John Lettice in The Register calmly points out how so much ‘anti-terrorist’ activity and supposed ‘terrorist threat’ arises from the dogs of war chasing their own tails:
Real terror cases and claimed terror plots frequently include plans to attack major public buildings, tall buildings (e.g. Canary Wharf), international airports, and references to CBRN weapons use. Few if any of those that have been “frustrated” or documented so far include convincing plans (even plans, full stop) for actually mounting the attacks, sourcing the deadly poisons and constructing the weapons. Transcripts meanwhile are peppered with lurid and unfeasible attack ideas (often sounding uncannily like the sort of thing a mouthy teenager would say to impress his mates) and references to ‘terror manuals’ which often turn out to be dodgy survivalist poison recipes and/or the ubiquitous Encyclopaedia of Jihad which, as it includes references to tall buildings, is a handy fall-back if the prosecution is in want of a target list.
Meanwhile we have testimony from an amateur bomber that makes it pretty clear how coherent the ‘mouthy teenager’ Islamist ideology and planning is:
He says non-Muslims of Britain “deserve to be attacked” because they voted for a government which “continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya.”
Jabbing his finger emphatically, he warns: “What have you witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq and until you stop your financial and military support to America and Israel.”
(From The Guardian)
This quote no longer appears on the BBC site. Maybe they think it is somehow persuasive. But the misconceptions that Blair’s government can have any influence on the Russians in Chechnya, that it oppresses (rather than in fact succouring) the Palestinians, or that it provides financial support to either Israel or the US, ought to show how clueless these guys are about the real world. As should the idea that bombing the general population can make any difference to the policy of a state. (What touching faith in democracy!) As should the empty braggadocio of continuing, stronger, attacks. Compare that with what we’ve actually seen: outside the Middle East only wildly sporadic and variable isolated actions.
Unfortunately, if there’s anything more stupid than Mr Tanweer it is the fear-frenzy of the mainstream media. What has been continuing and strengthening is fuss and panic. A fevered but entirely vacuous piece by Gordon Correra, BBC Security Correspondent says: “Shehzad Tanweer’s videotape provides more evidence linking the London bombers to al-Qaeda.” Er, no it does not. It provides evidence for the not very shocking hypotheses that videotapes made for purposes of self-satisfaction can travel almost anywhere in a year, that post production is cheap and easy these days, and that the chief function of ‘al-Qaeda’ is as a brand-name. Mr Correra has spent too much time reading ‘security’ briefings and too little considering celebrity sex tapes. A clip in a video package of someone drawing a circle on a map has more worldwide effect than any physical activity in a real place, just as watching Paris Hilton, et al., has led to more considerably more sexual stimulation than they could ever have achieved personally.
This isn’t a clash of civilisations; it is a clash of fantasists. It is just a pity that both sides have some capacity to do real harm to the peaceful lives of non-players.
Strange you dont give any argument. Just a rant.
On which point would you like more argument, pray?
Go along with Guy here.
We need to act to prevent violence by the nutters; I don’t want to see people killed and injured, and property destroyed, for a lunatic and supremist ideology, but the danger to our way of life, even to Enlightenment Civilisation itself, comes not from those who wish us harm, even basic half-arsed policing can cope with those, but from those, within our civilisation, who seek to appease. Especially those who do so even before any offence has been expressed.
Thanks for the support, but…
I don’t think that’s what I was saying, Chris. I think the appeasers of the headbangers do bear some responsibility, yes, but the comment on the Beeb was a sideswipe. My main venom is against those on both sides (as they see it) who would destroy our open society in the random pursuit of an eternal global war that doesn’t exist.
… which is to say that half-arsed policing is indeed enough. There’s nothing new. The rules of the game have not changed. It is just that it suits the kneejerk – or just jerk – totalitarians on every corner to foster chiliastic beliefs.
My main venom is against those on both sides (as they see it) who would destroy our open society in the random pursuit of an eternal global war that doesn’t exist.
It’s pretty clear to me that the ‘eternal global war’ crowd consists of 1) some nutters on the Islamic side who are actively trying to fight such a conflict, and 2) people in western countries who are saying “hey, there are some Islamic nutters who are trying to kill us”.
The thing I don’t get is the people who deny that there are islamic nutters trying to kill us.
Absolutely. I am somewhat intrigued by a psychiatric study I read some time ago about an analysis of the Guantanamo inmates where they found that the vast majority lack most, if not all, basic social skills, suffer from chronic insecurity and could be best described as significantly underdeveloped in maturity, to the point of including thumb-sucking and bedwetting. Given that the same can probably be levelled at the 4 imbeciles (in a medical sense) from the 7th July last year – including Shehzad Tanweer – and quite probably from the 21st July attempted bombers, this would tie quite nicely with the fantasist angle.
Spot on, Guy.
I think few would deny that the fanatics exist, and that they can do locally severe and semi-random harm.
Losing ever-increasing amounts of our personal freedoms in response is outrageous.
Invading whole countries to stop the fanatics (many of whom are home-grown) seems a mis-directed response at best, and viciously counter-productive at worst, to me.
