Britain 'is now biggest security threat to US' (UK Telegraph)

Telegraph (UK) ^ | August 29, 2006 | Francis Harris in Washington

[Mark Felton]

Britain now presents a greater security threat to the United States than Iran or Iraq, an American magazine said yesterday.

In an article on Islamists headlined "Kashmir on the Thames", the New Republic painted Britain's Muslim communities as a breeding ground for violent extremism.

Citing recent opinion poll evidence suggesting that one in four British Muslims believed that last year's London Tube bombings were justified, the magazine said: "In the wake of this month's high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather from Great Britain, our closest ally." advertisement

The magazine, with a circulation of 60,000-a-week, has its roots on the Democratic Left although in recent years it has backed much of President George W Bush's foreign policy. The claim is the latest in a series of hostile reassessment of Britain by Americans in the wake of the alleged plot to bring down transatlantic airliners.

Many have been appalled both by the existence of enthusiastic jihadis in British cities and by the call from some of their leaders for a change in the country's foreign policy.

Other publications and the think-tanks that shape public debate in America have also issued stern criticism both of Britain's Muslims and of the Government. Nile Gardiner, of the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Telegraph yesterday that Americans were coming to view Britain as "a hornet's nest of Islamic extremists" and thought it posed ''a direct security threat to the US".

He said that if British-based terrorism continues, America is likely to respond harshly.

"A major concern would be the tightening of travel restrictions unless the authorities start to crack down on Islamist militancy," he said. More than four million Britons enter America annually using the visa waiver programme. Any change would force Britons wishing to visit the US into lengthy queues at American diplomatic missions.

Mr Gardiner said the issue had not yet acquired a head of steam in Congress, but that another plot, or a "successful" attack by British Muslims on an American target, would be likely to spur an immediate response.

Investor's Business Daily has already demanded an end to the programme because it "allows Pakistani Britons to dodge security background checks".

Much of the outraged American response this month was sparked by the call from Muslim leaders for a change in British foreign policy. The letter from six Muslim MPs and 38 community leaders said "current British Government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad".

The theme was taken up by the Wall Street Journal, which said: "It is typical of some of Britain's so-called moderate Muslims, who seem less concerned with fighting extremists in their midst than in excusing them."

The newspaper went on to attack Tony Blair's government for "cultivating and promoting such pseudo-moderate Muslim organisations". The BBC and the Foreign Office, described as "a preserve of Arabists", were also lambasted both for quoting extremists and allowing them into Britain.

[Glyndwr4Cymru]

So there I was the other morning, driving to work, listening to Radio 4, and one of the authors of this article was being interviewed. Though he raised some pertinent questions his habit of repeatedly blaming "UK passport holders" quickly started to annoy me. That's a pretty big chunk of the population to hold to task, when you could very easily narrow it down. I originally thought of "UK passport holders of Asian origin" but remembered one of the people being held over the recent plot is a Caucasian convert, so modified it to "UK Muslims." I think thats fairer.

Anyway, the whole interview made me remember that I hadn't visted FR for a few months, what with having a real life to live and such, but I was pretty sure this article would have found its way on here. And if it had, I was absolutely 100% certain you'd have posted on it. I then kept myself mildly amused for the last leg of my journey imagining what you may have written.

Got some of it right, although I was disappointed that you didn't get once-great, hesperophobic and psychopathological in until the second sentence as I had you opening with them. Also alarmed by the complete lack of squalidly-socialisstic, neo-soviet satelite, europeon, self perpetuating, and serial-appeaser, though I note you did manage to get the latter in on your next post. That was a relief. I thought you might be going soft on us.

One thing I keep meaning to ask you Brian: Do you actually type out this stuff every time, or just cut and paste it from one of your three million almost identical previous posts? Not that I'm suggesting you're obsessed or anything ...

[Brian Allen]

<< Not that I'm suggesting you're obsessed or anything ... >>
Will none of you ever stay on topic. Are you all too damned stupid and/or dissolute, drunk and degenerate to have yet realized that your Psychopathological Projection Syndrome has the better of you every darned time you post? And that you project the prejudices you don't even know are running you?

Since you've brought up the subject of your obsession ......

(And meanwhile the thread's topic's still true and you jokers are all deaply into terminal denial)

Enjoy the Jihad, Joker

<]:^)~<