Stevens on airline security

Interesting piece in yesterday's News of the Screws from Lord Stevens. By interesting I mean frustrating and irritating, but with one good idea in there.

The head line (IF YOU ARE A MUSLIM - IT'S YOUR PROBLEM!) is needlessly controversial but that is the Screws for you. But read the article, as there is some jaw dropping stupidity and igorance within it. Let's start with the opening lines:

When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain's foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?

Erm, a lot of them do.See here for a start. But he goes on -

Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it.

Uh-huh, it is the problem of the Muslim communities. But it is also our problem. After all, it was not just Muslims who died on 7/7. And I think the Muslim communities could do with some help from the government - ie by addressing the cultural and economic issues that force young British Muslims into the hands of the extremists.

And there's more -

If only they would follow the lead of Home Secretary John Reid, whose tough, pragmatic, clear-sighted approach has been a breath of fresh air. Only then can they properly work out how to tackle it.

I'm sorry, what? Pragmatic and clear sighted? John Reid?!? We are talking about the same person here, right? The scottish thug who has done nothing other than claim his department is crap? Jesus, if this is a breath of fresh air to you then you must have been breathing some fetid fucking air.

He jabbers on -

Interestingly, it was Catholic revulsion over republican terrorist atrocities such as Enniskillen and Omagh that fuelled that change.

Yep, that is interesting. Not neccessarily true though. The IRA was crippled in 9/11 after the US realised terrorism wasn't that much fun anymore and the Americans stopped funding the Irish militants.

And he ends, as you knew he would, by crudely shoving in a plug for ID cards -

Another must is to reconsider ID cards. The importance of knowing whether someone really is who they say they are has never been higher.

Sweet Jesus give me strength! How would ID cards have helped last Wednesday? In the name of all that is holy, I can't figure that out. And the assertion that the importance of knowing whether people are who they claim to be is wrong on two counts - one, ID cards will be forged, just as driving licences and passports are, and two, I think it was fairly important to know that people are who they say they are was also pretty important in World War Two and in the long war against the IRA.

However, credit where credit is due - he does say something interesting -

I'm a white 62-year-old 6ft 4ins suit-wearing ex-cop—I fly often, but do I really fit the profile of suicide bomber? Does the young mum with three tots? The gay couple, the rugby team, the middle-aged businessman?

Actually, there is some wisdom in that. Those who have carried out successful suicide attacks in the West in the past have been young(ish) Asian males. Not being funny, but I'm guessing that pattern will continue. But it is the racial nature of the profiling that is wrong. Because if you search every young Asian male it will be the young Asian female who has the liquid explosives in her hand luggage. Or the white recent convert to Islam. So profile based on age more than anything else - martyrs tend to be young (say, 15-35). In a nutshell, airline security should be based on common sense. The 91 year old granny with the walking stick and the crooked smile is unlikely to be a suicide bomber. So is the young, Asian male - but crucially, there is more chance of the latter blowing a jet out of the sky than the former.

We win the War on Terror (if it is actually winnable) by taking sensible, although sometimes unpleasant, security precautions and by helping the ethnic minority communities to deal with the radicals amongst them. We do not win it by abdicating all responsibility and throwing it to the Muslim community and by nonsense policies like ID cards.