I continue to support the initial intervention in Afghanistan, because there was an entire regime that was clearly identifiable as sheltering and actively supporting bin Laden et al. They trumpeted the fact. The reasons why we are still there are becoming increasingly muddy, now that the Taliban is toppled.
Iraq, as a “war on terror” move, makes no sense at all, whatever the humanitarian or realpolitik arguments there may be.
Would you agree with that?
Why are we interested in what a murderer from Leeds says on a video? If the Yorkshire Ripper ever takes the trouble to provided us with a video telling us why he committed his crimes will any of us regard what he says as justification for his actions?
John Lettice has indeed written a most excellent article in The Register.
It’s long: 3 on-line Register pages and 5.5 printed A4 sheets. Also, some of the best bits of his analysis come near the end (paragraphs 23 onwards out of the 25).
For those who care about what should be done, and how our police and intelligence organisations should do it, it’s well worth finding the time for a proper read.
Guy’s other link There’s nothing new also makes interesting reading. I’m sure Numberwatch also has something to say concerning there will always be a bigger badder terrorist attrocity, eventually but who knows when, no matter how bad the last one was and no matter how hard we work to stop it.
So let’s get on with the compromise of life, having set in motion the best compromise of protection: using the best guys and gals we have, properly using the best technological aids available, and treating the uninformed and unintelligent hysterical with all the respect they deserve (whether or not they be leading politicians and journalists and whether or not they be seemingly calm in their hysteria).
Best regards
Guy
Agreed that we need to be careful not to let extremists on both sides dictate the agenda to the detriment of the majority, however I cant agree with any implication that the threat is being overblown. I think it is deadly, real and on a global as well as local level. More disturbingly, it is an ideaology that sees death as the object of life and something to be celebrated as opposed to say Nazism, which celebrated Germanic culture as one to strive and live for. I am basing my opinion on at least these facts:
1 Last year there were 53 people murdered in a terrorist strike in central London by 4 UK citizens, all radicalised muslims. This was the worst terrorist attack in the UK’s history outside wartime.
2 The recent Populus poll found that 13% of the local muslim population regarded the London 4 as ‘martyrs’. That’s approximately 155,000 citizens. Lets say only 1% of these are actively planning attacks – that’s still 1550 citizens. It took less to bring down the Twin Towers.
3 Tanweer and Kahn met with Al-Zwahiri, the Al-Qaeda no 2 in Pakistan prior to carrying out the attack.
4 Scotland Yard have advised that they have disrupted about 70 active plots in the last year alone.
5 Extremists within islam have had the UK, as well as the major western powers, firmly in their sights since the early 1990s.
6 Iraq and Afghanistan are an attempt to take the fight into the radicals backyard. This has not gone perfectly, no venture of this kind ever does, however it will have diverted quite a few home grown radicals to that part of the world and not here. Even if we had not gone there, the radicals within our country would have found other reasons to justify their actions, which in their minds are aimed at pleasing Allah.
I think that we should be very reluctant to start questioning whether the threat is imagined or real. It is obviously real and we need to be vigilant, rather than fearful. We will be seeing worse atrocities in the coming years, using more deadly weapons and we simply have to prepare ourselves for that. At the same time, we need to be careful of succumbing to the fearmongers and rabid haters (especially in the press) as well as the manipulators in government who seek to exploit the situation for their own ends.
Great time to be alive, aint it?
Ted,
Addressing your points 1,2,3 and 6:
Taking the fight into the radicals backyard directly caused (according to their own testimony) “the worst terrorist incident in the UK outside wartime”. So, it was a bad move, in those terms. Al Q’aida probably didn’t exist in Iraq before 2003. It sure does now. The domestic Islamic population in the UK also seems radicalised by that.
Regarding #4 – they say that, true. We have no evidence, so who knows? If it is true, it merely re-inforces my point. If it is not, it re-inforces Guy’s basic argument.
Regarding #5 – that may be true, but if so it is because of the West’s support for Israel, the House of Al Saud, etc, at least according to the militants themselves. Those issues are about the West “interfering” in the Middle East (I don’t suggest that interference was necessarily wrong). If we (the West) were to cease interfering, I expect the incidents of terrorism would be less frequent. I don’t say that we should, but we at least ought to acknowledge the motivation behind this terrorism, not assume it is some sort of religious war or “clash of civilizations”, inevitable and to the death.
John
John
You havent adressed 1,2,3 & 6. Anyway your points are well made. I agree that we shouldn’t see it as a clash of civilisations, with the caveat that the ‘other side’ most certainly do.
As for Iraq, I dont believe that conclusive statements about the success or failure of the mission can be made after only 2 1/2 years. Personally I think the Iraqis will make a great success of the democracy and that the insurgency will peter out, over about 10-12 years.
Cheers
Ted
I think few would deny that the fanatics exist, and that they can do locally severe and semi-random harm.
I think one’s attitude would change drastically if one were personally close to the ‘locally severe and semi-random harm’.
I lived in the part of Montreal that was targeted by Front de Liberation de Quebec terrorists and I walked past a mail box pushing a pram with a baby in it and holding the hand of a toddler seconds before it exploded.
