Hearts and minds
As we approach the anniversary of the London bombings, have we learned anything from the first suicide-bombings on European soil?
- Three reports have been published, the Home Office official narrative, which reports on the events of the day and what is known about the bombers prior to their violent deaths. There are some chilling details – the flowers which died as the homemade explosives poisoned the air, bleaching the hair of the men who mixed them in a bath tub. How the bombers hugged, ‘happy, even euphoric’ before setting off on their final journey to kill themselves, plus 52 other passengers.
- Then there is the Intelligence & Security Committee report. Despite Operation Kratos, the SO13 shoot-to-kill policy having been drawn up 6 months after September 11th, specifically to deal with the prospect of suicide bombers in urban areas, the report found ‘the fact that there were suicide attacks within the UK was clearly unexpected’. The report recommended that collaboration between agencies such as M15, M16 and the police needed to improve.
- And finally, the London Assembly report which was the first and only public interrogation of some of the facts. This report dealt mainly with communication and the preparedness of the capital to cope with a terror attack. Though its remit and resource and powers were limited, it turned up a lengthy series of failures in planning and management, whilst praising the heroic response of individuals at the scene and in the emergency services and police on the day. None of the reports has really looked at why July 7th happened, a question that continues to haunt survivors and bereaved, as well as, we are told, those in Government. Part of dealing with trauma’s aftermath is a need to understand why it happened, even if there are no easy answers to find. There is also a strong desire in many to take something positive from the experience, to learn lessons, so that future suffering and loss of life may be spared.
I, along with many others directly affected by the attacks have spent a great deal of time trying to understand what made four young men self-detonate so horribly on a grey July morning. Even saying you have spent time trying to think like a suicide bomber leads to sharp intakes of breath. Are we apologists, appeasers, deluded glorifiers of terrorism for trying to engage with the almost-incomprehensible? “You are either with us, or with the terrorists,” said Bush, famously. There is no middle ground. Or is there?
“Defeat them in Iraq and we will defeat them everywhere,” said Blair, blithely, as photographs of the corpse of ‘Enemy No. 1′, brutal al-Zarqawi were brandished to muted acclaim. It’s war, it’s the Long War…we will win, we are told, though the criteria for ‘winning’ are not clear. Nonetheless, we have no choice, they say. It’s Good vs. Evil, and God is on our side.
It’s a comforting world-view. Stories told to children for thousands of years speak of Goodies vs Baddies, Us vs. Them. “They” hate our freedoms. “They” hate us. They will not be stopped. They are inhuman. They want to kill and maim, they sacrifice human life for their will to power:
We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions — by abandoning every value except the will to power — they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies…
The trouble is, parts of this State of the Union speech could just have easily have been made by Bin Laden: There is a war against Muslims, they will not stop until we are destroyed. They bomb innocent civilians, they torture, they imprison without charge, they bring terror to the hearts of crying children as the brutalising bombs rain down. Look at the pictures, watch the atrocities on DVD, watch the news… They sow discord and chaos, these oppressors, they hate our God and our way of life. You are either with us, the Ummah, the global family of your suffering brothers and sisters in Islam, or you are against us. Fight, with your heart and mind and body, for this is a holy war…
How can this wild rhetoric bring us any closer to peace, how can this dispel terror? I say it makes only more terror. We share the same planet, breathe the same air. We are the same species.
We seem hypocrites and bullies: we cannot bomb people into democracy, call for elections then refuse to meet with the winners, we cannot issue calls for freedom and start wars on the basis of massacres and cruelties and oppression, then refuse to look people in the eye when they mention Guantanomo. Abu Ghraib. Rendition. Collateral damage. Haditha. Internment without charge… We cannot call for Iran to not have nuclear weapons whilst busily buying more of our own. We cannot do all this, and think we are winning a war against terror. What hope do we have in defeating suicide bombs unless we listen to those prepared to consider being a suicide bomber?
Wanting to lash out in angry retaliation is a natural reaction after being attacked. But we have known for thousands of years that violence breeds only more violence, despair and hatred only more despair and hatred. We live in a world now where ideas can travel at the speed of thought. Ideas can change the world, but you cannot bomb them out of existence. The only way to fight an idea is with another idea. And the only way to give an idea substance is to give it meaning with your words, your actions, your life.
I spoke this week to two people who almost died in the London bombings. One, a man in his twenties, injured at Edgware Road is still spending his weekdays in hospital, where he passes long, painful, boring days learning to walk again. Once a 6’4″ body builder, the blast smashed through his huge body, killing outright those who stood behind him but leaving him cut in half, with a collapsed lung, missing a spleen and an eye and both his legs above the knee. He is now 5’11”. He is determined to fight for a public enquiry into July 7th so that we may learn the lessons of that day and act on them. So that others do not have to fight as he has done to make sense of a life utterly changed, he says.
The other person I spoke to was the last person pulled from the Piccadilly line train still alive. She was 5’4″ before the bombs, now she is 5’6″ on her new prosthetic legs. Last night we spoke of the anger in the aftermath, and the desire to make something meaningful with this new life after the bombs. She talked of how she wished to listen to young Muslims, to meet with them and answer their questions, to hear from them what they thought about 7th July.
“I could talk with them. It might help. If we met, if we heard each other,” she said, wondering about what she could do to work towards hope and healing. It might help indeed, if we listened more, and ranted less, sought common ground; if our actions were humane and compassionate, if we swallowed back our anger and looked, clear-eyed, towards a future where we might live shoulder to shoulder, side by side, with enough for all.It sounds hopelessly idealistic. It is idealistic. But is it hopeless? Not if we still retain the capacity for change, and hopefulness is part of that.
Bombs and bombers do not discriminate when they kill. They cannot. We are all potential collateral damage in this war on terror. “We are at war, and I am a soldier,” said Khan, the alleged ringleader, in his video before he blew himself to pieces. There was though, before the fanaticical idealism, the narcissistic, pitiless lack of empathy, four young British men, who liked cricket and football, who loved and were loved. There is a chance still, to turn back from the endless, hopeless cycle of blood upon blood, fear and terror and revenge, by understanding what changed these men into walking bombs.
This is the language of appeasement, some will say, this is glorifying terrorism. Well, both sides glorify their ideas and themselves; that is the nature of war and propoganda. I refuse to appease the thirst for revenge and blood with more violence. I know that trauma is not resolved by violence and revenge, and to try to move past it this way is futile. Somewhere in all this madness lies our common humanity, the moderate millions whose voices are drowned out by the bullies and the war-mongers. If the shouting was muted, the rhetoric calmed and the honest examination of WHY terrorism happens was engaged with as a public debate, then there might yet be some hope for us all. Terrorism is the messenger, not the message. Have we even listened to the message? Is it unreasonable to even try? At the heart of both Islam and Western democracy is a set of ideals about justice. I do not see what we have to lose by engaging our hearts and minds and listening to each other. I do not see how we can win this war without at least trying. Even if the thought terrifies and offends us, is it more terrifying, more offensive than living with the reality of murderous bombings, day after day after day, here and abroad?
The first step is to reach out into the darkness and listen for a stranger’s voice, as so many ordinary people caught up in the London bombings did instinctively, when the world exploded around them a year ago. In the midst of horror and fear, there is something more powerful even than a bomb, more powerful even than an idea. It is the instinctive recognition of our shared humanity, our intra-dependence on each other, that the only way we can keep each other safe is by working together and helping each other. We already know it in our hearts and our minds. Now if we live it in our actions and our words, we might create a whole world that is bomb-proof.
Total twaddle, I’m afraid, and even if it comes from an honest, and obviously bruised, heart, it still remains twaddle!
There exists a core of Muslim fanatics who hate us for what we *are* irrespective of *anything* we do, or don’t do. Attempts to go back and find root causes are always doomed to failure because the multiplying interplay of causes and effects is just too complex.
At no time in recent history, including the British empire, has the west made any serious effort to attack the Muslim religion. Indeed just a few years ago we spent our blood and treasure going to war to *protect* Muslims in Kosovo. None of this has had the slightest effect on the hard-eyed men who are running the Islamist attacks on us or the ‘idealistic young men (and women) prepared to die in the cause.
You, above most of us, should know that we are at war. A war the like of which we have never known before, but a war nonetheless. We need to fight it. We will make mistakes because we are human but we mustn’t lose our determination. “Morale is to material as 3 is to 1″, said Bonaparte, and that holds good in this war as much as his.
Nope, it is not a ‘war’.
Mass murder is not an act of war, that dignifies it. It is a vicious criminal act. Carrying on as if we are *at war* when we are being harrassed by fantaics gives them the excuse that they are holy soldiers and dignifies the whole sorry affair. It’s utter bullshit. The war on terror is like the war on drugs, unwinnable and stupidly-named.
“At no time in recent history, including the British empire, has the west made any serious effort to attack the Muslim religion”
Thats true, we’ve simply been content to drop bombs on areas where muslims live, support undemocratic regimes in areas where they leave, allow Israel to do as it pleases whilst condeming similar actions undertaken by regimes unfavourable to us whilst our tabloid newspapers incite their moronic readers to hate our domestic muslims and spread sensationalist crap about them being an enemy within.
None of this of course has anything to do with why young impressionable males may be attracted to extremist ideologies. They hate us for what we are, in the same way that we also read about terrorists from Finland who kill us because of what we are.
They are inhuman.
Rachael – I don’t like the light/darkness millenarian rhetoric either but I still have a problem with your argument. I don’t see the bombers as inhuman at all: one of the problems with your ‘let’s get in touch with each other’s humanity’ line is that humanity has a dark side that it is perhaps unwise to get too well acquainted with.
Personally I don’t want to get too far inside the head of people who would make leave their own children fatherless for the sake of the holy task of blowing up random commuters. I don’t understand this – I don’t want to understand this beyond a simple lesson passed down to us through literature and history – one that many people are desparate to avoid: hatred doesn’t need a cause. It may have one – it may be based on grievances that are more or less plausible but it doesn’t need one.
What if we ‘listen to the message’ and find out that the views of the self-exploding ones are no more interesting than those that the Yorkshire Ripper had about women? What then Rachael?
Rachel, if flying planes into skyscrapers and killing 3000 people is not war then I don’t know what is! However, I do know it is not ‘harrassment’! All I am trying to get across to you is that there are Islamic fundamentalists out there who would happily kill us all – I’ll repeat that – who would happily kill us all, without compunction, without pity, without conscience, indeed, they would, like Hitler’s SS guards at Auschwitz, consider it their duty. Now that is a fact of life, and death, and you need to face it squarely. It doesn’t mean that we have to equal their hatred with ours, indeed, we should make evey effort to box a great deal cleverer than that! But it is war!
Also, I should point out a subtle truth concerning warfare, that it is not always necessary to *win*, sometimes it is only necessary not to *lose*. In other words, we are under no imperative to go in and conquer every Muslim land. We only have to stand very firm and try and fight at times and places of our choosing. But fight we must because surrender to the people who blew your train to pieces is not an option!
