10/8

A few immediate thoughts on what is unfolding at Britain's airports...

• We must thank the police and intelligence services for apparently foiling a terrible attack.  Scotland Yard are talking of 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale'.  This may restore public confidence in the police after the Forest Gate debacle.
• The talk of new kind of liquid bombs is genuinely frightening (I'm flying to Australia on Saturday - at least I hope to) and may mean that security procedures at airports will need to be completely overhauled.
• Within hours there'll be pundits blaming the invasion of Iraq and Blair's support for Israel for making Britain vulnerable to these attacks.  Let us remember the chronology - 9/11 happened before the invasion of Iraq.  Terrorists could just as easily blame action in Afghanistan for their evil.  They do not need excuses - they need to be defeated.
• As the IRA used to chillingly warn - the targeted have to be lucky all of the time, the bombers only have to be lucky once.  The terror threat is going to grow and grow over coming years.  The world has always been populated with evil men but technological change means that devastating weapons technology has never been so portable.  Brown and Blair may be hamfisted on homeland security policy but they understand where events are taking us.  These issues are going to be very big at the next General Election.  Conservatives cannot afford to be/ look unprepared for the challenge of protecting the public...

What is on your minds?

Comments

[Jack Bauer]

It is too early to become INCANDESCENT with rage listening to the Deputy Dhimmi (sorry, I mean Commissioner) feel compelled to give us the PC knee-jerk reaction?

That this has nothing to do with "certain communities"...

Well Deputy Dhimmiwit it DOES have something to do with a "certain" community.

They would be MUSLIMS, ISLAMOPATHS and various islamonazis.

These are "real" muslims. Not fake muslims.

How re-assuring to hear that "community leaders" were "tipped off" in advance.

Maybe that explains why Plod hasn't picked up all the plotters -- maybe they were then re-tipped off by these same "community leaders" with the religion that dares not speak its name.

And which self-appointed "commumity leaders" would they be Deputy Dhimmi?

Mullahs? I condsider myself a "community leader" in my own little cult.

What? No phone call for me from the local plod to "reassure" me.

[tory2]

I don't think we need to make allegations though it's undoubatbly true the Uk has got to go more serious about the internal problems that cause these attacks(and the commissinors comments are indicative of)

let's wait and see the facts...

[EdR]

1. Great work from our security services. Massive congratulations.
2. If the police don't have anything to say to the press, just keep quiet. The mix of hyperbole and vacuity in the statement issued on Sky was basically a waste of time.
3. Is that a dagger John Reid sees before him? Watch out, Brown!

[Nigel Wright]

British muslims are going to have to decide which side they are on.

In the face of Islamist mass murder conspiracies, there can be no neutrality or excuse making ("I was upset about the Iraq War so I decided to blow up Mr and Mrs Jones, their three kids and 200 other holidaymakers bound for Florida").

Every time a muslim puts the word 'but' at the end of a sentence condemning the bomb plotters he or she should be deported.

[Jack Bauer]

tory2

These are the FACTS:

20 MUSLIMS of PAKISTANI origin have been arrested.

Not all muslims are terrorists, but wherever you look around the world you will find MUSLIMS versus Jews, Hindus, Bhuddists, Christians - and infidels, like me.

Islam is a violent prosletysing religion that cannot live in peace with co-religionists. That's a fact.

[Jon Gale]

"According to BBC sources the "principal characters" suspected of being involved in the plot were British-born. Arrests were made in High Wycombe, London and Birmingham."

What a surprise. The "religion of peace" strikes again.

[Editor]

One sure way of radicalising Muslim opinion in Britain is to demonise all Muslims.

[Jack Bauer]

"One sure way of radicalising Muslim opinion in Britain is to demonise all Muslims

Gimme a break. Please. What does that even mean?

It's about time Muslims started worrying about the radicalization of BRITISH opionion, and made steps to show were their loyalties lie.

Oh, they've already have done so.

[Michael McGowan]

No one is demonising all Muslims. Many of the victims of Islamic terrorism have been other Muslims. Perhaps the BBC can let us know how many of the arrested suspects are Jehovah's Witnesses and members of the Provisional Wing of the Salvation Army?

[Nadim]

There is nothing more divisive than the sort of rant permitted on here by Jack Bauer.

Well, Jack Bauer, why don't you rant against the IRA as a Roman Catholic organisation? Or examine the support of those terrorists from the Roman Catholic communities here or in America?

I'll tell you why. You are ignorant and biased. You know nothing about Islam other than what the media superficially keeps pouring into your head. There are indeed injunctions to kill in the Qur'an, but they are also there in the Bible. The difference? You ignore the latter, but choose, like all people of your superficial persuasion, to emphasise the former. And before you ask where are the Muslims who preach very strongly against such violence, well, we are there, in our thousands, but it just doesn't make for good television does it, when reasonable and 'moderate' Mulsims agree with the Christians? No, they have to dwell on division, and ignorant people like you who condemn all Muslims with that single label have no solution at all, other than to tarnish everyone with the same brush.

It is erroneous to talk of the 'Muslim community' as it is to talk of the 'Christian community'. They are both fractured and plural. So, Jack Bauer, before you fire off another unitelligent and ill-informed rant, find a few Muslim friends, bother to speak to them, engage with them, and you might just be surprised that we can make very good neighbours, and very good Conservatives.

[George Hinton]

All very fine and dandy that the Police and SIS undertook these raids to arrest a number of suspected terrorists. My concern is that the information that lead the action was of proven certitude, as no-one wants a repeat of the fiasco that was Forest Gate a few monthe ago.
The chaos at airports, especially Heathrow, needs to be accounted for, and if they have a group of terrorists, with the kit, and the plans then it will be worth the inconvenience. Otherwise the Police and SIS and will lose any sympathies from the general public and will be excoriated for their inefficiency and incompetence, even if we know how hard the counter-terrorism game really is.

[Editor]

You're right George if the intelligence is wrong but the US has raised its terror alert to the highest possible level, too. I do not think they would have done so without the UK authorities offering clear info to them.

[Jack Bauer]

Nadim -- would you like me to list all the conflicts around the world in which Muslims are in conflict with another religion?

It's odd that should mention what I know about Islam being gleaned from the Briitish media.

Well that can't be correct, because the British media routinely describes the word "islam" as meaning "peace."

It doesn't. It means "submission."

[dizzy]

"Terrorists could just as easily blame action in Afghanistan for their evil."

Spot on Editor.

[Nigel Wright]

I, for one, am certainly not demonising all Muslims. What I am saying is that, given that these terrorists come from within the Muslim community and are motivated by a form of Islam, it follows that British Muslims have a special responsibility to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the scum.

