UK declares War on Terror over

Chris Spurgeon says: "According to a story last week in the London Daily Mail newspaper, the British government has had enough with the "War on Terror" hype. (Link is to military.com, one of the many sites that has reprinted the Daily Mail article.)"

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless "death cult."
The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."
London is not a battlefield, he said.
"The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers," Macdonald said. "They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way."

Good to see the UK coming to its senses. Hopefully the US won't be far behind. Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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blahbalicious

“The question that is never asked is WHY they did it, what is the reason, the answer simply is that government never want to discuss foreign policy which is at the root of most “terrorist” attacks.”

It’s not about foreign policy. Foreign policy is, at best, an excuse. Jihadists are simply fighting a holy war against infidels, and Britain is not the only battlefield in their war.

The government’s assertion that jihadists are part of an “aimless death cult” is counter-productive because it prevents them from actually figuring out what the jihadists are all about. However, this is completely intentional because it’s extremely politically incorrect to suggest that Islam could in any possible way be linked to terrorism. Governments in the West tend to choose political correctness over public security.

I also like how you say “terrorist” as if blowing up a busload of civilians in the middle of London is somehow not terrorism.
fltndboat

We tend to kill people that are not a threat. It is simply easier than taking the real Perps into custody. If you think that our real motivation is Global Peace, think again. Human lives are subordinate to Personal Profit, and self serving Personal Profit rules. Life is not given an economic priority. There is no money in it. This is why We need a Department of Peace. Slowly turning the war profiteers into Peace profiteers is an educational imperative for survival. Turning the big ones loose on our infrastructure, commissioning them to renew our sewer systems, our Sewerage treatment plants, our Municipal water systems. making our roads more wildlife friendly, and enforcing on the books Laws that protect the Natural World from the Flaming A holes that show up with guns and no clue ,has to be made a carrier option. Making the World safe for trolls is a move toward Global Health. They would be a welcome relief from the Zombies with guns.
iburl

This is a perfect description of a Neocons and Unitary Executive Theorizers: “They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way.”

Too bad the Democratic party are also outlaws, unwilling to do their duty.
billy

good news !
now if only something can be done about pancakes in pressurized cans.
Pyros

I wonder which war is next?! Here are some suggestions:

The War On Evil
The War on Rudeness
The War against Wicked Dictator
The War Against Gluttony
The War on Stalking
The War on Nuclear Proliferation (by Iran)
The War on The Weak
Thw War Against Cowardice
The War Against The Emperor of Ice Cream

There are so many wars yet to be fought. It’s really incredible. As Karen Carpenter once sang, “It’s only just begun.”
behemoth

I don’t think “death cult” is the language used by a government coming to its senses. It just sounds like more hyperbole to me.
mdhatter

Right on ya’ brits!

recognizing ‘terrorism’ as a tactic used by fanatic criminals and ‘terrorism’ is not a nation, on which war can be declared.

It’s your language, England, I for one am glad to see you take it back.
behemoth

I don’t think “death cult” is the language used by a government that has come to its senses. Sounds like more hyperbole to me…
Logical Extremes

Yes, but is the UK going to tear down its panopticon as a result? I doubt it.
Logical Extremes

Now if we can only get the US to drop the perpetual war nonsense, we’ll have a chance to get rid of the obscene perpetual war powers too.
sonny p fontaine

the pendulum is always swinging. and, um pyros… The lyric is “we’ve only just begun”
bour3

H h. Bngbng thnks bndng vr nd grbbng yr nkls s cmng t yr snss.
Jeff

Logic X said, “..we’ll have a chance to get rid of the obscene perpetual war powers too.”

Unfortunatly it doesn’t look like the world is getting any more self-actualized, polite, civilized… I think there is a good chance that war powers will continue for the near future.
RealCatholicMen

Hpflly <>Syr nd rn wn’t b fr bhnd. n rdr t stp wr, y nd t cnvnc <>bth sds, nt jst n.
JCD

“One man’s freedom fighter, is another man’s terrorist”

Except, uh, freedom fighters tend not to blow up buses full of civilians just because they are the wrong religion, and so on and so forth. There is no moral equivalence between those who actually fight for freedom, and those who fight in support of tyranny and oppression.
The only way you can come to this often overused and inaccurate conclusion in the quote above is to fundamentally distort the real definition of freedom.
JCD

“There is no money in it. This is why We need a Department of Peace. ”

Yes that’s exactly what we need, another useless, money gobbling bureaucracy to make our already ridiculously expensive and overly complex central government even more so.
The Department of Peace. Dedicated to having lots and lots of meetings about Peace, and more meetings about pace, and so on and so forth. Wonderful idea.
fltndboat

One key is Government saying “Trust Us to create War” instead of trusting the Public as partners in solving life issues.
Prester John

Sure, lets just pretend that there is no threat and the mean men who murdered those people will go away if we talk nice. until it happens again, and you fools start saying’why didn’t you protect us’.
ukcannonfodder

we have been the target of terrorist attacks for many years now and the 7/7 attack were rather tame compared to what the IRA did through the 70′ and 80′s that i can remember, and most of the funding for the IRA came from the USA but this fact is overlooked whenow in the media.

