By Matthew Pendlington
Unfortunately everyone acknowledges a terrorist attack on UK soil is a matter of ‘when’, and not ‘if’. The threat to the UK is clear. Long gone are the days when we may have assumed an infallible level of safety and security on our little island, convinced our seas will protect us from disaster yet again.
Having watched television programmes such as ’24’ and ‘Spooks’, I feel somewhat of an expert on the subject of terrorism. The latest threat, however, did not involve a single terrorist setting one foot on UK soil. The ‘cargo bomb’ was flown from Yemen to East Midlands Airport before the threat was finally realised.
It is alarming how a bomb can so easily be sent to the UK and how scant the checks are in other countries. Paranoia would be an understatement. Suspicious packages are now cropping up worldwide making it seem evermore likely that the UK has not seen the last of it.
The attack represented at least one danger that we should be wary about. The real danger now lies beneath with the cargo. This has represented a change in tactics by Al-Qaeda: away from the suicide bomber approach, towards a more calculated concealment. This meticulous planning has led to bombs being placed in shoes, underwear and liquids, leading us to guess as to what may be next. The problem is that if a terrorist attack was in the offing, the government would not inform the public about the danger we face, fearful of causing panic amongst the masses and exacerbating the situation further.
As students we need to be prepared to ensure that Britain stays a liberal democracy, because if our hands are over our eyes, pretending there is neither threat nor problem, we’ll meet an inevitably early fate.
If we can respect the views and beliefs even of those who are fighting against us, we will prevent those in our own country who are liable to be led astray to the dark side. Burning religious texts, on the contrary, is a sure-fire way to incite a racial war and continued attacks.
British Counter-Terrorism needs to be right every time in order to prevent an attack, whereas terrorist organisations need only one successful attack. We need to keep calm and carry on.