War is as old as Mankind. It goes with the territory of being human. “Oh, the pity of it”, cries Othello in a different context, but there it is, and wishing it away will not wash!
There are, mercifully, very few people willing to kill or die for any cause, and I don’t think we’ve necessarily got anything to learn from those people (even if we could identify them before the fact). But for every bomber there are ten bottled-out near-bombers, a hundred armchair bomber-sympathisers and a thousand yeah-well-I’m-not-saying-they’re-right-but equivocators. Those are the people we need to contact – and yes, listen to. The official line is that we haven’t got anything to learn from those people – on the contrary, we need to concentrate on telling them that the people and ideas they vaguely sympathise with are BAD BAD BAD EVIL EVIL! I can’t think of anything more counter-productive.
“There are, mercifully, very few people willing to kill or die for any cause”
The ability of conscription armies to wage war for over two hundred years now, as well as things like the Millgram experiment, depressingly, suggest otherwise. Humans are, unfortunately, prepared to do unremittingly awful things under the right conditions, which is not of course to say that the conditions either excuse or are the only causal agent. Still, violence is a frighteningly typical part of human life, and so, in order to make anything like a proper attempt to control it, it needs to be understood. Maybe, in this particular case, what needs to be understood isn’t particularly complicated. Maybe it is. Either way, the effort surely ought to be made.
Rachel is blindly determined to shut her eyes to the truth about this. She and her Guardianista followers are willing to blame anyone and anythung, rather than face up to the stark fact that we are at war with radical Islam, and nothing that we do will deter or appease our enemy.
“Public enquiry!” Just what on earth do you expect, hope or want the outcome of such an enquiry to tell you?
I put it to Rachel that, far from being uniquely qualified to speak on this issue, her unfortunate involvement as an almost-victim of Islamic terrorism makes her, in fact, too close, too emotionally involved to be able to comment dispassionately. Rachel needs personal “closure” on this issue, and of course, it’s so easy to point the finger of blame at “the West”. It’s all George Bush’s fault! Evil AmeriKKKa! Evil Blair for being Bush’s “poodle”! God, no wonder she is becoming such a UK media darling! Polly Toynbee had better watch out, Rachel will have her job soon! Another useful fool for the liberal media’s campaign of self-loathing.
‘Somewhere in all this madness lies our common humanity, the moderate millions whose voices are drowned out by the bullies and the war-mongers. If the shouting was muted, the rhetoric calmed and the honest examination of WHY terrorism happens was engaged with as a public debate, then there might yet be some hope for us all.’
It’s the moderate millions I am talking about, the ones who are drawn into taking sides between ‘radical Islam’ and everything else. I am questioning whether what we do in the name of ‘war on terror’ is justifiable: surely a war on an idea is measured by its success – in this case, the idea losing support? In which case, we are losing. So, why not question our strategies? Or why dignify it with the term ‘war’ at all?
If I was after ‘personal closure’, I’d perhaps be calling for all brown people to be deported or something. It’s the fact that I’ve been attacked, twice, and I’m NOT screaming for knee-jerk revenge and ‘safety-increasing’ legislation to ‘keep us safe at any price’ that makes me so threatening to some people. Too bad.
Oh, and FYI – I’ve never written for the Guardian. I’ve been writing mostly for that well known wishy washy liberal rag, the Sunday Times.
“Public enquiry!†Just what on earth do you expect, hope or want the outcome of such an enquiry to tell you?”
If I knew the answers, I’d not be asking the questions, sunshine.
But apart from the obvious – are our intelligence services, emergency services, police and politicians and faith communities able to learn anything from the events leading up to, of and after 7th July…
I’d also quite like to look at our current tactics, strategies and success rate in preventing suicide bombings, and the ideas that feed it. The remit of a public or independent enquiry is of course, set by a Minister, not the public. But a public interrogation of the facts would be a start, rather than a series of behind closed doors internal reports, without the powers to fully review and cross-examine all relevant evidence. The US managed the 9/11 Commission in the midst of a war in Iraq and a ‘war on terror’. Odd that we can’t pull off something similar – and not very reassurring. The 3 reports published so far seem to contradict each other which doesn’t look too clever either. A public examination of the facts would seem to be an entirely sensible response to the first attack by suicide bombers on members of the public on European soil. If it was such a significant event that we are prepared to fundementally alter the fabric of the constitution, because ‘the rules have changed’, then what is there to be afraid of? The Government and security services and all involved should have the confidence that their behaviour before and after the terror attacks is beyond rebuke.’If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear’, we’re told in relation to ID cards. So, bring it on, I’d be saying, if I was ion Government. And the Opposition parties, funnily enough, seem to agree…
I’d hardly call David Davis a Guardianista, but he was calling for an independent enquiry 3 weeks ago.
Why on earth do you think there SHOULDN’T be one? Hmmm?
I’ve lived through three ‘world’ wars. The first, as a child, was what is called WWII, the second was the ‘Cold War’ and the third has only just begun, the ‘War on Terror’. All three titles are innacurate, being merely newspaper shorthand but, nevertheless, they were (and are) very real wars. In all of them we made mistakes, got things wrong, carried out policies that suffered from the unforgiving law of unintended consequences, but even so, in the end we won. In the first two of these wars there were ‘Rachels’ of various persuasions criticising, nagging, opposing, reminding, declaiming; some from honourable motives, some from squalid ones, most from a mixture of the two. It was ever thus!
In this current war, it behoves those of us who are steadfast in our opposition to militant Islam to keep half an ear on what some of the ‘Rachels’ say to ensure that we don’t lose touch with what we are defending – but it should only be *half* an ear. What worries me is that too many people, including those people in power who should know better, are giving both ears to the ‘Rachels’ and therein lies the possibility (probability?) of our country suffering immense damage in the future. “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was good advice a hundred years ago and is good advice today!
Can I just check that nobody is being silly and conflating ‘questioning current tactics in what’s been caled the ‘war on terror” with ‘supporting criminal mass murder’ or ‘appeasement’?
Ta.
Of course I oppose nihilistic hate-filled idealogies. I’ve seen their results close-up. I am not an apologist for suicide bombers. What I *am* doing is querying whether dignifying such tactics as acts of war gives them a status they do not deserve, and indeed, seems to be recruiting more and more of them. I don’t recognise this as a ‘war’. Suicide bombs and attacks on commuters and office workers are not acts of war. They are criminal acts of mass murder. Are we having a ‘war on murder’, a ‘war on rape’? No, we are not – we don’t need to.
Rachel is right, the war on terror is bogus, with proof after proof that the US actions are counter-productive, destructive and plain immoral. Duff would like to engage in lazy, polarising binary thinking, Bush style. But if that’s all you can manage Duff, I ask a question worthy of a 10 year old – if this is a war between Islam and the West, who has killed more innocents, and what was the chronology of the killing? Do innocent civilian lives in Iraq (a 7/7 every day) not count somehow?
Rob – the words “with the obvious exception of enlisted members of a nation-state’s armed forces” seem to have got lost between brain and keyboard.
But you’re right about violence more generally – in his revolutionary period Toni Negri wrote that all denunciations of radical violence are hypocritical, as they’re founded on acceptance of a status quo which is demonstrably willing to defend itself by much greater violence. (Perhaps not all denunciations – certainly not all imaginable denunciations – but you can see his point.)
Perhaps my point would be better made by saying that there are (mercifully) very few situations, apart from those of large-scale armed conflict, in which people can be persuaded to kill and die for a cause. Or to put it another way, we (the blog-reading people) don’t go around killing people from day to day, and our working assumption should be that ‘they’ aren’t all that different – and that it takes a quite specific and quite extreme combination of conditions to turn any of ‘them’ into freelance killers, just as it would for us.
Forestalling the obvious comeback, I’m not saying that we should make this assumption because I think we’re nice and they’re nice too, deep down, if you really get to know them. I don’t think the guys who were talking about bombing the Ministry of Sound were very nice at all (“no one can even turn round and say ‘oh they were innocent’ those slags dancing around”). One of the main reasons for starting from common humanity and asking what’s gone wrong – rather than assuming we know what’s gone wrong and denouncing it good and hard – is that the latter approach risks driving more people down the funnel of increasing radicalisation. The last thing we need is a clash of civilisations.
I was wondering when the likes of Tom Tyler (sorry but I couldn’t think of an equally pejorative term to rival the magnificently original “Guadianistasâ€Â) would join in with their amateur psychology. Apparently victims of the bombing are “too emotionally involved†to offer a sensible opinion, and need “closureâ€Â. I guess it makes a change from the “you’ve never experienced terrorism first hand†line that the American based warmongers were using to explain away European anti-war feeling a couple of years ago – showing that their knowledge of history was almost as good as their expertise in psychology. I only hope that Tom Tyler was consistent and reminded New Yorkers calling for the bombing of Afghanistan after 9-11 that they were “too emotionally involved†to be able to offer sensible foreign policy advice.
Duff then joins in by reminding his fellow militarists to maintain a stiff upper lip and remember what we are defending. To which one can only say that if he means values such as innocent until proven guilty, the right not to be imprisoned without charge, the right to demonstrate in parliament square etc then clearly we have already lost.
Personally speaking however I cannot wait until the US and UK win the war on terror, it will be just like the war on drugs which has been so successful one cannot buy illegal drugs anywhere these days.
Good stuff Rachel.
I find it extraordinary that anyone can think that we’re likely to defeat Radical Islam by slaughtering innocent Muslims by the hundred thousand. We’re self-evidently radicalising further millions, and making matters much worse.
Further I find it repugnant that in the name of defending our freedoms, democracy, and way of life, we’re now expected to support things which totally contravene everything we’re supposed to stand for: things like torture, imprisonment without trial, propping up friendly tyrannies, and of course lots and lots of “collateral damage”. Anyone who dares criticise these disgusting travesties is greeted by shrieks of “moral equivalence!”, “treachery!”, “appeasement!”, and worse.
[2 sidenotes: first to Mr Moderator, I reckon Tom Tyler’s comment was nothing more than witless personal abuse, and given the rules here, should be deleted.
If you agree then feel free also to delete my second comment, to gibbering, patronising, simpleton David Duff:
“All I am trying to get across to you is that there are Islamic fundamentalists out there who would happily kill us all”
Do you really think that Rachel, of all people, needs you to get that across to her?]
Larry: noted. I think though that “Tom” stays just the right side of what we allow here. It’s the kind of fantastical melange of pop-psychological drivel that Richard and Judy would be ashamed of, granted, but isn’t yet offensive.
Rachel:
“Mass murder is not an act of war, that dignifies it. It is a vicious criminal act.”
Quite right. There’s a reason why so many terrorist organisations have links to organized crime.
“Asymmetrical war” is a telling euphemism. Terrorism happens precisely because those who undertake it generally have no other way of fighting back – terrorists, almost by definition, do not present a genuine threat to our way of life or values. If they had the power to do that, they wouldn’t need to resort to suicide bombings.
Rachel is not a media darling, and this wishy washy kill them with lurve theme is not an interesting subject. [POINTLESS DRIVEL – EDITED – J.]
