Tony Blair's Article in the Sunday Times

I just finished reading Blair's article in the Sunday Times and have suddenly developed a headache.

Blair began with, "First let us clear away some of the absurd criticism of the police and security service over the three individuals who absconded. " He then went on to blame British society for having the desire to retain some of the few civil liberties we have left. According to Blair because of this desire 3 terror suspects have gone missing," the fault is not with our services or, in this instance, with the Home Office. We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. "

Blair continued to write,"Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism.

Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment. This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before. It needs to be confronted with every means at our disposal. Tougher laws in themselves help, but just as crucial is the signal they send out: that Britain is an inhospitable place to practise this extremism"

The main problem (out of a list of many) with Blair's logic is that although a police state may make Britain more "inhospitable" for terrorism it will do the same for the law abiding public.

Blair ending his article with, "This extremism can be defeated. But it will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it; it cannot be negotiated with; pandering to its sense of grievance will only encourage it; and only by confronting it, the methods and the ideas, will we win. " - I guess he has changed his view on negotiating and pandering to terrorists since he dealt with the hostage situation in Iran.