Can you imagine if there was an English, Christian community living in, say, Morocco or Indonesia (to deliberately choose two moderate Muslim countries) that appeared to the host community to be hostile? Can you further imagine the reaction if four English boys murdered 50 Moroccans or Indonesians by blowing up trains? And then 21 English men were arrented for plotting to murder hundreds more?

Our self-restraint is in danger of tipping into weakness and decadence. British Muslims must now declare unambiguous loyalty to the UK - or leave.

[Jon Gale]

Just noticed heading - Please can we not call this "10/8"!

"7/7" was a bit cheesy but at least it rolled off the tongue. And no bombs have actually gone off today (as of 11:18 ayway!)

[Editor]

Fair enough Nigel. I just don't want this thread descending into broad-brushed attacks on all British Muslims - most of whom are as appalled as the rest of the country at terrorist incidents.

[George Hinton]

I see that a number of posts are trying to predict the outcome of the arrests and enquiries by blaming the muslim community. Let's wait for the facts to emante, before laying into a sector of the British community.

[Mark Fulford]

There is no solution at our disposal that will make the terrorists go away. Their foot-soldiers are recruited by global injustice, inequality and jealousy that are most easily blamed upon the West. We probably should hold in higher regard the lives of those less powerful than us, but we are not in a position to make the world an equal place. Nor are we in a position to win a “war” that has no fixed enemy.

Four our own security, our responses have to be pragmatic, rational and very carefully considered.

1. Is it right to retaliate to every attack, or does retaliation fuels a vicious circle?
2. How much blame should the Muslim religion take (if any), or does such blame too easily define the sides for all-out war.
3. We need to objectively compare the lives saved by security measures to their inconvenience (as we do when we think about dropping speed limits to 50mph).
4. We need to decide how much power we grant our State over our lives, and when that power becomes more dangerous than the terrorists themselves.
5. etc

[Richard]

"There are indeed injunctions to kill in the Qur'an, but they are also there in the Bible."

Can't remember Jesus advocating crusading!

I take your point about not tarring all Muslims with the same brush but the problem is that the fundamentalist minority is a relatively large minority. There was an opinion poll relatively recently showing 40% wanted the introduction of Shariah law in parts of Britain. Then there was the poll taken back during the Afghanistan conflict that showed 80% of Muslims opposed the conflict while almost 80% of non-Muslims were in favour. This 80% opposed were certainly not fundamentalists or terrorist sympathisers but their sympathies appeared to be different from the majority of the population.

[Nadim]

Nadim -- would you like me to list all the conflicts around the world in which Muslims are in conflict with another religion?

You judge everything by ethnicity and solely by the present, because it is convenient for your warped thesis. People like Sadam Hussain are as Muslim as Adolf Hitler was Christian (born Roman Catholic). These wars have more to do with the political of territorial acquisition than they are to do with religion. Kashmir and Palestine are clear examples of people identifying their religion with preservation of their way of life.

I could point out the two bloodiest wars in history have all been started by Christians, and set Christian against Christian. O, but then you'll say they weren't 'proper' Christians, and then we go round in circles. Muslims who bomb and maim have no more knowledge of Islam than Christians who support genocide (read Deuteronomy 7) have of Christianity. Muslims like me wish people like you had the maturity of perception to understand that Muslims are fractured and divided. You permit yourselves that luxury, but when it comes to us, you demonise an entire faith.

I reiterate, if people like you bothered to befriend, engage, communicate, share, you would not only enlarge your circle of friends, you would find your biases melting away as your caricatures are shown up for what they are.

[David Belchamber]

"Within hours there'll be pundits blaming the invasion of Iraq and Blair's support for Israel for making Britain vulnerable to these attacks. Let us remember the chronology - 9/11 happened before the invasion of Iraq. Terrorists could just as easily blame action in Afghanistan for their evil".

I think that we have to examine this statement as dispassionately as possible. 9/11 was a reaction to American foreign policy around the world. The coalition in Afghanistan to try and capture Osama bin Laden and extirpate Al Quaeda was probably always doomed to failure but deserved full support (and got wide support). The Americans took their foot off the pedal and we had to go back but by now the UK's foreign policy (i.e. Blair's adventure in Iraq) had stirred up fundamentalists in this country, so we are now in grave danger.
As I have suggested several times before, if Bush/Blair had devoted several years to trying to solve the problems in the ME instead of taking out Saddam, it is at least arguable that the USA/UK would by now be respected western leaders rather than figures of hatred in the eyes of several Muslim countries.
Blair's legacy is not a comfortable one for us.

[Gareth]

Very disappointed to see that a Tory website decides to "brand" today as 10/8.

Was it a race to see if we could beat the BBC to the copyright office?

[Nadim]

Gareth, to be pedantic, had CH followed the previous examples, they would have termed it 8/10, since we appear to have adopted the American date order from 9/11, which was not 9th November. CH has therefore innovated, and it is a British innovation.

Inconveniently, 7/7 was unable to clarify which side of the pond our terrorist dating emanates.

[Ted]

It is unfortunate that the Met Police feel it is necessary to preface statements with words about the muslim community but understanderbly the police have real fears of attacks on innocent muslims.

It is very easy for identifiable communities to become targets and we need to be very careful that we don't create the conditions which further alienate both non-muslim and muslim groups.

I'm not sure how the police can get the emphasis right. It needs the moderate voices among muslims to stand up and without "buts" condemn the activities of the mitant jihadists. The Government must also recognise that just as it isn't necessarily racist to discuss immigration neither is it wrong to say that there are among the British Muslim population, particularly those of Indo-Pakistani origin, a large minority whose world view, loyalty and religious beliefs are unacceptable to the rest of the UK population. We need to change our approach and recognise the importance of integration.

Racists fear people just because they are different - the problem is that, increasingly, moderate people fear darker skinned men with full beards with some foundation.

[wayne]

As I work at the airport, I can tell you that delays will be 2-5 days approx.

[anon]

Nadim,

The point is simple, there are far too many Muslims who refuse to clearly condemn the evil actions of their co-religionists.

I think there was a recent poll in which 19% of British Muslims believed terrorist acts of mass murder in this country were justified. That is not an insignificant minority.

Given that it seems highly unlikely that these people will listen to non-muslims, it will be up to the muslim community to ensure that these individuals are convinced otherwise.

After all, ss has already been pointed out, the Islamic terrorist organisations seem to have no qualms about killing other Muslims.

[matthew]

9/11 was an attack by extreme Islamists on the USA as the biggest most successful capitalist country in the world. USA is an obvious target.

Along with USA there are dozens of other capitalist countries. None of these are targets because they are not as successful as the USA.

However, due to Iraq, we put ourself as enemy #2, right behind the USA. They are not blowing up the French. That is no coincidence.

Whatever you say, without our involvement in Iraq, we would not be a target. 9/11 was an attack on the USA. Were we attacked before Iraq? We were not.

