After spending time recently with senior Pentagon officials and other
Americans involved in counter-terror-ism, I was struck by the global scope
of their concerns. Above all I was reminded how different their attitudes
are from those of their British counterparts, still obsessed with “community
cohesion” and the “radicalisation” of young Muslims.
In Britain the views of the nonMuslim majority are largely ignored - or lead
to them being branded as potential “Islamophobes”. In the United States the
unthinkable and unsayable are debated openly.
Last month, for example, the Senate committee on homeland security heard
evidence about the likely effects of a terrorist nuclear attack on
Washington. It started with a chilling scenario: a 10-kiloton bomb in a
truck beside the White House. First, the committee was told, it would kill
about 100,000 people and erase a two-mile radius of mainly federal
buildings. Most of the casualties would be burn victims, the majority of
them African Americans who worked for the government.
About 95% of them would die in agony, because capacity to treat such cases is
limited to about 1,500. Since the winds blow west to east, the ensuing
radioactive plume would drift towards the poor black neighbourhoods of the
capital’s southeast, where there is only one hospital. Joe Lieberman,
chairman of the committee, concluded: “Now is the time to ask the tough
questions and then to get answers as best we can.”
I can’t help wondering what preparations for such a nightmare scenario are
being made here in Britain. Does anyone know if our parliamentarians are
asking similar questions?
As the main target of jihadist violence, the United States has a sober
estimation of the threat we face and a polyvalent strategy for dealing with
it. In Britain use of the phrase the “war on terror” has been proscribed by
the Brown government; local representatives of the global jihadist
insurgency process through British courts in startling numbers. A recent
Europol report showed that in 2007 the British arrested 203 terrorist
suspects, against 201 for the rest of Europe.
By contrast, the United States is fighting a global war - against an
Al-Qaeda-inspired nebula of extremists - with arms and ideas and a vast
array of analytic intelligence. In essence, America wants to destroy
Al-Qaeda as a brand. One strategy is to highlight the moral squalor of those
who denounce the West, which means exposing the criminal underpinnings of
jihadism - including reliance on conflict diamonds, counterfeiting, drug
trafficking, fraud and robbery. Yet the British government has done almost
nothing to undermine the noble self-image of the jihadists in the eyes of
those who are drawn to Osama Bin Laden.
Elsewhere in the world jihadists are going through “deprogramming” courses in
which they are given authoritative instruction in a religion most of them
know only as a handful of banal slogans. The combination of aid from the
West and rehabilitation schemes explains why southeast Asian jihadism is now
in disarray.
The use of military force, aggressive counter-terrorism measures and diligent
police work is also indispensable to defeating the insurgency; after three
years of horrendous death tolls in Iraq, the United States has at last
succeeded in turning the “Sunni Awakening” movement against the foreign
Al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists, many from Libya or Saudi Arabia. It turns out
that local people had balked at such Islamist customs as breaking the
fingers of smokers and shooting anyone selling alcohol. The Sunni
counter-insurgents may not relish US occupation, but they like the jihadist
reign of terror even less.
No European country faces the global challenges confronting the United States,
but because of its success in integrating Arab immigrants, America largely
faces an external threat. Europeans face one hatching among second or
third-generation north Africans, Bangladeshis or Pakistanis, not to speak of
indigenous converts.
Europe can be weak in combating terrorism at a political level, largely
because of the effects of officially decreed multiculturalism and a failure
to do much about the impact of population movements on the host culture and
economy. Not surprisingly, the failure of European governments to get a grip
on what are still relatively small Muslim minorities provokes exasperation
in America.
Many of the 1.6m Muslims living in Britain, for example, still do not seem
fully to appreciate the outrage that a finger-jabbing minority causes at
home and abroad with each escalating demand for Islamist enclaves. Like a
perennial student, new Labour favours debate and dialogue. But in dealing
with the Muslim Council of Britain, the government has unwittingly accepted
as “community” interlocutors men who have blamed Islamist terrorism
primarily on British foreign policy, while failing to condemn suicide
bombing outside the UK.
Hardly anything is being done to stem the flow of Wahhabist money and its
intolerant ideology not only into mosques but also to university “Islamic
studies” programmes. Others are also complicit in this process. Did banks
think about the cultural implications of sharia-compliant finance,
noticeably absent in Egypt? This was allowed by Gordon Brown without
triggering the public outrage that attended the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
sly unclarities about sharia.
The police seem to be turning a blind eye to “honour crimes” and to the
informal resort to sharia, even when this involves manifestly criminal
offences. They have preferred to turn on the makers of a Channel 4
documentary about homegrown extremists, accusing the producers of distorting
the views of Muslim clerics, rather than to investigate the extremists
themselves - leading Channel 4 to sue the police for libel and win.
