Indeed it does Brenna. Particularly this bit....

"Meanwhile a new report by the UK-based think tank the Oxford Research Group has warned that British and American policy towards Iraq has "spawned new terror in the region." The report, "Beyond Terror: The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World," said that the ongoing war on terror and particularly the war in Iraq were increasing the risk of future terrorist attacks on the scale of those of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Treating Iraq as part of the war on terror ... created a combat training zone for jihadists," it said, and also warned that any military intervention in Iran would be "disastrous." The report added that the United States is "increasingly viewed as the greatest threat to world peace.""

It worries me that so many are willing to play down the UK government's significant role in the whole sorry mess. It saddens me that so many are willing to say ok to people being carted off for six weeks without charge while our war criminal of a former Prime Minister wanders off to become a Peace Envoy and Brown, who supported the liar Blair over Iraq, continues to display a level of hyprocisy that is vomit-inducing when it comes to addressing the real issues.

Lydia, in your post below you included a link which you said proved "not all Police Departments" are against the 42 day detention proposal.

The link refers to the views of one man only. He is Ken Jones, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers and what he advocates is the locking up of terrorist suspects "for as long as it takes or indefinitely". I have to say initially that Police are not there to make government policy and I find the approach of such a senior police officer on this subject quite disturbing.

Let's forget the subject matter itself: what he is saying is that certain people can be locked up indefinitely with no evidence, no charges and no trial. He has also used the word "internment" in his statement and makes the astonishing claim that the public will "trust" the judiciary to "review" the process as it goes. I think not. Not only is he trying to make government policy but he also dares to state the public will go with this. Again, I am quite certain he is wrong.

The article also states Brown was "sympathetic" to Jones' wish list but feared he would be accused of setting up a "defacto Guantanamo Bay" here in the UK. And you know what? He would be right for that is exactly what Ken Jones is asking for and it is something I believe a majority here do not want, ever. It is an affront to the whole judicial system and to democracy and anyone who supports it has not fully considered the implications in my view.

Terrorism is a vile and evil thing certainly, all forms of it, and any government that puts its citizens at risk from terrorist attacks by themselves indulging in terrorist activities (in the form of illegal wars against other countries) should be held to account by all of us. For they put us in this position and drove a particular group to retaliate in the first place after we attacked them. The deliberate policy to demonise all things Muslim has been the best recruiting tool ever for extremists and we handed it to them on a plate.

So please, if we are going to discuss the 42 day detention proposal can we not act as if it was something just introduced out of the blue one day. Let's start at the beginning because the whole story began long before this Bill went through the Commons. The dangers we now live under are a direct result of Blair's insane illegal war and his involvement in agreeing to the obscene "rendition flights" coming through this country that were carrying prisoners on their way to be tortured elsewhere. Brown could deal with that directly if he chose to and very quickly lift the threat. He would make massive progress immediately I am convinced of that if he took responsibility for the mess we have made of it. There are plenty of white people born in this country who are thoroughly ashamed of what Blair did in our name, with Brown's support, and who are possibly just as angry as Muslims about the consequences for all of us. And rounding up Muslims to put them away for 42 days or even indefinitely is not the answer.

I couldn't find detailed statistics breaking down the total numbers of detentions, how long they were for, and how many were released without charge. The figures Lydia found from Hansard don't give the figures for those detained for 10 days or less, which seem to account for most of the detentions if you compare the Hansard figures with the ones from the BBC.

Of course some police officers will argue for an increase in the detention period. People will be in favour of anything that makes their job easier. However, making a job easier for the employee doesn't necessarily mean a better result or a more efficient use of the employer's resources. If I have 28 days to complete a task, I'm hardly likely to complain too much if I'm given 42 days to do it instead, even if I can usually manage it in 10 days.

When the job in question involves depriving people of their civil liberties then we need to be extremely certain that there is a genuine and urgent need for the extension. I'm not convinced there is.

It seems common sense to me that the American and British illegal invasion of Iraq has provoked more terrorism. Iraq under Saddam was a repressive state, but Saddam also repressed Islamicist groups - Saddam and Al Qaeda didn't have a mutual fan club by any stretch of the imagination. Now Iraq is a basket case, there is no central government authority outside Baghdad, and warlords and Islamist groups dominate much of the country.

Brenna's comments about how most terrorism incidents in Europe are non-Islamist certainly ring true here in Spain where there is an active campaign by the Basque group ETA. A couple of years ago they planted a bomb at a bus stop outside a police station not far from where I live, a six year old girl and her grandfather were killed.

We humans have a strange way of assessing risk. It seems to be something deep rooted in the nature of our species. We concentrate our fears on risks like Islamist terrorism where it is easy to lay blame on some "other", rather than on those risks where it's harder to lay blame on a specific individual or group in society. In fact we can get quite hysterical about things which pose a relatively minor risk, and pay far less attention to much greater risks. Politicians cynically play on our faulty perception of risk in order to gain party advantage.

Here are some intriguing statistics I found mooching about online whilst I was avoiding doing any proper work -

UK deaths 2001 - 2008 due to:

lightning strikes - c. 25 (annual average 3-4)
train crashes - 32
children murdered by strangers - 48 (annual average 5 to 7)
terrorist attacks - 56 (all during the London Tube & bus bombing, figure includes the suicide bombers)
electrocution by bedside lamp or alarm clock - c. 160 (annual average 20)
falling whilst getting out of bed - c. 160 (annual average 20)
children murdered by a parent - c. 600 (annual average 75 - this figure relates to biological parents, not other family members or step-parents)
women victims of domestic violence - c. 800 (annual average 100)
accidental drowning - c. 1500 (annual average 190)
falling downstairs - c. 4800 (annual average 600)
all homicide - 5968
car & motorbike crashes - 25,114
suicide - c. 26,500 (annual average 3,300)

See www.mediahell.org/ for an interesting discussion of this phenomenon.