Personal abuse, always a winning strategy…
You should know, it seems.
This subject wants taking to the wash for a good overhaul. If you want USA readers, keep to the point better than you do.
I don’t see any personal abuse in my post, Miranda. And garnering ‘USA readers’, oddly, was not forefront in my mind when I wrote it. What point do you think I *should* have made? How do you expect me to think and write about my reaction to terror attacks? I’m sure you can fill me in…Or is life after terrorism and how it is approached on a personal/political level not an interesting enough subject either? In which case, what exactly do you think is?
*pins back ears*
Oh Miranda, what have we done to deserve you? You should know – is that the classic “I know you are but what am I?” rejoinder? Why, I don’t think I’ve seen that since I went up to big school.
Questions, questions. Is Rachel being personally abusive? I’d say not, but I don’t think it’s personally abusive to say “you’re being personally abusive” to somebody who’s just been personally abusive. (I may be wrong.) Does this subject want taking to the wash for a good overhaul? Who knows? We certainly don’t, unless you tell us what you mean by that, perhaps by engaging with what Rachel actually said instead of sneering at random. Should Rachel keep to the point better than she does? Again, without more specifics it’s hard to say. Does Rachel want USA readers? If you’re typical, probably not.
I did have a point, and it’s actually in that last bit. What is it with this weird combination of vitriol and condescension that the warblogger crowd seem to go in for? “You’re an idiot! You’re a moron! You’re no better than the terrorists! And you’ll have to try a lot harder if you’re going to impress me!” Or, loosely translated, “you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong and I’m not even listening”. Psychological thin ice, I feel.
Perhaps not on this post.
[INFANTILE GARBAGE – DELETED]
Your attitude encourages terrorism, whatever you say.
“Leave the work and commentary to people who know what to do”
Because the current approach of the “people who know what to do” has been so succesful in the past 5 years that none of us are under any risk of being a victim of terrorism.
Explain how Rachel’s attitude encourages terrorism’ please. Or are you saying that getting on tube trains, getting blown up and then refusing to panic about it just encourages them to try harder next time?
Arf.
All nutty
A lot of blood seems to have passed under the bridge whilst I was out! I may miss replying to some points but it will be carelessness not cowardice.
Rachel first. No, I do not think you are in any way an apologist for terror. Yes, I do think you are wrong not to recognise these atrocities as an act of war, in that they are in furtherence of a political purpose. In my view, you do your country and your fellow subjects a dis-service by exerting yourself to keep this truth from them. You should at least acknowledge that the planners and perpetrators *do* think of themselves as soldiers in a war. I give them that much respect even as I hope and trust that we can kill them or neutralise them.
‘TheIrie’ fails to see the irony in posing “a question worthy of a ten year old”. Er, quite so! I’m afraid, putting it politely, the naivitee of the question precludes an answer. I suggest a quick course in history.
‘Phil E’, and some cove called Toni Negri, are absolutely correct in this: “all denunciations of radical violence are hypocritical, as they’re founded on acceptance of a status quo which is demonstrably willing to defend itself by much greater violence.” That is why I never waste time inveighing against the wickedness of terrorists or the actions. As I am trying to indicate to Rachel, they are fighting a war (even if she isn’t!) and they will “use all means necessary” (to quote a phrase from SWP/Respect!)
Alas, ‘Phil E’ and I, part company almost immediately when he suggests that outside of mass warfare very few people can be persuaded to kill others. The point is that outside mass warfare there is only terrorist warfare and for that you only need a handful plus a broadly sympathetic, or to be more accurate, a sympathising community to hide in. The recent Irish imbroglio is a perfect example where a broad swathe of the Southern Irish population had an antipathy to Brits, a dislike of ‘Proddies’ and a sympathy with the romantic ideals of extreme republican extremism.
‘Planeshift’ then puts words in my word processor which would be a kindness except he got them wrong. My main reason for opposing militant Islam is that I have no wish for this country to be Islamised and I recognise that in their efforts to achieve this they will, Lear-like, bring down “the terrors of the earth” upon us. A few pounds of homemade explosive on a tube? To quote a very great man, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
‘Mr. Moderator’, please do not ever delete anything ‘Larry Teabag’ writes about me. I’m a miserable old sod and I need the laughs!
‘Jonn’ gets it partly right but fails to use his imagination, thus: “terrorists, almost by definition, do not present a genuine threat to our way of life or values. If they had the power to do that, they wouldn’t need to resort to suicide bombings.” Indeed, like soldiers anywhere, of any era, they use the weapons at their disposal. So, just wait until they get their hands on some ‘biggies’! If there are enough of us left we can no doubt try and get in touch with our feminine side and try to understand their problems.
Sorry about the length of this comment, I do go on a bit, don’t I?
Can’t you guys see how BORING you are.
Answering Rachel, no, I think this is the most boring, boring, boring subject, ears n all.
Get a Life nutty people
So boring you’ve been back to this thread at least five times today.
Last chance before I ban you.
Phil,
I suppose the point that I want to force is one that actually helps your point: that violence is actually surprisingly common, and that, as you put it, “our working assumption should be that ‘they’ aren’t all that different”.
I have got a copy of ‘Empire’ knocking about somewhere too, which I probably ought to have a look at sometime.
I apologise to (a) the webhosts of this site, and (b) the pseudonymous “Rachel North” if my earlier post was perceived as personally offensive to the latter, or borderline in breach of T&C to the former. Neither case was my intention, although I admit I had not read the T&C before posting here – I have now done so and will endeavour to abide by them.
Firstly, both “Rachel” and I blog under pseudonyms. This enables bloggers to preserve their anonymity and privacy, and it also enables us to be more forthright in our views than might be the case if we used our real names. Many commentators accuse us pseudonymous bloggers of “hiding behind false names”, but in fact there are very sound reasons of personal safety involved, when you think about it, especially if one’s opinions of a certain “religion of peace and love” are anything less than adulatory!
Another consequence of pseudonymous blogging is that the question of defamation of character cannot arise, unless the alleged defamed party’s real identity can be reasonably deduced. In other words, you can say “Tom Tyler is a puerile pathetic plonker” all you like, and I have no recourse, legal or otherwise, against it. In this context, accusations of “personal abuse” are redundant. This is a good thing, as it means that our arguments must be judged purely on their merits. Ad-homenim attacks are simply neither here nor there, as the pseudonymous blogger can walk away from his/her quasi-fictional identity as soon as (s)he switches off his/her PC.
Having said that, as a matter of honour I have no wish to “attack” “Rachel North” in any personal sense. However, there is a problem. The name “Rachel North” is now becoming one of the most recognisable names associated with the whole “there is no war on terror, these attacks are simply random criminal acts of mass murder” slant in the mainstream media. In the same way as many socialists attack a set of values commonly referred to as “Thatcherism”, without necessarily intending any personal slur on Dame Margaret Thatcher, it is becoming difficult to challenge…let’s call it “Rachelism” without appearing to be personally attacking “Rachel” herself as a human being. She has become a central voice for the whole “Islam is not to blame; “7/7″ was a crime, not an act of war” point of view. I think she will have to accept that by becoming a sort of minor public figure, those of us who disagree with her views will inevitably end up name-checking her, and saying things such as “Rachel and her brigade are so blind about this”. That is the nature of fame, I suppose!
What I really have a problem with is not so much Rachel’s personal opinions – after all, they are shared by many others, and I disagree with those others just as much as I disagree with Rachel. Why should I single her out for comment especially?
No, what annoys me is that it is almost universally accepted by the media that Rachel’s unfortunate experiences on 7/7/05 somehow give her opinions “special status”. It’s an age-old trick, used time and time again in the newspapers. The assumption is that if you yourself are a real-life victim of [the issue at hand], your views are therefore sacrosanct, untouchable, unquestionable. You hold the moral high ground, because you were there. It is this unspoken assumption of infallibility due to “victim status” which I seek to challenge.
To be fair, to a large extent this is not even Rachel’s fault; she never chose to have a narrow escape from death last year. Noone in their right mind would have willingly chosen to be aboard that train if they had known what was about to happen.
I feel that it is important to challenge preconceived ideas about what criteria it is acceptable to use in order to term oneself a “survivor” of 7/7. Remember, the bombers were not targeting anyone in particular, it could have been any of us. Can you call yourself a “7/7 survivor” if you were on the next carriage of that train? Five carriages away? On the next train? Five trains later? Five hours later? Or you would have been on the tube that day but you had a migraine and took the day off work sick? I do not mean to dilute or discredit Rachel’s own experience, but do you see what I’m saying? We were all potential victims of Islamic terrorism that day, and so the political opinions of, say, myself, hold just as much or as little credence as those of someone who was unlucky enough to be on that train at that time.
Rachel’s views are valid, certainly, and I would not wish to see them censored. However, I feel very strongly that her circumstances do not lend her views any special status or credence on this issue. They can and should be challenged. I’m sorry if this sounds a harsh thing to say, but The fact that I was 70 miles rather than 70 centimetres away from being the victim of a suicide bomb attack has no bearing whatsoever on the issue.
Hang on, woah.
If you read any of my published articles – which are all linked from my blog, you will see that I have never said that the bombings were, or were not, an act of war. I have never commented on this matter apart from on my personal weblog, and here on this board. I have never said it on TV, on the radio or anywhere apart from here, or on my blogsite. Which is where I express my personal opinions.
What I have written about and spoken about in the media is
1. That a support group run by survivors for survivors exists and if you want to get in touch because you were on the Piccadilly train here’s how.
2. That there are a group of survivors and bereaved campaigning for a public inquiry and this is why.
I challenge you to have a look. That is all you will find.
I have also interviewed other survivors and published their opinions as quotes at their request. They have said variously, it was an act of mass murder which they can’t personally forgive, they are trying to understand it, it has been a difficult experience and so on.
That’s it.
I am very careful when I speak on behalf of either group to be as non-political as possible, since both groups comprise people with different opinions. The public inquiry group does have one cause, and so I speak about that, when asked, and so do they.
The reason I get asked to speak is because that is my particular skill due to my day job; speaking and writing. Others write letters, do admin, handle enquiries, offer other support to group members.
People who read my highly personal blog which reflects my personal opinions and beliefs may be assuming that I say much the same when I speak in public. I don’t. It’s like work, when I am in the office acting on behalf of my company ( advertising) I don’t speak about politics or my personal beliefs or feelings.
Therefore Mr Tyler, your assumptions aren’t really fair – I represent only my own opinions on my website, and when I speak in public, I say what i have been asked to say by survivor groups who have consulted me about it.
As to the point that I survived a bomb which went off in close proximity to me: that is the whole point of it – I repeatedly say – I could be you. I could be anyone. The attack was an attack on us all. I just happened to be there.
Media want the personal angle so I have to give it to them when speaking about the existence of a survivor group, and the campaign for a public enquiry, because that is how they work. People need a personal story to latch onto before they listen. So I have to tell it, again and again. I’m sick of it, personally, but that is the nature of the media beast.
