Calling time on the war on terror?

Whilst my first posting of 2010 boasted optimism, as I hinted, it has been a grim front on the much derided ‘war on terror’ front.

The news has been littered with new campaigns for better airport scanning , back room deals to free Western hostages, failed prosecutions in America against unregulated security mercenaries in Iraq, and the aftermath of the deaths of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan.

It begs the question whether the ‘west’ has descended to the tactics of the easily tageed ‘terrorists’ against whom the ‘war on terror’ is supposedly being fought. The main architects of the ‘war’, Tony Blair and George Bush, may have left the stage, but has the conduct of the ‘war’ changed an iota?

To begin with the merciful survival and freedom of Peter Moore, the British hostage who emerged from two-and-a-half years of captivity in Iraq.

It is clear there was a long term deal with American and Iraqi involvement to trade him for a militant held by the US in Iraq. But we don’t apparently do such deals.

But few would fault the doing fo the deal. In any case the militant was one of so many held without charge or trial for years. There are another 198 of his ilk still held in Guantanamo (Mr Obama promised the facility closed by now, not much sign of that yet).

And what is the CIA, or M16 for that matter, actually doing in Afghanistan. Is it legal? Does it comply with the Geneva Convention?

We have absolutely no way of knowing. But the danger is that the west has become cavalier about killing, holding without access to Habeas Corpus, without trial, have become commonplace. What is the difference between such detention and the holding by terrorists of Peter Moore? And the failure to successfully prosecute the Blackwater security mercenaries in America (accused of the massacre of 17 civilians in Iraq surely calls into question the role of an unregulated ‘army’ of security personnel who currently outnumber conventional forces there)?

Perhaps the time has come for a wholesale review of the Geneva Convention and the extent to which it is any longer respected in today’s asymmetric warfare.

Finally the travelling public is to be subjected to still more irrelevant security activity at airports. I know no regular flier who does not witness, on a daily basis, the ridiculously inconsistent security measures and inspections at airports.

I have blogged on this before and don’t propose to rehearse the issues here. But as the world finds a new bogey in Yemen are we really wise to carry on in this vein or should someone somewhere take stock?