The police, (possibly Mi5?) didnt act on intelligence recieved by a man who worked in a bookshop regarding the July 7th bombers and they are lambasted for it.

And by all accounts if they were to have carried out a raid nothing would have been found and they would have been lambasted for carrying out the raid.

The fear would be on all sides.

‘forced marriage’ – that is sleight of hand, you’ve changed it from arranged to forced. Decide which one you want to debate. If its forced there is another thread running.

‘victims of capitalism’ – or even tools of capitalism, but brain-dead all the same.

“Basically, you’re trying to impose a discursive straitjacket on less confident/articulate bloggers.”

- no, I think you are doing precisely that. Your language and sweep does enough to add the intellectual gloss. Nothing wrong with that. I just happen to think it holds no water.

Clash of Civilisation – question is I guess, whether we should have one or not. At the same time decide who can share what of the planet with whom, and which ones are subservient. Perhaps arranged marriages at the cultural level.

I will not be able to respond for a little while, as you have now widened the debate to life, universe and everything.

The problem is one the one hand you want only to discuss what is ‘relevant’ to the UK, without reference to the wider picture and on the other draw in influences from around the globle current and historical.

Its also interesting that you use George Orwell as I would think his 1984 supports my argument.

Start a new thread on the roots of the problem and then we can have some relevance. Most people looking to understand and solve a problem would look at the roots. Which by the way you presume to do when it comes to pointing fingers at a ‘community’.

Artful dodger – no, looking to deal with the topic in shorthand. Although I could suggest the same of you.

Here we are discussing raids gone bad.

(I) You amplify my point. And its not irrelevant. Its quite pertinent. Why get obsessed? We all have a life to live and we don’t need a regular injection of fear and apprehension.

I don’t amplify your point at all. By refusing to engage in a mature and honest debate about fanatical Islam, you just come across as a bit of an artful dodger. Incidentally, what is this Delphic-like ‘point’ of yours anyway? The idea that terrorism has always existed and will continue to exist in every faith, ideology, community, and sovereign nation? Isn’t this like, err,… obvious? I, for one, would not call it ‘pertinent’. I call it stating the obvious. Only someone with an overflated ego would endow such non-wisdom. You tacitly assume that I know nothing about the history of terrorism, the utility of force, and moral debates concerning the correct use of violence. And you also assume – in conjunction with this trope – that it is wrong to make a fuss about militant Islam in Britain. Still, do you honestly believe that July 7 was a fluke, a one-off, an anomaly, a ‘reasonable’ protest against the Iraq war…etc. Or were there, to use a favourite left-wing phrase, root causes? I, for one, attribute our current state-of-affairs to New Labour’s irresponsible immigration policies, its contempt for tradition and our national culture, and the failure (or rather success) of multiculturalism.

(II) With regards of the impact of poor intelligence – what is you response?

There’s no such thing as ‘good’ intelligence. All intelligence is bad intelligence. It’s just a matter of having more pebbles on the pile than nought. The difference between ‘bad’ and ‘badder’ is one of presentation: bad = cherry-picking, sugar-coating, hyperbole and political interference; good = Wertfreiheit (scientific professionalism).

(III) How do you think this affects us as a society?

The 250-strong counter-terrorist squad acted like a deranged Frankenstein. This is beyond doubt. But it appears to me that you’re asking the wrong questions – putting a cart before the horse, so to speak. Ask yourself this: in the likely event of another terrorist attack on our shores, what affect will this have on inter-communal fraternity? Its consequences are more-or-less in line with what Samuel Huntington wrote about in The Clash of Civilisations. The end of the Cold War has led to the decline of state control, a failure to supply goods, the creation of surplus arms, and ridiculously high levels of unemployment. The decline of the Soviet Union has put an end to Cold War patronage, leading to a rise in internecine warfare, and – directly related to it – the creation of more particularist identities. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. [Incidentally: the auto-critique of Huntington’s work as simplistic or Manichean is a big, fat lie. Amartya Sen and Edward Said, in particular, have never represented his work fairly or accurately. It’s a joke.]