I keep calling for a public debate. The public were attacked. We are all stakeholders in a shared future. That’s why I do what I do and say what I say, even though it would be a damn sight easier to walk away, and free myself from the emotional ghosts of July.
I am one of many who speak out, but because I have a blog, which the media clearly read, I have been the centre of something of a feeding frenzy recently. I have to get on with it as best I can. I really am called Rachel, the North bit is to stop media calling me all the time at work, since my work email is available, and to protect my employers who have had to deal with me being caught up in all of this. It also protects me, a little, and my family.
After July 7th I will happily, gratefully go back into the shadows, though I enjoy writing and will continue to blog. But since I think what I say has some merit in that it seems to instigate debate about support freedom, fear, public inquiries, compensation, I say it. At some personal cost it has to be said, but I don’t in all conscience know what else to do: I have been asked by people ( survivors, bereaved) to speak out, where I can and do what I can to help, so I try to help. We all do what we can to help each other.
This is not meant to be a whinge, but one of the unfortunate things about being in this position is that the personal and the political are inextricably linked, in my case. And I thus get supported and also attacked a lot, which isn’t so great. Death threats from conspiracy theorists, a stalker, abusive emails and so on. I got on a train, I wrote about it, I blogged and met other survivors, I told of their existence at their request so others might find support as the official support wasn’t there, and now I campaign for a public inquiry, a cause I believe in, at other’s request. I also deal with the fact that I am still shit scared every day when I go to work. And I have a day job to manage as well as all this. I’m not asking for sympathy, but I’d like people to realise that I’m not doing this for fun, or fame, or money. I’m doing this because conscience – survivor guilt – nature – beliefs – whatever – tell me it’s what I should do.
Cheers.
Nice to see you branching out. This stupid “war on terror” seems to be turning into farce as 250 cops turn up on a family’s doorstep in London just because of bad intelligence. You are right. We cannot bomb the world into democracy. Where do you get the energy to keep on fighting? I hope you take time out to rest now and again.
Tom – you’re absolutely right. Rachel’s views aren’t immune from criticism or challenge. What mystifies me is why you’ve spent so much time making that rather obvious point in various different ways, rather than actually engaging with anything Rachel said.
(And no, your first comment doesn’t count, unless you can show us where Rachel talked about ‘evil Blair’, ‘AmeriKKKa’ and so forth.)
As for anonymity, if you really think ‘an accountant somewhere in England’ is likely to get attacked by jihadist nutters for saying snotty things about Islam on his blog, you must be working with a very inflated view of it, yourself and them.
Oh, and Rob – don’t read Empire. Get hold of Books for burning (might not be easy, it seems to have sunk like a stone) and read the first and last pamphlets. The last is where the action is – I’d read it before but I still ended up walking round the room reading bits out loud, it’s that powerful – but you’ll need the first to understand where he’s coming from. The three in the middle are missable – mostly just scholastic elaborations of the first one, and ridiculously dense and abstract in parts. When he’s bad he’s truly awful, but when he’s good he’s brilliant.
I agree with Rachel that we have a shared humanity. This, after all, is the only tie that binds us all together. I also like the way she writes.
But history teaches us to kill one another, the negative effects of colonialism weighs heavy on personal identity and State governance, Islam religious teachings have undergone a massive resurgence in the past 25 years, and we have not found a way to speak to that shared humanity.
Plsu the fact that whatever we do, it seems clear that certain people will hate us, or the idea of us.
Israel isn’t going anywhere. Spain isn’t going to give back Grenada to a Muslim empire. The US population isn’t going to convert en mass to Islam, and the black hearted tyrannical or fundamentalist leaders in the Arab and Muslim world aren’t suddenly going to start taking care of their people. Espcially while the US is still supporting them in Saudi and Egypt, and the EU is more concerned with its petty internal contradictions.
Whatever we do Rachel, we will continue to face a Islamic resurgence that distorts the Koran, distorts that book’s origins, believes that God’s law (as interpreted) must reign, not the will of the people through elections, that jews are pigs and subhuman, and that if they kill non-Muslims, they will go to heaven. The Saudis have been spending tens of billons of $$ funding schools that teach these things from North Africa to Indonesia since they got scared of the Shia revival in the Iranian revolution in 1979.
This has been going on a long time, far before Iraq 2003, far before Bush, far before Iraq 1991, far before 1989 and a unipolar world.
A shared humanity means shared values. No torture. No targeting civilians during conflict. No repression of women, homosexuals, religious minorites. Muslims in the UK have had a pretty good welcome over the past 30 years. Its time that they stopped supporting the murder of homosexuals and the repression of women. Freedom of workship, and freedom of speech. This is what makes being human worthwile. Hell, it comes from being human. Whats the point in a a shared humanity that does not celebrate these things in the name of culture? Should we tolerate cannibalism, or the slave trade, as a celebration of cultural diversity? No. The Islamic world, its governments, religious “leaders”, its “cultural representatives” have taken a medieval dogmatic line when it come to social and political matters, that’s the problem, and their people must be set free.
“Muslims in the UK have had a pretty good welcome over the past 30 years.”
Some may, others may have found that far from having a good welcome they’ve faced racism, slanders and ignorance about their religion and lately harassment from police and media driven witch-hunts that on occasion portray their very presence in the country as a threat. Alternatively maybe they really do have nothing to complain about.
The point being unless there is dialogue and mutual respect we’ll never know or understand, but some comments above clearly indicate hostility to the very idea of dialogue, and the possibility that reducing the threat of violence will require changes in our own attitude. Its also worth bearing in mind that dialogue is a two way process, and young Muslims alienated from society who are attracted to radical groups may also have cause to rethink their own attitudes when hearing the stories of those caught up in the London bombings.
Interestingly none of the comments above appear to have been made by British Muslims, the debate is occurring without their voice. I think it would be a good idea if some of the Muslim lurkers out there could make their own views known on the subject, even if it is only to deal with those obviously ignorant.
I must say that ‘Dr, Jon’ makes me smile with his quaint notion that ‘humanity’ shares the values of “No torture. No targeting civilians during conflict. No repression of women, homosexuals, religious minorites” – and reading The Guardian regularly, I presume! I hate to drop a dollop of cold hard fact on his plate but some-one has to tell him that the vast, overwhelming majority of ‘humanity’ since human history has been recorded up to an including today, does *not* share any of those values. They are held by a small *minority* of 20/21st c. ‘westerners’ who tend to go to the same dinner parties! Of course, you’ll have a hard job getting some westerners to admit it in public but you only have to keep your ears open in any pub in the land (outside Islington!) and you will hear the dismal truth. And why, pray, should we inflict these ‘values’ on people who want no part of them? I don’t care if Muslims want six wives and treat them like servants, or believe a police force “fit for public use” should indulge in a bit of torture, or that homosexuality should be shunned; all I want is for them to keep their ideas to their own countries and leave us to go to hell by our own route – which we appear to be doing quite well with out any help from them.
Sorry, one other thing. Rachel seems to think that saying one thing on her blog and another thing in public is a) understandable and b) quite proper. Sorry, I disagree. A blog is public and anyway, you shouldn’t say things, or fail to say things, in public that are not your own opinions. That sort of scurvy behaviour is why we have to put up with politicians who are, like diplomats, sent abroad to lie for their country. Come off it, Rachel, just state *your* beliefs, in full, and let others follow or not as they see fit.
A personal blog is where I talk in depth about my personal thoughts.
Being asked about public inquiries or how a survivor group was set up by the media means I answer those specific questions, it being inappropriate to talk about my personal opinions on politics, or whatever. I make it clear what I have been asked to cover before the interview, and do not go off on tangents.
I see no ‘scurvy ‘behaviour in being a spokesperson about issues I support, and then blogging my further thoughts and feelings on a personal diary on what is very clearly explained to be personal blog.
I make it clear what’s *my* opinion, and when I am speaking about issues I support as a survivor representative, I stick to the issues in hand. Why would I use an interview about public enquries to suddenly spout off about my cat, or my wedding, or my political beliefs? That would be silly, wouldn’t it? Since it should be clear to even the dimmest person that we survivors don’t all have the same brain because we were all on the same train, it is sensible to keep the personal stuff to the personal website, and the campaigning for a public inqury to representing a broader less personal, but 100% supported by me, general consensus.
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All the other survivor commenters do exactly the same on their blogs and when expressing their opinions. You are being naive if think people go round emoting all theetime when asked to comment on subjects by the media. ÂÂ
I don’t say CONTRADICTORY things, I say my own opinion when asked, and when asked to comment as a representative, say representative things – representative of many voices not just my own.
I expect you can easily quite grasp that, and are just trying to be objectionable/controversial/whatever. I also suspect that if I happened to agree with your personal politics, you’d be far less snippy about what I said on my blog.
Rachel is amazing! Apparently she can speak from three different platforms in three different ways. There is her ‘personal’ blog in which she speaks her version of ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, and then there are her newspaper articles (none of which I have read) in which apparently she tells *part* of her truth, and then again, there is this blog whose exact status in her political/personal firmament remains a mystery!
She claims to be in support of a public enquiry into the policy and tactics of the security services. Is she doing this in a high-minded spirit of disinterested objectivity, happy to accept whatever conclusions are handed down? ‘NO’ is the word I’m struggling for! She has spelt out her views on the ‘War Against Terror’, views which are as reasonable as they are wrong and I do not for minute suggest that she should stop espousing them. All I want is for her to come out from the camouflage and say what she means, that is and I paraphrase, ‘I want a public enquiry to give the security services a good kicking and force them to switch their policy into one of peace and love and outreach so that this non-existent War on Terror can be ditched’. If she did that I would honour her honesty; as she doesn’t, I can only regard her as just another “scurvy politician” saying one thing and believing another – as if we didn’t have enough of them already!
And no, Rachel, I would not be any the less severe on some-one who shared my views but kept them hidden. As I’m in Shakespeare quoting mode let me end with this one, “Tell truth and shame the Devil!”
‘There is her ‘personal’ blog in which she speaks her version of ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, and then there are her newspaper articles (none of which I have read) ‘
Might I suggest you actually *read* them, then, before spouting off ?
And the words you put into my mouth are wholly wrong, which is another reason why I suggest you get your most basic facts/accusations straight before hitting the keyboards, even if it is early and you might not have had your coffee yet. You might even want to start by properly reading what I actually say about the moderate millions and the tactics of the war on terror before commenting. But perhaps reading what I say without immediately projecting your own prejudices all over it before you have even finished the first paragraph is a challenge too far?
I stand corrected, not to say, disciplined, by Rachel who thunders thus: “the words you put into my mouth are wholly wrong, which is another reason why I suggest you get your most basic facts/accusations straight before hitting the keyboards”.
Oh, alright then!
RACHEL: “I realise it will probably embarrass you when you realise you have made something of a tit of yourself in the comments here”
RACHEL: “Personal abuse, always a winning strategy…”
DD: “She claims to be in support of a public enquiry into the policy and tactics of the security services.”
RACHEL: “there are a group of survivors and bereaved campaigning for a public enquiry…” and “now I campaign for a public enquiry, a cause I believe in”.
