We're all suspects now ... well, maybe not now but soonish

A few days ago I linked to what in a sane world would be described as a bonkers article in the Australian press that talked about virtual Jihadist training camps being set up on the web

Virtual terrorists

Here’s another, this time courtesy of the NYPD…

Internet is the new Afghanistan

The One Laptop per Child project - The AK-47 of the 21st century?

As well as repeating much of the virtual terror bollocks being promoted in the US, UK and Australia, this article also goes on to shed light on the mysterious ‘radicalization’ process, which is often referred to but rarely explained by politicians and the media, by breaking 'radicalization' down into four stages:

• pre-radicalization
• self-identification
• indoctrination
• jihadization

which is a pretty effective exercise in supplementing one meaningless, goobledigook expression with four new ones

I've linked to this table before but I do love it so - The CIA Fact Book 2007 - Countries ranked by Current Account Balance - It's heart-warming to see the US, the UK and Australia displaying solidarity in owing the rest of the world shit loads of money as well as fighting the global war on terror (no connection, obviously)

Even those of us who suspect at the least the possibility of ‘false flag’ terrorism would be hard put to deny the existence of real terrorists. In fact, one of the historical uses of false flag terrorism has been to goad target groups into doing something stupid.

However, use of bullshit, essentially meaningless terminology such as ‘pre-radicalization’ and ‘jihadization’ is a linguistic trick designed to mask the real motivations for terrorism; a sense of injustice (real or imagined), desperation or tribalism, underneath a blanket of voodoo science

And shit like that doesn’t get pulled by accident

I’m mentioning all this is because I believe that the definition of who is a potential terrorist and what constitutes terrorism itself is set to be gradually widened to include non-violent, non-Muslims.

There are clues to that widening in the article I’ve linked to at the top of this post.

The bullshit ‘radicalization’ terminology that makes being a potential terrorist sound like some kind of predictable mental condition which anyone could suffer from is one such clue

As are lines like...

"Individuals who have been radicalized but are not jihadists may serve as mentors and agents of influence to those who might become terrorists of tomorrow,"

or

"It is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause”

or

"the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge or desperation"

or even

The report found that the challenge for Western authorities was to identify, pre-empt and prevent home-grown threats, which was difficult because many of those who might undertake an attack often commit no crimes along the path to extremism.

This is perilously close to the language of fascism and the terminology being used in this ‘War on Terror’ is becoming increasingly generic and requires only a little more refinement to include all sorts of people.

On top of that, an increasing number of people have been given, or faced the possibility of, long prison sentences for such relatively trivial offences as accessing information on the Internet or giving someone a SIM card and 'recklessly' not checking that they were a potential terrorist first (up to 15 years for such an unspeakable act).

No, I’m not saying we’ve reached a state where anyone can be rounded up and incarcerated for 15 years on bullshit charges. It’s just Muslims for now but I’m not sure many people realise how easy it will be to widen the net to include virtually anyone or that there are interests out there working towards that very goal.

If that sounds a tad paranoid is it really far-fetched to believe that people engaged in, or even just talking about, peaceful direct action against corporations or government could be treated as terrorists in the not too distant future?

And it doesn't require psychic powers to predict that people will increasingly turn to direct action and protest to compensate for the well-documented decline in faith in the democratic process in countries like the US and the UK - with or without crooked voting machines

How long will it be until newspapers and politicians start using terms like 'anti-corporate jihadists' or 'radicalized activists'? Language is, after all, very fluid ...and malleable

But hey, it’s all worth it. Look at how effective all those new laws and wars have been in reducing the terror threat over the last six years.

Really really really really...

really

... effective

.