I’d suggest that it’s mainly because Islamist plots tend to kill more people. Of Europol’s 500-odd, most were directed against property rather than people, by the likes of Corsican nationalists, and hardly any managed to kill anyone. You can see its report here:

http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/TESAT/TESAT2007.pdf

You are correct in much of what you say, especially with regard to the way the Western media has been so woefully inadequate at reporting the huge implications of the invasion of Iraq.

For example, although Bush and Blair are adamant that the war wasn’t about oil, how many people in this country are aware of the new Iraqi Oil Law. It was drawn up by the UK and US and privatised Iraq’s previously public oil, putting it in the hands of Western multinational companies.

This is just one example, what about all the rapes we never hear about?

Instead we are fed an official diet of the ‘terror threat’ when, in reality, 7/7 was a tea party compared to the carpet bombing of Iraq.

If Western governments are going to consistently fuck over other countries they better expect some sort of comeback. An eye for an eye.

You are also correct about Sunny’s inability to see the wider picture and resort to using ‘buzz words’. He is a perfect example of why liberals will never again run this country: they unable to develop a nuanced view of complex situations.

As for Sunny trying to ‘isolate the Muslim community’, you are wrong. They don’t need Sunny’s help, they do it all by themselves. Hatred of the non-believer drips from even the most ‘moderate’ Muslims, and the Western intervention into the Middle East only exasperates this hate.

Perhaps I didn’t make my stance clear. I am also pleased you do not feel I was marginalising you.

Has American and British foreign policy in Iraq made some muslims more susceptible to being recruited by Jihadist groups than would otherwise have been the case? Certainly. Was invading Iraq justified? Not at all, and I would pull out tomorrow if I was in charge.

However, I cannot agree, for reasons I have given above, that the supremicist ideology we are now facing is purely a result of Western foreign policy, which is how your first post read to me. There is no logical step between disagreeing with Western policy, and detonating a bomb on a packed tube in London. I disgree with much of Russian foreign policy. However, I’m not going to go to Moscow and kill loads of innocent Russians.

It should also be noted that there is currently a lot of Wahhabi money coming in from Saudi Arabia into mosques across Europe and in America, which is causing some communities there to be radicalised. Wahhabism is not a product of the West.

The blame cannot be solely laid down on the doorstep of any one group or culture. The solution will have to acknowlede this.

You must have been, unless you’re seven years old.

I have to call you out on one of your statements:

“if we’d clamped down on these fuckers then, 7/7 would not have happened regardless of Iraq”

That is pure conjecture so don’t make statements like that. I completely disagree with it anyhow. Sunny, how informed are you on what has happened in Iraq and how it fits in to wider geo-political issues? The sad fact is that you seem to be unaware of the impact the events of the last few years have had on everyone globally, not least the muslim community. Instead you are trying to isolate the british muslim community and saying: “Look, I found it, here is the problem”. That approach is fruitless and will never work.

I was not around for the 90s which you speak of, but growing up I had heard enough about these kinds of groups and met enough people who shared their point of view to know even then, that their opinion and behaviours would always be pushed away from the main community. The UK was warned that they would face a threat after Bush and Blair eloped, and they carried on their own MASS-murder of innocents regardless.

Like I said way back, you don’t mess around with other people and goverments indefinitely without expecting a reprisal of some sort. Please Sunny, tell me you at least agree with that…

Did we have public inquiries into IRA bombs? No, because it is glaringly obvious that SOME plots will always succeed.

The ONLY thing worth investigating, with the benefit of hindsight, is why the response is disproportionate and racist .. and then committing to addressing that.

Sunny,

No .. I am saying that I’d like someone to explain to me why it isn’t racist that anti-terrorism across Europe is driven by a policy of targeting the Muslim community, when Europol’s own stats clearly show that 497 of the 498 terrorist attacks / plots were inspired by separatist, nationalist, left-wing and anarchist motives .. NOT ‘Islamist’.

I would like to know why the Europol press release announcing the report says:

“It indicates that 498 attacks were carried out by Islamist, separatist, left-wing and anarchist terrorist groups in eleven Member States in 2006″

.. listing the Islamist threat first, when in fact it was the lowest of all the threats.

But Random Guy that has never been my view, so I don’t even know why you’re bringing that here. The articles I reference above (on joined up thinking) and elsewhere mention lots of factors.

So why keep pretending you’re the only one mentioning them? Please drop it.

What Soru says is important for various reasons. On websites like MPAC too we see people claiming “well if they weren’t in Iraq this wouldn’t happen” etc etc.

My point is a bit more nuanced than that. Iraq may have been a source of exacerbation, but it was never the spark nor the fuel. It was the extra petrol chucked into the fire. In the mid 1990s we had people going around declaring this country was not compatible with Muslims, that we were all worthless kaafirs who should convert over to Islam etc.

If you didn’t see it, well then you missed out a lot. I saw the Hizb ‘brothers’ all the time.. though some of them later went to Al Muhajiroun.

