Even more alarmingly, the country’s principal police force involved in counterterrorism is now under the control of an officer whose obsession with the “diversity” agenda is thought to be undermining the fight against terror.
The oppressive side of this philosophy surfaced recently when Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was rebuked by an employment tribunal for “hanging his own officers out to dry” to prove his anti-racist credentials.
This was after his force was found to have racially discriminated against three white officers who were disciplined after alleged racist remarks at a training day, in which one of them had referred to Muslim headgear as “tea cosies”, mispronounced Shi’ites as “shitties” and said he felt sorry for Muslims who fasted during Ramadan.
Yet following this institutional bullying over Islamophobia, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick yesterday made the astonishing comment: “As far as I am concerned Islam and terrorists are two words that do not go together.” So what, then, does he think Al Qaeda is?
While few would disagree that the Met has to be sensitive to the needs of ethnic minorities, Sir Ian’s obsession with attacking “Islamophobia” is now raising serious concerns among certain police officers and security sources.
It is getting in the way of the job the police are called upon to do. Officers who try to address the delicate issue of terrorism and its supporters within the Muslim community now find themselves in danger of being accused within their own force of Islamophobia.
The reality of this barbaric bombing
“‘If you bomb our cities,’ Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, ‘we will bomb yours.’ There you go, as they say. It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and his invasion of Iraq.”
Robert Fisk in the Independent, 8 July 2005
Victims of terrorism
Terrorism should be condemned absolutely, whether it is waged by a shadowy group placing bombs in buses and Tube trains or by powerful states that use high explosives and napalm to destroy entire cities, as was done to Fallujah.
Mr Blair berates the London bombers for their “desire to impose extremism on the world,” but he ignores their motivation, which has found expression in Madrid and now London.
That motivation is to retaliate against the actions of the US and its subservient allies, including Britain, to impose an imperialist world order that allows Washington to use force to dictate its will globally and to control scarce resources.
Editorial in the Morning Star, 8 July 2005
Muslim leaders fear revenge attacks by the extreme Right
Muslim leaders voiced fears yesterday that racist right-wing groups are already seeking to stir up hatred against their community after the bomb attacks.
Talks were being held with police and local authorities to ensure the security of mosques and areas where there are large Islamic populations.
Although the Government emphasised that it would not “jump to conclusions” about responsibility for the attacks, there was a grim acceptance among many community leaders that the perpetrators would turn out to be extremists linked to their religion.
All the large Muslim groups in Britain swiftly condemned the bombings, which they said were contrary to Islam’s highest principles of peace, justice and humanity.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary- general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The evil people who planned and carried out this series of explosions want to demoralise us as a nation and divide us as a people. All of us must unite in helping the police to capture these murderers. We must remember the victims will have been people of all faiths, all races and many nationalities.”
But he later told The Times that his organisation had received thousands of e-mails from right-wing extremists threatening revenge. Sir Iqbal said: “One, which is particularly awful, reads, ‘It’s now war on Muslims throughout Britain’. These messages are all being copied and sent on to the police.
“We are advising our community to remain calm but vigilant. There are elements who will want to exploit this tragedy. In the meantime we will do everything we can to ensure that those responsible for the bombs are brought to justice.”
The British National Party immediately predicted that an Islamic terrorist group would be shown to have been behind the attacks, which would “undoubtedly lead to a fall out” in politics, increasing pressure on Tony Blair’s policy in the Middle East and his stance on immigration or asylum issues.
The party claimed that Nick Griffin, its chairman, who faces trial on criminal charges for inciting racial hatred, could be vindicated by the events of yesterday morning. In a statement it said that Mr Griffin had specifically referred to attacks on soft targets by suicide bombers who were either asylum-seekers or second generation Muslims recruited in places such as Bradford. It added: “If these bomb blasts are indeed the work of Islamic fundamentalists, the prosecution case is likely to collapse. No one is likely to be convinced that crying wolf is unlawful when the wolf has just run riot through the lambs’ pen.”