Secondly, the 10/8 title is stupid. There is no 10/8.
They have been plotting to blow up planes for months. Nothing has happened, however, today is the day the police have moved in. It could have been 10/7, 21/8, or anything. Nobody has died to day. Let us not dub this 10/8

[Nadim]

The point is simple, there are far too many Muslims who refuse to clearly condemn the evil actions of their co-religionists.

I repeat my previous post. Thousands of us do, but it's just not great television, is it? It doesn't raise viewing figures, and unity doesn't sell copy. The media like drama, so they focus on the extremists. That makes people like Jack Bauer (who has not responded to my last post) focus on the same.

Incidentally, how many Catholics condemned the actions of the IRA, and how many sympathised with 'the evil actions of their co-religionists'? O sure, you'll find some who condemned, but I'm certain if polling had been done among the community, as C4 and others have done it among professing Muslims, there would have been 'significant majorities' who sympathised with the IRA 'grievance'.

[TomTom]

I could point out the two bloodiest wars in history have all been started by Christians,

Nadim you really must stop this warped thinking that all Whites are "Christian". Adolf Hitler certainly was NOT. Heinrich Himmler certainly was NOT. You may be poorly educated but you should research much more and find that Hitler and Himmler were Neo-Pagan with an obsession with Teutonic roots pre-Christianity; that is why they reversed the ancient symbol of the Swastika...............they even had Nazi Christmas decorations.

Now so you can start with a clear perspective. The men arrested are of Pakistani origin; they are Muslims; they wish to do harm to people because they wish to kill. They invoke Islam and the Koran and a man named Mohammed who is seemingly dead - but this is what they say as their justification.

Who disowns these men ? Who condemns them ? Why should anyone trust those Pakistanis returning from Pakistan to British airports as school vacations end ?

Just so we help you get your facts right - Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 with the Kwantung Army this was BEFORE Adolf Hitler became Reichskanzler.

Noone has ever accused Japanese of being Christians, but they did pose a direct threat to Hindus and Muslims in India.

I am getting very tired of excuses made for terrorists. It is time for Muslims to get off their backsides and start rowing in the same direction. They are either part of the crew or passengers, if they are passengers we should drop them off at another port. Crew deals with threats to the boat.

[Jack Bauer]

"They are not blowing up the French. That is no coincidence."

Really?

The islamopaths do not consider France to be be an eventual part of the neo-caliphate?

Mmmmm, guess you were asleep recently.

Paris Burning
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 4, 2005

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20071

Riots have now continued for eight days in and around

Why have the riots happened? From many accounts one would think that the riots have been caused by France’s failure to implement Marxism. “The unrest,” AP explained, has highlighted the division between France’s big cities and their poor suburbs, with frustration simmering in the housing projects in areas marked by high unemployment, crime and poverty.” Another AP story declared flatly that the riots were over “poor conditions in Paris-area housing projects.”

So evidently France’s failure to live up to its policy of playing down the differences between ethnic groups has bred the simmering anger that has now boiled over in the riots. However, in fact France has done just the opposite of playing down the differences between ethnic groups. In her seminal Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, historian Bat Ye’or details a series of agreements between the European Union and the Arab League that guaranteed that Muslim immigrants in Europe would not be compelled in any way to adapt “to the customs of the host countries.” On the contrary, the Euro-Arab Dialogue’s Hamburg Symposium of 1983, to take just one of many examples, recommended that non-Muslim Europeans be made “more aware of the cultural background of migrants, by promoting cultural activities of the immigrant communities or ‘supplying adequate information on the culture of the migrant communities in the school curricula.’” Not only that: “Access to the mass media had to be facilitated to the migrants in order to ensure ‘regular information in their own language about their own culture as well as about the conditions of life in the host country.”[1]

The European Union has implemented such recommendations for decades — so far from playing down the differences between ethnic groups, they have instead stood by approvingly while immigrants formed non-assimilated Islamic enclaves within Europe. Indeed, as Bat Ye’or demonstrates, they have assured the Arab League in multiple agreements that they would aid in the creation and maintenance of such enclaves. Ignorance of the jihad ideology among European officials has allowed that ideology to spread in those enclaves, unchecked until relatively recently.

The French response to the riots is likely to unfold along the lines of a decision by officials in Holland last May: they declined to ban a book called De weg van de Moslim (The Way of the Muslim), even though it calls for homosexuals to be thrown head first off tall buildings. The Amsterdam city council did not want to contravene “the freedom to express opinions.”

That decision is a small example of what the Paris riots demonstrate on a large scale: the abject failure of the multiculturalist philosophy that disparate groups can coexist within a nation without any idea that they must share at least some basic values. The French are paying the price today for blithely assuming that France could absorb a population holding values vastly different from that of the host population without negative consequences for either.

[Sean Fear]

Matthew, France has faced very significant problems with Islamist terrorism over the past 15 years.

Non-involvement in the Iraq War does not guarantee you immunity.

[Nadim]

Nadim you really must stop this warped thinking that all Whites are "Christian". Adolf Hitler certainly was NOT.

In your opinion, TomTom. Catholics believe it is something you are born. Once a Catholic..etc. You might presume to patronise my intelligence and education, but I never said all 'white' people are Christian. It's strange how you seek to correct my caricature, made to illustrate the stupidity of Jack Bauer's, when you leave his assertion unchallenged. White people are no more collectively Christian than Pakistanis are collectively Muslim. I've made the point here before, but for the vast majority of the latter, religion is fused with cultural identity. It's a bit like Protestantism in Northern Ireland. As the PM said of the fascists who invoke Islam to their cause:

"They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a Protestant bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it."

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page9224.asp

[Henry Whitmarsh]

Let's back the police and the security forces. The enemy is here, it has been for a very long time, and it is still intent on inflicting mass casulties. Forest Gate was a positive outcome, at least in the fight against child pornography. We didn't see that aspect of the story very much on the BBC did we?

Whether in nothern israel, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, it's the same evil.

[Michael McGowan]

Nadim, just to pick up on a point in your 12.14 post. You are quite right: I am a Catholic who grew up near Birmingham in the mid-'70's and in my opinion far too few Catholics condemned the IRA. That was a large part of the problem. Aren't we seeing the same thing all over again? While most Catholics no doubt disapproved of what was going on, there was a substantial and vocal group of Catholics not just in Ireland who were prepared to fundraise, campaign for and generally provide a friendly hinterland in which Irish Republican terrorists could operate. Of course in Northern Ireland itself, it was very dangerous for Catholics to condemn the IRA and Irish Republicans also murdered prominent English Catholic opponents of extreme Republicanism (Airey Neave, Ian Gow). One of the most baleful aspects of the Peace Process, thanks to John Hume's cynical attempts to feed the Sinn Fein crocodile, has been the collapse of the moderate Catholic party, the SDLP.