(IV) how do you think the people of Britain will perceive the US statement on the suicide of the three detainees at Guantanamo Bay – as an act of warfare?

I’ll comment about this on the appropriate thread – stay tuned.

(V) What we don’t need is you blaming muslim communities on the basis that they are inbreds; have arranged marriages and do not take an interest in their kids.

Another insidious case of political correctness – i.e. ‘juvenile delinquents’ become ‘children at risk’, ‘Islamic terrorists’ are patented as ‘victims of capitalism’, ‘forced marriage’ is conceived as a ‘misunderstood tradition’, etc. Basically, you’re trying to impose a discursive straitjacket on less confident/articulate bloggers. A critical debate about culture, pluralism, and citizenship is equated to intolerance, fascism, insensitivity, incivility, chauvinism, imperialism, racism, Islamophobia, and so forth. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four holds the best-known fictional example of politically-driven language change. Newspeak, a sanitised form of English, is designed to make it impossible to express opposition to the totalitarian Party government. Expressing dissident thoughts, or thoughtcrime, becomes impossible; while the act of making self-contradicting excuses for the ruling powers, or doublethink, is coded into the language itself.

I shall leave you with a quote of Benjamin Franklin’s: If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

Amir

Add wife-beating to the list.

On the ‘F’-word
– your choice. My observation.

Sarcasm not necessary. You amplify my point. And its not irrelevant. Its quite pertinent. Why get obsessed?
We all have a life to live and we don’t need a regular injection of fear and apprehension.

With regards of the impact of poor intelligence – what is you response? Do you realise that the ordinary person on the street begins to believe less and less what the government says and now what the police puts out. And I am sure that the Swedish (I think it was them) authorities would ask more questions in future before they raid another of their citizen’s home based on what we tell them.

Who could have been the sources of the intelligence which made MI5 and others look stupid in the run up to the invasion of Iraq?

Who do you think is behind the disinformation behind the terror raids?

How many raids have there been and how many have proven to be proper ie leading to convictions?

How do you think this affects us as a society?

And finally, you may think this is unconnected (and perhaps out of the sphere of this thread), how do you think the people of Britain will perceive the US statement on the suicide of the three detainees at Guantanamo Bay – as an act of warfare?

Thats the quagmire we are all in.

If you want an action plan we need a coherent position which upholds civil rights (uniformly) here and abroad. We need a simple strategy which outlaws lawless activity whether by state or individuals. And we need to see people accountable in courts of law, local and international.

What we don’t need is you blaming muslim communities on the basis that they are inbreds; have arranged marriages and do not take an interest in their kids. On these last points, be interested also how other Asians differ.

(I) it was you who brought in the international angle – eg Peru and Italy.

I was making a comparison of strategies. You, on other hand, were trying to distract us from the recrudescence of Islamic nihilism by alluding to other examples of sub-state violence overseas. That’s a critical difference.

(III) To suggest that other faiths do not have their bigots is false. That is the point I make.

Wow? Really? I never knew that. [sarcasm] It’s the intellectual equivalent of saying ‘The sky is blue’ or ‘the grass is green’. We all know about the Tamil Tigers, Irgun, the Stern Gang, Branch Davidians, ANC, Khalsa militants, Aum Shinrikyo, etc. – but it’s highly irrelevant to our discussion. The three major threats to British security are as follows: (a) small arms proliferation, (b) organised crime, and (c) Islamic terrorism. But, of course, there is no place for the latter in your politically-correct narrative, is there? Like an ostrige, you keep your head in the sand.

(II) do you have to use the ‘F’ word? Its so ugly.

Okay, fair cop. In future, I’ll only use it in relation to Faisal Bodi – the phonetic ugliness is in keeping with his political views! Or maybe not? The ad hominym technique only goes so far without getting people’s backs up. And yet, paradoxically, I’d say that the occasional ‘fuck’ is neither here nor there [have you ever seen the opening scene to Four Weddings and a Funeral?]. So long as the execution is in keeping with the thread’s topic and is not intended to malign a person’s feelings, I don’t see how it can be deemed wrong.