The blast threw me to the ground, overturned the pram…and need I go on.
I will never forget the incident and shudder to think what the outcome would have been had I been beside the mail box.
However, the incident has left me convinced that we have to deal with this kind of evil and subsequent attacks on our civil society in the most draconian way. Talk and speculation about motives is jusr useless.
Summary executions for the perpetrators rather than nice-nice trials where they and their apologists try to justify the crimes just won’t do the trick to rid us of these murdering thugs.
In world war 2 in 5 years – 60 000 british civillians were killed by axis forces.
in the ‘war on terror’ in 5 years – what 250 british civillians killed
less than are killed every year on the roads
lets lock up motorists with out charge – indefinatly
John Ellis says al-Quaeda was not present in Iraq before 20o3, which may be true, but it is surely not the case that islamic terror groups were not operating or at least looking to operate there before the invasion began? And let’s be clear, even on his own admission, Saddam gave money and support to terror groups, such as Hamas. There is also continuing evidence that at some level, Saddam did seek to enlist the support of terror groups long before his fall from power. So I don’t buy the argument from some quarters that had the Iraq war not happened, the terrorists would have left us in peace. That’s silly.
Invading Iraq may have infuriated some Islamists, but then leaving him in power with a failed sanctions regime also was adding to tensions. In fact, nothing short of total withdrawal of all military and civilian forces from the region will appease these folk, and even then they might find another reason for their mayhem. And complete withdrawal is not possible for moral and strategic reasons. Why should we pack up the Western oil industry because it upsets these bastards?
We cannot let Israel be destroyed, which is surely one of the Islamist goals, or let the Kurds and other groups be destroyed, either, simply to buy a temporary respite.
Guy’s original article is excellent. Now is not a time for panic. I do agree with the broad thrust of Ted’s remarks to the effect that we must remain vigilant.
rgds
Alex
Your point is what, exactly? No doubt someone like you would have said the same thing from 1933-1939, while Hitler rounded up and started murdering people in Germany. British casualties during this period? Zero. Did that make him any less of a threat to England during 1933-1939? No – although only Churchill and his people were the ones warning the population. People like you would no doubt have sided with Chamberlain who constantly doubted the threat was real and even believed peace ahd been achieved after his absurd meeting with Hitler in 1938.
Take lessons from history – unelected maniacs do exist, they do take control of nation states and mass populations and they do take war to other nations. Think Kim Jong Il, as well as Asmadasahatta in Iran. If we dont take the present threat seriously, there will be far more than a ‘mere’ 250 deaths in 5-10 years.
I’m not denying that there are people out to attack the British public but….
We win the war on terror by NOT being terrorised into destroying our own freedoms especially when the threat to life and property is statistically very very low.
At the rate they’re going it would take 240 years to cause as many deaths as the Nazis and the German state caused in WW2.
And while Churchill is being bandied about, I think he would have been horrified by all the ridiculous new legislation that has been brought forward.
One only has to read 1984 to understand the dangers of open ended ‘wars’. Was it not Hitler himself who used trumped up terrorism worries to cement himself in power and pass the enabling law.
Some of the powers ministers could give themselves in times of self declared ‘emergencies’ are rather reminiscent of those which Hitler chose for himself.
I’m sorry to rant on but this really gets me going!
You know how it was reported that when Zarquawi was found hemorrhaging in the ditch outside his bombed house? And it was reported that he said “something” but no one would say what it was?
It was said to be “unintelligible”. But a blogger has contacted one of the men on the forensic detail that helicoptered in and came down ropes to secure the bombed building and who first found the severely injured Zarkman and put him on a stretcher.
So what was it that Z-man said… his last words?
The blogger said the the soldier who was there told him Z-man’s last words were : “This isn’t a clash of civilisations; it is a clash of fantasists.”
So there you have it folks. Straight out of the horse’s mouth. The rise of Islamist Fundamentaslism and the threat it poses to the world is not real. It’s all a fantasy. So you can all travel about London safely now in the full knowledge that it’s all in people’s heads. All this talk about killing the “infidel” with bombs and deadly poison ricin is merely schoolboy/playground bravado.
Sorry i miscaluculated it should have read
1200 years !
Alex
Churchill would have been horrified by the use of legislation as a tool to bring down a threat such as this. He wouldnt have needed legislation and would have rounded up those whom he deemed to be suspicious, closed down radicalised mosques and deported anyone who was suspicious and here illegally. They would have all been muslims and no one would have said a word. We can be thankful that an attempt is being made to enact legislation to take genuine threats off the street, as well as to protect those people who are not genuine threats.
Stop trying to assess the nature of a threat by mathematical calculations regarding deaths caused. It is a cynical way of looking at things. Put it this way, if Hitler had gained access to atom bombs as planned in 1943, his toll would have increased dramatically. If the current ideological nuts could have access to WMD, they will also use them. They are tempered by the national and international security measures in place, their very limited access (at this stage) to bomb-making equipment – and by a vigilant public. Take any of these measures away and they will seize the opportunity to cause widespread death. And that is no fantasy.
Hear, hear, Alex. Me too.
