Rolled-up Trousers

Bush and the neocons have gone. Time for Al-Qaeda to depart stage-right too.

If you were to plan out Barack Obama’s first few moves for him, rolling back the excesses of the Bush years would be the obvious moves. The closure of Guantanamo and other torture sites is welcome, as his statement that the choice between safety and values that we’ve been presented with by Bush, Blair and others over the last few years is a false one.

Another police officer admits defeat to terrorists

  Superintendent Brett Lovegrave:

"Last year's Glasgow airport attack proved Scotland isn't immune to the threat of terrorism. Unfortunately, it isn't a case of 'if' there will be an attack on Edinburgh but 'when'.

"... It is important not to be complacent. Just because Edinburgh had not been attacked doesn't mean it won't be. However, I don't have specific intelligence that Edinburgh is going to be the next target."  

This follows Strathclyde Police chief Stephen House making similar comments.

Police officer: efforts to stop terrorist nuclear attack "bound to fail"

John Mayer - advocate, author, and activist - has hit out at the person responsible at ACPOS for protecting Scotland from nuclear or chemical attack.

Ian Dickinson, also Assistant Chief Constable with Lothian and Borders, last week said a nuclear attack was inevitable:

"These materials are undoubtedly out there, and undoubtedly will end up in terrorists' hands, and undoubtedly will be used by terrorists some time soon," he declared. "We must plan for failure and prepare for absolute terror."

However, Mayer took issue with this in a letter to the Sunday Herald:

What do you call terrorists?

Muslim extremists? Islamic terrorists? Al-Qaeda inspired terrorists? Islamofascists? Islamists? Jihadists?

So ponders Timothy Garton Ash in today's Guardian.

He concludes that 'jihadists' is best. Certainly, this has sometimes been used in Muslim circles for those that took a fighting view of the world.

My very serious hesitation is, as Garton Ash acknowledges, that jihad as a Islamic concept should serve noble purposes. It is to struggle for good. A word that has been hijacked by Al-Qaeda & Co, and all too many in the West have accepted their version of it.

Pessimistic

Strathclyde Police's new chief constable used his first interview in the job to declare that it was "almost certain" that Scotland would face another terrorist attack. Stephen House said he would be "surprised" if there wasn't.

I think this is an extremely pessimistic view. If he's basing his assertion on intelligence, then we should be able to stop this before it happens.

This is a similar to the idea recently floated by intelligence services that there are 200 "hardcore" people in Scotland and 20 who are of "significant interest". It sounds like they have been identified - why is it not possible to arrest them and put them on trial like Atif Siddique, the lyrical terrorist and the paintball terrorists?

If Mr House is making a political statement, then I don't think his views on the matter are any more deserving of publicity than anyone else's. There's the possibility of another attack of course, but it's by no means certain. To talk up the ability of the terrorists to get round our security services is curious for the man in charge of police.

Scotland's first terror conviction

Today Atif Siddique from Alva was found guilty of all five terrorism charges he faced.

Given the high profile and dramatic nature of the original arrests last year, it is important to point out that the trial did not uncover a plot, much less an active plot, to cause death and destruction here in Scotland.

What we heard throughout the trial was a story of a teenager who was involved in ideas, particularly on the internet, which he shouldn’t have been. This was motivated clearly by his concern for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, wars in which our country is still involved. The challenge for the Muslim community and wider society is to stress the legitimate forms of dissent against these policies – through the democratic process.

...mistakes have been made in the discredited war on terror. Our selective concern for the sanctity of UN security council resolutions, the ease with which we have discarded human rights and embraced torture and extraordinary rendition, the rogues' gallery of tyrants we now treat as indispensable allies - these and other foreign policy errors have done far more to undermine our position in the Muslim world than Osama bin Laden ever will.

The consequences of this have been dire. Two years ago the Pew Research Centre analysed the sources of popular support for terrorism across a sample of six Muslim countries. It found little connection with poverty and a surprisingly small one with Islamic fundamentalism. By far the strongest correlation was with those who felt that America opposed democracy in their country. Contrary to common myth, al-Qaida thrives not because Muslims hate our values, but because we are seen to have been false to them.

