Posted on 07/07/2007 7:59:03 PM PDT by blam
Warning of 15-year fight against terror
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
Last Updated: 2:05am BST 08/07/2007
Britain faces a 15-year battle to end the threat posed by Islamist terrorists, the Government's new security supremo has admitted.
Admiral Sir Alan West criticised the phrase 'war on terror'
Admiral Sir Alan West, the former First Sea Lord, said the overall danger facing the country, from both home-grown and foreign terrorists, was at its greatest ever level and that a new approach was badly needed to tackle it.
In his first interview since his surprise appointment by Gordon Brown as security minister, Sir Alan called on people to be "a little bit un-British" and even inform on each other in an attempt to trap those plotting to take innocent lives.
"Britishness does not normally involve snitching or talking about someone," he said. "I'm afraid, in this situation, anyone who's got any information should say something because the people we are talking about are trying to destroy our entire way of life."
He said he was determined to build on the Government's core anti-terrorism strategy of the "four Ps" - prepare, protect, pursue, prevent - but that the "prevent" side, dealing with the radicalisation of young Muslims, was the most important.
"This is not a quick thing," he said. "I believe it will take 10 to 15 years. But I think it can be done as long as we as a nation apply ourselves to it and it's done across the board."
Sir Alan gave his comprehensive assessment of the threat facing the country to The Sunday Telegraph following last weekend's car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.
Yesterday, Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor, was remanded in custody at Westminster magistrates' court on a charge of conspiring to cause explosions in connection with the Glasgow attack last Saturday.
At King's Cross, Mr Brown joined survivors and relatives of victims to commemorate the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings in London, while there were reports that up to eight police officers and civilian staff in Britain were suspected of having links to al-Qaeda.
7/7: Ken Livingstone, Tessa Jowell and Gordon Brown at King's Cross
The Sunday Telegraph can also reveal that Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former director general of MI5, has disclosed that there are now more than 100 suspects awaiting trial across the country in 40 terrorist-related cases and warned of the possibility of an imminent chemical or biological bomb attack.
Sir Alan said that, after little more than a week in the job, it was clear to him that the overall threat had increased since he left his Navy post 16 months ago. He said: "There is a greater threat than there was."
Britain was now fighting "a disparate core of people - based abroad primarily - whom I'm afraid are racist, they're bigoted, they seek power, they're avaricious in money terms and they talk of the caliphate." He said that he had been asked by Mr Brown shortly before he took over from Tony Blair to "sort out" the Government's response to the terror threat. "We are not getting our message across properly," Sir Alan said.
The 59-year-old who was chosen by Mr Brown as a non-partisan figure, said he would work to achieve a political consensus "wherever" possible - but added that it was inevitable that "disagreements" between the parties and across Whitehall would cause difficulties.
The admiral, who has been given a far-reaching brief across all government departments, also launched an attack on the phrase "war on terror" - which has been abandoned by ministers since Mr Blair left office.
He said: "I hate that expression. When I first heard it - I think it came over from the States - I though it was totally the wrong thing. It's not like a war in that sense at all. It demeans the value of a war and it demeans the value of a lot of things.
"I don't like the fact that we talk about 'the Muslim community' and this sort of thing. I have a lot of Muslim friends and they see themselves as British. We've got to be very careful. The threat is to our British way of life and all of our British people."
Of the terrorists, he said: "I think they have severely damaged one of the world's great religions - the one they purport to support." The claims that British foreign policy was solely to blame was an erroneous argument, he said.
"It's not something that has happened recently. Iraq, for example, they use that as an excuse. There's no doubt the Middle East peace process is an important issue but actually when we were having men killed fighting to look after Muslims in Bosnia and in Kosovo, these people even then were trying to undermine us and ... cause damage to us."
He said he was in favour of giving the security services more money and staff "if there is a need for that".
Sir Alan, who will become a Labour life peer, was commander of the frigate Ardent in the Falklands in 1982. The ship was sunk with a loss of 22 crew. In 2002, he became First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. While in the post he became a fierce critic of the Government's naval cutbacks.
Sir Alan said he had been "amazed" to be offered a ministerial job by Mr Brown and had taken a "considerable drop in money". When he marched out of No 10 alongside Jacqui Smith, the new Home Secretary, few if anybody knew who he was.
He said he had a text message from a Royal Marines general, a friend serving in Afghanistan and watching a television link, to ask if he had "become a bodyguard."
The man’s an optimist.
um hm
Here neither.
This is the Forever War.
Uhh, if I read history correctly, this war has been going on for more like 1500 years. For some reason the west never wants to finish it.
The reason is we don't have the stomach for it. We would have to kill them all.
More like 1500...
... to destroy our entire way of life...
War on Terror: "I hate that expression... It's not like a war in that sense at all. It demeans the value of a war and it demeans the value of a lot of things...I don't like the fact that we talk about 'the Muslim community' and this sort of thing. "
There's your answer.
“The man’s an optimist.”
I don’t think so.
“I believe it will take 10 to 15 years. But I think it can be done as long as we as a nation apply ourselves to it and it’s done across the board.”
“But I think it can be done...” doesn’t sound too confident to me. And he conditions success on the unanimity of a nation deeply divided & weakened by multiculturalism, race, religion, politics, & bureaucracy.
The article called this effort a battle. As a military man, Sir Alan knows the outcome of any battle is never certain until it is over. Therefore, I believe he is saying the battle could be won or LOST in 10 or 15 years.
Nothing I see here is optimistic. Until & unless the Brits & the West don’t get that attitude of “I’M MAD AS HELL & I’M NOT GONNA PUT UP WITH IT ANYMORE!”, we are gonna lose this WAR, one IED & appeasement at a time.
Also, Sir Alan’s quibbling about the phrase “War on Terror” seems to suggest that Political Correctness (a terrorist’s best friend) still reigns supreme.
The other option is to demonstrate the weakness of their occult religion. Erase all their religious sites (they are in the process of slowly erasing all of ours anyway). If everyone of the occult idols is destroyed, their religion will be shown to be invalid and their god shown to be impotent. This is actually a great human rights cause. We would be freeing a billion people from the planets worst ever cult. The only other option is to continue the never ending war which will soon go nuclear either way.
This sounds like something of interest to you, maybe.
Thank you Global2010.
It’s always been about good vs. evil since the beginning of time.
I doubt the world is ending in 15 years; so I think the “15-Year
Fight Against Terror” is just too optimistic and frankly, unrealistic.
Now, I could be wrong.
Time will tell.
Kill them all then.
Based on our better results, I think we should nix the talk of cameras everywhere. They may make cops lazy and reactive.
On the contrary, he's quite properly pointing out that the term 'war' has become devalued by the confusion between its literal and metaphorical senses. A generation brought up on the lazy political and journalistic overuse of the metaphorical formulation 'war on...'(...drugs, poverty, crime, AIDS etc etc) simply hears "war on terror" as another in this list, and it does not register that something of an altogether different order is meant. For this reason fresh language is required.
I agree. In one ear, out the other. Does not relay the seriousness of the conflict.
The UK govt. should have five P’s...’prepare, protect, pursue, prevent’...and Profile. But that would be UnPC, so they’ll continue to whistle past the graveyard and sooner or later, Muslims will murder more innocent Brits.
Notice the juxtaposition of Sir Alan’s statement that he hates the expression, ‘the war on terror’, with his remark that he thinks it came over from the States and thought it was totally the wrong thing. (He’s certifiable.)
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