Perhaps it’s also a clash of uncivilizations, with inchoate bands of savages on the fringes casting around for excuses to outdo the other in barbarism, on the ground the other is really nasty. Let’s hope “our” savages don’t get a real grip on policy. The heavyhandedness and self-justifying charges of the anti-terror police will look like the kindly rule of law if Samsung gets to organise his own swaggering teenage thugs into death-squads.
Ted,
The would-be terrorist’s effectiveness is generally limited by his own incompetence and unimagination, not shortness of means.
Guy – thanks for the patronising message. If you really want to know, you come across as naive and out of touch, as well as being an insufferable snob.
You are so paranoid that even in a time of crisis, all you can think about is the state’s foot permanently stamping on all of our faces. Ergo, the state is simply using any opportunity it can to keep doing it, including scaring innocent fools like me by inventing and conflating fake threats. Well, I have lived all over the world and I can tell you that the UK is about as far away from a totalitarian state as you can get. If you want centralised control, go and live in France. If you want to experience real dicatorship, go to Syria. But don’t lecture me about the UK being anywhere near either. It is one of the freest, most tolerant states in the world – if not the most free and tolerant.
I can also tell you that the threat from radicalised islam is about as real as you can get – in your face, personal and deadly – although judging by the ‘polite discussions’ and dinner parties (see photos on this site) that make up some of the Samizdata crowd, it is most unlikely that you will ever have to confront the threat, understand it or to take it seriously. Best leave that to the anti-terror police, whom you then slag for making raids based on actionable intelligence. And – pass the wine – you can always have a good laugh at the poor dim proles.
Just admit it – you dont think there is a threat and believe that the ‘war on terror’ is a fiction made up by politicians desperate for more control over the populace. I know I must be wrong and intellectually inferior to your good self, as must the entire security services of the western powers and the anti-terror police. Good to know that you are right, Guy, being such an expert in the area and all…
Most sensible people have worked out by now that the London 4 were hardly lacking in imagination, competence or means. Neither are the many terrorists planning mayhem in the UK right now. The London 4 were intimately linked with Al-Qaeda and knew exactly what they are doing. They even went on a motivation/teamwork weekend – kayaking in Wales.
If you want to keep living in dreamland, that’s your problem, but today my thoughts are with the 7/7 victims and with the anti-terror police who are closing down terror plots weekly (70 in the last year alone). And might I suggest having a little more respect for people who come to this site, who have something to say as valid as yourself and who, on this occassion, are actually more on point than you.
Ciao and good luck with the site
Ted
Guy
I don’t know you whether you call this a clash of civilisations (for what ‘civilisation’ does fundamentalist Islam represent?) but it most certainly is not a ‘clash of fantasists.’
The threat posed by radical Islamists is very real and most importantly, is co-ordinated. Ted makes some excellent points and no-one has intelligently argued a single one.
If you are not concerned by the feeble efforts of individual Islamic terrorists operating in this country, then be very concerned by a nuclear Iran, a newly Islamified Somalia, Pakistan post-Musharraf, Syria etc etc.
I agree wholeheartedly with Ted. If you want to see a fantasist, then just hold up a mirror.
The issue I initially responded to was principly the comment made that the global struggle against Islamist extremism is but a fantasy. What utter nonsense.
We have been here before with this fanciful theory. A couple of years ago the BBC aired “The Power Of Nightmares” by Adam Curtis who’s thesis was that the threat by Islamist fundamentalist terrorism was merely an illusion. It wasn’t based upon reality, but a threat concocted to scare us all. An eccentric idea.
It has become fashionable (amongst some) to argue that any danger we may face is the consequence of our own overreactions and vivid imaginations. It’s merely a conspiracy theory that the threat of Islamist terror has been deliberately and artificially created. It’s all a fantasy. It’s not real, right?
If, upon your travels in and around the Metropolis, you are ever unfortunate enough in the future to be an innocent victim of a Jihadi terrorist incident, courtesy of Islamist fundamentalism. And after the loud bang and the smoke clears a little, you look down to see your own legs blown off and the blood flowing out. Just say to yourself, “This isn’t real. It’s merely a fantasy. All these threats are in people’s heads”.
I suppose Ted is no longer listening, but in case anyone else is:
Just admit it – you dont think there is a threat and believe that the ‘war on terror’ is a fiction made up by politicians desperate for more control over the populace.
Yes; I do think there is a threat, but I judge it is less a threat in mainland Britain than that posed by the IRA from 1970 to 1998 (not that the IRA has completely vanished). It’s much more like the Red Brigades, et al.
Do I think it is coordinated worldwide by a para-state called ‘Al-Qaeda’? No. That I surmise is a collective fantasy, sustained by states that can’t envisage terrorism as a fashion, an endorsed brand and an emergent phenomenon, and by the trend-surfing of the Islamist propagandists, who rather like the Marxian revolutionaries of yore, claim every local squabble for The Revolution. Much more like the Red Brigades, et al.
Do I think it is invented by the state to justify repression and control? No. Do I think it is taken by the state as an opportunity to justify repression and control? Absolutely.