David Clark at CiF

To understand political violence, we must first recognise its potency

This is precisely what has happened since 9/11. Those attacks, followed by the July 7 bombings in London, have set back the cause of Palestine, Muslim minorities and civil liberties all over the world. (Spain, where the conservative government was caught red-handed in a huge lie on the eve of an election, is an exception.) And then, of course, there has been Iraq. This does not absolve the British and Americans one iota of their responsibility for the wars they have started, the lies they have told and the lives they have cost. But those who are interested in context and causes cannot pick and choose: 9/11 set the scene for Iraq just as Iraq has set the scene for subsequent terror attacks.

From an excellent article by Gary Younge in the Guardian

Osama bin Laden has always been very clear that his jihad depends upon the US and its allies for its globalization. His statements are filled with heavily ironic passages about the “partnership” that Al-Qaeda has with the Bush administration to carry on a war from which both sides benefit while trying to destroy each other. However rhetorical its language, this bizarre partnership is confirmed by the intimacy that so many Muslim militants enjoy with their Western enemies.

Like the 9/11 bombers, as well as those in Madrid and London after them, these men tend to be thoroughly integrated into Western societies, have non-Muslim friends and even girlfriends, and indulge in the whole array of Western pleasures, bars and nightclubs included. They are in this sense internal to the West they fight in every way.

Professor Faisal Devji - read the rest

Foreign Office minister Kim Howells:

"Our experience tells us that a 'war for peace' approach inevitably means more war, rather than peace. And violence comes with too high a price. It is the people who suffer, as human rights are eroded, the humanitarian situation deteriorates and mistrust between communities increases."

He was lecturing Sri Lankans.

Police blame government for terror leaks - to divert attention from cash-for-honours

Astonishing article in the Guardian suggesting that the government used the anti-terror arrests in Birmingham this week to divert attention away from their own problems, most prominently the cash-for honours affair and the prisons crisis.

One newspaper is said to have known about the arrests the night before they happened.

Police are said to be furious about the situation. As such, on this occasion they've distanced themselves from the leaks. Which kind of does leave the government rather hung out to dry - if only anyone would bother querying the morality of the practice. An MoD spokesperson were less than robust in denial:

"I can only speak for what has been done on the record by the press office."

Nine people have been arrested. None have been charged. The police claims are not a million miles from what Muslims are being demonised in the press for as "paranoid". It seems some people will never learn. We've had Old Trafford Bomb plot that never was, Edinburgh Hogmanay bomb plot that never was, ricin bomb plot that never was, and the Forest Gate chemical vest that never was. All commanded lurid headlines thanks to leaks from yon high. Over 1,100 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Acts, with only 12 Muslims convicted. Yet we're expected to believe this latest chapter with not so much as a single charge, never mind conviction, made.

Difference between terrorism and fundamentalism

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, placed her own role in fighting terrorism as one of a package of measures. She concluded her speech this week by saying:

That brings me on to my final point. None of this can be tackled by my Service alone. Others have to address the causes, counter the radicalisation, assist in the rehabilitation of those affected, and work to protect our way of life.

(...)

My Service is dedicated to tackling the deadly manifestations of terrorism. Tackling its roots is the work of us all.

She also spoke about the role of foreign policy:

CIA torture flights enshrined into law

George Bush, the US president, has signed a law legalising the use of secret CIA prisons, harsh interrogation practices and military trials against suspected 'terrorists'.

Bush called the Military Commissions Act of 2006 "one of the most important pieces of legislation in the war on terror" as he signed it into law at the White House on Tuesday.

The new law means Bush can continue a secret CIA programme for interrogating terrorism suspects.

The White House has refused to describe what interrogation techniques will be allowed or banned.

Bush said the law will also allow intelligence professionals to question suspects without fear of being sued by them later.

Al-Jazeera

Nafeez Ahmed has information from a military source that the idea of mixing together liquids on a flight and denonating it with an MP3 player is complete "fiction".

