After the horror of the New York plane crash on Monday, I'd reached the point where I could hardly bear to watch the TV news any longer. It takes a hell of a lot to make me feel that way - I'm normally a news junkie, always anxious to know what new madness is gripping our home planet.

But for weeks, the news had brought little other than numbing images of destruction, as one of the world's poorest nations suffered through the terrors of war. The air attacks continued in Afghanistan, and it seemed as if there were no positive results to weigh against all the death and destruction they were causing.

Then came the fresh horror of the plane crash on Monday, which looked at first as though it surely had to be another act of mass murder from the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. It also seemed to confirm that things could only get worse.

And then, all of a sudden, the world's TV screens were filled with the most joyous scenes of liberation since the fall of the Berlin Wall. First Mazar-i-Sharif, then Kabul fell to the quaintly-named Northern Alliance, their path to triumph finally cleared by the heavy casualties among the Taleban's troops inflicted by the bombing.

As I write, there are still some pockets of Taleban resistance in the south of Afghanistan, but with the capital city conquered by opposition forces, no-one seriously expects them to last for long. It seems certain that the whole of Afghanistan is now going to be freed from one of the most brutal regimes in living memory.

And what relief that appears to have brought to most of those Afghans lucky enough to have lived to see it. Tuesday's news bulletins brought scenes from the Afghan capital that were - well, gloriously ordinary. Women going out and (gasp!) showing their faces. Men having a shave. Children flying kites. People dancing to music. In Kabul after the defeat of the Taleban, these simple things were accepted with pure joy.

To celebrate the banishing of the Taleban is not in any way to attack Islam. The Taleban represent Islam in much the same way that the American fundamentalists who have recently been sending letters full of fake anthrax spores to abortion clinics represent Christianity. Both represent faith twisted into a cold hatred of anyone who dares to disagree with a narrow dogma. (Curious, isn't it, how those who take religion to insane extremes so often seem to be obsessed with attacking the rights of women?)

Quite what will replace the Taleban in Afghanistan remains very uncertain, and the Northern Alliance's past record on human rights gives plenty of cause for continuing concern. The United Nations faces a difficult task in trying to bring about a government that might bring some peace to that perennially war-torn part of the world. It is, however, fair to say that the new Afghan government won't exactly have a hard act to follow. Life is already much better for the citizens of Kabul. Now that foreign aid will be able to reach them, things should continue to get better.

However, all that said, this is no time for gloating. After the liberation of Kabul, Wednesday's British newspapers contained some ugly triumphalism, even in liberal journals. I dread to think what the tone of the coverage has been like in some of the American media. Many of those commentators who gave the military action unqualified support have been loudly and smugly deriding those of us who have expressed any kind of doubt or reservations about the action. Look, they say, we won! Rejoice - and while you're at it, have a good laugh at all those silly people who prattled on about peace.

But lest we forget, this victory has been bought at the expense of a lot of lives. In Britain this week, we've had Remembrance Day, to honour those who died in past conflicts. America has celebrated Veterans Day. We've remembered those who've made the ultimate sacrifice for our nations in years gone by. But in this week's flag-waving frenzy, some seem to have forgotten that those on both sides who've died in the last few weeks of bombing were real people too. Many of the Taleban troops who were killed in the past few weeks were hurriedly forced to the front line by the Taleban's press gangs when it became obvious that war was inevitable. Perhaps we should ask those who are mourning them exactly how glorious this victory really is.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden is still out there somewhere, and the al-Qaeda network still exists. This thing will not be over even when the defeat of the Taleban is complete. The fact that they no longer impose their merciless rule on Afghanistan is wonderful - but war is still hell, and that should never be forgotten.

Especially since now, with the conflict in Afghanistan apparently almost over, the voices in America calling for the 'War On Terrorism' to move on to new fronts in Iraq and elsewhere will doubtless grow louder, emboldened by the taste of victory. I desperately hope that the voices of reason will prevail against them.

It's richly ironic that, just as many people in Afghanistan are having some human rights restored, we in Britain are having some of ours taken away. Home Secretary David Blunkett has announced a wide-ranging set of 'anti-terrorism' measures, including new powers for foreign nationals to be detained without trial. Blunkett has declared the UK to be in a state of public emergency in order to make this possible. hat was the only way in which such draconian measures could be introduced without contravening the European Convention on Human Rights.

The new legislation is, we're told, designed to close a current loophole in the law that could conceivably help a terrorist. In most cases, anyone arriving in the UK and suspected of involvement in terrorist activity would simply be deported back to their country of origin. But international legislation rightly forbids such action where there is a likelihood that the potential deportee could be killed or tortured upon return to their homeland.

So, under Blunkett's proposals, someone in that situation will be allowed to stay in the UK, but will be imprisoned. They will be detained for as long as the home secretary sees fit, subject only to a six-mothly review by a supposedly independent commission; and neither the detainee or the public will be allowed to know on what evidence the Home Secretary has acted.

Why, I wonder, does Blunkett believe that the introduction of internment without trial will work properly this time, when all recent experience of its use in Britain suggests otherwise? During the 1970s, it was used in an earlier 'war on terrorism': the one against the IRA. It was claimed at the time that internment would be used sparingly and selectively, and that the authorities knew exactly who they needed to put out of circulation. Blunkett is now promising the same thing.

But thousands of people passed through the Northern Irish internment camps, and the IRA weren't stopped. Internment did have an effect, though: it greatly increased the anger within the Catholic community, when many of its number were imprisoned without trial and without real reason. Unless the new legislation is used with great care, it may well end up having a similarly inflammatory effect on the Muslim communities in Britain.

It seems inevitable that this legislation will pass through Parliament, given that the Government has most of its MPs firmly whipped into compliance and the Opposition is keen to be seen to support the war effort in every possible way. But if internment is used as clumsily by the Blair administration as it has been by past UK governments, the consequences could be very serious indeed.

It might be thought that every possible accusation had been made against Osama bin Laden since September 11. But a new book, 'Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of Terror', make a shocking new allegation. The author, Adam Robinson, claims that bin Laden is an Arsenal supporter.

The book alleges that bin Laden became a fan of the north London soccer club when he lived in London during the early 1990s, regularly went to matches - and even bought a replica shirt.

Strange as it might sound at first, that makes some sense. For a start, Arsenal are nicknamed 'The Gunners', which might have appealed to someone with Osama's taste for warfare.

And in those days, Arsenal were notoriously negative and boring to watch. Could it be that it was hour upon hour of tedium at Highbury Stadium that made bin Laden bitter and twisted enough to turn to terrorism? The 1990s Gunners' infamous offside trap could have a lot more to answer for than just countless spoiled Saturday afternoons

Ormondroyd

16.11.01. Front Page

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