Wag the Dog was released in 1997. Directed by Barry Levinson, it tells the story of a president who is accused of sexual misconduct with a 'firefly girl' shortly before an election. To maintain the faith and try to ensure he keeps his job, an eccentric spin doctor (Robert De Niro) and a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) are hired to fake a war in Albania, along with Anne Heche who seems to be there for the sake of a female lead. Eventually, the CIA (in the form of William H Macy) catch up with De Niro and Heche and the following dialogue ensues.
Macy: There are no nuclear devices in Albania. Albania has no nuclear capacity. Our spy satellites show no secret terrorist training camps in the Albanian hinterland. The border patrol, the FBI, the RCMP report no-- repeat--no untoward activity along our picturesque Canadian border. The Albanian government is screaming its defense. The world is listening. There is no war.This isn't the moment to get into 9/11 conspiracy theories and premonitions in popular TV and cinema but it's a movie well worth your time, for that dialogue and many others. What most interests me here is the notion that if there's no threat, there's no need for the huge multi trillion dollar military intelligence infrastructure and the paranoid legislation that determines how it acts. So what of the threat?
De Niro: Of course, there's a war. I'm watching it on television.
Macy: Who might you be? What you all said and done?
De Niro: My name is Conrad Brean.
Macy: Who do you work for?
De Niro: Nobody whose name you want me to say, Mr. Young. I promise you.
Macy: So well and good, but when the fit hits the shan somebody has to stay after school.
Who do you suppose that might be?
De Niro: I don't know what you're talking about.
Macy: The spy satellites show it, Mr. Brean. They show no war.
De Niro: Then what good are they if they show no war? I mean, why we spend a quarter trillion dollars a year on defense department? What good are they if they show nothing? Are they useless or just broken? Or what? If there's no threat, then where are you? Let me go one more. If there's no threat, what good are you?
Macy: Mr. Brean, you are the threat.
De Niro: I'm the threat? I am the threat? What have I been doing the last 30 years that you haven't been doing. You wanna me fool in on that?
Macy: The last 30 years, Mr. Brean I have been working to ensure the security of my country.
De Niro: I'm sure that speaks well of you and your parents but if forced to choose between the security of your country and the security of your job, which would you pick? While you hesitate, permit me to suggest that they are one in the same. Your country and your job.
Macy: I'm doing my job, Mr. Brean. That's what you see me doing.
De Niro: I'm doing my job, too. Let me ask you something. Let me ask you a simple question.
Why do people go to war? Why they go to war?
Macy: I'll play your silly game.
De Niro: OK. Why they go to war?
Macy: To ensure their way of life.
De Niro: Would you fight to do that?
Macy: I have.
De Niro: If you went to war again, who would it be against? Your ability to fight a two-ocean war against who? Sweden and Togo? That time has passed. It's over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It'll be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst perhaps to their own governments, have... To go to that war, you have to be prepared. You gotta be alert. The public has gotta be alert because that is the war of the future and if you're not gearing up to fight that war then eventually the ax will fall. You'll be out in the street. You can call this a drill, call this job security call it anything you like, but I got one for you. You go to war to preserve your way of life. Chuck, this is your way of life. And if your spy satellites don't see nothing, if there ain't no war then you can go home and take up golf my friend 'cause there ain't no war but ours.
MI5 have been particularly keen to let us know just how many people they're keeping tabs on. This strikes me as a very odd policy for several reasons. Firstly, if we assume what they assume, that there is a loose network of terrorists all over the country seeking to wreak havoc in the name of Islam, then making it public exactly how many of them you know about is a bit of a dumb tactic. Going back to November 2006, outgoing head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller said that they were keeping track of 30 plots, and 1600 individuals. If at that time there were actually, say, 2000 individuals then those seeking to direct and militarise these individuals would know that while most were known to the security service, hundreds were not even on their books. Like I say, bit of a dumb tactic.
In response to Dame Eliza's warning, Massoud Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he accepted there was a terrorist threat but it had to be put into perspective."Over 1,000 arrests have been made under anti-terrorism since 9/11 and out of those, 27 have been found guilty. Out of those 27, only nine have been Muslims," he said. - BBC News
In comes Jonathan Evans. A rising star in the service, he was appointed director of international counter-terrorism just days before 9/11. And indeed, when he eventually got the post as Director General of the service it was only a week or so before the so called fertisiler bomb plotters were convicted in a court case where it became abundantly clear that MI5 had significant surveillance on two of the alleged July 7th bombers. By this point, in May 2007, MI5 had raised the number of possible terrorist suspects to 2000. As the BBC articles notes in its very last line:
MI5's 2,000 terror suspects are likely to keep growing in number.
