Can we really win this thing?

On this first anniversary of the July 7th Tube and bus bombings, I've been re-posting some of my commentary from a year ago. Scroll down for my initial reaction, and some thoughts on Europe's "twice promised land", but first here's a column from The Daily Telegraph of July 19th 2005 that makes a sobering read. What happened to all those calls for British "identity"? The usual nine-day media wonder, and then back to appeasing squishiness as usual. Re-reading my final paragraph here, I found it hard to reach any conclusion other than that Britain is over - a very sad thought:

It has been sobering this past week watching some of my “woollier” colleagues (in Vicki Woods’ self-designation) gradually awake to the realization that the real suicide bomb is “multiculturalism”. Its remorseless tick-tock, suddenly louder than the ethnic drumming at an anti-globalisation demo, drove poor old Boris Johnson into rampaging around this page last Thursday like some demented late-night karaoke one-man Fiddler On The Roof, stamping his feet and bellowing “Tradition! Tradition!”

Boris’ plea for more Britishness was heartfelt and valiant, but I’m not sure I’d bet on it. The London bombers were, to the naked eye, assimilated – they ate fish’n’chips, played cricket, sported appalling leisurewear. They’d adopted so many trees we couldn’t see they lacked the big overarching forest – the essence of identity, of allegiance. As I’ve said before, you can’t assimilate with a nullity – which is what multiculturalism is.

So, if Islamist extremism is the genie you’re trying to put back in the bottle, it doesn’t help to have smashed the bottle. As the death of the Eurofanatic Ted Heath reminds us, in modern Britain even a “conservative” Prime Minister thinks nothing of obliterating ancient counties and imposing on the populace fantasy jurisdictions – “Avon”, “Clwyd” and (my personal favourite in its evocative neo-Stalinism) “Central Region” – and an alien regulatory regime imported from the failed polities of Europe. The 7/7 murderers are described as “Yorkshiremen”, but, of course, there is no Yorkshire: Ted abolished that, too.

Sir Edward’s successor, Mr Blair, said on the day of the bombing that terrorists would not be allowed to “change our country or our way of life”. Of course not. That’s his job - from hunting to Europeanisation. Could you reliably say what aspects of “our way of life” Britain’s ruling class, whether pseudo-Labour like Mr Blair or pseudo-Conservative like Sir Ted, wish to preserve? The Notting Hill Carnival? Not enough, alas.

Consider the Bishop of Lichfield, who at Evensong, on the night of the bombings, was at pains to assure his congregants, “Just as the IRA has nothing to do with Christianity, so this kind of terror has nothing to do with any of the world faiths.” It’s not so much the explicit fatuousness of the assertion so much as the broader message it conveys: we’re the defeatist wimps; bomb us and we’ll apologise to you. That’s why in Britain the Anglican Church is in a death-spiral and Islam is the fastest-growing religion. There’s no market for a faith that has no faith in itself. And as the church goes so goes the state: why introduce identity cards for a nation with no identity?

It was the Prime Minister’s wife, you’ll recall, who last year won a famous court victory for Shabina Begum, as a result of which schools across the land must now permit students to wear the full “jilbab” – ie, Muslim garb that covers the entire body except the eyes and hands. Ms Booth hailed this as “a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry”. It seems almost too banale to observe that such an extreme preservation of Miss Begum’s Muslim identity must perforce be at the expense of any British identity. Nor, incidentally, is Miss Begum “preserving” any identity: she’s of Bangladeshi origin, and her adolescent adoption of the jilbab is a symbol of the Arabisation of South Asian (and African and European) Islam that’s at the root of so many problems. It’s no more part of her inherited identity than my five-year old dressing up in his head-to-toe Darth Vader costume, to which at a casual glance it’s not dissimilar.

Is it “bigoted” to argue that the jilbab is a barrier to acquiring the common culture necessary to any functioning society? Is it “prejudiced” to suggest that in Britain a Muslim woman ought to reach the same sartorial compromise as, say, a female doctor in Bahrain? Apparently so, according to Cherie Booth.