A robust response to the jihadist threat is also stymied by ideologue lawyers
who have made a decent living out of defending terrorists and by judges who,
with honourable exceptions, seem to have greater allegiance to abstract
notions of human rights than to our primary right of not being blown to
pieces.
Attempts to free Abu Qatada, the alleged Al-Qaeda spiritual leader in Europe,
amounted to a national disgrace. Lawyers claimed that if he were deported to
Jordan, he might be tortured (despite agreements to the contrary). They also
claimed the Jordani-ans might produce witnesses who had themselves been
tortured.
Judges have recently undermined the government’s attempts to interdict
terrorist financing - even in the case of a dangerous Al-Qaeda operative
known for legal reasons as “G”. And it was judges who subverted the regime
of control orders that was introduced at their own behest after they had
released detainees from long-term custody in Belmarsh. Even the Royal Navy
is reluctant to detain Somali pirates on the grounds that their “human
rights” might be infringed in Saudi Arabia, Somalia or Yemen.
The government’s recent attempts to sponsor British citizenship and values to
counteract the multiculturalism propagated by a previous wave of state
patronage seem tired and unconvincing. There is little sense in asking
Muslims to “become us” when that evidently implies to them a culture of
considerable coarseness: binge drinking, crime, drugs and chronic family
breakdown. Why shouldn’t they insulate themselves within the various ghettos
that Britain has complacently allowed to form?
One has yet to hear a British politician of any stripe talk about what changes
he wishes to see in the Muslim world – for example, in Saudi Arabia, to
which we sell arms in return for passively accepting their citizens’ funding
of subversive religious activities in Britain.
By contrast, Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to give north Africa (and Israel) EU
associate status suggests that he has expanded his horizons since 9/11.
Meanwhile, anything that serves to strengthen liberal Muslim voices in
Indonesia or Turkey is worth encouraging. It may be that the dictators - the
Assads, Bouteflikas, Mubaraks, Gadaffis and others - will cling to power
longer than optimists imagine. But if they don’t, how will the West help
those moderates - judges, lawyers, journalists, liberals and socialists -
who find themselves in temporary oppositional coalitions with
fundamentalists? How do we ensure such a coalition does not go the way of
the one that toppled the Shah of Iran, after which Khomeinites imprisoned or
murdered their secular allies?
The one British politician who grasps the need to be as frank as our American
cousins about the threat from terrorists who are actively plotting
indiscriminate slaughter is not the prime minister, who appears to be locked
into the globalising vapidities that thrill Davos seminars, but David
Cameron. The leader of the opposition understands the existential threat
from jihadism and has comprehensive ideas about how to combat it that will
link foreign, defence and security policies. He is fully conscious of the
need to balance ancient liberties with the right to stay alive.
Like the United States, Britain needs a dedicated border police and defences
against terrorism that begin when someone buys an air ticket. It needs to
dismantle the bureaucratic residue of state multiculturalism, and the
deportation of foreign agitators is essential. Any appeal they may mount
should take place after they have been deported. As for human rights lawyers
- they can pay for their own.
A more imaginative approach to the Muslim world should go hand-in-hand with a
clearer statement of what the domestic majority is not prepared to tolerate.
That is the difference between a properly thought-out strategy and the
government’s clue-less alternation between appeasement and knee-jerk
authoritarianism.
This is an edited version of a longer article that will appear in Standpoint,
the new cultural and political magazine that will be launched on Thursday
Good article. islam may claim to be a religion but it's also a totalitarian political system, its followers are not my brothers. as for ranting on about the palestinians, give me a break, they are surrounded by 300m of their oil rich bruvvers, what are they doing to help?
Arthur, Brighton, ENGLAND
Who is paying this man?
Iain, GLASGOW,
Outstanding article. A correct analysis of the current situation in the UK. There can be no doubt that as the economy declines then the prospects of an implosion will grow. The UK is sinking rapidly under the burden of an overloaded population which its infrustructure cannot support..
charlie george, Ilford, England
The trouble with the so called war on terror is that the majority of its victims have been innocent. How can the US or for that matter the UK claim to be promoting democracy in the ME if they are, among other things sponsoring Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians, to mention nothing of Iraq
SAS, Buffalo, NY, USA
we know threat is manufactured by those who have a stake in the war economy. It was the cold war now it's the 'islamo-fascists' .the u.s have a very murky history in the middle east that includes their coup in iran 53. the british betrayed the palestinians after a terror campaign by the zionists.
simon lomax, warrington, uk
How refreshing to read British opinion that shows teeth. Now, if Americans can just get our State Deparment, Executive Branch, and Congress from warbling those "globalising vapidities that thrill Davos seminars," together we may have a chance to win the war thrust upon us by the religion of peace.
