"If we accept," he continues, "that Al Qaeda continues to pose a deadly threat to the UK, and if we know that it is capable of changing the locations of its bases and modifying its attack plans, we must accept that we have a duty to question the wisdom of ... the deployment of our forces to Afghanistan. It is time to ask whether the fight against those who are intent on murdering British citizens might better be served by ... (bringing) home the great majority of our fighting men and women and concentrate on using the money saved to secure our own borders, gather intelligence on terrorist activities inside Britain, expand our intelligence operations abroad, co-operate with foreign intelligence services, and counter the propaganda of those who encourage terrorism."
Hallelujah, it's a start. Someone in a high political place seems to realize that what I think of as a multilevel war on Sharia-spreading jihad isn't confined to the sketchy borders of Afghanistan, isn't solved by politically correct fantasies of "nation-building," and, further, is already raging unopposed within the UK itself. This is at least a variation on my call to stop nation-building in the Islamic world and start nation-saving in the Western one.
The resulting reconfiguration of British priorities, Howells believes, would also reconfigure British life: "Life inside the UK would have to change," he writes. "There would be more intrusive surveillance in certain communities, more police officers on the streets, more border officials at harbours and airports, more inspectors of vehicles and vessels entering the country, and a re-examination of arrangements that facilitate the 'free movement' of people and products across our frontiers with the rest of the EU."
Which doesn't sound pretty. Then again, war isn't pretty. And it is the apparent recognition that there is a war on Great Britain being waged from within Great Britain -- a war that "nation-building" in Afghanistan does nothing to stop -- that is the most refreshing element of Howells' proposal.
Will any U.S. politician, preferably from the pro-military, pro-Israel, anti-jihad heart of the GOP, ever think to hurl such a consensus-shattering brick into our own national debate?