The Catholic Church also played a highly ambiguous role over the Troubles. In Ireland itself, the Catholic Church's sectarian mindset remains deeply embedded: witness its opposition to cross-denominational education. Far too many priests and bishops took refuge in ritualised expressions of outrage while continuing to give extremists the benefit of the doubt. Those like the late Father Denis Faul who stood up to the IRA were vilified and intimidated with little support from their superiors.

[Nadim]

Thank you, Michael McGowan, for your balanced and refreshingly honest assessment of 1970s terrorism.

But of course, the likes of Jack Bauer are blind to the reasoning. Catholics who spoke up against the IRA were as much in danger then as Muslims who condemn the present terrorist atrocities are now. But many of us do. Very many. If Jack Bauer bothered to get over his own anti-Muslim bias, and reason objectively, the politics would be much improved.

[Jack Bauer]

Nadim, just to get one thing straight here

Hitler was no Christian and one of Hitler’s biggest supporters was Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini – the lately unlamented Yasser Arafat’s uncle/mentor.

While in Baghdad, Syria al-Husseini aided the pro-Nazi revolt of 1941. He then spent the rest of World War II as Hitler's special guest in Berlin, advocating the extermination of Jews in radio broadcasts back to the Middle East and recruiting Balkan Muslims for infamous SS "mountain divisions" that tried to wipe out Jewish communities throughout the region.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny (subsequently executed as a war criminal) testified:

"The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan. ...

He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz."

The "Muftis" place as leader of the radical, nationalist Palestinian Arabs was taken by his nephew Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini, better known as Yasser Arafat.

In August 2002, Arafat gave an interview in which he referred to "our hero al-Husseini" as a symbol of Palestinian Arab resistance.

[Thomas Bridge]

Michael McGowan, it's not entirely correct to say that "Those like the late Father Denis Faul who stood up to the IRA were vilified and intimidated with little support from their superiors."

Pope John Paul II begged the IRA to stop their actions on his visit to Drogheda in 1979, and the appointment of Cahal Daly as Archbishop of Armagh made it very clear what the view in Rome was (Daly had attracted a lot of attention while Bishop of Down and Connor for his condemnation of the IRA).

I grew up in a very republican town in the Republic (several people arrested on Eksund were from my town, including the skipper) and attended a Catholic school. I was never in any doubt that the actions of the IRA were in opposition to the Catholic leadership.

To pull this back to the topic of Islamic terrorism, one of the issues in Islam is that there is no hierarchy equivalent to that of Anglicanism or Catholicism so there is no defined leader to make the sort of condemnations we need to hear. But the fact remains that if 19% of British Muslims felt the 7/7 attacks were justified, that means 81% of them don't. So lets not demonise all Muslims over the actions of a dangerous minority.

[Gareth]

"Secondly, the 10/8 title is stupid. There is no 10/8.
They have been plotting to blow up planes for months. Nothing has happened, however, today is the day the police have moved in. It could have been 10/7, 21/8, or anything. Nobody has died to day. Let us not dub this 10/8"

Well seen as we are now compelled to tackily "brand" everything, how about we call it handluggagegate(C) or even better, delseygate(C), and the generic term could be samsonitathon(C)...

Imagine if anything were to happen on the 1st February. Everytime a footballer said "quick 1-2" there would be a riot and half the team would get shot. It would also bring a whole new meaning to "2-1 to the Arsenal".

[TomTom]

"They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a Protestant bigot

When will Muslim bigots be condemned ? No "protestant" in Northern Ireland, who btw are predominantly Presbyterian, have ever received congratulations in church, nor produced videos to be shown to recruit others, nor have they ever engaged in mass-murder.

The analogy was created by Blair to placate his Muslim voters and simply to malign Protestants because he did not want to point out that the terrorists he deals with in Sinn Fein are affiliated to his voters.

As for Catholics you are wrong. ex-Communication remains a possibility unknown to Islam, and adherence to papal authority also provides a definition of a Roman Catholic. To what are Muslims loyal ?

[Editor]

CCHQ has issued the following:

"Senior Conservatives have thrown their support behind the police and MI5 after a major terrorist plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the United States was disrupted.

Following consultations with Party Leader David Cameron and Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, as well as Government ministers, David Davis expressed full support in the battle to defeat terrorism, and urged the public to co-operate with the authorities.

The Shadow Home Secretary declared: "This is a very serious situation. We applaud the actions of the police and security services, which have our full support in the fight against terror."

Mr Davis added: "The Government is entirely right to put in place precautionary measures for travellers - the protection of lives must always be paramount."

He commented after Home Secretary John Reid announced that Britain had been placed on the highest alert level - critical - after the police raided properties in London and the Thames Valley area, and arrested about more than 20 suspects, following an anti-terrorist operation stretching over several months.

Mr Reid confirmed there had been a plot to "bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flight explosions causing a considerable loss of life". As a result, security precautions have been dramatically stepped up at all UK airports, disrupting and delaying flights."

[Michael McGowan]

Thomas, I accept your comments about John Paul II. Ditto Cahal Daly.....although I am rather less sure about the former Bishop of Derry, Edward Daly. As for the late Cardinal Tomas O'Fiaich, well the less said the better.....

As for your point about 81% versus 19%, perfectly fair but isn't the more important point that that 19% represents a large number of people who will provide a very friendly hinterland in which the bombers can operate largely unimpeded? It is a myth to think that terrorists require majority support from the communities/groupings they claim to represent. All they need is some support coupled with a programme of intimidation to silence those who refuse to accept their leadership role. As the Macartney family discovered the hard way, that is exactly how Sinn Fein and the IRA have worked for decades.

[Ted]

Nadim

Don't make into a Christians v Islam arguement. As a Catholic in one of three Catholic parishes that survived through reformation so we still have locally good yeoman English Catholics, I can see parallels between the development of the view that all Catholics were revolutionaries attempting to overthrow the English Govt, which resuted in centuries of discrimination, and some peoples similar views of of muslims today.

It is a fact that the spread of salafism particularly into the muslim Indo-Pakistani community, possibly bolstered by the Kashmiri issues, has resulted in a radicalisation of many UK muslims. French muslims have as a counter-influence the Moroccan school though the Algerian fundamentalists are again a significant influence.

To an extent the internal struggles for supremacy within Islam have been externalised into a struggle against the West both on religious grounds and so that the Salafists or Iranian Shia can gain adherents as the defenders of the Faith. It is to be expected that the West defends itself against these violent assaults.

Unless those in the UK muslim population, who do not support violence and are not apologists for mass murder, stand up and themselves join the struggle to combat these extremists there will be a developing view that all muslims are a danger - as happened in the 17th century against Catholics. There is a terrible danger that over the next decade or so we will see increasing legal and political developments that marginalise and discriminate against muslims.

