Be Disclaimed

"It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge."
Enrico Fermi

August 29, 2006

A Brief Greeting

Salutations!

You may have been wondering why it has been so quiet on here recently. Well...to be honest, there has been very little to talk about, bar the JCB DieselMax hitting 350mph.

I am bored of opening the paper and hearing about the latest slaughter in Iraq by the usual suspects etc., and consequently can't be bothered to write about it. That isn't to say I'm ignoring it, because I keep up with BBC News, Sky News, CNN etc...

Actually...I want to hear the condemnation by the entire Arab world about what is happening in Iraq...you know, Muslims killing other Muslims just because they happen to be a different branch of Islam....but...that isn't likely to happen is it?

Sorry, I'm cynical.

Anyhow...I need to catch up on all my reading.....again!!

I'll post again when I can come up with something more coherent...

tOodle Pip!

Comment by Haloscan:

|

August 13, 2006

Lord Stevens Comments

If you're a Muslim - it's your problem
(Taken from the News of the World, 13th August 2006)

WHEN will the Muslims of Britain stand up to be counted?

When will they declare, loud and clear, with no qualifications or quibbles about Britain's foreign policy, that Islamic terrorism is WRONG?

Most of all, when will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is THEIR problem? THEY own it. And it is THEIR duty to face it and eradicate it.

To stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else's problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims.

Because until that happens the problem will never be resolved. And there will be more 7/7s and, sometime in the future, another airplane plot will succeed with horrific loss of innocent life.


Equally important, those British politicians who have seemed obsessed with pandering to, and even encouraging, this state of denial, must throw off their politically-correct blinkers and recognise the same truth—that Muslim terrorism in Britain is the direct responsibility of British Muslims.

If only they would follow the lead of Home Secretary John Reid, whose tough, pragmatic, clear-sighted approach has been a breath of fresh air. Only then can they properly work out how to tackle it.

For instance, every airport in Britain is in chaos over the plane bomb-plot alert as every passenger is subjected to rigorous security checks. Why? They take lots of time, lots of staff, and are extremely expensive.

I'm a white 62-year-old 6ft 4ins suit-wearing ex-cop—I fly often, but do I really fit the profile of suicide bomber? Does the young mum with three tots? The gay couple, the rugby team, the middle-aged businessman?

No. But they are all getting exactly the same amount and devouring huge resources for no logical reason whatsoever. Yet the truth is Islamic terrorism in the West has been universally carried out by young Muslim men, usually of ethnic appearance, almost always travelling alone or in very small groups. A tiny percentage, I bet, of those delayed today have such characteristics.

This targeting of airport resources is called passenger profiling—the Israelis invented it and they've got probably the safest airports and airlines in the world.


In all my years at the front line of fighting terrorism, one truth was always clear — communities beat terrorists, not governments or security forces. But communities can't beat terrorism unless they have the will to do so. My heart sank this week as I saw and read the knee-jerk reaction of friends and neighbours of those arrested in this latest incident, insisting it was all a mistake and the anti-terrorist squad had the wrong people.

I have no idea whether those arrested are guilty or not. But neither have those friends and neighbours. They spoke as if it was inconceivable such a thing could happen in their community; that those arrested were all good Muslims; that Islam is a religion of peace so no Muslim could dream of planning such an act.


But we heard the same from the family and friends of the 7/7 bombers, didn't we?

And the two young British Muslims who died as suicide bombers in Israel. Then there are the British Muslims known to have become suicide bombers in Iraq.


There is currently a huge, long-running and complex alleged Islamist bomb plot being tried at the Old Bailey. And a fistful of other cases of alleged Muslim terrorism plots such as the 21/7 London Underground case are also awaiting trial.

All this would suggest the blindingly obvious—that terrorism is a major problem for the Muslim community of Britain. Of course, there will be instant squealings that this is racism. It's not. It's exactly the same as recognising that, during the Northern Ireland troubles that left thousands dead, the IRA were totally based in the Catholic community and the UVF in the Protestant.

And that, most importantly, IRA terrorism only began to draw to a close when that Catholic community it was based in decided as a whole that it was no longer prepared to back violence as the only way forward. Interestingly, it was Catholic revulsion over republican terrorist atrocities such as Enniskillen and Omagh that fuelled that change.