But I don’t think that’s conscious for the most part. The securocrats sincerely believe that by building their empires and casting down constitutional barriers to their powers they are doing good, and fighting evil. In this the War on Terror is identical with the War on Drugs. They are in good faith, but they promote evil more surely than the bombers and beheaders on their own can do.
Most of the evil in the world is people trying to do good by force. If someone wants to blow out a fire with pure oxygen, should I stand by and let him try because he means well by it?
be very concerned by a nuclear Iran, a newly Islamified Somalia, Pakistan post-Musharraf, Syria etc etc.
I am. (At least by some of them.) I’m one of those who questioned supporting the Afghan mujeheddin against the Soviets, and was worrying about Saudi missonary diplomacy in the 80s.
Our freedom is our security. And it is the biggest threat to the Islamists. Degrade it and we are worse off both ways. I agree that for two or three centuries Britain has been always been one of the free-est countries in the world, and maybe it still is. But I say the ship is sinking: you say the boat-deck is dry and I should be grateful.
Samsung,
I’m glad we agree on something, that Adam Curtis’s thesis is idiotic.
Guy
There is one trifling difference between Islamism and the Red Brigades. The latter had maybe a few hundred supporters, the former tens of millions.
I agree that there is no global co-ordinator of terrorism but I view Al Qaeda more as a franchisor. It probably has no input into the individual acts of terrorism but provides the ideological justification for ‘martyrdom’.
Does anyone who contemplates the prospect really think that Saddam wouldn’t have gone on to develop nuclear weapons once the inspectors had gone? Does anyone think Iran wouldn’ t have responded? And how about Libya and Syria? The “fantasy” of a nuclear-armed Saddam – who himself was the worst kind of terrorist – in and of itself justified, in fact, required, the liberation of Iraq. To say otherwise is the most arrant Pollyannaism.
The latter had maybe a few hundred supporters, the former tens of millions.
Not so sure that the scale is very different. We shouldn’t confuse active bombers and their supporters with ideologically committed fellow-travellers and non-ideological sympathisers of various degrees. In the think-their-actions-could-be-justified category in the 70s you’d have to put all the 10s or 100s of millions of leftist students and trades unionists, the rainbow of worldwide Ché-worshippers, a lot of “non-alligned” anti-western governments and their rent-a-mobs, and the loose cannon fringes of the Communist empires. And see here.
I just delivered a bunch of anti-ID leaflets to an SWP person I know who is doing the Marxism 2006 conference this weekend. He tells me they have 1700 student registrations. Nice chap in person though he is, and allies though we are on that particular question, I still think the revolutionary left are scary. In the same business as the Islamists – and they cultivate each other. The attendees at that conference would have the same views on the US and Israel as the unsainted Tanweer.
But it’s about the same thing in the West and the westernised East: The disaffected middle-class scion with more education than critical intelligence, and a disappointed sense of his/her importance in the world is the terrorist here. He or she is a malcontent in the Jacobean sense, and likewise to be gratified by blood as evidence of significance.
I don’t know of a sociological/demographic study of Palestinian suicide bombers and I’d be grateful for anyone who can point me to one, but here’s a guess: 16-25; 3 to 1 male to female; in education, or just finished, at date of termination (i.e. not actually professional cadres in the militant organisation); parents professional or merchant class – not labourers; lively and popular, head boys and head girls or equivalent…
–financial and military support to America and Israel.”—
?????
Britain owns about 1/3 of US, don’t you guys?
Where else are they going to put their money?
I should answer Ted’s substantive original points, which I haven’t had time for before:
I cant agree with any implication that the threat is being overblown. I think it is deadly, real and on a global as well as local level.
Evidently. But that does not mean it is not being overblown. It is less deadly, and in many respects (though not all), less real than is often suggested.
More disturbingly, it is an ideaology that sees death as the object of life and something to be celebrated as opposed to say Nazism, which celebrated Germanic culture as one to strive and live for.
I don’t agree. There is a death-cult, to be sure, but I don’t think it is coherent or sees death as the object of life. I don’t even agree that there is a single ideology, though there is a common psychopathology that various Islamist cults exploit.
1 Last year there were 53 people murdered in a terrorist strike in central London by 4 UK citizens, all radicalised muslims. This was the worst terrorist attack in the UK’s history outside wartime.
If you don’t count Lockerbie. That’s contingency. David Copeland was unlucky; the 9/11 hijackers were lucky.
2 The recent Populus poll found that 13% of the local muslim population regarded the London 4 as ‘martyrs’. That’s approximately 155,000 citizens.[…]
Not strictly true. It was lower in the southeast than in other regions of the country, at 9%. The national average was 13%. The poll (see here) distribution is quite weird, and one wonders if that indicates that respondents may have had difficulties interpreting the question: “The 7/7 bombers should be considered martyrs. Do you agree strongly, or somewhat, neither disagree or agree, disagree somwhat, disagree strongly.” Older respondents were none of them in the middle, and the figures for “The 7/7 bombers were acting in accordance with the true principles of Islam,” asked immediately before, were much, much lower, with only 6% agreeing even somewhat.