[Jack Bauer]

Tom Tom -- thank you for making many so many obvious (but apparently necessay) points that I, frankly, can't be bothered to make about this utterly bogus IRA/UDA strawman.

The Irish nationalist analogy between 2 violent factions operating under two competing Christian faiths, is actually anaologous to the murderous centuries old jihad by Sunnis and Shiites against each other.

Expect the "muslim" victim card to be played around 3.17pm this afternoon on al-Beeb.

Maybe it already has, though I have to pay for the BBC, I never watch it.

[Phil Jackson]

Comparisons between Northern Ireland and Anywhere-else are nearly always good examples of what a famous Irishman once called “odious comparisons”.

“They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a Protestant bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive… blah blah…blah “

Well, if he is not a ‘proper’ Christian he can hardly be a ‘proper’ Protestant, and it is therefore itself bigoted to say – as Blair does - that the perpetrator’s religion is relevant. Blair’s dimwitted sentence only makes sense if it is taken to mean that Protestantism is not Christian, which he and his peculiar wife may well believe.

N. Irish politics are immensely complex and way beyond the ken of Tony Blair:

a) Irish republicanism was founded by a Belfast presbyterian (Woolf Tone) and is essentially a secular creed; many Irish sympathisers with violent nationalism have been protestants; think Charles Stuart Parnell and W B Yeates;

b) there were protestants in the old IRA of the 1920s, though none, as far as I know, in the round of troubles that began in the 1960s. However, the INLA terrorist leader Ronnie Bunting - assassinated in 1980 – was a protestant.

c) a significant minority of N Irish Catholics are in favour of the continuing Union.

In other words it is a serious error to necessarily assume that Protestantism = Unionism and Catholicism = Nationalism/Republicanism.

I think it is best to steer clear of this kind of analogy.

[Sam Oakley]

I'm not sure the islamofascist / nazi analogy is a good one. The nazis were a political party, albeit one dominated by an evil sociopath, but nevertheless, they won an election. These poeple do not have the popular support of anyone.

The risks for someone who stood up against the nazis was near certain death not just a social stigma. Yes I agree that the 81% of british muslims who abhor this kind of thing need to do more but for their voice to mean anything we can't lump them in with those who are intent on destroying the country.

[TomTom]

but nevertheless, they won an election.

When was this ? It was AFTER Hitler had formed the Government on 30 January 1933 and had time to torch the Reichstag and call elections in March 1933.

The Nazis never won an election until they were in government.

Lenin lost the 1918 November elections in Russia and had to start a civil war to destry the Social Revolutionaries who did win

[TC]

The editor said in his initial post: "Conservatives cannot afford to be/ look unprepared for the challenge of protecting the public..."

This is absolutely correct. It's all very well to have a long-term policy review when it comes to public services and tax policy, but when it comes to foreign policy and security matters we need to have a position and stick to it. These are not areas where focus-groups can provide the answers, which perhaps explains the leadership's lack of a clear and articulated stance.

I disagree with many of the government's steps to tackle the terrorist threat, but a lack of conservative policy alternatives makes us look weak and not ready to govern.

[Yet Another Anon]

The talk of new kind of liquid bombs is genuinely frightening
It's a change in tactics by terrorist groups but all kinds of things can be used to make weapons - pure alcohol, something to light it and you have a weapon; the engine fuel in aircraft itself can be a weapon (in fact the planes in 9/11 were used as flying bombs of course); bits of vehicles themselves could be utilised as weapons.

Really the biggest threat is on services between the USA and UK and probably restrictions on passengers not carrying luggage and what they can carry on them should be extended to ships as well, people are too complacent about ships - really there need to be more stringent checks on ships - an oil tanker with radioactive material exploded in a port could cause huge contamination, perhaps there need to be armed guards on Inter City Trains and ships and blanket special powers by Anti-Terrorist Police to be able to restrict items that people can carry in areas considered to be under threat for any length of time and with no notice required.

A biometric based National Identity Database with random police checks and withdrawal from the EU and the vetoing of entry of criminals and members of suspect groups to the UK would also help, also introduction of internment and restrictions of movements within the UK of individuals who in the past have had links with suspect groups, perhaps properly enforced ASBO's for such people would be appropriate.

[Esbonio]

The idea that but for the UK's recent foreign policy, there would be no terrorist threat seems absurd. Such a view does not fit the chronology (9/11 predated Afghanistan and Iraq and it has been suggested London was intended as a 9/11 target until the last moment)nor does it conform with statements made by protagonists.

[Esbonio]

Where's Dave?

[George Hinton]

One thing that has come out of this mornings events is that multiculturism has been shown to be a complete and utter failure.
Why certain elements in the Pakistani community, presumably muslims, want to blow up planes carrying westerners to America is a demonstration of the lack of assimilation into our ways. This has happened as we have allowed the community to separately evolve, keeping their customs and effectively creating their own cultural ghettoes, where they have become open to radical indoctrination.
Security and these events will remain a part of our lives until such time that we have the Muslim community on-side, and that does not mean changing our ways, or our foreign policy, it means that they must understand our ways and concepts and adapt. If such people cannot adapt and assimilate then you must question their ability to live in a free, secular, western world with its democratic principles.
Many make the effort, it is the few who are causing the problems that reflect on all.

[Yet Another Anon]

and it has been suggested London was intended as a 9/11 target until the last moment
If it was it would have had to have been a different terrorist cell and one based in the UK because of the probability that many would either not be allowed into the UK or would raise suspicions, the resources would have been out of place so it seems unlikely that it would have been last moment although maybe late in the planning stages.

[TomTom]

Posted by: Yet Another Anon | August 10, 2006 at 14:43

Now then to the real world..............

"The real threat to the life of the nation," said Lord Hoffmann, "… comes not from terrorism, but from laws such as these."

[George Hinton]

Regarding terrorism and the need for counter laws may i make the following quote:-

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants;
It is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt the Younger..18th november 1783.

[Yet Another Anon]

As for Catholics you are wrong. ex-Communication remains a possibility unknown to Islam, and adherence to papal authority also provides a definition of a Roman Catholic.
I don't recall them using it to ex-communicate members of Sinn Fein or the IRA, in fact the Vatican has a very chequered history when it comes to political matters and in past centuries was involved in attempts to undermine Protestant countries, before the 20th century the Vatican was a far bigger threat to the West and indeed it was their control over individual Catholics that was the biggest threat of all.

[Sean Fear]

Slightly related to this thread, is that it's interesting to see how Protestant/Catholic rivalry, once such a live political issue in the English-speaking World, has now largely disappeared, outside Northern Ireland.

In the Fifties, Northern Ireland's political rivalry was really not that unusual.

[Goldie]

Our Editor:

"One sure way of radicalising Muslim opinion in Britain is to demonise all Muslims."

How long before you realize that political correctness of the type you espouse is a disease of the mind, with very bad consequences out there in the real world?

