Flying Lawyer,
Please don't patronise it does your education and legal training no credit. If you wish to get into a mud slinging contest lets do it via PM.
I do think parents and family members in many cases have an idea of the extremism of their children, zealots are hard to keep quiet, its not like underage drinking or drug taking, quite often these people proclaim their piety and the downfall of the society they live in for anyone who can hear it. Its not hard to recognise and to bring to the attention of others.
If there was some form of reaction as a result of their actions to the people closest I am sure some of them (however not all for the reasons you outlined), but some would think twice knowing that. Draconian yes but you fight fire with fire. I haven't seen any decent alternatives. At the moment the government seem to propogate is community chats and coffee mornings about how we need to understand each other better.
I agree with your assessment of UK foreign policy too, we are no longer a world player, despite Trident and our permament seat at the UN, we lost our oomph after WWII, then again when we followed George to Gulf II. We now have no credability because of one man and our alignment with him.
Things might be different if instead of diluting forces when Osama was cornered in 2002/03 to the Gulf we got him, however things would definetly be different if we finished the job in 1991 when we had a world force and popular support for the Kurds and Shia's in Iraq.
Hindsight is a great thing.
I get confused now if our Army is fighting in the UN colours (Sierra Leone), European Union Force (proposed for Lebanon), NATO (Afganistan) or some other organisation (Iraq).