Robert Spencer warns against concessions to British Muslims
Does Robert Spencer fear a racist backlash against British Muslims? Not at all. Rather, he expresses anxiety that the dhimmis of the UK will demonstrate excessive concern for Muslim sensibilities, “making it altogether possible that the London bombings will end up winning more concessions for Muslims in the UK than they would have won otherwise. The idea that they are lashing out in frustration because their legitimate grievance is not being redressed, combined with utter ignorance of the jihad ideology, could make 7/7 the end of resistance to the proposed religious hatred law, and the beginning of more accommodations.”
An anatomy of the London bombing
“To criticize Islamic fascism is supposedly to be unfair to Islam, so we allow on our own shores mullahs and madrassas to spread hatred and intolerance, as part of our illiberal acceptance of ‘not offending Islam’. It is not that we don’t believe in Western values as much as we don’t even know what they are anymore. The London bombings were only a reification of what goes on daily with impunity blocks away in the mosques and Islamist schools of London.”
Victor Davis Hanson on the London bombings.
WPI blames ‘the Islamic movement’
“Such attacks are part of the wretched and cruel track record of the Islamic movement against innocent people, which places bombs in public places, carries out assassinations, killings, torture, execution and repression.” Thus the Worker Communist Party of Iran on the London bombings.
Note the use of the term “the Islamic movement” – which conveniently blurs the distinctions between Islam, political Islamism in all its shades, and Islamist terrorist groups.
WPI press release, 8 July 2005
For an alternative assessment, which analyses the terrorist acts of violent jihadist groups in terms of the contradictions and conflicts within Islam and Islamism, read Marc Lynch. He argues that the London attacks arise in part from an attempt at reassertion by the terrorist tendency within Islamism, who had been increasingly marginalised by reformists such as Qaradawi and Huwaydi:
“The London attack can be seen as an attempt by al-Qaeda to impose itself on this internal argument among Islamists and Muslims in the way it knows best: a spectacular, violent attack. A throw of the dice – an attempt to turn the debate back to clashes of civilizations, of an inevitable conflict between the West and Islam, of war and mistrust and fear. To shut down any rapprochement between the West and moderate Islamism – the kind of rapprochement which threatens al-Qaeda and the radicals where it counts, among the Muslim umma.”
Earth calling Jamie Glazov
Over at Front Page Magazine, Jamie Glazov offers his views on the London bombings:
“… overall, there is deafening silence coming from the Muslim community at large in terms of denouncing this terrorism and the killing of innocents. If Islam is a religion of peace and this terrorism is against Islamic law, where are the world’s Muslims ferociously repudiating these terrorists for slandering their religion by carrying out terrorist acts on behalf of Islam?
“… The Left, of course, will be celebrating this attack. Earlier you mentioned George Galloway. He has even called for an alliance between the Left and radical Islam. The likes of Galloway and Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky – all of them will clearly be rubbing their hands in glee because of this attack in London…”
You have to ask: what planet does Jamie Glazov live on? Even Robert Spencer stops short of this sort of raving.
Drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay speaks out
Christopher Hitchens joins in the attack on Galloway: “By George Galloway’s logic, British squaddies in Iraq are the root cause of dead bodies at home. How can anyone bear to be so wicked and stupid? How can anyone bear to act as a megaphone for psychotic killers?”
So, if the atrocities weren’t motivated by the British government’s participation in Bush’s wars of imperialist aggression, what grievances did lie behind them? Christopher explains:
“The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won’t abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art…. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.”
‘Deport them now’ – BNP
“1 million illegal immigrants are hiding in Britain. They are the sea in which Islamic terrorists swim. The cowards of the Lib/Lab/Con governments that have allowed them to enter and stay in this country over the years will never have the will or determination to remove them. The fact that we all have to realise is that unless those 1 million illegal immigrants are removed from the country then we can never be safe again.”