The Terrorist Hunters [Paperback]

sooo many better 'wart's n all' accounts out there. unfortunately, this will sell on the back of the controversy its generated. one to avoid, or borrow it from the library if you must!

This book, like Spycatcher and a number of others, was, in effect, "banned" for a while supposedly for reasons of "national security" but really because of a few undiplomatic claims about politicians or police/security bods. Also like Spycatcher, this book is mostly a pretty dull read. Quite an achievement bearing in mind the dramatic subject-matter.

The former Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard, i.e. only two ranks down from the top, has used much of the book to write an essay as to how the anti-terrorist effort (mostly against the Muslim Jihadists and their attempt to make Britain part of a crazy Islamic Khalifate) might be done better. There may be merit in some of his views, but I have to question, if only qua citizen, his opinion that, for example, suspects should be held for 90 days without having to be charged or released (the period was set a few years ago at 28 days for "terrorism" suspects, but is far less for ordinary criminal suspects). Also, he seems happy that CCTV is so widespread in the UK because it assists the police, albeit that he does describe the UK CCTV regime as "Orwellian". Difficult.

Most of us as citizens, want lawbreakers to be caught, most of the time at least, but at what cost? Personally, I think that even 28 days is excessive. If the police cannot get enough evidence in a lunar month, then too bad; they should try more surveillance. Not for nothing did Vernon Kell, the founder of MI5/Security Service, have a little pennant depicting a tortoise on his official car. Slowly slowly catchee monkey? I accept, though, that it is difficult for the police and MI5 to endlessly watch people who might well explode bombs etc at short notice, causing huge hurt.

It may just be the author's style as writer (with a ghostwriter helping) but it seemed to me that he regards people like the innocent Brazilian shot at Stockwell as just unfortunate casualties of war, in that case not even his own war, really; and the author fails to point out or remind us of the obfuscations and outright lies put out by his own boss Commissioner Ian Blair, after the shooting, so typical of the (Tony) Blair and Gordon Brown years of public relations and "spin" as a substitute for governmental action, integrity and staunchness.

The author seems very dazzled at first by the supposed cleverness and eminence of his counterparts in MI5, MI6 and Whitehall generally, though he says he was a bit disillusioned in the end. I notice that he always refers to John Reid, then one-time Home Secretary, as "Dr", an affectation which follows Reid's own usage and which has been criticized on the ground that, in England and, indeed, Scotland, the title is used conventionally only by medically qualified persons or academics as such. Reid's doctorate is said to have been awarded for a study of the pseudo-Marxist republic of Benin, in West Africa. He himself does not appear to use the title much nowadays, having been lampooned for doing so (he has another faked-up title now anyway, "Lord" Reid, he having been "elevated" to the Upper House as one of the post-1997 "plastic peers").

The author makes the point, no doubt correct, that most "British" Muslims do not support supposedly "Islamic" terrorism. However, he fails to remind us that, just after the London bombings, a poll said that 25% of them DID think that sort of terrorism justified in the UK. The fact is --and the author does not wish to explore it, seemingly-- that there is a considerable part of the younger generation of Muslims in the UK who are at least latently a hostile element of the population, hostile to the host part of the population.

As a discussion document for a training exercise for the police, this book is OK and may be useful, but as a read for the general reader it seems to me to lack real grip.

[ADDENDUM April 2011: The author has now popped up on TV and in the Press, saying that, to deter protests against corporate tax dodging by such as "sir" philip green, the Jewish Top Shop retailer and others, doors should be "kicked in", arrests made in the middle of the night and those suspected of travelling to sit-ins etc forcibly detained and even prosecuted.

To my mind this mindless kneejerk reaction to the occupation of a couple of shops and the lighting of a few bonfires shows up the essential shallowness and security-obsession of Hayman. The protests after the 500,000-strong march of the TUC were not really violent (a few windows broken, a few fires lit) compared to French or German similar protests or even UK ones of the 1970s or 1960s.

This man's views and attitudes really show what can happen when (as in Russia in the 1930s) the "security and intelligence" bods are given their head. No thanks! It is a question of judgment. Hayman seems to lack judgment. His mass media effluvia seem to prove that.]

[FURTHER ADDENDUM April 2011: I hear on the radio today that some of the victims of the News of the World "telephone hacking" scandal are demanding an inquiry as to why the police investigation was stalled for years, witnesses not interviewed etc etc. It turns out that the police officer in charge for much of that time was...yes that's right, Andy Hayman! Give that man a cee-gar! It also turns out, until today unknown to me, that Hayman, since leaving the police, has been working as an employee of News International, the Rupert Murdoch news organization which owns the...yes that's right, News of the World! Small world...This is the man who wants doors kicked in and people taken away in the middle of the night if they are even suspected of wanting to do things like stage a sit-in the the shops of "sir" philip green, the large-scale Jewish retailer and tax avoider. Perhaps it is time for Mr. Hayman to have HIS door kicked in and for HIM to be dragged away after midnight. Might teach him a lesson or two]

I enjoyed this book more for its content than anything else. It was interesting to read about recent terrorist events that have taken place within the UK and the links between them, the way they were investigated, and the many problems that were faced by the authorities. I was less enamoured with the author's ego. It was all me, me, me, and perhaps ought to be entitled "The Terrorist Hunter". Andy Hayman has successfully managed to give his own views of what was good and what was bad about the investigations, but has unsuccessfully managed to give a balanced account taking into consideration other peoples views. Overall an interesting book, but I would like to hear other's views expressed as well.