MUST READ: DENIAL IN BRITAIN

Denial in Britain
By Robert Spencer

In the wake of the two bomb-rigged cars discovered in London and the flaming jeep that crashed into a Glasgow airport terminal, the terror threat level in Britain has been raised to critical. British authorities are continuing to search for suspects, and haven’t ruled out the possibility that more catastrophic attacks are being planned, and could be imminent. Authorities have noted similarities between these events and past jihad terror plots, are investigating a possible link between one of the would-be car bombers and Islamic jihad terrorist Dhiren Barot, who is serving a life sentence for an Al-Qaeda-backed plot to bomb the World Bank, New York Stock Exchange, and headquarters of the International Monetary Fund, among other targets.

As has become the pattern in such cases, authorities brushed aside and declined to consider the implications of evidence that the events in London and Glasgow were motivated by the ideology of Islamic jihad. Daud Abdullah, the Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), suggested that the religion of the attackers was incidental to their actions when he said: “Let’s not create a hypothetical problem…it can be the work of Muslims, Christians, Jews or Buddhists.” The new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, appeared to agree, saying that new efforts had to be undertaken to win the “hearts and minds” of Muslims. “We have got to separate,” he added, “those great moderate members of our community from a few extremists who wish to practice violence and inflict maximum loss of life in the interests of a perversion of their religion.” The new First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, assured Muslims in Scotland that no community would be “scapegoated” in the wake of the Glasgow Airport attack. “In Scotland,” he maintained, “the Muslim community is part of the fabric of society, and is hugely important for social life, and this community link will remain strong.” London Mayor Ken Livingstone went even farther, asserting: “In this city, Muslims are more likely to be law-abiding than non-Muslims and less likely to support the use of violence to achieve political ends than non-Muslims.”

...


The official silence about the Islamic element of the attacks was all the more curious in light of the revelation that British authorities were deeply concerned by the fact that the London and Glasgow plotters had no clear or readily discernable ties to terror groups: they were “off the radar.” One remarked: “If there is no trace then this means the terrorism situation in the UK is much worse than we have believed.” Indeed it is, because no Muslim group in the United Kingdom or elsewhere has drawn a distinction between themselves and the jihadists that is sufficiently sharp to prevent those jihadists from moving freely among the peaceful Muslims. They have not expelled jihadists from mosques, and they have not instituted comprehensive, compulsory programs to teach against the jihad ideology. And since the threat is not being challenged at the ideological level, it is entirely possible for a peaceful Muslim to turn into a jihadist under the noses of authorities -- as Mike Hawash and others have done in the U.S.

The problem is, therefore, much bigger than British authorities think, and much bigger than they are even now willing to admit. Until they are willing to face the fact that attackers such as those we have seen in Britain over the last few days couldn’t just as well have been Buddhists, but rather arise from the Islamic community and base their actions upon Islamic principles, they will not be dealing with the root of this problem realistically, and we are going to see many more attacks. “I believe,” said Butt, “that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism.” Do Brown, Livingstone, Salmond and the rest have the courage to do this?



Pertinent Links:

1) Denial in Britain

2) FrontPageMag.com

3) JihadWatch.org