Well, Muslim terrorism in Britain is based in, has its roots in, and grows in, our Muslim community. The madmen of 7/7 and other suicide bombings didn't hide among the Hindu communities, worship in the Sikh temples, recruit at Catholic churches, did they? It may be true that events in Iraq have angered sections of the Muslim community. I have no doubts, whatever Tony Blair says, that it was a catalyst. I also think it's entirely fair for Muslims, if they wish, to vocally oppose Britain's continuing involvement there.

I can recognise, too, that recent events in Lebanon inflame some people, and they want their voices of protest heard. The absolutely unacceptable problem is that this opposition is used by too many to turn a blind eye to, or excuse, terrorists in their midst.


Blasting a passenger airliner out of the sky, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children, is NEVER acceptable. Under any circumstances. There is NEVER an excuse.

A terrible tragedy costing Muslim lives in Lebanon or Iraq or Afghanistan is never ever an excuse for terrorism here.

It is totally unacceptable, totally wrong. What one party perceives as a wrong, no matter how strongly they feel, does not, in turn, justify another wrong being done to avenge it.

And until every single member of the Muslim community believes that and preaches that —from an ordinary parent to imam or madrassa teacher— terrorism can't be beaten.


Politicians must accept this truth, and do something about it. One example would be to tackle this chaos at our airports and the passenger profiling I described earlier. Another must is to reconsider ID cards. The importance of knowing whether someone really is who they say they are has never been higher.

This must be combined with improved border controls, logging exactly who goes OUT of the country as well as who comes in should also be reconsidered, whatever the politically correct among us may say. The time terrorism suspects are kept in custody before charge has also caused dissent. Currently the maximum is 28 days — it may well be this should be reconsidered and, if necessary, raised again to, say, 42 days.

Plainly, Muslim terrorism isn't going away. We need to consider everything in our battle to defeat it. But that's the responsibility of all.

Not least the community where, sadly for them, it is festering.

Comment by Haloscan:

|

August 11, 2006

Leader from the Daily Telegraph

Leader from the Daily Telegraph 11th August 2006
Only Muslim families can stop this infamy


For anyone sanguine enough to believe that the July 7 terrorist atrocities last year were simply an aberration, yesterday's events must have disabused them. Once again we learnt that British-born Muslim fanatics are prepared to commit slaughter on a mass scale in the name of jihad. The apparently successful thwarting of a plot to blow up transatlantic aircraft with bombs fabricated aboard the planes is a sorely needed success for Scotland Yard and MI5 following the controversial Forest Gate raid and the tragedy of the killing of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. We are all too ready to criticise them when they get it wrong, but we must understand their need to act decisively on the intelligence they receive.

The terrorist strategy of combining suicide bombing with easily concealed explosive ingredients is not new. It first surfaced in 1995, in a suspected al-Qa'eda plot when nitroglycerine was carried aboard a plane in the Philippines in containers for contact-lens solution. What is new is the scale of the alleged plot, with as many as 10 aircraft being targeted, in which thousands of people could have perished. This has led America's Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, to offer the view that it is ''suggestive of an al-Qa'eda plot''. The British authorities are wisely more reticent, stressing that their investigation is at an early stage.

What is not open to doubt is that most, if not all, of the 21 arrested suspects are British-born Muslim youths, most of them of Pakistani ethnic origin, and even one white, middle-class convert to Islam. After the July 7 bombings, Tony Blair called Muslim leaders together in Downing Street for a summit. Its purpose was to encourage the ''Muslim community'' to foster a climate that would prevent young Muslims becoming so radicalised that they are prepared to blow themselves and their fellow citizens to smithereens. Too late, of course. The global loathing for the United States and its ally, the United Kingdom, has helped corrupt the minds of a generation of disaffected young Muslims - a process speeded by extremist clerics who, in far too many cases, have been allowed to come and go with impunity.


And what precisely is this ''Muslim community''?

