completely honest, I didn't trust Habib. I actually think that there is a possibility that he's only giving us half the story. It's true of course that TV stories are difficult to judge from, editing complicating body language the way it does, but there was just something that unnerved me. Let me state categorically that I do not, in any fashion, think that he is a real terrorist, of the killing innocents and never mind the cost type. But I would not be at all surprised if he had in fact associated with terrorists.
But this is the core of the issue in my opinion. What really distinguishes this new threat to 'civilisation' is the de-centred and 'networked' nature of terrorism. Back in the day the bad guys were all safely behind the Iron Curtain, doubtless gorging themselves on borsch and swilling cheap vodka, but these days the sneaky buggers could be anywhere. Who knows if your swarthy neighbour is actually building a dirty bomb, or using his job as a taxi driver to case the city?
I mean, how many people haven't thought that the diabolical local kebab shop owner might be a sleeper agent? What chance is there that he's related to someone who's married to an authentic terrorist? What if he's married to the cousin of a terrorists' accountant? Isn't that association?
Sure, this sounds ridiculous, but there's more than a few periods of history in which meaningless association has resulted in enough hysteria to result in both persecution and incarceration, or worse, for harmless bystanders. Off the top of my head? McCarthy, Cambodia, Chile, Germany, the USSR. And the global search for terrorist organisations is likely to be fertile ground for these types of accelerating misunderstandings.
Lets go back to the heady days of the war on drugs for example. How many times do you remember a 'kingpin' being arrested on series drugs charges? Sure, we had great TV shows like Miami Vice that captured our imaginations, reassuring us that there was actually something happening, but those shifty damn South Americans are to this very day producing some mighty fine blow (I'm told). In the meantime, a number of 1980s small-fries were being arrested and jailed, because of the ever-present need for 'something to be done'.
Again, back in the day the spooks could work out that the bad guys had X number of troops, Y number of planes/tanks/ships etc. But these days, like the war on drugs, the actual enemy is so scattered and intangible that symbolism becomes the good guys main weapon, as it does for the baddies. Iraq? Symbol. Twin Towers? Symbol. If you can't set up your war toys in a big field and nail each other, you do it through the media instead. To be thought to be doing something is far, far more important than actually doing it.
I mean, every pubescent guy in the world knows that, right?
Meanwhile, I hear myself yelling at the TV, 'but he's not the problem!' and feeling completely indignant because the methods involved to find out who his associates are involved torture. And that is what the real problem is. What do you do when you have a bunch of individuals and no way to get them to talk? If you can't knock over their infantry and take their capital, what does the war machine focus on?
The trouble is capturing individuals and using completely inhumane methods to try and find out who the real combatants are. As I say, there are more than a few examples of both frightened and/or tyrannical regimes having to 'question' wider and wider circles of people to try and flush out the 'real' bad guys. And I have no interest in ending up in Habib's shoes for the simple reason that I don't like American foreign policy, and could have spent time talking to people with more of an aggressive tendency than my bad self.
And this seems to be the case with Habib, once again, we don't really have any details on exactly what he's supposed to have done, except for accusations he's supposed to have confessed to and confirmed while being 'questioned' in Egypt (of all places). I think he has in reality associated with some people who turned out to be up to no good, but the question of whether this implicates him in their actions is a very large one.
I am therefore looking forward to more information before I condemn the man.