One of the striking features of the post-9/11 world is the minimal degree of separation between the so-called “extremists” and the establishment: Princess Haifa, wife of the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, gives $130,000 to accomplices of the 9/11 terrorists; the head of the group that certifies Muslim chaplains for the US military turns out to be a bagman for terrorists; one of the London bombers gets given a tour of the House of Commons by a Labour MP. The Guardian hires as a “trainee journalist” a member of Hizb ut Tahir, “Britain’s most radical Islamic group” (as his own newspaper described them) and in his first column post-7/7 he mocks the idea that anyone could be “shocked” at a group of Yorkshiremen blowing up London: “Second- and third-generation Muslims are without the don’t-rock-the boat attitude that restricted our forefathers. We’re much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks” – or the bus blows, or the Tube vaporizes. Fellow Guardian employee David Foulkes, who was killed in the Edgware Road blast, would no doubt be heartened to know he’d died for the cause of Muslim “sassiness”.

But among all these many tales of the multiculti mainstream ushering the extremists from the dark fringe to the centre of western life, there is surely no more emblematic example than that of Shabina Begum, whose victory over the school dress code was achieved with the professional support of both the wife of the Prime Minister who pledges to defend “our way of life” and of Hizb ut Tahir, a group which advocates violence in support of a worldwide caliphate and which “urges Muslims to kill Jewish people” (according to the BBC). What does an “extremist” have to do to be too extreme for Cherie Booth or The Guardian?

Oh, well. Back to business as usual. In yesterday’s Independent, Dave Brown had a cartoon showing Bush and Blair as terrorists boarding the Tube to Baghdad. Ha-ha. The other day in Thailand, where 800 folks have been killed by Islamists since the start of the year, two Laotian farm workers were beheaded. I suppose that’s Bush and Blair’s fault, too.

I’d like to think that my “woolly liberal” colleague Vicki Woods and the woolly sorta-conservative Boris Johnson represent the majority. If they do, you’ve got a sporting chance. But in the end Cherie Booth and Dave Brown and the Bishop of Lichfield will get you killed. Best of British, old thing.

I would like to know why tougher measures are not proposed in light of the latest Hezbollah threat against America. Michael Savage proposed internment camps for Muslims should there by another mega-attack. I would like to know why our politicians (not to speak of the pathetic European political classes) care so little about their duty to defend us that they're not even proposing a limited plan to deport radical Muslims in this country. I'm talking about the Hezbollah enablers in Dearborn, the radical imams seeking coverts in prisons, and so on. I personally know of students from Saudi Arabia, allowed in this country AFTER 9/11, who deny that any Arabs had involvement in that attack. Are we at all serious about this? Any country in history would have already deported or sequestered most Muslims by now, this is not a radical plan. At least if the political classes had it on the table, it would change the nature of public discourse and let the traitors in the country know that we mean business. I am very pessimistic about how this war will turn out, Mark Steyn's articles on the matter are probably the most revealing. My guess is the West will become galvanized only after millions have already died.

Michael Savage proposed internment camps for Muslims should there by another mega-attack

Michael Savage! Now there's a fount of wisdom.
/worldclass sarcasm

I would like to know why our politicians (not to speak of the pathetic European political classes) care so little about their duty to defend us that they're not even proposing a limited plan to deport radical Muslims in this country.

Maybe it's because they
1 Have a clue
2 Actually want to win this war
3 Are not demagogues, speaking to slackjawwed mouth breathers.

Yes, certainly you have world-class sarcasm, Valium. Where did you learn this trick, to put an exclamation mark behind someone's name?

You'd lose an argument with Savage in under a minute. You've got no clue, kiddo, if you think you win a war by being "nice" to the people trying to kill you. During WWII there weren't organizations fronting for Nazism and radical Shintoism in the US to explain to us about Japanese and German "grievances." Yet you think allowing the present-day equivalent is because we have "a clue" and "actually want to win." We do want to win, but our political classes have no idea about what a war is, nor do they have balls.

I don't know your position left or right, but I'm going to assume, you write on this site, you're right...and this is very sad. The fact that even the right is so circumspect as not to even consider what was common sense to all other generations is why we have a war in the first place with an opponent so pathetic like Islam.

You'd lose an argument with Savage in under a minute.