Lets say only 1% of these are actively planning attacks – that’s still 1550 citizens. It took less to bring down the Twin Towers.
Who were lucky. (And it could never be done again.) I refer you to the notorious Baader Meinhoff poll. The Red Army faction had a dozen-and-a-half actives but 10% of young Germans said they might (theoretically) shelter them.
3 Tanweer and Kahn met with Al-Zwahiri, the Al-Qaeda no 2 in Pakistan prior to carrying out the attack.
Evidence for this is thin. The idea of there being an al-Qaeda no 2 in anywhere is part of the presumptive construct of a heirarchy. And in any case meeting is not instruction. I’ve met Brian on a few occasions (at notorious libertarian training camps), and admire him. We share some lunatic fringe ideas and no doubt are dangerous in our own ways. But that doesn’t mean I do what he tells me or that he plots my activities for me.
4 Scotland Yard have advised that they have disrupted about 70 active plots in the last year alone.
But what does that mean? See the John Lettice piece. How much of this is artefact of investigation? How many distinct groups have been charged with anything that I would recognise as a real offence? (I.e. not a “terrorism” offence.) And against those how many charges are more than vapour? (You will recall that the “ricin plotters” were charged with real 19th and 20th century offences, albeit inchoate. The trouble was there was no actual evidence of any ricin or any plot – never mind a practicable one.) And how many are as implausible as the ‘osmium tetroxide on the tube’ (press) release?
5 Extremists within islam have had the UK, as well as the major western powers, firmly in their sights since the early 1990s.
That’s less a fact than a tautology. It’s rather what makes them Islamist extremists. The Muslim Brotherhood has had its focus on ‘corrupting Western influences’ for a few decades longer than that.
6 Iraq and Afghanistan are an attempt to take the fight into the radicals backyard.
That’s not how I read them. I submit neither was intended as a soak-off, and that they came about for different reasons. Iraq in particular was a grand-strategic mistake which I agreed with. Our naive assumption was that pre-war Iraqi secularism was a well-founded attribute of Mesapotamian society on which Saddam’s dictatorship was overlaid, and that were he overthrown a civil society might emerge. That might have been possible with more competent post-war planning, but we’ll never know.
This has not gone perfectly, no venture of this kind ever does, however it will have diverted quite a few home grown radicals to that part of the world and not here.
Er, no. It has gone really rather badly. But there’s no evidence that the Iraqi insurgents would have gone anywhere else, let alone come here. Hunting has little effect on fox numbers, and it doesn’t drive them into chicken-coops either. Civil disorder in the marches is a the natural habitat of guerillas and warlords. They breed there.
Even if we had not gone there, the radicals within our country would have found other reasons to justify their actions, which in their minds are aimed at pleasing Allah.
Quite probably. though that has no bearing whatsoever on the seriousness of the issue. See Malcontents.
I think that we should be very reluctant to start questioning whether the threat is imagined or real.
On the contrary, we should always question the degree and ways in which it is real, and degree and ways in which it is imaginary.
It is obviously real and we need to be vigilant, rather than fearful.
To the extent it is real, then I agree with you… to the extent that vigilance is useful. One can’t waste one’s entire life watching for the nutters. Not every precaution in the name of ‘security,’ even when addressing some past actual event, is justified. No ronin bodyguard for every Liberal Democrat MP. In fact, few are.
We will be seeing worse atrocities in the coming years, using more deadly weapons and we simply have to prepare ourselves for that.
Maybe. Maybe not. In the long run there will almost certainly be something bigger. And, though I doubt the weapons will be more intrinsically deadly, someone may come up with a working example of something more calculated to play on public fears. (There are several relatively straightforward, cheap, ways to do this that seem obvious to me, but I’m not about to give anyone any ideas.)
Ted, I have been a bit busy at work, and I apologise for not replying to you before this. However, I see trhat Guy has made several posts in the meantime, and has most recently addressed each of your points in turn. His answers stand for me, at least 99%.
Guy, I admire your admission that you initially supported the Iraq invasion, and now doubt it. My position too. My reasons were that Gulf War I provided a legal pretext (ceasefire violation) and that Saddam was a Bad Boy. None of this WMD/War on Terror bull**** that was fed to the masses.
What were the reasons for your initial support, may I ask?
John
“Yes; I do think there is a threat, but I judge it is less a threat in mainland Britain than that posed by the IRA from 1970 to 1998 (not that the IRA has completely vanished). It’s much more like the Red Brigades, et al. ”
————————————–
The Islamit threat isnt only against England and attacks in many parts of the World can affect England.
The IRA had to face the UK army and loyalists directly that wasted many IRA resources.
The IRA didnt had bodies, resources and and a very extensive international support base. Some localised contacts with Kadhafi, palestinians and other leftists groups, some USA money and that’s all.
IRA didnt had a messianic appeal ideology that proposed to change the world.
IRA didnt had resources to indoctrinate hundred thousands of children.
IRA werent suicidal maniacs
UK army and loyalists were directly fighting IRA. There wasnt many IRA sanctuaries to talk about. There are many places where Islamists can ressuply, train and rest.
