The economics of terror.

Now as far as I understand it Gordo wants to increase the holding period of terrorism suspects for a longer period. Why? Is it to prevent terrorism or to find out information. I am all for protection of people, all people civilians or military, but surely holding someone for a greater period of time will not prevent this. I remember the Bobby Sands fiasco, turned into his martyrdom, and how many recruits did the IRA get then. Surely the way to combat the kind of fundamentalist terrorism is to win hearts and minds, not lock people away.
But what kind of terrorism. The inmates of Guantenemo Bay, those who have been incarcerated fro years without trial, did they supply evidence to prevent a terrorist attack. The information they have must actually be well out of date now. By allowing this new law to go through it does nothing for the security of the country, though I think that bringing the troops out would go a long way to stop acts of terrorism on these shores. But it does bring me to a fine point of when is intellegence good. After all the whole point of us going into Iraq in the first place was based on intellegence gathered by the security forces that told of weapons of mass desrtuction, but that proved to be totally untrue. So if we beat someone to a pulp, put them before a military tribunal and try them is the information they give going to be any more relaible than that which the public were given to get us into the war?
Its a lovely diversion though isn't it. After all the economy is collapsing around our ears, food prices are going up, fuel bills are going up, the economy policies of the banks are proving to be more suspect than we could ever imagine, but what do the labour backbenchers complain about the detention of suspected terrorists for longer than 42 days. The whole idea of this being the most important subject in a world of chaos, is spin. We cannot afford to feed our old, we cannot afford to educate our young, but we can afford to fight an unwinable war and have our civil liberties eroded. When midwives are being made redundant in a baby boom,the security services have doubled their staff.
The problem is the hyperreality of the situation. We are so entwined with the idea of our civil liberties being taken over by Islam that we are more than happy to have a continuous war to defeat a strategy thatn any schoolboy historian will tell you is undefeatable. You want to defeat terrorism then persude the ordinary well meaning caring people of islam to ask questions of their elders. Please lets not forget that there are more Christians in Pakistan than Muslims here and if they start a jihad from the way they are being treated then all the large economies that have invested heavily in the third world will fall apart. Communism could never defeat capitalism, capitalism will defeat capitalism because it will eat itself, followed and encouraged by religious fundementalists who will show a better way. Why be poor and unhappy when a better world waits for you without the trappings of a western society. Afghanistan didn't just happen. Taliban didn't just appear one night and take over. It was a systemiatic mind shift by a people who had been betrayed by everything. After all Milton said he would rather be a master in Hell than a servant in heaven.