DD: “There is her ‘personal’ blog in which she speaks her version of ‘the truth, […] and then there are her newspaper articles (none of which I have read) in which apparently she tells *part* of her truth”.
RACHEL: “I don’t say CONTRADICTORY things, I say my own opinion when asked, and when asked to comment as a representative, say representative things”.
DD: “All I want is for her to come out from the camouflage and say what she means, that is and I paraphrase, ‘I want a public enquiry to give the security services a good kicking and force them to switch their policy into one of peace and love and outreach so that this non-existent War on Terror can be ditched’
RACHEL: “It might help indeed, if we listened more, and ranted less, sought common ground; if our actions were humane and compassionate, if we swallowed back our anger and looked, clear-eyed, towards a future where we might live shoulder to shoulder, side by side, with enough for all.It sounds hopelessly idealistic. It is idealistic. But is it hopeless? Not if we still retain the capacity for change, and hopefulness is part of that”; or this, “Nope, it is not a ‘war’. Mass murder is not an act of war, that dignifies it. It is a vicious criminal act. Carrying on as if we are *at war* when we are being harrassed by fantaics gives them the excuse that they are holy soldiers and dignifies the whole sorry affair. It’s utter bullshit. The war on terror is like the war on drugs, unwinnable and stupidly-named.”
Well, I could go on but enough is enough. Rachel insists with impeccable North London liberal sweetness that what she wants is a debate but somehow when she gets one she doesn’t seem to care for it too much!
Well, at least you are now enaging with what you think I actually said, so good on you.
I support a public enquiry and so do others. You will see and read many of us speaking out about why over the last few and the next few weeks. A public enquiry, it is hoped, will be wide ranging and cover many things, as I and others have said numerous times, all over the place. One of the things might be the policy and tactics of the security services, but that is only one of the things.
‘Is she doing this in a high-minded spirit of disinterested objectivity, happy to accept whatever conclusions are handed down?’.
Yep. Next?
Now let us look at what you have accused me of saying
1. I have never, ever, said anywhere ‘evil Blair’, ‘AmeriKKKa’ ‘.
2. You claim ‘I want a public enquiry to give the security services a good kicking and force them to switch their policy into one of peace and love and outreach so that this non-existent War on Terror can be ditched’ Nope, also nowhere to be found as it has never been said by me, or as far as I am aware, anyone else. What I have said and written on the subject of a public enquiry, my personal beliefs and those of the group of survivors/bereaved who are campaigning for one can be read by anyone, including you. But I note that you admit you haven’t actually read any of it. Which is fine, but it does rather scupper your entire argument, don’t you think?
3. You claim I wrote newspaper articles in which I tell’ part’ of my truth. You also say you have never read any of the articles. *Cough*
4. You claim ‘ Another consequence of pseudonymous blogging is that the question of defamation of character cannot arise, unless the alleged defamed party’s real identity can be reasonably deduced’. Rachel North is my publicly known name, I speak, write, am identifiable and appear on TV and in public when asked as Rachel North, so attacking Rachel North and then saying you are not attacking Rachel North because I am not publicly identifiable as same is nonsense. Elton John is not Reginald Dwight’s real name, but its his recognisable name. As to ‘Rachelism’, that’s nonsense, and there is no such thing, apart from it being an apparent construct of your own prejudices. But never mind, I’m not that bothererd by ad hominem attacks these days so we move on.
5. ‘I can only regard her as just another “scurvy politician†saying one thing and believing another .’
And that is the whole of your debate, is it? Because of what you have not read and do not know, but think you can guess, you are content to attack me on the basis of what you think I have said and have not written?
Mmmm. Clever stuff.
So saying
“We should let her have her say, but it would be awful if anyone actually listened to the silly girl.”
Is “debating”, is it?
Rachel taking your points in your order:
1. ” I have never, ever, said anywhere ‘evil Blair’, ‘AmeriKKKa’” Er, nor have I and nor have I ever put those wrods in your mouth.
2. I carefully pointed out that what I was writing was a paraphrase not a quotation so it is no surprise that it is “nowhere to be found as it has never been said by me”. In my comment above I placed my paraphrase against your *exact* words and I leave it to other to decide whether my interpretation was fair or unfair.
3. No, *you* claimed that you “wrote newspaper articles in which [you] tell’ part’ of my truth”, as in the following: “I don’t say CONTRADICTORY things, I say my own opinion when asked, and when asked to comment as a representative, say representative things”. Again, I leave it to others to decide if my inference was correct.
4. Has nothing to do with me, it was another commenter’s remarks.
5. Yes, and I stand by it for as long as you fail to say *everything* publicly that you say on your, or other people’s blogs.
Finally, Neil places some words in quotation marks which I do not recognise so I am unable to comment on them.
Apologies for typos due to running late. But, “I shall return”!
You are being disingenuous, I think, and I do think I have explained quite clearly how it works. Let me give you an example.
1. Me, blogging: ‘Why do I want a public enquiry? There are so many reasons. The reports we have had contradict each other ,2 were compiled behind closed doors, there seems to be a lack of sharing information between all th eagencies concerned with responding to the threats of terror and with the event on the day…etc’ ( this is all on my blog, if you do a search for public enquirty there are dozens of posts explaining my position in it)
2. Me, being asked by the media what my personal opinion is about public equiries: as above. I express my personal opinion when asked for it.
3. Me being asked by the media ‘ are survivors calling for a Public enquiry?’
‘Yes, many survivors and bereaved are calling for a public enqury, for many reasons.’
Can you see why if we are at situation 3, it is not appopriate to then start giving my personal opinions, when I have not been asked for them, and have instead been asked what a group of people have been saying?
No?
There’s a difference between Nick Robinson commenting on Westminster matters and telling us his personal opinion on whom he’ll be voting for, and if you can’t see that personal/political commentary where I clearly express a personal opinion is one thing, and speaking out/lobbying for a public enquiry as requested as part of a group of people who all have their own thoughts about politics but agree on this one thing means I stick to the subject in hand, and don’t deviate into my own political opinions as they are neither requested nor required,  then I am sorry, but i don’t see how I can possibly make it any clearer to you, I’m afraid.
I do object to you saying that I tell ‘part of the truth’ when speaking about public enquiries on behalf of a group. I am entirely congruent in my beliefs and behaviour, and not at all deceitful as you seem to be implying, or a teller of half-truths, which is to say, lies . Nor am I a politician, nor do I want to be a politician (!) I am a blogger/writer with my own personal and political opinions which I express where appropriate. I was asked to contribute a feature here and am glad to have done so and grateful for the opportunity to write something about an issue I am very interested in that happens to be topical .
As well as being a blogger, I am also a volunteer campaigner for a public enquiry with a bunch of other people.
Now we have got that straight, ( I hope) is there anything you wish to comment that relates to the issues themselves rather than what you consider to be my presumption in having a personal blogsite and also lending my services to fellow passengers as a lobbyist? Because the quality of debate is one of the highlights of this site, and many of the comments on this thread do seem to  be letting the side down.
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 I should be interested to know for example whether you have an opinion that if concerted attacks against ”Islamic extremism” provably popularise and recruit more Muslim extremists, those tactics can be regarded as successful in winning the war on terror?
I am glad you have suggested that we move on to your political/social (delete as necessary) agenda but before doing so allow me to point up yet another confusion in your perception. You write “There’s a difference between Nick Robinson commenting on Westminster matters and telling us his personal opinion on whom he’ll be voting for …”, precisely so, because Nick Robinson is a reporter with no policy to push but you are ‘partie pris’ with a very definite policy in mind.
You ask a loaded question of me, to wit: do I have “an opinion that if concerted attacks against ‘’Islamic extremism’’ provably popularise and recruit more Muslim extremists, those tactics can be regarded as successful in winning the war on terror?”
My reply is that ‘yes’, I would have an opinion if you could define what you mean by “concerted attacks”, whether or not you are referring to ‘home or away’ or both, what (or who) you mean by “Islamic extremism” and how you would ‘prove’ that such attacks “popularise and recruit more Muslim extremists”.
I know, I know, it’s all very tedious but warfare is exceedingly complicated and it is crucial to speak in very clear terms. Often the people engaged in it are the last to see the significance of particular actions and history is littered with examples of outcomes hugely influenced by events ‘on the other side of the hill’ of which one side was blissfully unaware. (Just recently I posted on the subject of Midway, arguably the most important battle of the Far East sector in WWII. That this battle was fought at all was decided irrevocably by Doolittle’s puny but courageous raid on Tokyo in which most of the planes went astray and a derisory handful of bombs were dropped, and yet, and yet … that led, as we see now but couldn’t at the time, to Japan losing the war 7 months after they began it!
Even so, I will attempt to answer your question this way: first, you need to decide that we *are* at war – not a war like any we have engaged in before – but a war nonetheless. I know you disagree with that but I would suggest to you that acts of violence against a state perpetrated in support of a political aim is war.
Now if I am right and we are at war then the choice is simple: fight or surrender, or to put it another way that might be less perjorative, oppose the enemy by ‘military’ action or adjust our foreign and home policies to comply with whatever our attackers demand. In the current state of affairs, we could, for example, take any or all of the following actions, renounce Israel, break ties with the USA, provide Muslims in this country with a seperate legislature, allow Sharia law to be enforced amongst Muslims in Britain, enforce a strict law to forbid any insulting references to Allah or Islam, and so on. Two questions arise, would that stop them killing us, and even if it did, is it a price worth paying? And then again, might it not encourage them to kill a few more of us as it seemed to work so well the first time round?
As to *my* version of “concerted attacks”, I have stated elsewhere that I believe the west should train their forces with the aim of overthrowing the governments of nations who threaten us either directly or by proxy. However, I also believe that we should not stay around to pick up the pieces. Politicians do not like being killed themselves and such a ruthless policy would soon encourage the others! Nor, with modern weapon systems, as we saw in Iraq II, need it lead to huge casualties. At home, we should prosecute a very firm campaign aimed at the Muslim community (after all, not much point in watching the Plymouth Brethren!) in order to garner all the intelligence possible which should be acted upon with alacrity. Mullahs, or anyone else, caught inciting violence should be jailed for a *minimum* of 10 years – remember, those young men who nearly blew you apart were radicalised by some-one!
Now my question to you. If you have your public enquiry and after due consideration the ‘judge’ comes out and says, in effect, that in the circumstances the security services acted pretty well and that, really, we should have a lot more of them doing the same sort of thing, would you and your fellows accept it and go quietly?
I would suggest to you that acts of violence against a state perpetrated in support of a political aim is war.
In Italy, in the late 1970s, there were between 40 and 50 active left-wing ‘armed struggle’ groups. Most of them at some point carried out acts of violence against the state. There were some connections between some of them, but I could name you ten or fifteen unconnected groups without even opening a book. Fifteen different ‘wars’, some of them against groups of eight or ten people who split up after a couple of years? Or was it one big ‘war’ – but in that case who was the enemy? The Left? The extreme Left? Or just, oh, anyone on the Left who was extreme enough to think about being a terrorist, or helping the terrorists, or making apologies for the terrorists, or helping the people who make apologies for the terrorists, or making apologies for the people who… look, we’ll know them when we see them, all right?
