And yet, it’s clearly run by a bunch of cowardly fucks.

Because they’re terrified, and they want us to be terrified, of a 16 year old with an attitude.

I am not particularly radical, nor do I think that I’m likely to decide to become a suicide bomber at any time soon. But I know for sure that I spent quite a bit of my younger days making things go *boom* just for the hell of it. Apparently I was plenty lucky that the then terrorist bogey man du jour was only regularly killing people, destroying property and generally being bastardish while being white.

Because now that today’s terrorist bogey man du jour is not regularly killing people, not destroying property, being verbally bastardish while not being white, it’s a whole new ball game, and a young fella with a penchant for making things go *boom* can be labelled the UK’s youngest terrorist and have the traditional scary mug shot released¹.

It’s entirely possible that the case against the young fella in question is much stronger than the linked article would suggest, but I’ve heard nothing to suggest it. What the article says is this:

Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist Hammaad Munshi, 18, from Dewsbury, will be sentenced next month.

He was just 16 when he was arrested on his way home from school. Police later found a guide to making napalm on his computer.

You know, when I was 16 a detailed, forensic search of my computer² would have found exactly that sort of information. In a file on the desktop called ‘Ter_Hbok.txt’, if I recall correctly.

Boy, am I glad that that was then and this is now. Otherwise I’d have been in bother, as would the guy who passed said document to be, and the various guys that I passed it on to. Multiple copies were made, you see, and that’s definitely worth upgrading it to a conspiracy.

So, I’m led to one of the following conclusions:

1. I’m actually a terrorist, I just didn’t realise it because I’d not planned, commissioned nor carried out any acts of terror. My singing doesn’t count.
2. The world is sufficiently different, and a seven year campaign with half a dozen attempted strikes is a much bigger threat than a thirty year campaign with thousands of deaths and hundreds of strikes per year.
3. There is much more evidence that we can’t find out about for fear of endangering state intelligence assets. I doubt this, because the government and silly service can’t even keep the fact that they lost a CD secret, let alone a long running intelligence op.
4. The entire thing is a fuckup and an ongoing travesty of justice.

Anyone willing to risk a quid betting on which I think is most likely?

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¹ – Have you ever seen anyone who didn’t look scary in a mug shot? I think that they must take a few hundred photos and just release the worst looking one…

² – You know, like the one that the bastarding 28 day / 42 day / 90 day / indefinite / “let’s just forgo the trial and throw away the key” detention without trial nonsense was supposed to be for. Because you just can’t search a computer in less than that, you know.