That doesn't mean Michael Savage is correct. Of course it would also depend on which day of the week the debate took place, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, he says one thing Tuesday Thursday says the opposite. On the rare occations I've turned him on in the last couple of years I've heard him say both intern Muslims and yell at people who say intern them. Now I don't expect a whole lot of consistency from talk show host...heck I don't expect a lot of consistency from people in general (you want consistency look at ants, they are nothing if not consistant) but Savage...he'lll change his position (it seems) every other min.

if you think you win a war by being "nice" to the people trying to kill you. During WWII there weren't organizations fronting for Nazism and radical Shintoism in the US to explain to us about Japanese and German "grievances."

When have I ever said that? And while we are at it just who are these "They" you are talking about? Is it CAIR or is it iraqi soldiers fighting and dying along side Americans fighting Islamic terrorists? Is it Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad al-Fahd or Dr. Sayyed Al-Qimni?

Given the choice between standing with Michael Savage or George Bush, well I think I'll take Bush. Someone who has actually done something about radical Isalm as opposed to Michael Savage who has done......?.....influenced......who?.....accomplished.....what?

I like certain Muslims too. Ayaan Hirsi Ali...OK, so she's not religious, but I also like Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was very. But the truly moderate Muslims are too few to make a difference in this fight. The ENTIRE Muslim world overwhelmingly supports Al Qaeda, OBL, Hezbollah...this is what the figures say. The Muslims in the West want to see us live under sharia. Support for "radicalism" is higher among Muslims than it was among Germans for Hitler in 1930. The threat of terrorism and of demographic war will not stop until the Muslims worldwide realize the wages of their allegiance in the same way the Germans and Japanese were made to realize it...several large Muslim cities need to be turned to rubble, the oil fields seized and placed under some group of the great powers (they should not have had the oil in the first place). This is the only way to "change hearts and minds." Our whole conception of how to carry out this war is bizarre by historical standards. Bush made an alliance with the Saudis and Pakis who are precisely the people we should have gone after.

Reforming the ME in the manner I recommend and expelling most Muslims from Western countries would end this war in under a year. There is nothing immoral about all of this, and it would bring us certain other benefits as well.

The ENTIRE Muslim world overwhelmingly supports Al Qaeda, OBL, Hezbollah

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=833

Bin Laden and al Qaeda

Osama bin Laden remains a pariah in the West, and support for the al Qaeda leader has eroded in several Muslim countries in recent years. In Jordan, confidence in bin Laden has plummeted since May 2005. A year ago, 25% of Jordanians said they had a lot of confidence in bin Laden to "do the right thing regarding world affairs," while another 35% said they had some confidence. Today, almost no Jordanians (fewer than 1%) express a lot of confidence in bin Laden, and 24% say they have some confidence in him.

In Pakistan, confidence in bin Laden also has fallen, though not quite as dramatically. In May 2005, a majority of Pakistanis (51%) expressed at least some confidence in bin Laden; that number has declined to 38% in the current survey.

To be sure, bin Laden still has followers in the Muslim world. Fully 61% of Muslims in Nigeria express a lot of confidence (33%) or some confidence (28%) in bin Laden; that represents a significant increase from May 2003 (44%). Bin Laden's standing in Pakistan has eroded, but more Pakistanis still express at least some confidence in bin Laden than say they have little or no confidence in him (by 38% to 30%). And a third of Indonesians continue to express at least some confidence in the al Qaeda leader.

Among European Muslims, only about one-in-twenty Muslims in Germany and France express even some confidence in bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs. But that figure rises to 14% among Muslims in Great Britain, and 16% of Spanish Muslims.

As for al Qaeda and groups like it, opinion is mixed in the Muslim world about how much support they attract. Large majorities in Jordan, Egypt and Indonesia say they draw just some or very few supporters. But a majority of Muslims in Nigeria (56%) say many or most Muslims there support al Qaeda and similar groups. About a third of Pakistanis (35%) say such extremists groups have the support of most or many of the people in that country.

Among people living in the West, majorities of Muslims and non-Muslims alike say they believe these extremist groups have very limited following among Muslims in their countries. But Spain is very much an exception. Fewer than half of the Spanish (46%) say Islamic extremists draw support from just some or very few Spanish Muslims; nearly as many (41%) say that most or many of Spain's Muslims support such groups. By comparison, just 12% of Spanish Muslims say that many or most of the country's Muslims support al Qaeda and similar groups.

In India and Russia as well, fairly large percentages of the general publics say many or most Muslims there support Islamic extremists (41% and 28%, respectively).

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