It's just unbelievable.

We're not demonizing everyone, but the muslims in this --and most other western countries-- are NOT radicalized because of US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TC]

One could also quote Milton in Paradise Lost: "So spake the fiend, and with necessity the tyrant’s plea, excused his devilish deed"

Or you could quote the Roman proverb "salus populi primus lex" - the safety of the people is the ultimate law.

Quotes are good for illustrative purposes, but really give us little guidance. I think the vital first step in any security policy is the take our collective heads out of the sand and face up to the threat we face.

Multi-culturalism is an abject and dangerous failure (please distinguish this from multi-ethnicity which is without doubt a good thing) and no amount of political correctness will make up for that. Our leaders must promote the values of our society and must demand that citezens share them.

We also need to have secure borders and control over who comes in and out and who gets the right to stay. These must be matters for the British government to deal with freely, unconstrained by the judiciary or the EU.

Finally, our military could be given the equipment and support it desperately needs when fighting for our interests overseas.

[Nadim]

Multi-culturalism is an abject and dangerous failure (please distinguish this from multi-ethnicity which is without doubt a good thing)

This is precisely the sort of post-Enlightenment 'Western' thinking that is utterly alien to non-Westerners. They do not conveniently pigeon-hole and categorise everything. In many non-Western nations, religion and culture are synonymous - there is no word for 'religion' in punjabi, for example; it is simply a cultural expression. With multi-ethnicity comes multi-culturalism, because ethnic minorities guard their heritage 'religiously' - it is part of identity. To argue the simplistic way some people here are doing is to demand that everyone in Britain worship the same god, practice the same faith, eat the same food, etc, etc. Diversity demands multi-culturalism as well as multi-ethnicity. To argue otherwise is to force political and cultural assimilation, and isn't that what Irish republicans have warred against for decades? Isn't that sort of superficial politics going to cause more resentment?

[SimonNewman]

"Nadim you really must stop this warped thinking that all Whites are "Christian". Adolf Hitler certainly was NOT. Heinrich Himmler certainly was NOT"

Hitler always considered himself to be Roman Catholic (Himmler was pagan), just as most IRA terrorists do, but neither acted primarily in the name of their religion.

[esbonio]

I am not quite sure what point Nadim is trying to make. Hardly anyone would expect "everyone in Britain worship the same god, practice the same faith, eat the same food, etc, etc." That is a straw man argument.

[Nadim]

Esbonio, that is the logical consequence of TC's lauding of multi-ethnicity but forbidding multi-culturalism. Culture includes religion.

That is my point. TC is the one demanding some sort of cultural assimilation.

[Bob B]

Fascinating question that: Whose side are they on?

I suppose it all depends. After all, whose side was Robert Maxwell's on?

"Ian Robert Maxwell MC (June 10, 1923 – November 5, 1991), British media proprietor, rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing business. After his mysterious death it was revealed that he had been stealing from staff pension funds on a massive scale to support the business. . .

"Maxwell was given a funeral in Israel that would have befitted a head of state, as described by author Gordon Thomas:

"...On November 10, 1991, Maxwell’s funeral took place on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the resting place for the nation’s most revered heroes. It had all the trappings of a state occasion, attended by the country’s government and opposition leaders. No fewer than six serving and former heads of the Israeli intelligence community listened as Prime Minister Shamir eulogized: 'He has done more for Israel than can today be said.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Robert_Maxwell

Btw do check out the official summaries of the recently released, previously withheld MI5 files on jewish terrorist organisations:
http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page453.html

By reports, they had plans to assassinate Ernest Bevin, foreign secretary in Attlee's government after WW2 and one of the principal architects of the NATO alliance. Oh yes, there was also a plot to bomb the Houses of Parliament from the air which the French fortunately thwarted.

I must read Sir Malcolm Rifkind in The Spectator this week:

"Tory infighting over David Cameron's foreign policy will escalate today when Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary, urges him to 'part company' decisively from Tony Blair over the war on terrorism."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/10/nrifkind10.xml

To my way of thinking, Malcolm Rifkind is talking a lot of good sense.

[Yet Another Anon]

Hitler always considered himself to be Roman Catholic (Himmler was pagan), just as most IRA terrorists do, but neither acted primarily in the name of their religion.
The Nazi's even had their own denomination that they required Christians inside Germany to be a member of, their thinking was so warped that they made the KKK look Orthodox in comparison, usually when Hitler considered himself to be something it mean't he had invented something totally different based on a number of unrelated things including myths and bogus history rewritten by him with the gaps filled up - stories about Atlantis and a mythical Ayran race that never existed that were pretty much a religion in itself, Nazism was a religion really to an extent that Al Qaeda and Hezbollah is not because they are based on religious sects rather than the religious sects being based on them.

[Jack Bauer]

esbanio -- from what I can decipher, Nadim wants us to believe Islam is a kumbiya religion which has no evil intent to the followers of other religions.

Any Dhimmis believing this twaddle I suggest getting the next plane to Saudi Arabia, Christian bible in tow. Exit your hotel, stand on any street corner and start to explain how Christianity would be far better for them to follow.

In fact, you’ll find your welcome far from pleasant, if you should even escape with your life, that is. As you would in the vast majority of Muslim states. They simply do not tolerate non-muslims except as second class citizens. Well it is in the Koran, so why not?

His main aim is to divert attention away from the intolerant religion that is Islam. In doing so he throws up odd strawman arguments about the IRA, and that Hitler was Christened in the Roman Catholic faith.

I think Stalin was born into Russian Orthodox, before he converted to the Godless creed of communism. So what.

Apart from that, I have no idea what his real point is. Except he doesn’t sound like a conservative to me.

[Hannibal]

If anyone is in any doubt as the to underlying rationale of the Respect Party's (and therefore George Galloway's) anti-Israeli stance should go to their website and see this cartoon:

http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?ite=1119

Anti-Semitic?

[JB]

Editor,

How long do we put up with Jack Bauer's Islamophobia before you block him?

[Jack Bauer]

hannibal -- George Galloway would appear to be a disgusting enabler of Jew haters and supporters of the islamo-nazis like Hellsbollah.

I no longer listen to TalkSport since they gave this hateful bearded troll a platform to spew his filth.

[Jack Bauer]

"How long do we put up with Jack Bauer's Islamophobia before you block him?"

What a pathetic, dhimmied ad hominem attack, and response.

Ban, censor. Is that what you're all about Mr John Barnes?

[christina speight]

Before we get lost in abstractions can we just consider the basic facts.

1. The Afghan al Qaeda training camps were exclusively for muslims
2. the Twin Towers terrorists and all known associates were all muslims
3. the tube / bus bombers {7/7} here were all muslims
4. the Shiite Hizbollah has declared a muslim jihad against the west

So ALL terrorist information leads to the muslim community although ALL muslims are not terrorists. However 25% of British muslims approve of the 7/7 attacks. {C4}

Therefore the security services must crack down on all muslims until the 75% denounce and "shop" the 25%. Otherwise the slaughter will escalate.