Amir

To suggest that other faiths do not have their bigots is false. That is the point I make.

And of course I will resist that a faith should be addressed with suspicion. Which you yourself allude to but then accept the concept.

Further, to think that irrational bigotry under the guise of faith does not carry from the US to other parts of the globe (as one example) is silly. The same goes for other faiths. And you cannot deny the sheer volume of the bilge.

You will also note from the rest of my contributions that the key issue that needs to be addressed is to have good intelligence handled competently. Clearly not happening.

Read Iain Duncan Smith’s views on this. He refers to parallel raids in the UK (allied to the ones in Canada), which have given him great concerns. Also I heard yesterday that based on UK police’s inputs there were raids in one of the Scandanavian countries – nothing found and the victims of the intelligence released.

So is Blair and Brown spending our money wisely? And who is making our police services the laughing stock?

As for j0nz – well – having him banned would actually remove any real source of entertainment on PP. In any case you might note it was a joke.

BTW do you have to use the ‘F’ word? Its so ugly.

(I) And I dare not mention the attitudes that prevail in groups within Israel.

What the fuck has Israel’s politics got to do with an anti-terror raid in Britain? In any case, I dare not mention the attitudes that prevail in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caucasus, and much of Latin America. We can all play this game.

(II) Churches – remember that fellow who wants Chavez murdered, and fundamentalist Christians in the US.

The topic of our thread is counter-terrorism in the United Kingdom.

(III) The generalisations that Amir used are utter rubbish, and it cannot go without response.

What generalisations are these? Devout Muslims do not think much of Western society – fact. They think it is sexually debauched, ugly and hedonistic, vain, selfish and immoral. I, for one, can empathise wholly with this viewpoint (read this, this, this, and this) Those that do live here tend to respond to capitalism and modernity and secularisation by hiding away from it. They congregate in religious ghettos and increase their numbers via inbreeding and arranged marriages so as to keep their communities ‘pure’ and unfettered by Western influence. To be sure, the vast majority of these Islamic hermits are tolerant and law-abiding British citizens (and very principled too), but the same cannot be said for their alienated children and grandchildren who grow up with an ethno-centric (i.e. anti-British) and supremacist worldview (read this, this, this, and this). To propose that all faiths be treated with equal suspicion is a waste of taxpayers’ money and a waste of MI5’s time. It’s a flight from the facts on the ground.

(IV) Sunny, can’t you ban j0nz. He’s no longer contributing anything rational to the debate.

I’m always suspicious of individuals who call for censorship or deletion or expulsion on a political blog. Ironically, you use the concept of ‘rationality’ as a cosh or jemmy with which to beat Jonz, but at the same time you have failed to recognise the ‘irrationality’ embedded within your own request to censor him.

Amir

http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,1794445,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5064454.stm

http://www.alghurabaa.co.uk/

Fight the fascists! Do not apppease them!

But the attitude of the family affected is admirably gracious.

>>Family members of the two men arrested asked people from the east London Muslim community not to join the protest, saying it would just be another opportunity for the community to be “portrayed in a negative light.”

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1224314,00.html

Any comments to my #117? Good enough for you?

I hope not because I am beginning to enjoy this.

I’d like to hear the actual conversation

“I said let’s delpoy the Chemical Pest control, not Vest!”

“Damn pig dog rodents!”

“May Allah destory those rats”

I think I mentioned that Iain Duncan Smith raised that as a possibility earlier in the House of Commons.

Disinformation – and you may not know where it is actually coming from, so waterboarding might not be an option.

Glad to see you getting with it, but concerned that you are prepared to countenance torture for an informer getting it wrong.

Maybe the informer misunderstood what he’d overheard?

You’ve just opened a can of worms.

should’a could’a would’a

It is this point that makes me wonder if our police force got f**ked on purpose. If this is the case I hope the informant is currently being flown around in CIA jet looking for a nice location for a spot of waterboarding.