“As should the idea that bombing the general population can make any difference to the policy of a state”
It can. After Madrid train bombings, the government is surrendering to terrorists instead of fighting them.
They try to make people think that jihadism is caused by western goverments, that they will do us no harm if we don’t attack them. Unfortunately, in some countries too much people is buying into that idea.
When your survival is at stake, ypu put down your freedoms, you pick up your sword. When the fight is over, you put down your sword, and pick up your freedoms again.
We just need to remember the second part.
Well, as usual, loads of chatter, mostly of the Prof. Joad variety. Back to basics:
There are people out there who want to kill you. They clearly have supporters & helpers in their community while others are simply in tacit agreement. Their assurances of loyalty, because their faith accepts mendacity in its promotion & defence, are utterly meaningless. This is very serious stuff indeed. They pursue a ‘no holds barred’ concept of which Goebbels would have been proud. Time you considered the same policy.
… When the fight is over …
I’ll just be glad if the governments ever intend this part to happen.
Rich
TWG, permanent expat,
The idea that there is a single threat that can be totally eradicated, but until then we have to bear any cost in moralty and freedom, and that much of it is hidden because of the unique wicked cunning of a seemingly pacific enemy, is indeed a conception worthy of Dr Goebbels. It is, as you correctly point out, the position of the enemies of civilization. It is the core of the problem, not the label attached to the eternal enemy. (Christians, pagans, heretics, Muslims, heretics again, witches, Capitalists, Jews, western corrupters of the Ummah, ooh look – Muslims again!) I shall not be adopting it any time soon.
As I’ve pointed out above, millennarian terrorism is nothing new, and will continue to appeal to the same sorts of people when all this seems like minor disturbance in the distant past. And too the temptation to exhibit a few actual, enemies as representing a fundamental transformation of the world and its division into two camps, either with us or against us, will survive into the far future. There’s always going to be someone offering eternal war for eternal peace, and they are always going to be wrong.
lucklucky,
I don’t think you’ve observed the same Irish conflict I have. The IRA (and all sorts of splintered sectarian factions) contrived to be dangerous and find support and succour at home and overseas (notably from the US, as Loyalist extremists did too). We still can’t extradite Irish terrorists from the ‘States.
If you’d like another example consider ETA in Spain.
Which, rakras, is arguably the key factor in the political effect of the Madrid bombings. The Aznar government’s immediate reaction was to try to pretend it must have been ETA and could not possibly have been Islamic fanatics. I think I would have voted Socialist faced with such gross dishonesty.
It would be comforting to understand what is meant by disrupting a terrorist a plot. If the security services intercept a message saying “Wouldn’t it be great to blow up the houses of parliament,” and then hack into the sender’s hotmail account and change his password so he cannot communicate through that account, does that count?
But RA…. wondering what things mean is just Joadian chatter. Far better to extirpate anything and anyone in society that might be useful to the enemy and ask questions later.
Don’t ask, how much later? Don’t ask, how much of our free society we should destroy? Nor, how will we know when sufficient liberty, humanity and treasure has been got out of the way that we are properly ‘safe’ and can afford to be civilized again?
Stop wasting time by asking questions. Trust the authorities. They are experts. They know best. They say so, so it must be true.
Guy: I’m fully aware that there’s always ‘terrorism’ somewhere. There will always be terrorism. There will always be ‘global warming’ (and cooling, econazis) because it’s cyclical. But there won’t always be an England if current rules continue to apply. Once the appeasers had ‘sort-of’ admitted the error of their ways, WW2 was prosecuted with whatever means we had because we knew our lives depended on it. Very nasty things happened (KZs, Coventry, Plymouth, Hamburg, Dresden) which today evoke much mea culpaing. So be it. Read the bold again.
I have said here, many times, that our current clear & present danger is greater…and more insidious than ’39-’45. We are weaker & irresolute today. There weren’t too many folk all those years ago naïve enough to think we should have ‘integrated’ the Nazis.
Not all Germans were Nazis……but they went along with it. Not all Muslims are jihadists, but……….
It’s about time we got our act together……….and stopped the shameful slagging of our allies.
Our lives are in danger from terrorists, of course – just not very much danger. That doesn’t mean we should do nothing, but it is not reasonable to go much out of our way.
Our way of life, on the other hand is in a great deal of danger, but the terrorists don’t threaten it one bit. Maybe they’d like to, but actually it threatens them. Though the strong frequently rely on terror to assert their power, “terrorism” as usually understood (and suicide bombing in particular) is a weapon of the weak.
Guy: Just substitute the word ‘terrorist/s’ with ‘Nazis’ & it’s possible, though doubtful, you may have a small rethink. Your first para. could have been uttered by Neville Chamberlain (PBUH)……I also find it a tad unfeeling towards those who have lost those they love.
And yes, suicide bombing is a weapon of the weak (& desperate). It will doubtless cease when the benefits of Dr.Khan’s generosity seep into the terrorist community or they finally get their chemistry right…or both.
I find your insouciance quite incredible.
My first paragraph is not a deduction, it is a judgment. The premise would be informed by the facts, and I see no evidence of terrorists building an airforce or even being very significantly organised. I see no evidence that these terrorists are very different from any other bunch, as explained at length above.