[Nadim]

I don't particulatly want Jack Bauer blocked. I support the right of free speech and freedom of religion and conscience (that might surprise him), but then he concludes I'm just trying 'to divert attention away from the intolerant religion that is Islam'. If he is so puerile as to judge Islam from the behaviour of extremists, he probably judges Christianity from the Crusades. Or possibly not, since that wouldn't suit his argument.

To criticise my faith, fine, to criticise my contributions here, fine, but to conclude I am not Conservative is wrong, and typical of the narrow-mindedness with which popular perception has recently tarnished the entire Conservative Party. I'm not walking off, I'm not resigning my membership, I am staying to argue with people like Jack Bauer until they realise that people with my beliefs can be Conservatives, and good ones.

[JB]

christina speight:

Some men are rapists - therefore the police should crack down on all rapists. But no, that would not work, because not all men know who the rapists are - but hay, we could cut the number of rapes if we randomly arrest, bully and abuse men.

[Anon]

"Btw do check out the official summaries of the recently released, previously withheld MI5 files on jewish terrorist organisations"

This is the Tory Party - a party completely dominated by a pressure group that would, possibly quite literally, have you shot for reminding anyone of how Israel was actually formed!

The Official Opposition has been more dominated by this group in the last 10 years than the PM has been dominated by Bush.

[John G]

Nadim is absolutely right. There has been far too much Islamophobia in the Tory Party.

We need to move to a position of tolerance and understanding and away from aggressive non-inclusive attitudes.

There's too much of that on here at present.

[malcolm]

Good for you Nadim.I have watched you argue your case today and in my opinion you've done well. Wish there were more like you on this blog.

[JB]

What's the legal situation regarding openly anti-Islamic comments.

[JB]

What's the legal situation regarding openly anti-Islamic comments?

[Andrew]

"If he is so puerile as to judge Islam from the behaviour of extremists, he probably judges Christianity from the Crusades"

Or perhaps by the explicitly Christian LRA in Uganda, which makes Al Qaeda look like a women's bookclub. After all, they kill in the name of "God" too, and in astronomically greater numbers than Al Qaeda ever has.

Strangely enough, the media refers to "Islamic extremists", but not to "Christian extremists".

[Graeme Archer]

Hear hear Nadim. If I had a pound for every time someone wrote "that person can't be a conservative", well I'd be off somewhere nicer than Hackney :-)

The real challenge for Conservatives is to work out how to be a bridgehead... I'm hopeless at political theory, but I do believe that the Conservative Party is the best machine to make this happen, because we know (from CH if from nowhere else!) that our tent already contains all spectrum of belief, from the ultra-social conservative through to the ultra-libertarian. Surely the fact that we can rub along together happily must make it at least a measurably probable event that a mode of existence can be found between those Britons who have strong beliefs in one strand of Islamism and those who do not?

If we can't do this then who will? No-one on the left (their politics is pure electoral calculus - that's why they want us parcelled into "community groups" in the first place, makes us easier to bribe).

Obviously nothing's going to change overnight. But I want to know what we can do to help challenge the attitudes so frighteningly exposed in Jon Snow's documentary the other evening. And maybe it sounds puerile to suggest that what we should do is make sure there are Tory associations in every strongly Muslim area, but it's that sort of community (in the real, not leftwing sense) approach that is required. Because I do believe it's actually quite hard to hate people when you work with them, and if we don't live with each other, then we need other mechanisms to make sure the necessary contacts happen.

It's just the Only Connect thing, isn't it? It's not them/us, and I find it wrong on a very basic level to take all of Islam to task for the actions of some of its adherents (and I thought the discussion about Hitler's "faith" above a bit odd). Do you know why? It's not because of what it says in the Qu'ran, but just because the Muslim people I know - it's inconceivable to imagine them as being in thrall to some hideous idealogy. It's not trite to point out that if you know of at least one good person who is Muslim, then the hypothesis "all Islam is evil" is refuted. BUT I find the tenets of that faith alarming when they're expressed vocally on my television and in my newspaper, alarming in a way that I simply don't feel when I hear an ultra-orthodox Christian declaiming about this and that. Why is that? Is it all down to the reformation?

Clumsy with words, sorry, so apologies if offence caused - none intended.

[Michael McGowan]

We seem to have degenerated to mud-slinging ....especially now that the tolerance and understanding brigade are starting to play the man not the ball.

Nadim, I can see that for a Muslim, culture and religion are not two distinct things. Fair enough. A liberal society can accomodate that.....but only up to a point. My big problem with multiculturalism is what happens when someone (say, an Islamic extremist) takes the position that not only is his culture indivisible from his religion but that the latter requires/permits him to do things which are totally at odds with secular liberal values. The multicultural dogmatists would have us believe that it is "racist" not to permit such people to engage in forced marriages, persecution of homosexuals, stoning of adulterers, killing apostates, etc etc. However, if we do so then we create a balkanised society divided on racial grounds where people are anything but equal in the eyes of the law. That is of course what those who play the politics of grievance want. You do not.....but I am still trying to see where you draw the multicultural line.

[Sam Oakley]

"Some men are rapists - therefore the police should crack down on all rapists. But no, that would not work, because not all men know who the rapists are - but hay, we could cut the number of rapes if we randomly arrest, bully and abuse men."

Yet another bad analogy - 19 % of british men don't support rape and rape is not ideologically / theogically motivated.

When will people start to realise that this is not a problem anyone has faced before. Even the IRA would have stopped bombimg had we just handed back Northern Ireland

Trying to draw parrallels with the past doesn't work, we need to be forward thinking if we're going to stand a chance of dealing with the problem.

[Nadim]

JB, the law permits anti-Islamic comments, and rightly (so, it seems, does the Editor of this blog). The plan to outlaw expressions of 'religious hatred' was halted, and therefore free speech permits 'openly anti-Islamic statements' provided that they do not cause a breach of the peace.

The sad thing is when people like Jack Bauer view all Muslims as some kind of monolith, and then when one bothers to argue with him, he concludes that I can't be a Conservative. In my opinion it is people like Jack Bauer who should leave the Party (if he's in it?).

[Goldie]

Andrew Fenton: yes sure absolutely the main problems in this world are caused by all the damn Christian terrorist blowing everybody up! Thanks for reminding us!

[Goldie]

John G: I think the Brits have excelled in "tolerance", wouldn't you agree?

[TomTom]

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants;
It is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt the Younger..18th november 1783.