What the Italian experience tells us is that the ‘war’ approach to terrorism has been tried, and that it failed horribly. Politically it was a disaster; practically it was a bloody fiasco, and that adjective is descriptive.
Technically, as they were all Italians it was an insurrection, in other words, a civil war. If memory serves (which frequently it fails to do these days!) several of them were killed by para-military police units during the *campaign*. Also, I think actually the Italian government(s) won, did they not?
Italian society lost in a big way. And I notice you haven’t answered the question of who the [civil] war was with. As Uncle Ron said, “you have to be able to pinpoint the enemy – you can’t just start shooting without having someone in your gun sights”.
“Italian society lost in a big way”.
Really? You could have fooled me the last time I was in Tuscany where they all looked pretty happy and prosperous and any different from when I was in Amalfi about 15 years ago.
As to your question, I thought you had answered it yourself, “In Italy, in the late 1970s, there were between 40 and 50 active left-wing ‘armed struggle’ groups.” And as several of them have gone to that great collective in the sky courtesy of the Italian security services and the remainder are in jail, I suppose it’s safe to assume they lost. Perhaps we should consult with the Italians concerning our own domestic troubles.
You could have fooled me the last time I was in Tuscany where they all looked pretty happy and prosperous
If that’s your idea of a counter-argument, you’re welcome to it.
As for “who the civil war was with”, do just think for a minute. We’re not at the end of the cycle of terrorist activity, we’re at the beginning. The question is who – if this is a war – our government should be declaring war on. My point is that a war has an enemy who is defined in broader and more abstract terms than “those bastards who killed some of our people the other day” – and that any conceivable attempt to identify a single broad enemy lurking behind 7/7 would be disastrous, just as the Italian state’s attempt to define a single broad enemy lurking behind the left-wing ‘armed struggle’ groups was disastrous.
“any conceivable attempt to identify a single broad enemy lurking behind 7/7 would be disastrous”
-Yeah, right, as we all know, it was just four random guys who got bored one morning and thought to themselves “Hey, let’s kill ourselves by strapping bombs to our backs – hey, while we’re at it, let’s kill some other people at the same time”. Like you do.
“Hey, brutha, this idea of yours, it hasn’t got anything to do with that little holiday in Pakistan that we went on recently? You know, the one where we went to all those weird training camps and learned how to make bombs?”
“Nah, course not, straight up! I dunno how we ended up there, we must have got lost or something”.
“And those Imans down the mosque, who keep saying ‘kill the infidels, and you’ll be rewarded with 72 virgins in paradise’ – that has nothing to do with it either?”
“Come off it, will ya! I’m telling ya brutha, no-one takes those guys seriously. No, this is just a crazy idea that has popped into my mind, like, randomly”.
“Ah, you mean just like those guys on 9/11, who just had this crazy random idea to fly planes into US skyscrapers for like, no reason at all?”
“Yeah!”
“But I thought them guys acted out of desperation and victimisation and oppression beecuz of America in Iraq and all that?”
“Nah, that was before any of that stuff happened, you’re getting your dates all mixed up, bruv. They woz just random geezahs like us with no motivation, no training, no ideology, no reasons”.
“So, if we do this, we will be, like, criminals?”
“Even better! We will be Jihadists!”
“Sorry, wot does dat word mean, bruv?”
“It means, like, totally random, crazy dudes with no motivation and no connection to any sort of terrorism, dudes who just do random meaningless acts for no reason whatsoever”.
“Wicked! Let’s do it then!”
“Yeeeah! Allah Ackbar!!”
“Allu-what? Come again?”
“Oh sorry man, its another one of my silly sayings, it means ‘we is not connected with any ideology or reasoning or planning or training, we just do stuff coz like, why not?’ ”
-Gosh, the kids today, they’re just so mad and spontaneous, aren’t they now, Ted?
-Oh, you’re right there, Dougal, so.
-Say, Fr Ted, how do ostriches breathe when they stick their heads in the sand?
-I don’t know, Dougal. See that sand bucket over there? You go on and give it a try, why don’t you?
-Are you sure about that now, Ted?
-Oh yes, Dougal, it’s all the rage, everyone’s doing it.
Sorry, Phil, did I miss something then, the last time I was in Tuscany? I admit the Pino Grigio was flowing but I don’t remember seeing any riots, hearing any bombs, seeing great swathes of poverty. Of course, I’m told there are problems in the south because they are being over-run with immigrants but somehow I don’t think that’s what you have in mind.
As to war aims, I did state specifically that this was a war the like of which we have never fought before. There are two targets abroad. First, the governments who provide bases for militant Islamists and I have described above that they should be the target for direct military action. The second are the militant groups themselves and their *leaders* should be a priority target for either direct military action in the form of raids or covert assassination. The Israeli security services could act as advisers.
At home, we need a vigorous and all-encompassing intelligence effort to cover the *entire* Muslim population. This will take years to build up but the aim of the exercise is that we end up with the ability to ‘hear a Muslim sparrow fall’! Any transgressors should be jailed swiftly and for a long time or deported. Bombers, if we take them alive, and the people who aid them should be executed.
This is, to use the jargon, asymetric warfare and we must fight it on all fronts.
David Duff:
At home, we need a vigorous and all-encompassing intelligence effort to cover the *entire* Muslim population. This will take years to build up but the aim of the exercise is that we end up with the ability to ‘hear a Muslim sparrow fall’! Any transgressors should be jailed swiftly and for a long time or deported. Bombers, if we take them alive, and the people who aid them should be executed.
David’s right! Let’s put him in charge! What can possibly go wrong?
David, is that your Final Solution to the problem, or have you any more cunning ideas?
Good grief.
I agree, too!
Just to be sure, we should give the intelligence operation a good name – maybe an abbreviation of something like ‘Committee for State Security’.
Now what could we call the prisons we put the transgressors in?
Thanks to both David and ‘Tom’ for making my point for me.
Rachel, the one who pleads for a well conducted debate writes this, “… is that your Final Solution …?” Well, what can one say? Nothing is probably best.
What makes me smile is the ‘Shock-Horror’ re-action of Rachel, Neil ‘et al’ at my suggestion of a blanket security intelligence operation aimed at the Muslim community. Their opposition to it is total – and too late! It’s already happening. Just today I heard reports of a trial at the Old Bailey in which 7 Muslims are accused of planning terrorist acts including the use of planes. Recordings of their conversations were played to the jury. Rachel and Neil would, presumably, want this sort of operation stopped. I can only suggest that anyone living near Heathrow should consider moving!
Well argued, David. Your practical suggestions make great sense, and as far as I can see, they would work, given time. Yes, I would put you in charge, certainly. Meanwhile, all the detractors can say in response is “Good Grief”, and “Thanks for making my point”. No actual ideas of their own.
(But then again, according to them there is no global war, only
severala lothundredsthousandstens of thousands of “criminal acts of mass murder”, all committed by radical Muslims! What a coincidence!)There’s a difference between ‘terrorists’ and ‘Muslims’ Mr Duff.
I’m really, really struggling not to fall foul of Godwin’s law here but my God, it’s hard…
I am quite possibly a lot more well-informed than you (at the present time, due to my admittedly somewhat unusual position)  as to the nature of the terrorist threat since I am in contact with SO13, BBC political and Home Affairs correspondents and many of the the reporters who are covering the trial and pending trial at the Old Bailey and the Home Office.
Note how I am not calling for all Muslims/brown-skinned people/people who look a bit funny to be put under surveillance/shipped out of the UK. Note how they aren’t either.
Now wonder why that might be.
Odd, isn’t it, that someone who has a) first hand expereince of Islamic extremist terrorist violence b) access to quite a lot of info as to the nature of the terror threat c) been in lengthy meetings with the last Home Secretary and the current one, is not flapping like a wet hen/coming out with racist twaddle, and our arm chair pundit, is.
You claim to know all about my politics. I don’t think you do. But I rather think yours are starting to show…and not to their best advantage.
Do keep commenting, I’ve had the BNP and Stormfront all over my blog in the past, oddly enough, I seem to be rather a heroine to some of them. I’ve had Respect and the SWP as well, not to mention liberals and libertarians of every hue. All of them have managed to surprise me with their frequently positive take on who I am and what I’m doing: you, on the other hand, just made me laugh out loud in disbelief.
Some things are more important than party politics, and the debate about freedom and fear is one of them.
I’m calm and engaged, but are you?
‘Now my question to you. If you have your public enquiry and after due consideration the ‘judge’ comes out and says, in effect, that in the circumstances the security services acted pretty well and that, really, we should have a lot more of them doing the same sort of thing, would you and your fellows accept it and go quietly?’
I’ve answered this already upthread. I’ve answered it before, on my blog, in the press on the news.
Yes. (And I must add, since this is rather silly, for emphasis, yes, *durr*. )
Rachel offers this piercing insight: “There’s a difference between ‘terrorists’ and ‘Muslims’ Mr Duff”. Now what, I ask shaking my head, is that supposed to mean? You might as well say there’s a difference between yobs and English football supporters. If Rachel means that *some* terrorists are not Muslim, well, I think I could have worked that out for myself having watched 30-odd years of Irish terrorism. If she means that not all Muslims are terrorists, well, we’ve already agreed that only a tiny minority arte required to fight a terrorist campaign.
Rachel makes great play of her access to sources within and around the security services. Well, I, too, in my day had connections in that area and I can assure her that she will have been told nothing of real importance or significance that an intelligent reader of reputable newspapers couldn’t divine for themselves.
On three seperate occasions she has implied that I am a BNP supporter with Nazi tendencies. I am happy to be corrected but the only cause for her inference (in her terms) is the fact that I would aim the secuirty intelligence effort at the Muslim population. Apparently this marks me as a racist. Alright, Rachel, tell me where *you* would point our security services if you were in charge. The BNP, perhaps? The Women’s Institute? Tunbridge Wells? I mean, in which group of people, or in which area, do you think it most likely that you will find the next bunch of scallawags planning an atrocity?
You also write: “You [ie, me] claim to know all about my politics.” Again, I am happy to be corrected but I don’t remember making such a wild an sweeping statement. Perhaps you could provide a quote – I can’t be bothered to read back all of my boring stuff! I know next to nothing about you and care even less. What I do care about is your public campaign and the dangers there-in. You then go on to make a similar claim for yourself with this eliptical remark: “But I rather think yours [politics] are starting to show…and not to their best advantage.” Again, I must ask you to substantiate that and the rather sinister overtone contained in it. We are discussing a complex policy on dealing with a terrorist campaign being waged in this country. Good men and women might well disagree on these difficult matters of judgement. So be it, but let’s leave the innuendos at the door, please. I have offered my policy to combat home-based terrorism and it has nothing to do with my politics.
Incidentally, I have never heard of “Stormfront”!
