This can't go on

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6315989.stm

Another eight would-be terrorists detained: how many is that in the last three months? Dozens and dozens... I don't know what the capacity of the current system is to keep on absorbing such large numbers of 'criminals', but just the volume must be putting intense stress on the CPS, Judicial system and the prisons. As a mental exercise, I try to imagine treating other wars as an exercise in crime prevention- what if the Americans had taken every Vietcong prisoner, and done a forensic study of his actions, and then put him on trial for 'Unlawful warfare' or some such legal silliness. The backlog of cases would have run through to about 2075. Its a stupid stupid idea to pretend that a minorities war on the majority is simply criminality- if you pay attention to the combatants own words they are only too happy to describe their goal as the takeover of the British state and the destruction of British law and its replacement with Islamic law. They are traitorous warriors against the British state.

Refusing to name things with their right name is a dangerous game. Huge amounts of effort can be wasted and great strides made in the wrong direction if we can't bring ourselves to even elucidate our current situation. A far more effective way of dealing with this would have been to describe these men as traitors to Britain from the outset, and hang as many of them as we discovered. There would be far fewer wannabe Jihadists out there if the penalty for joining this treasonous plot was death. It would also have made it much more difficult for mainstream Muslims to argue that Britain should drop its own interests, and pursue those of Muslim countries, knowing that an armed force were literally holding a gun to the head of the British government. The armed force would be hanging from gibbets- and Britain could pursue its own interests with equanimity.