The CIA's "alternative set of procedures"

The secret CIA flights are officially not a secret anymore. George Bush has for the first time admitted the existence of the policy whereby terror suspects are picked up and taken somewhere else in the world for "interrogation".

He maintains though that no one has been tortured. Why the need to fly them around the world then?

Bush said at the press conference: "We knew that (Abu) Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures."

But he said: "The US does not torture. I have not authorised it and I will not."

What made them suddenly start talking then? Maher Arar, who was on one of these flights, says otherwise too. Obviously the President didn't make mention of him at the press conference.

9/11 conspiracy theories

Jon Snow recently castigated the Muslim community for buying into conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks. His poll found 45% of Muslims believing in them.

This came to mind after a poll by Zogby was just brought to my attention from two years ago. Half of New Yorkers think that the US government had foreknowledge of the attacks but "consciously failed to act".

And thanks to Bob in the comments for directing me to a piece in the Guardian reporting on 75 US academics who think it was an "inside job":

"We don't believe that 19 hijackers and a few others in a cave in Afghanistan pulled this off acting alone," says Steve Jones. "We challenge this official conspiracy theory and, by God, we're going to get to the bottom of this."

Terror raid on Muslim youth activities?

If the BBC report is anything to go by, the latest terror arrests are pretty stinky already. There have been two raids, one on a restaurant where 12 diners were taken away after hours of questioning.

In a warning to anyone organising Muslim youth activities, the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera said:

"My understanding at this point is that this involves people suspected of facilitating training activity within the UK which might have allowed others to take part in terrorist activity," he said.

"Here in the UK it's more forms of bonding and getting groups together as well as radicalising those taking part. It's not necessarily military or terrorist training or blowing things up, it's more training in the sense of groups bonding and working together".

Bloody hell. But it certainly fits in with previous police pronouncements.

The other raid is at an Muslim school where the killer facts are:

According to its website the 54-acre premises also encourages Islamic groups to "appoint a person from your centre who wishes to serve the community and send them to us to be trained".

It also says these individuals will then become "qualified enough to teach in local Masajeds and Madares".

I have no idea how this possibly qualifies as news. A school encouraging people to come to their institution and learn. Bang 'em up guv.

Multiculturalism, Terror and Shariah

In their attempts to move the discussion away from the foreign policy role in terror, the government have returned to the theme of multiculturalism.

The position of the pro-war elements on this is strange. On one hand they tell us that there is a global evil ideology we must confront in a violent way, but on the other they say that the terror threat is the result of the failed policy of multiculturalism at home. The two positions cannot sit with each other. Surely if the Al-Qaeda strand of thinking is global, then whatever we did at home does not matter? Did terrorists breed in Afghanistan because of the Taliban's position on multiculturalism?

The government's argument

The argument of the government goes roughly as follows. Asians have lived parallel lives in this country for too many years, and because of this segregation, they care nothing at all for white people and are thus quite willing to blow them up on public transport.

This is simply not true. For one, Al-Qaeda have regard for nobody's lives, and white people should not take it personally. US, UK, and Australian targets have been hit in Muslim countries, resulting in the deaths of many hundreds of their co-religionists. For Al-Qaeda, there are no rules to the game. They kill, and it doesn't matter about your creed or colour in pursuit of their goals.

Why suicide bombers do it

It's nothing to do with religion, it's occupation. Robert Pape has studied every suicide bombing since 1980 for his book Dying to Win: Why Suicide Terrorists Do It. An extract in the Observer:

Previous analyses of suicide terrorism have not had the benefit of a complete survey of all suicide terrorist attacks worldwide. The lack of complete data, together with the fact that many such attacks, including all those against Americans, have been committed by Muslims, has led many in the US to assume that Islamic fundamentalism must be the underlying main cause. This, in turn, has fuelled a belief that anti-American terrorism can be stopped only by wholesale transformation of Muslim societies, which helped create public support of the invasion of Iraq. But study of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism shows that the presumed connection to Islamic fundamentalism is misleading.

There is not the close connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism that many people think. Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist campaigns have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.