Actually, David, I’d rather the security services were watching everyone, not just the Muslims. They should be watching you, and me, and people like you and me. Especially you – you seem to hate this country more than most.
“you seem to hate this country more than most.”
Any chance of an explanation? I wouldn’t expect you to manage a proof.
The reason Rachel may have reminded you that there is a difference between terrorists and Muslims is that an unfortunately high number of people, including some who have posted on this thread, seem to operate under the assumption that there is no, or very little, difference between the two. In your prescription for winning the war on terror you wrote that
“we need a vigorous and all-encompassing intelligence effort to cover the *entire* Muslim population.â€Â.
Apart from the logistic nightmare of putting surveillance on 1.3 million people, there are clear civil liberties implications involved here. Why should a person have their privacy removed simply because they are a Muslim? The obvious inference we draw from this is that you do indeed think Muslims are more likely to be terrorists simply by being Muslim. Otherwise you would have simply called for increased surveillance on extremist Muslim groups. Furthermore on your own blog you have written that you believe a majority of Muslims sympathise with terrorists, so its pretty clear that you do see the vast majority of Muslims in the UK as a security threat – which is precisely the line the BNP use in their efforts to get foreigners ethnically cleansed from the UK.
Do you think the FBI should have placed the entire white population of the US under blanket surveillance after the Oklahoma bombings?, the entire churchgoing population after abortion clinic bombings?, or MI5 spying on every white male in the UK following the nail bombings?
Or would that response be disproportionate, discriminatory and waste of resources.
Can you now see why proposing to put every Muslim in the UK under surveillance can be considered unreasonable.
(to avoid the inevitable straw man I’ll make it clear now that I do not object to the surveillance of extremist groups, be they militant Islamists, white supremacists or daily mail readers)
“Any chance of an explanation? I wouldn’t expect you to manage a proof.”
duffandnonsense.typepad.com – It is little more than a litany of complaint about our great nation. You should be watched, and locked up should you over-step the mark.
‘Planeshift’ tries to stick to the practicalities so I will follow suit.
I never said that 1.3 million Muslims in this country should be put under surveillance, that would be impossible. What I indicated was that the security intelligence effort against terrorism should be extended, increased and focused on the Muslim community. Not Sikhs, not Chinese, not Jews, not Roman Catholics, not the Humanist Society, but the community from where the terrorists originate, where they are nurtured, where they are amongst friends and families, where they can move unobtrusively. Now, ‘Planeshift’, tell me where you would point the security services?
I also made quite clear on my blog that the Muslim community here is exactly similar to the Southern Irish population during the recent troubles. A very large percentage of them had an antipathy to the Brits, disliked ‘proddies’ intensely even though they had ethnically cleansed their part of Ireland and had a lukewarm sympathy for the romantic ideals of extreme Republicanism. Only a tiny handful of them ever helped directly but they provided ‘the sea in which the sharks could swim’. Thus it is with the Muslim community in Britain and to say otherwise is to refuse to face the downright ‘bleedin’obvious’? You should note from the above that “a very large percentage” does not mean *all of them*. It may not even mean a majority of them. But it does mean *them* and no-one else – so far!
With methods both ancient and modern it will be possible, over time, to build up a network of information and analysis covering the Muslim community that will prove very fruitful in anticipating future actions and activists. Mistakes will be made, but as the Americans put it so succinctly, “Shit happens!” It doesn’t matter, the first duty of a government is to protect its own people – and that includes the non-militant Muslims.
I only ever speak for myself. ‘I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of any political party’ and I can’t help what the BNP say or do, a bunch of politicians, it seems to me, who have succeeded in the impossible by giving the appearance of being even more stupid than the other idiots who run this country.
“You should be watched, and locked up should you over-step the mark.”
And what “mark” would that be, Neil?
“And what “mark†would that be, Neil?”
Well that’s the clincher, isn’t it? You might not know what you did, but you will know when they’ve broken into your house and shot you!
Who’s to know that all your bluster here isn’t a double-bluff, eh?
And assuming that your strategy of targeting/suspecting all Muslims as potential terrorists is proved to lead to an increase in the numbers of those who hold extremist beliefs and sympathies,
and who are willing to act on them,
suppose that your policy has been agreed to have provably failed, that you have tried to stamp out the idea of Isalmic terrorism, root it out,
but instead it is proved that there are many more who now *buy* the ideas, including those who before were moderate, and uninterested,
can you honestly say that your *war* on this idea has succeeded?
And what price is worth it? 52 commuters? 520? 5200 ? 520,000? 5.2 million? More?
Where does this end, David?
I prefer the risk of my train blowing up to where I think it ends.
Meanwhile, all the detractors can say in response is “Good Griefâ€Â, and “Thanks for making my pointâ€Â. No actual ideas of their own.
Just to clarify, ‘Tom’, when I say “Thanks for making my point” I’m saying that your and David’s presentation of your own positions disqualifies them from any serious consideration. If somebody tells me that 2+2=5, I don’t need to prove that they’re wrong; they’ve done that already.
I know exactly what you meant, Phil E. I have read Anthony Browne’s excellent Civitas document “The Retreat Of Reason”, so I am very clued up about the strategy you’re employing here.
I’m sorry that my particular style of using melodramatic prose and imaginary sketches renders my points unworthy of serious consideration in your mind.
By all means, continue in your delusion that there is no identifiable enemy, that we are not at war, and that Islam is a religion of love and peace. You’re so right. Anyone who thinks otherwise is Hitler reincarnated, and that closes the debate, end of argument.
(btw, you didn’t catch the news yesterday by any chance, did you? Yet ANOTHER group of random criminals (with no ideology and no terrorist links) are on trial for planning to hijack a BA jet. You can tell they are just ordinary everyday British people from their names – John Jones, Andy Smith, etc. Where are they all coming from? What on earth is leading them to do these things? It’s such a mystery! I wish someone could find some sort of connection between them all).
Rachel, try re-reading your comment above but replace “targeting/suspecting” with ‘ignoring’, and likewise with the words “stamp out” use ‘ignore’.
Now, putting debating tricks to one side, let’s get practical, I am still waiting for you and Phil and Neil, ‘et al’, to tell me which target group, *if any*, the security services should be aimed at bearing in mind that resources are limited?
Neil (and I say this in a friendly, tone), you should lie down for a bit in a dark cool room, I think the heat’s getting to you!
continue in your delusion that there is no identifiable enemy, that we are not at war, and that Islam is a religion of love and peace
I haven’t said any of those things.
Let’s take it in stages. Christendom is not at war with Islam, and to act as if this were the case would be disastrous.
(Lost you already, ‘Tom’? Never mind.)
But, it might be argued, there are people out there who do think they’re at war with us, and so it’s reasonable for us to say we’re at war with them.
But who’s ‘them’? My contention – based, among other things, on a doctoral thesis on Italian politics in the period of the Red Brigades – is that there’s no way of identifying a ‘them’ who we can take the fight to which doesn’t make matters worse. Dialogue is the only feasible approach, for purely tactical reasons. Or: “any conceivable attempt to identify a single broad enemy lurking behind 7/7 would be disastrous, just as the Italian state’s attempt to define a single broad enemy lurking behind the left-wing ‘armed struggle’ groups was disastrous.”
“tell me where you would point the security services?â€Â
I’m happy to restate my position as asked. I think the security services should focus their resources on any extremist group that advocates violence (must resist temptation to point out this includes everyone apart from Quakers)– be it white supremacist groups, Christian anti-abortion groups, the ALF, Irish republicans not on ceasefire, loyalist paramilitaries, and yes Islamic militants. I’ll freely concede the difficulty in finding members of such organisations, as they tend not to have membership lists and these days use cellular structures. However the Muslim community in the UK tends to inform on extremists quite regularly, something it wouldn’t do if any significant proportion of “them†supported their activities.
“Only a tiny handful of them ever helped directly but they provided ‘the sea in which the sharks could swim’â€Â
I’d argues that the “sea in which they swim†is actually the criminal fraternity, as a quick look at the backgrounds of some of the recent terrorists shows this–the Madrid bombers and some of the 9-11 hijackers reveals they were petty criminals who drank, took drugs and womanised right before they committed their crimes. So focusing on people who actually attended mosques would have missed them. Richard Reid was a petty criminal who converted to Islam whilst in Jail, as was one of the London bombers if memory serves me correctly, so there would be a case of increasing surveillance on recent converts, who tend to be more zealous – but also tend to be more white and British than people born into the religion..
“continue in your delusion that there is no identifiable enemy, that we are not at war, and that Islam is a religion of love and peace.â€Â
To most of its followers Islam is indeed a religion of love and peace. Most Christians would say the same of their religion, most Jews theirs, as would most Hindu’s Sikhs, Taoists etc. Like all the above Islam is a religion full of contradictions and competing interpretations, not to mention different cultural identities and histories. And again just like the other religions, it has some followers who use it to justify violence. To labour under the delusion that followers of Islam show a greater propensity to use violence is to simply be ignorant of the vast history of violence committed in the name of the other religions mentioned, not to mention the secular religions of Marxism, fascism, nationalism and liberalism.
What Planeshift said. With knobs on.
Good! Now we can get down to cases.
‘Planeshift’ and Rachel advocate aiming the security services at “Islamic militants”. Question: Amongst which group in society and in which social areas are you most likely to find them? Answer: The Muslim community and in Muslim areas. Or, to put it another way, it is unlikely that you will find any in your local Conservative club in Tunbridge Wells!
They both say that the criminal community is the one to watch, and certainly it should be, but your everyday criminal does not commit suicide in furtherence of his crime – that takes a radicalised fanatic. Of course, some contacts might occur between criminals and terrorists as the latter seek weaponry or explosives, so known dealers in guns should be watched and indeed, are already watched by the normal police services – I hope!
Of course it is true that some members of the Muslim community will inform, although I have to tell you that mostly it will be for money not for love of dear old ‘Blighty’, and a terrific increase in the network of informants is exactly and precisely what I advocate. But in addition, there are new and sophisticated techniques of information gathering, storing, collating and analysing that can provide ‘pictures’ of the daily comings and goings in a community in which anything new or unusual in the pattern will be apparent. To give but one simple example, the car numbers usually parked in any street overnight can be recorded and compared so that any ‘new’ number can be checked on – that sort of thing.
That is what I mean by a blanket security intelligence operation covering all Muslim areas. It will take a huge increase in computer and man power. As I understand it MI5 have begun to increase their numbers by 50% which is ‘good news’, the ‘bad news’ is that it will take years to train these people and one’s faith in our so-clled public services is in negative territory. In other words, more doesn’t necessarilly mean better!
None of the above means that other groups likely to endanger the public should be ignored, but if it’s Muslim terrorists you’re after then start by looking amongst the Muslim community!
Quite why Rachel is going along with ‘Planeshift’ in view of her opinion that there is no war only criminal activity, I don’t know.
Just an additional thought about targetting the security services.
A recent study has shown that between 60-70% of Al-Qaeda members* went to a university** (9% have postgraduate degrees), usually in a country different from their own***. In addition it appears normal that the radicalisation began during this time of separation from their normal community.