1794 William Pitt suspended Habeas Corpus

Seditious Meetings Act
Combination Acts
Income Tax

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

""If he is so puerile as to judge Islam from the behaviour of extremists, he probably judges Christianity from the Crusades"

Or perhaps by the explicitly Christian LRA in Uganda, which makes Al Qaeda look like a women's bookclub. After all, they kill in the name of "God" too, and in astronomically greater numbers than Al Qaeda ever has."

Let's not forget the Spanish conquistadores in Latin America either.

The truth is most major religions have seen a lot of despicable deeds carried out in their name by various zealots, fanatics and extremists throughout history so I don't really see that the adherents of any particular faith should be damning all followers of another faith based on historical atrocities committed by certain individuals or groups.

[John G]

Yes Goldie, we need to celebrate our traditions of tolerance and fair play.

But when the Conservative Party still contains far-right groups like the Monday Club and CFI all the wrong vibrations are being given off.

[TomTom]

"If he is so puerile as to judge Islam from the behaviour of extremists, he probably judges Christianity from the Crusades"

Or perhaps by the explicitly Christian LRA in Uganda, which makes Al Qaeda look like a women's bookclub

The Lord's Resistance Army is NOT Christian - it is run by a madman who thinks he is a god and receives funding from Saudi Arabia.

In January 1987 Joseph Kony made his first appearance as a spirit medium, one of many who emerged after the initial success of the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Auma. Former Uganda People's Democratic Army commander Odong Latek convinced Kony to adopt conventional guerrilla tactics, primarily surprise attacks on civilian targets, such as villages............Sudanese aid was a response to Ugandan support for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) fighting in the civil war in the south of the country.

The Crusades were a response to Muslim extremism and imperialism as Christian countries like Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Turkey fell to the Muslim invader.

They were just as extremist as judging Britain by those who fought in two world wars when by your definition Andrew they were freebooters and vile damaging French homes and cities

[TC]

'TC is the one demanding some sort of cultural assimilation'

Nadim - Firstly, I support most of what you've written on this topic today. However, to attribute such a demand to me is, I think, unfair. Perhaps I didn't make my argument sufficiently clearly.

My point is that there are basic British values (values common to most liberal democracies) which British leaders should fearlessly promote and which British citizens should surely accept. I see no contradiction between this proposition and the existence a diversity of religious belief within society.

Perhaps the reason so many people (whatever their background) feel alienated and isolated in modern Britain is because there is no dominant national identity for them to be a part of.

My hope is to see the various cultures present in today's society subsumed into an overarching and inclusive British culture. There is no contradiction inherent in being muslim and British, and it is important that people realise this.

[Nadim]

You do not.....but I am still trying to see where you draw the multicultural line.

Religions can and do culturally assimilate. Judaism did, over thousands of years. Christianity most certainly did, right from its first clash with the Greeks (and the Roman Empire), and Islam is in the process of understanding what such an accommodation means. Just as Jews eventually shook off stoning homosexuals and adulterers, demanded in law, so Muslims who have been challenged by Western views and standards, inherited from the Reformation (as someone mentioned) and the Enlightenment, are also begining to do.

Yet the 'barbarism' of the Torah is now viewed historically. The behaviour was contextual. Muslims (very many of them) are beginning to view the Holy Qur'an as a complex work of theology - some of it historical, some for 'all time'. The debate on which teachings belong in which category is exactly the same as for Christians.

The 'multi-cultural line' is drawn on a Qur'anic principle - to respect 'people of the Book' (ie Jews and Christians), and the inference is to live peaceably with people of all faiths.

[Anon]

Goldies you're right - the Brits, and the Tories have excelled at tolerance.

After all, we let the Stern Gang blow us up, kidnap our soldiers and shoot us, then we give them everything they want, welcome the former leader of that terrorist organisation as if he's a serious world figure and then run around the world supporting the Stern Gang's aims.

And just to show that we're really tolerant, we then condemn anyone who questions the Stern Gang at all!

There is no country in the world that has been so stupid (sorry) tolerant.

[Jack Bauer]

You are right Nadim. I see this now.

Unknown people, of an unknown origin, and unknown religion and for unknown reasons, have decided to plot together...

to murder thousands of people who they don’t know.

They only thing we do know for sure, is that it was the fault of people like me for not understanding unknown religions and their unknown cultural imperatives.

And that it was probably hatched in the White House and Downing Street and Israel.

I think we can all agree on that.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

Getting away from the debate regarding which religion is more extreme...

This may seem like an inappropriate thought at this time, but does anybody else feel that John Reid's Labour leadership chances have received another boost today?

[Jack Bauer]

"we let the Stern Gang blow us up, kidnap our soldiers and shoot us, then we give them everything they want"

Yep, it's a funny old world. Ask former terrorist/communist Nelson Mandela.

"welcome the former leader of that terrorist organisation as if he's a serious world figure"

Why sure, you'll be telling me next that part time paedophile and full time Jew killer, Yasser Arafat got the 'Nobel Peace Prize' next.

[Andrew]

"The Lord's Resistance Army is NOT Christian...."

They say they are. Similarly, Al Qaeda nutjobs profess to be Muslim, despite the Quran specifically outlawing the targetting of civilians. Doesn't stop the media referring to them as Islamic though - why is one imaginary god worth referring to, and the other not? (even though theologically it's supposed to be the same being).

[Sean Fear]

"Yes Goldie, we need to celebrate our traditions of tolerance and fair play.

But when the Conservative Party still contains far-right groups like the Monday Club and CFI all the wrong vibrations are being given off.
"

Two paragraphs in complete contradiction of each other.

[Sean Fear]

The reason that Islamic terrorism is referred to as Islamic, is because its perpetrators say it is.

Organisations like the IRA weren't actually carrying out terrorist acts in the name of the Roman Catholic religion. Had they been, it would have been correct to refer to Catholic terrorism.

[Andrew]

"Why sure, you'll be telling me next that part time paedophile and full time Jew killer, Yasser Arafat got the 'Nobel Peace Prize' next."

You forgot chronic embezzler and empoverisher of his own people.

A long time dream of mine was Arafat and Sharon sharing the same cell at the Hague - a perfectly Sartre'esque torture for the old pair of murderers.

[Nadim]

Jack Bauer, it would be more accurate to say:

Known individuals, inspired by territorial political objectives, professing Islam, for the sole purpose of making their evil operations more acceptable to themselves and others, have decided to plot in numerous factions...

to murder thousands of people they don't know.

The only thing we do know for sure, is that people who blame Islam have invariably never read the Holy Qur'an, never read any scholarship about it, and simply don't understand the religion at all. They simply believe superficial media comment, and unintelligently follow it like sheep.

Neither the White House, Downing Street nor Israel can help ignorant people who refuse to appraise themselves with the theological and cultural facts before insulting an entire faith.

And to end your post: 'I think we can all agree on that' shows how much attention you haven't paid to all of those contributors who have disagreed with you, or found your comments insulting or unaccptable.