An exclusive last night by Iain Dale has reported that at a meeting of the Reform Club Media Group, the Metropolitan Police Commissionar Sir Iain Blair, made a remark that if there was another significant terrorist attack in the UK there might be an appetite for internment.
Whether the suggestion was a mere observation or whether it is something Sir Iain would support are obviously unknown. However, the question I would have thought is who would we intern if it happened? Would it just be dodgy looking bearded muslims? I imagine those of a terrorist persuasion are quite good at looking very unlike the lunatic fringe. How do you go about interning a non-racial group?
Of course there will be conspiracy theories popping-up after such a remark. Something tells me that mentalists over at MPAC will think it's a Zionist plot because, well, everyuthing is a Zionist plot don't you know? There will be others that just think it's a plot, the only difference is they won't blame the Jews per se.
What I wonder is whether we could even manage it? After all, the prison system is knackered, we don't have enough policemen, and the military is under-funded and overstretched abroad. Frankly, a policy of internment would require a certain level of competence and capacity which we just don't have. Even if everyone agreed it was a great idea I doubt we'd be able to do it.
3 comments:
Yes I agree Dizzy, have a look at how they handle illegal immigrants caught by the police overe here:
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/2006/10/scandal-of-illegal-immigration.html
Of course the thing about internment is that it will make the situation oh so much worse than it ios now.
We are being led by gibbering idiots.
Maybe we could ask PC Basha to guard the camp for us.
Three points:
1) I don't know if it's fair to attack Mr. Blair, as many have done, unless you were there. I remember several conversations in the US between Sept 11, 2001 and the following summer, where internment was brought up. In each case, the liberal, anti-Bush speaker was convinced that Bush had a plan for internment, was about to implement internment, or would do so after another attack. Personally, I think they were projecting their subconscious wish: that there would be an internment, which they could then vocally oppose, making them "safe" and heroes at the same time. But at any rate, it would still be unfair to attack them after the fact for "discussing internment."
2) All that said, I believe that if another attack killed thousands of people, in the U.S. or any country, internment would certainly be "discussed." And if a terrorist Hiroshima-style bomb (not just a dirty bomb) went off in any urban area, internment would be a probability, and could probably only be headed off if instead the victim country retaliated in kind (i.e., nuked an apparently or at least plausibly guilty country).
3) Internment is not that hard logistically or economically. The US did it in 1942, at a time of very scarce resources, and without causing physical suffering of the Japanese involved. (I am not backing the Japanese internment, or denying the psychological suffering, but pointing out that none were starved or frozen or herded into cattle cars.) And of course, Britain was able to build numerous airfields and POW camps in WWII. It's just not that expensive to house and feed people in communal (crowded but safe) conditions.
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