So it’s pointless looking for Muslim extremists in the Muslim community because that’s not the place where the radicalisation occurs – try the universities (which is also a much smaller and more manageable sample).
Other locations where Muslim professionals group together due to isolation from the commuity are also good places to look.
CCW
* Defined those who target the US directly. As distinct from purely nationalistic fighters such as the Taliban.
** Normally to study the sciences or engineering. Almost no humanities are represented. This ties in neatly with an Israeli study that showed that suicide bombers tend to be those with a highly analytical mind (suited to logic and mathematics) and a corresponding lack of understanding of the human condition.
*** Ten universities worldwide account for about 50% of the sample. Twelve universities account for about 60%.
Meanwhile, I just read about some top lads called ‘Scott’ and ‘Tom’ who decided to prove their ‘I hold no truck with Political Correctness’ credentials by actually stamping on someone’s head until he was dead, just for who he was. Maybe that’s a group that’s worth watching?
I agreed with Planeshift with regard to this:
‘I think the security services should focus their resources on any extremist group that advocates violence (must resist temptation to point out this includes everyone apart from Quakers)– be it white supremacist groups, Christian anti-abortion groups, the ALF, Irish republicans not on ceasefire, loyalist paramilitaries, and yes Islamic militants.’
and
‘To labour under the delusion that followers of Islam show a greater propensity to use violence is to simply be ignorant of the vast history of violence committed in the name of the other religions mentioned, not to mention the secular religions of Marxism, fascism, nationalism and liberalism.’
Duff said ‘Quite why Rachel is going along with ‘Planeshift’ in view of her opinion that there is no war only criminal activity, I don’t know.’
Quite why you are reading posts written in simple English and misinterpreting them to say something entirely different I don’t know.
However, you live in a world where all Muslims are potential terrorists and the entire Muslim community must be put under discriminatory surveillance, ( perhaps deported or popped into work camps too?…), so clearly we are going to struggle to engage in fruitful dialogue.
A further point
‘ a blanket security intelligence operation covering all Muslim areas…’
Ahem. And if those pesky terrorists DON’T attend Mosques, don’t actually live in Muslim areas, don’t wear long beards, DO wear Western clothes, DO eat at McDonalds, DO play cricket and DO have responsible non-Muslim jobs… what then?
Oh. That’ll be the 7/7 bomber profile. Drat. And where did intelligence about *them* come from?
Hmmmm, the Mosque-attending Muslim community. Including Hussein’s own mother. And *these* are the people you want to alientate and piss off?
Not very sensible. And the police, SO13, ISC, the Home Office via Contest, all agree.
There’s really no point in attempting debate with Duff, so why waste your time? To him, all Muslims are potential terrorists, everyone opposed to the war is a Guardianista and therefore he knows best. Any attempts at rational argument are misquoted in reply and so it goes, round and round and round.
You might as well hurl your shoes at the moon in an attempt to knock it out of the sky…
Unlikely to convince him, true, but the great thing is that he provides a wonderful example of just how closed-minded the lazy, binary thinking of the ‘Muslims are dodgy, panic, we must submit to anything to stop the Bearded Menace that Stalks the Streets’ tabloid-esque loonery that deserves a good poking holes in, frankly.
And I like a good ruck.
:-D
Rachel, laying on the irony wrote this:
“And if those pesky terrorists DON’T attend Mosques, don’t actually live in Muslim areas, don’t wear long beards, DO wear Western clothes, DO eat at McDonalds, DO play cricket and DO have responsible non-Muslim jobs… what then?
Oh. That’ll be the 7/7 bomber profile.”
I’m not sure which profile she’s been reading, perhaps something from those high-level sources in government and the security services that she coyly hinted at. I had to make do with a very quick skim through the BBC site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/london_blasts/investigation/html/bombers.stm
“By the time he began this job in 2001, he was clearly serious about his Islamic faith. He prayed regularly at school and attended the local mosque on Fridays.”
“Throughout his time at the school, Khan’s social life revolved around the mosques and Islamic groups of Leeds, Huddersfield and Dewsbury”.
“”Their indoctrination appears to have taken place away from places with known links to extremism,” it said. The report also revealed the existence of rumours suggesting that Tanweer, along with Khan, had been to Afghanistan for “violent jihad”.”
“In Islamic groups around Huddersfield and Dewsbury, he was admired for the speed with which he achieved fluency in Arabic and memorised long passages of the Koran, showing unusual maturity and seriousness. It is thought Lindsay was influence by extremist preacher Abdallah al-Faisal, a fellow Jamaican, now serving a prison sentence for soliciting murder and race hate.”
“Much of his social life was based around the local mosques, youth clubs and the gym in the neighbouring district of Beeston, where fellow bombers Khan and Tanweer grew up.”
Well, one thing’s for sure, the Beeston area of Leeds should be top of the list of areas to be place under surveillance! All of the bombers were described as religious and mosque attenders.
So, I ask Rachel once again, now that she admits that militant Muslims are a threat; if she was leading MI5 where would she tell her officers to start looking?
*Extremists* are a threat. Violent criminals are a threat. I’d go after people planning to break the laws of the land and commit (mass) murder or huge fraud or spread poisonous hatefilled propoganda or other illegal and hugely damaging activities, for wicked personal or political reasons.
Neo-nazis like the Soho nail-bomber. The ‘Real IRA’ ( still over 20% of M15’s budget allocation). Paramilitary organisations/gangs. Organised crime networks. Hate-criminals like those who stomped a man to death because he was gay.Extremist Islamic ‘jihadi’ wannabe-murderers. Like the petty criminal chap who blew up my train
For the latter ( extremist ‘Islamist’ radicalised young men) I’d have to look in hard-to-watch places. Universities. Gyms and youth clubs and bookshops selling extremist material which are known to locals as centres for hot-heads ( the gym the Beeston bombers was known locally as ‘the al-Qaida gym) . I’d monitor websites publishing inflammatory material to see how much was hot air, what the depth of feeling was about issues such as foreign policy and anti-terror measures and whether they were working against us by unflaming the moderate majority and making it harder to work with them.
It is impossible to cover this, so I would rely very heavily on intelligence from the local Muslim community, because this is pretty much admitted to be the best, the only hope of defeating bomb attacks planned in weight rooms and bedrooms and on trips to outward cound centres and to training camps abroad, not Mosques.
I would work closely with the Pakistani and Egyptian security etc services, and monitor all known training camps abroad as closely as possible.
I would not harrass, abuse, raid Mosques or Muslim centres or generally behave in a heavy-handed manner to piss off this priceless help from British Muslim citizens. I would maintain good relations with Muslims, act on their advice from community representatives, and rely on the frequently-acknowleged fact that the extremist Islamicist death cult is extremely damaging to Islam, and that suicide and murder are forbidden in the Qu’ran. I would leave the Mosques out of it, just because some potential jihadis attend Mosques, the damage done by assuming all Mosque attenders are potential suicide bombers is immense, and utterly counter productive. You will note that Finsbury Park mosque down the road from me chucked out the hate-preacher themselves and complained about him to the police.
I would, in short, behave a damn sight responsibly than you are advocating, Mr Duff. And this is, in fact, the recommendation of the security services, Special Branch  and the ISC and the thinking behind Project Contest.
Criminality is criminality. Conflating millions of members of an ancient and respected religion with criminals is disgraceful and stupid. There are already laws against murder and incitement to it, there are laws against fraud, harrassment, threatening behaviour and so on.
I would make the obvious distinction between Muslims and terrorists crystal clear. Everyone should be able to grasp the difference between
1.religion and
2.political idealogy used to justify murder and suicide.
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Just as everyone is able to grasp the difference between Roman Catholics and the IRA.
I would look, Mr Duff, at engaging with hearts and minds. As I wrote in the piece above, which has provoked this debate. I would argue that the current tactics of the war on terror are in fact providing the oxygen that extremism thrives on. I would, as I have said, question the tactics of a ‘war’ on an idea that seems to be feeding and spreading said idea, and making the world less, not more, safe to live in.
At the risk of spoiling your breakfast, Rachel, there is much in that with which I would agree and happily it all seems far removed from this which I described, accurately, I believe, as “twaddle”:
“The first step is to reach out into the darkness and listen for a stranger’s voice, as so many ordinary people caught up in the London bombings did instinctively, when the world exploded around them a year ago. In the midst of horror and fear, there is something more powerful even than a bomb, more powerful even than an idea. It is the instinctive recognition of our shared humanity, our intra-dependence on each other, that the only way we can keep each other safe is by working together and helping each other. We already know it in our hearts and our minds. Now if we live it in our actions and our words, we might create a whole world that is bomb-proof.”
I have to say that in our exchanges here, I have not sensed you ‘reaching out’ to me! In fact, there have been moments when you have sounded, dare I say, downright militant. Perhaps there is no place in your liberal heart for an old re-actionary like me whose bleak, cold-eyed assessment of this world is that when people tell you they hate you and follow it up by attempting and sometimes succeeding in killing you, it is best to take them very seriously indeed.
One final point. I do not hate “all” Muslims. I do not even hate the bombers. To me, they are soldiers utilising the only method of warfare currently available to them, that is, terrorism and explosives (until they get something bigger!) and I give them due respect as one (former) soldier to another. None of that, however, would stop me from hunting them down and killing them or imprisoning them for life. It *is* a war and it must be fought cleverly , intelligently and with great subtlety but with equally great ruthlessness.
Thank you for the debate which, apart from your innuendo to the effect that I am some sort of Nazi, I have enjoyed.
Great piece Rachel! I agree with Sean, Duff is using the old “I’m right and you’re wrong” argument and showing himself for the narrow minded bigot he is, and he is also showing just how pointless it is trying to argue with someone so blinkered that he only has about five degrees of vision either side of the straight ahead!
Thank you, ‘BB’, for your incisive, thoughtful and witty contribution to the conversation. I hope it didn’t take you *all* morning to compose it.
I rest my case…
The comments above are typical of the many circular discussions on this topic. Endless repetition of incompatible viewpoints will lead to nothing except endless repetition. The only way to achieve ‘closure’ on the circularity, is to accept the plurality of incompatible and violently opposed principles.
In other words, abandon the idea that there is a political process (liberal democracy) that can incorporate both people who think ‘we’ (Britain, the West, Europe) are at war with Islam, and people who think ‘we’ (Muslims) are at war with ‘them’ (Britain, the West, Europe). Just like, say the authorities in Belfast in 1980 or so, the political elite will have to learn to live with the fact that sections of the population are remorselessly hostile to each other, and will probably kill each other if they get the chance. Learn to live with the fact that Islamists will detonate bombs, and learn to live with the fact that white nationalists will burn down mosques. Learn to live with the probable polarisation of party politics, and the probable residential segregation of cities along ethnic and religious lines.
The trouble with liberal democracy is that it assumes a population of near-clones, who can overcome their minor differences through the political process. All the controversy about immigration, terror, and Islam in Europe indicates, that the population are nowhere near clones in this sense. The state cannot be the instrument of their common values, because they have none.