[Sam Gamgee]

At least American Jihadists work for a living. :)

What I wonder is why the sheiks were ignored for so long? How many years have they preached violence on England from Trafalgar and Hyde Park? Did the powers to be think they were joking?

It seems to me the intelligence community is not fighting this as a war, but reacting to events.

[David Hunter]

What I wonder is why the sheiks were ignored for so long? How many years have they preached violence on England from Trafalgar and Hyde Park? Did the powers to be think they were joking?

One method MI5 has used in the past is to leave obvious rabble rousers in place, so as to have a way to get into the terrorist networks. They would have been watching people like Abu Hamza and keeping those who go to his sermons and contact him under surveillance. I agree though that their public calls for attacks on the USA and UK were beyond the pale and they should have been stopped from doing those things.