That Old Lie
After one of the costliest weeks for British forces in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown argued today that the ongoing campaign is a “patriotic duty” to keep the streets of Britain safe.
“It comes back to terrorism on the streets of Britain,” he said. “If we were to allow the Taliban to be back in power in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda then to have the freedom of manoeuvre it had before 2001, then we would be less safe as a country. There is a line of terror – what you might call a chain of terror – that links what’s happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain.”
I was standing outside King’s Cross on July 7th 2005. And as the realisation sank in that if I’d been ten minutes earlier, it could have been me, my first thought: how can this be happening here? I campaigned against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from the beginning. And whilst I recognise the need to prevent the Taliban gaining influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we should not be under any illusions. The wars waged by our government have made the streets of Britain less safe, not more.