Now it is not entirely out of the ordinary to point out that if we’d clamped down on these fuckers then, 7/7 would not have happened regardless of Iraq… why? Because there are 1.6 million Muslims in the UK and the vast majority are not blowing themselves up.

On top of that, the ones who are, are primarily of Pakistani origin and were involved with some of these extremist groups in the past. Does that not indicate anything to you? People don’t just randomly watch TV, get angry and decide to blow themselves up. They are brainwashed and prepared over months, maybe years. There is a whole apparatus my friend. That is the problem too… not just Iraq.

MI5 now has lots of extra funding, smart offices, and public support. It gets to set up a permanent web-site, and advertise in newspapers.

Isn’t that a form of institutional racism?

Maybe an outreach training program should be set up to allow the islamists to develop the necessary core competences to allow them to properly compete in the terror market.

It is naïve to think that (with the benefit of the hindsight that makes us all so wise) the security services haven’t tried to address whatever shortcomings they have identified.

It is also naïve to even contemplate the any independent inquiry will make those shortcoming public.

There are undoubtedly issues that need to be addressed; but lets be honest about it, all a public inquiry will do is divert the attention and resources that are required to get on with addressing the same issues that the inquiry MAY – if we are lucky – identify.

Demanding pointless public inquiries is unfortunately a bit of a British disease .. it is an obsession that we really should try to tame.

Of far greater concern to me is to find out why it is that, given the fact that there were (according to Europol) 500 terrorist attacks in Europe last year – ONE of which was Islamist (and failed miserably) – the vast majority of those arrested are Muslims .. and worse still, why only 32% of those actually arrested under sweeping new powers and detained are actually
even suspected in any actual involvement in planning terrorist acts.

Apologist = a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution;

Those are reasonable definitions. If you use them in the sentence:

‘I don’t wish to come over as an apologist for the bombers, who are culpable for their actions, but there are other important and relevant issues that need to be discussed, including…’

then that’s all well and good.

If, instead you claim to be using them, but say

‘ok, in a discussion of 7/7, I have spent 500 paragraphs assigning culpability for the bombings to everything from napoleon’s invasion of Egypt to the mossadegh coup. But that doesn’t make me an apologist, because I am not one – that is a state that exists independant of anything I say’.

then you are wrong about the predictable effects of the communication you are attempting.

Western Governments and their supporters’ violence (A)= bad.

7/7 bombing (B) = bad

(A) is only possible because of a supremacist ideology (C)

(B) is also only possible because of (C)

We are all capable of (C), but prefer to point out the (C) in other people. This makes it seem like we are justifying either (A) or (B) to people. Why they believe that is up to them to reflect upon. It is better not to speculate why other people misinterpret you, as it makes people more likely to be defensive than reflective.

That’s what I feel I’ve learned from discussions like this in the past.

Culpability = blameworthiness: a state of guilt

Apologist = a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution;

I am not defending anything here. Show me where I am. Blame yes, I am assigning a very significant portion of . Which part of this confuses you? Let me reiterate my points: -

“Western actions in that part of the world is a primary catalyst for the whole terrorist chain of events that let things like 7/7 happen in the first place.”

“I notice you mention that I am trying to justify the bombers. Well, I am not, and if that is the impression you have formed please get rid of it.”

Are you confused by this? If you can’t wrap your head around what I am saying, I cannot make it clearer. I am not talking in absolutes, but in relative terms. If you don’t agree that this is not a question of only cultural failure (or whatever you feel happy for muslims to be burdened with), then you are wrong IMO. Less confused now?

2 + 2 = 5

That’s my opinion. Prove me wrong.

Note: you are not allowed to assume anything about what I mean by the symbols ’2′, ‘+’, ‘=’ or ’5′.

Words successfully used in communication have meanings. ‘culpability’ and ‘apologist’, in particular, have meanings that make what you say not true.

With respect to post #51, this is a fairly common theme, and not surprising to me at all, human nature being what it is. Its pretty hilarious as well.

Also, you ask “who is the western world and who is the developing world?”. Well, I would not include the 7/7 lot in the developing world by any means, but Western actions in that part of the world is a primary catalyst for the whole terrorist chain of events that let things like 7/7 happen in the first place.

I notice you mention that I am trying to justify the bombers. Well, I am not, and if that is the impression you have formed please get rid of it. Merely pointing out Western culpability in all this does not automatically make me an apologist.

@Derius: I too, am amused that you think that I think I was being marginalised by you. So you refute my argument that the West is not a money grubbing, innocent killing entity in the developing world? Are you from that part of the world that you have such knowledde? Tell me then, what exactly do you think they are doing there, in Iraq especially?

In The Islamist, Ed Husain confirms what you might suspect: his former colleagues included sexual hypocrites, as well as offenders, thugs and homophobes. Many preferred ranting to prayer.

The same activists who banned discos and western music at his London college, and who bullied homosexuals and Brick Lane’s prostitutes and inadequately covered female students (“Hijab – put up or shut up”), would decide, having thoroughly reviewed the theology, that pornography was acceptable. And concubines. “I prefer blondes from the Balkans, personally,” announced one hammer of western decadence.

Tell me, why are they angry again?