Entered into the database on Friday, December 02nd, 2005 @ 16:34:37 MST
Jonathan Allen, a public relations mouthpiece for the British government, was
unable to restrain his sarcasm when talking about civil liberties. “The
liberals who are holding things up need to ask themselves if they want the right
to civil liberties or the right not to be blown up on the way to work,”
said Allen in response to concerns over the government including provisions
in proposed “antiterror legislation … requiring telecommunications
companies to retain data like e-mails and telephone records… The right
for the state to police Web sites, which are being used as recruitment tools
for potential terrorists, also remains a divisive issue,” reports the
International
Herald Tribune. In short, according to Allen and the Brit government,
the British people have but two choices—either they surrender their civil
liberties or fall victim to evil terrorists. It’s so simple—and
very Manichean. Never mind that the alleged “mastermind” behind
the London bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, is a British intelligence asset. It appears the police state disease afflicting Britain has spread to the rest
of Europe as well. “At the beginning of a two-day meeting in Brussels,
[European] ministers adopted a package of new steps to combat terror, including
strengthening border security and improving the monitoring of recruitment grounds
like radical mosques,” the Tribune continues. “But deep divisions
remained over whether to adopt America’s zero-tolerance approach to terror
or to apply a European strategy in which privacy rights trump the right to security….
EU countries agree that terrorists must be deprived of the opportunity to use
the Internet as an instrument to promote terror, but they have nevertheless
rejected French demands that EU countries be granted the judicial tools to close
down a suspected terrorist Web site.” Notice how civil liberties are considered
a trade-off. It was a famous colonial who once quipped: “They who would
give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty
or security.” But never mind. Evil terrorists are working overtime to make damn sure our
civil liberties are decimated. “The EU moves came as Belgian investigators
charged five people with involvement in a terrorist cell that sent volunteers
to Iraq, including Muriel Degauque, 38, who blew herself up in a failed attack
on U.S. troops near Baghdad last month.” Degauque’s face is plastered
all over the web, as she is the new frightening visage of terror—pretty
white girls seduced by al-Qaeda “bad guys” bent on destroying infidels.
It wasn’t so long ago we were told about a new phenomenon—formerly
passive Middle Eastern Muslim women acting as suicide bombers—now we have
to worry about the girl next door blowing herself and the entire block up. Of course, the only solution is to surrender your civil liberties—and
pronto. Degauque may also be considered a poster girl for “an EU-style Central
Intelligence Agency,” roundly rejected by effete soft-on-Osama wimps in
Germany and France. “Many Europeans are wary of the U.S. approach to fighting
terrorism, which they argue flouts human rights and condones torture.”
A few more pretty girl-next-door suicide bombers will change their minds, or
maybe a couple more bombings like those in Madrid and London, never mind the
police were involved in the former and there are more inconsistencies in the
latter than you can shake a stick at. Don’t bother yourself with the fact
“Al Qaeda exists as an organized body only where the intelligence services
have created, funded and employed it,” as former Justice Department prosecutor
and terror expert, John
Loftus, remarked after Haroon Rashid Aswat was pegged as an MI6 asset. Instead, concentrate on the Belgian woman Muriel Degauque and recoil in horror
at the prospect. Next up: school kids with Semtex in their backpacks.