Robert, Eminence, USA
Maybe if this country hadn't involved itself fighting America's wars, then it wouldn't have people taking it's word and fighting a war - against itself.
What we do abroad comes home to us. Look at the IRA. Was the world going to end then? No.
Bilal Patel, London, UK,
Multi-culturalism and political correctness are curses on our modern world. At times I think that if blacks in the U.S. had been given true equality after the Civil War, much of this would never have come about.
Judy Shimkus, St Louis, MO, USA
Bang on - maybe you should run for PM!!
Mark, Newport Pagnell, England
Excellent article. In my experience in the US there is more social pressure for Muslims to integrate to Western values, zero tolerance for Muslim radicalism and more freedom of speech. In the UK the political class and liberal left have virtually eliminated these braking factors in society
David Cartright, Birmingham, UK/US
Excellent article, and right on target.
Rowen, La Porte TEXAS, USA
Standpoint? Is that the modern version of Encounter? Who's pulling Burleigh's strings I wonder. I shall have to revise my opinion of his work.
john Walter, Bonn, Germany
"Britain’s phoney war on terror
We are too concerned with multiculturalism and political correctness to combat the threat of Islamism effectively"?
Who is this "we"? There are some 55 million people in Britain, and the vast bulk of these are not allowed any part in the proceedings!
John, Kent, Britain
A brilliant piece Mr. Burleigh, just as brilliant as your books on 20th century political thought. Thank you for speaking out and saying what needs to be said.
Gil, London,
'perennial student' is what characterizes the government - a collective of persons who have never had a job, never left the theoretical world of politics, never worked out the difference between public service and self service, and never matured.
I want a grown-up government.
Kaye, Rome,
A thoroughly well thought out piece. You said what so many people want to but feel unable to say. Here’s hoping for a return of freedom of speech.
Henry (UK Citizen), Munich, Germany
The U.K/U.S.A. needs fundamentalists/extremists. Why else was 911 allowed to happen, why has 'Bin Laden' not been found and why else would Britain tolerate and in some cases encourage (prosecution of Dispatches) Islamic extremism. The end game is justifying invasions and exteme laws.
Ben, London, UK
What is a Religion?Surely members are required to have true belief but this can never have existed where there is coercion in recruitment or retention of members or in any practise or tenet. Any ethos which practises coercion should not be entitled to claim religious status under the law.
Keith, Rayleigh, Essex
We should be very worried as this well written article points out.
Britain is the only country in the world where foreigners are treated more fairly than the natives.
May God help us all when the hatred in our Islamic brothers is unleashed.
esward leigh, wigan, england
Well put and a real view of the social threats the UK faces. I am a UK citizen sat in Saudi Arabia reading this. In today's UK politics, Saudi and UK share converging limitations on freedom of speech!! The logical shift must be to Saudi values - do you really want this? At $135/bbl, can you avoid it
AR, ALK, KSA
Great piece! I look forward to reading "Standpoint"
I would love to see the whole oft the media take up the baton of this report and run with it.
David Ryan, Manchester, UK
Quickly nuke them before they "think" about making nucler bombs. The biggest threat to the U.S and UK are not Muslim "jihadis" but the allied force of China and Russia. Google and research.
jayil, london, uk
The building of an EU Superstate is the main reason for PC etc. Destroying immigration & border controls; creating the Human Rights Act and replacing other established laws; its greed to expand (see Sarkozy in your article) is trying to make a one culture superstate to rival the USA, Russia & China.
Paul C, Harlow, England
Excellent article, well put, good to see this type of opinion in the Times.
Shane, blackburn, england
This is exactly right. Let the people of Britain speak up now before it's too late.
Robert Bartlett, San Rafael, California, USA
Wait! I thought the U.S. was the cause of all the world's problems with Muslims, and the British approach was vastly superior.
Could the evil George W. Bush have been right all along?
Cannot... compute. Head... about... to... explo--
Boom!
Tom W., Los Angeles, California, USA
I have been living in England for 20 years and have seen for myself how the English have capitulated. Sam says it all. Defeatism
Richard, Peterborough, England
What utter tosh, you mean to tell me the American way of a bull in a china shop should be emulated ?
Tell it to some one who does not know.
Google for NY Times "Efforts by C.I.A. Fail in Somalia, Officials Charge" and you see what triggered thecurrent mess in Somalia
Sam, London, UK