The question that is never asked is WHY they did it, what is the reason, the answer simply is that government never want to discuss foreign policy which is at the root of most “terrorist” attacks.

“One man’s freedom fighter, is another man’s terrorist”
ukcannonfodder

we have been the target of terrorist attacks for many years now and the 7/7 attack were rather tame compared to what the IRA did through the 70′ and 80′s that i can remember, and most of the funding for the IRA came from the USA but this fact is overlooked whenow in the media.

The question that is never asked is WHY they did it, what is the reason, the answer simply is that government never want to discuss foreign policy which is at the root of most “terrorist” attacks.

“One man’s freedom fighter, is another man’s terrorist”
mdhatter

What’s so bad about grabbing your ankles?

Oh, I see, that’s a homophobic euphemism. Bravo.
fltndboat

JCD No new money needed. Just change the name of Homeland Security and give them a new mandate.
osiris7

“Death Cult” sounds way cooler.
Pyros

How about a war against driving since about 42,000 people die each year in auto accidents.

How about a war on food since thousands of people die every year choking to death on the stuff?

Oh, the wars we could fight!
HarrytheHood

This is not quite off topic, but insufferable pedantry nonethless, so apologies in advance.
The newspaper in question is The Daily Mail, and not the London Daily Mail. It is a national newspaper, the fact that it is produced in London is almost incidental, you could have called it Britain’s Daily Mail and that would have served to distinguish it from other similarly titled newspapers in other countries.
I can understand the reason that people do this, The Times is regularly refered to as the London Times as a way of distinguishing it from the New York or for that matter any other newspaper called The n Times, the point is that the reason that the British version gets to call itself simply The Times or The Mail is that they have been in print longer than the other newspapers that bear the same name. This is an American solipcism that is deeply irritating to non US readers, BB can do better than this.
Halloween Jack

I vote for a War On Trolls. I’m all for putting on my jackboots, picking up an exotic assault rifle, and kicking down some 13-year-old’s bedroom door and showing him what we do to threadjackers in meatspace. Who’s with me?
endotoxin

Good to see the UK coming to its senses. Hopefully the US won’t be far behind.

Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath.
xopl

Can anybody get this American a job in the UK? I like it there. Better beer.

New Year’s Resolution: write my Representative and two Senators, asking them to update their lexicon accordingly.

Nicely done, Brits. My perception is that your society and government are less fear based. Am I off base?

Perpetual War is soooooooo 1984. It’s 2008 now. Get with the program.
Jeff

12: “most of the funding for the IRA came from the USA but this fact is overlooked whenow in the media”

It wasn’t overlooked in my family. We were/are part of a strong Irish culture, albeit Americanized. We all knew my grandfathers were sending money “back home.” It was suporting an Ireland free of British control. As an American I could understand why. Most of us don’t talk about it now; it’s too abstract.
Carrie

I have been saying the jackasses that caused the death and destruction on 9/11 are criminals to all who would listen since then.
I think they could be better caught and punished if we treated them as such.
-Carrie
Registrado

> London is not a battlefield, he said.

Correct. As everyone knows, Love is a battlefield.
js7a

Our side has killed 1.2 million to their 4,000 or so, so we clearly won.
Pyros

@ Halloween Jack

A war on 13 year old trolls would of course be very popular, like any war, but it is a very bad and dangerous idea. We still haven’t won the wars against mice, snakes, roaches, certain plants or termites even though we have been fighting for several thousand years. What chance do we stand against trolls? Some things we must just learn to ignore.

War is good, but making love is even better.
danegeld

Batrachomyomachia– The War of the Frogs and the Mice?
dainel

The problem with the “War on Terror” stuff is that it was never for your benefit.

There are about 1 to 2 billion Muslims on the planet right now. 99.99% of them did not know who Osama was, never heard of Al-Qaeda, do not now what they were fighting for, and therefore had no sympathy for them. Osama and Al-Qaeda were nobodies. Not a worthwhile opponent.

Who was it who gave them free publicity? Who was it who built up their image into some kind of larger-than-life-super-Islamic-warrior fighting the west? How was it that they were able to get thousands of new recruits in the past few years?

A terrorist is a person who uses terror to reach his/her political goals. This does not require actual violences. You don’t have to blow up people with bombs. Scare-mongering works well enough. You could send fake bomb threats, or mail real bombs that are not actually rigged up to explode. On the other side (well actually, being partners, they are really on the same side), you could harp continously about the scary bogeyman, terrorising everybody into giving up their civil rights. Does this sound like anybody we know?

In the end, you have a police state. Could the “terrorist” have achieved anything better if they had actually blown up a building every week? Does that sound like victory? To me, it looks like surrender. Giving up everything right at the begining, and then shouting “we’re winning” over and over again. It’s stupid and sad.
Simon Greenwood

Oh, our government believes in the War on Terror too. Our semi-visible Prime Minister Gordon Brown materialised to blame Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on ‘terrorists’ as if it was the same group of people fighting the same war the world over. In public at least, the war must continue, with the privations of war imposed upon the public and unpopular policies introduced in its name.