Is it represented by Khurshid Ahmed, a member of the Commission for Racial Equality, who yesterday expressed his shock that young Muslims could be involved in such a plot and voicing relief that they had been apprehended? Or is it represented by Fahad Ansar of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, who depicted the operation as a cynical ploy by the Government aimed at ''diverting attention away from its policy in the Middle East''? In truth, there is no such thing as a single ''Muslim community''. The Muslim Council of Britain is held by the Government to be the authentic voice of this frequently disparate group, which hails originally from at least a dozen different countries. But is it? A trenchant analysis - When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries - written by Martin Bright, the political editor of the Left-wing New Statesman, concludes: ''The Government has chosen as its favoured partner an organisation that is undemocratic, divisive and unrepresentative of the full diversity of Muslim Britain.'' Too frequently, its leaders depict as mainstream what most people would describe as extreme. Its stand against terrorism has been muted.

For any government grappling with a problem of such dangerous complexity, this may be an understandable mistake. It is time it was rectified. Alienated young Muslims will not be won round by convening Downing Street seminars or sending out gimcrack road shows manned by the very community leaders for whom they have little but contempt. Of course, the Government must maintain a dialogue with all shades of Muslim opinion, but if ministers seriously believe that this will deter potential young terrorists, they are being alarmingly naïve.

In reality, this is not a job for government at all. The one thing that unites Muslims in this country is their respect for the family. It is the bedrock of their society, something that many in this country look at with envy, given the catastrophic social impact of family breakdown among other groups. The long march to win back disaffected Muslim youth must start in the home, and the neighbourhoods of which they are a part. This is not a problem that lends itself to top-down solutions. It has to start at the bottom, with a recognition that fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and the extended family are the people most likely to spot, and most able to stop, emerging radicalism.

Meanwhile, the events of the past 36 hours have once again achieved the enormous disruption and uncertainty that is always a key element of the terrorist game plan. Air travel will became even more tiresome as security checks become ever more rigorous. There are also profound commercial implications for the way airports and airlines conduct their business. John Reid, the Home Secretary, rose to the occasion yesterday, speaking with quiet eloquence of the sheer evil of the plotters and the heinous nature of what they were attempting. He carefully avoided any note of triumphalism, despite what appears to have been an exemplary operation by the police and the security services. He also, quite rightly, warned against complacency. A wounded animal is always dangerous and, if this is an al-Qa'eda conspiracy, it means the days and weeks ahead will be perilous.

Comment by Haloscan:

|

August 10, 2006

Catchup

I was so far behind, I thought it was easier to post the title links....so here you go...


Isaac Schrödinger on

Reaching The Alien Thought

Perils of Apostasy

A Stagnant Culture

Iranian Provided Rockets

Muslim Outrage

The Hated Sect

Dispelling Myths

Islamic Tolerance

Instilling Fear and Loathing

Reality v Empty Words


Tim Worstall on Leonard Cheshire VC.

La Petite needs help. More here.

On the 6th of August it was the 15th anniversary of the web going worldwide.

Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?

Reuters Should Disband


USS Neverdock (a huge list...sorry)

Iraq - Interview With An Iraqi General

Part 1 - Interview With An Iraqi General - T. F. Boggs

Part 2 - Part II: Interview With An Iraqi General - T. F. Boggs

UK - "To hate America is to hate mankind"

UK Islamists: Make Jihad on Israel

Iraq - Good news roundup

Israel - "A Word About the BBC"

Islam - "Muslims must bear the grunt of their failure"

Lebanon - Why Hezbollah is doomed

Israel - BBC bias noted

Lebanon - The "hiding among civilians" myth

Lebanon - Video: Israel destroys rocket truck

Lebanon - Photos: Hezbollah blending with civilians

Israel - The Photo that Started it All

Lebanon - BBC: "Working for the enemy"

UK - BBC: 9/11 is a laughing matter

Islam - Know your enemy

UK - BBC: Oscars for terrorists

Jerico - 6 Palestinians killed in Jericho prison

Lebanon - Reuters faking photos?

Lebanon - Media faking stories

Islam's liberals are on the march

Lebanon - More fake photos?!?

Lebanon - Photogate: AFP joins in

Lebanon - Reuters admits second photo fake

Lebanon - Reuters:"Picture Kill: How We Got Here"

UK - BBC bias noted

Lebanon - Photogate:more staged photos?

Lebanon - MSM reports on photogate

Photogate - Classic photo fakery

[EDIT - Of course it will be interesting to see who the arrested people are who were behind a 'Mass Murder Terror Plot']

Comment by Haloscan:

|