You're not kidding. Just half a year later, in November of 2007, Evans released yet another statement on the number of suspects. Just as the government were rolling out the latest batch of expansive and invasive measures designed to combat terrorism by destroying civil liberty, for some reason the MI5 chief decided it was an opportune moment to make a lengthy speech about the threat. He said:
I mentioned earlier that the number of people we are seeing involved in terrorist-related activity in the UK has increased to at least 2000. And we suspect that there are as many again that we don't yet know of. - Jonathan Evans Speech in full, timesonline
The direct quote from his predecessor 12 months earlier was:
What I can say is that today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don’t know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas. - Eliza Manningham-Buller speech in full, timesonline
So, we're talking about an increase of roughly 400 individuals being clocked and watched by MI5, though whether they picked up this extra 400 between November 2006 and May 2007, or between November 2006 and November 2007 is unclear. Reporting on Jonathan Evan's speech varied. The Times, despite running the speeches in full, reported:
Teenagers as young as 15 are being recruited by terrorist groups in Britain, swelling the number of people suspected of being involved in terrorism to 4,000, the head of MI5 said yesterday. - Times
Likewise, the Washington Post ran with the headline:
At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
The Sun, The Express, The Spectator and The Daily Record also reported the figure of 4000 possible terrorists. The BBC, The Register, The Independent, The New York Times and The Mirror all went with the figure of 2000. A muddled picture of half assed reporting? Of course. Though I'm sure you can see the line between the ones who reported the speech accurately and the ones who went for the highest figure they could get away with.
Then, another six months down the line in April 2008, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith gave an interview in which she repeated the figure of 2000 individuals, in 200 groups, with 30 plots.
Miss Smith told a Sunday newspaper: "We now face a threat level that is severe. It's not getting any less, it's actually growing." - Daily Mail
"There are 2,000 individuals they are monitoring. There are 200 networks. There are 30 active plots. That has increased over the past two years." - BBC
Then in June 2008 the Prime Minister Gordon Brown made reference to the same figure.
Mr Brown said the demands on Britain's security services had changed dramatically since the days of the IRA. He said about 2,000 terrorist suspects involved in about 200 networks and 30 potential plots were currently being investigated. - The Scotsman
Is is deceptive to keep saying that the threat is real and growing and increasing when at the same time you're hawking the same numbers around for a year and a half? I'd say it is. In fact, I'd go further and say it's propaganda. Jacqui Smith was appointed to soften the image of a Home Office that had become tarnished by the likes of Blunkett and Straw, who themselves were brought in to toughen up that same image. Swings and roundabouts, since they all peddle the same bullshit.
"Since the beginning of 2007, 57 people have been convicted on terrorist plots. Nearly half of those pleaded guilty so this is not some figment of the imagination," she said in the article, a preview of which was made available Saturday."It is a real risk, and a real issue we need to respond to." - USA Today
Fortunately, there's a parliamentary record of these numbers so we can see what Jacqui decided not to tell us in this interview, but was prompted to make clear in the Commons.
Marginally updated figures were also given on September 1st, which you can read here. But taking the only broad period for which we have the complete numbers, September 11th 2001 - March 31st 2007, we know that of the 1228 arrested under the terrorism act or in a terrorist investigation 132 were charged with terrorism offences alone, and another 109 were charged with terrorism and other offences. So only 1 in every 5 people arrested for terrorism actually gets charged. And of those 241 charges, only 41 were convicted under the terrorism act. That's about 1 in every 30 that was arrested. Scaled up to 2000 MI5 suspects (since police arrests are usually intelligence led this is a fair comparison) that would suggest less than 70 convictions.David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been (a) charged and (b) convicted of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000 since it came into force. [198629]
Jacqui Smith: The Terrorism Act (TACT) 2000 came into force on 19 February 2001. Statistics compiled from police records are available on the Home Office website from 11 September 2001 to 31 March 2007.
For this period, there were a total of 1,228 arrests; of which 1,165 arrests were made under the Terrorism Act 2000 and 63 arrests under other legislation, where the investigation was conducted as a Terrorist investigation. Of the total 1,228 arrested, 132 were charged with terrorism legislation offences only; 109 were charged with terrorism legislation offences and other criminal offences and 195 charged under other legislation, including murder, grievous bodily harm, firearms, explosives offences, fraud, and false documents.
Of those charged, there were 41 Terrorism Act 2000 convictions and 183 convictions under other legislation, including murder, explosives offences (including conspiracies), grievous bodily harm, firearms offences, fraud, false documents offences, and other offences (including 12 cautions). Figures are subject to change as cases go through the system. The Home Office is currently working with the police to review how terrorism statistics are collated.
In addition to the above, statistics on the number of convictions in significant terrorist cases are available for 2007 and 2008. In 2007, 37 individuals were convicted in 15 significant terrorist cases. So far in 2008, 21 people have been convicted in seven significant terrorist cases. - Hansard April 28th 2008
Jacqui did point out the number of suspects who once arrested (and held without charge for a month while the police did whatever they liked to them) who eventually pleaded guilty to the charges they faced. Let's just say that the long history of police brutality in forcing false guilty pleas doesn't fill me with a sense that she's giving an accurate version of events. The police record on murder and terrorism cases makes for pretty terrible reading.
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