There may even be reason to believe that, just as the non-existence of a civil sphere apart from religion appears to have hamstrung some Islamic societies, their rather weird ideology may make them less effective as terrorists than the various nationalist and revolutionary movements that they are socially comparable with.
If the facts change, then I shall change my mind. If you tell me my beliefs about policy should depend on how strongly other people feel about things, and their level of emotional distress, then that’s an argument for banning the cartoons and joining Hamas.
What’s all this about “They” not having an airforce, Guy? “They” seem to have been fairly mind-concentrating using our own civilian aircraft & I’m sure there’s a low-security container terminal not too far from you.
If your first para. was a judgment, then surely a deduction preceded it….unless I fail to understand my own language.
You appear not to understand that militant Islam, although having been around for some time, is more dangerous precisely because of that fact. To compare it with Communism, Nazism, IRA, ETA, Sentera Luminosa etc. is the ultimate in the head-in-the-sand wishful thinking which contributes to the danger our civilization faces.
Your last para. was trite & unworthy of you….but you must know that.
Right now, we have two choices. Either a long and sustained conflict, where most of western civilization holds off from stomping on the islamists and their religion for fear of bad publicity, or a short and bloody resolution harkening back to the Middle Ages.
I’m for the latter, not just because it’s faster and more honest, but also because it gives us the best chance of regaining our freedoms when the whole mess is over rather than the slow chip-chip-chipping away of liberty that is the direct consequence of the long war strategy.
A short war ensures that there will be people who remember when budgets were balances, and speech was free, making it much more likely that these freedoms are returned.
A long war, taking even one generation, will only ensure that when it’s over, people will have forgotten what liberty is. Didn’t we see some of that in the Cold War?
TWG
TWG: Right………..some of our peers have no concept of the threat we are under…………..
……and, while the occasional Haiku appears popular:
Sick young Jihadists
Seeking virgins find only
Oblivion.
“I don’t think you’ve observed the same Irish conflict I have. The IRA (and all sorts of splintered sectarian factions) contrived to be dangerous and find support and succour at home and overseas (notably from the US, as Loyalist extremists did too). We still can’t extradite Irish terrorists from the ‘States.”
Well i dont see where this disputes what i said. I never said that IRA wasnt dangerous. I contested your assumpton that IRA was more dangerous than Islamists.
True? Lie?
Fri Jul 7, 5:12 PM ET
CAIRO, Egypt – Two of the four suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7 spent time at an al-Qaida camp to prepare themselves for a suicide mission, the deputy leader of the terror network claimed in a video Friday.
British authorities previously said they knew Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan had visited Pakistan, but the comment from al-Qaida No. 2 man Ayman al-Zawahri was the first to claim that they had been at an al-Qaida base.
“Both of them were seeking martyrdom and wished that they could carry out a martyrdom operation,” al-Zawahri said, using the Islamic euphemism for a suicide attack. (…)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060707/ap_on_re_mi_ea/britain_bombings_video
Sorry……missed out ‘stark’ before ‘oblivion’ 😎
lucklucky,
I think your comparative premises about the Irish troubles were factually wrong, so I’m much less likely than you to think western Islamists a comparable threat even did I rate the latter nearly as highly as you do.
So you think that the arch-propagandists of ‘al-Qaeda’ are a reliable source?
That two boys with Pakistani parents and (seemingly) some Islamist views had visited Pakistan would hardly be a great revelation, but that’s where the UK authorities stopped.
The only source for their notional visit to a terrorist camp appears to be the party with a steady record of retrofitting its “authority” to every incident in the world. It suits the many people who want the world to be a straightforward battle of good and evil with the armies decorously martialled on each side to believe such stuff, so ‘al-Qaeda’ constructs a narrative accordingly, and that suits their millennarian goals admirably. Really it is much cheaper and easier than actually planning and directing operations to get the gullible world media to proclaim every westernised malcontent and every local guerilla warrior as an al-Qaeda operative. It encourages and inspires all those freelances, too.
(This is standard modern propaganda technique, BTW. It is the operating mode of the Blair government, too.)
During the WW2 the whole liberal democratic tradition of western europe could have been wiped out by Fascim for ever.
During the Cold War the whole WORLD could have been wiped out for ever.
During the War on Terror the only chance of Liberal democratic tradition being wiped out is by our own Govts.
Even Bin Laden said how ‘lucky’ they’d been on 9/11.
George Washington said something like
“if you try and exchange liberty for security you’ll lose both”
not sure if thats right but it pretty much sums it up for me!
Right now, we have two choices. Either a long and sustained conflict, where most of western civilization holds off from stomping on the islamists and their religion for fear of bad publicity, or a short and bloody resolution harkening back to the Middle Ages.
Back in the Middle Ages, they could only kill cities, not entire nations.
I am of two minds on this. On one hand, my certainty that there is a point at which my countrymen would resort to that if sufficiently provoked is cause for some concern. On the other, the suspicion that many on the right side of the pond would sooner convert than do such a thing is cause for even more concern.
Best to win this thing before it comes to that, I think.