Monday, March 08, 2010 

Ricin you say? Oh, he's white, we're not interested.

Remember the "ricin plot" where there was no ricin, where the recipe which Kamel Bourgass had could not have produced ricin and where his plan, to smear it on doorknobs and car door handles wouldn't have killed anyone as the poison needs to be either injected, ingested or inhaled to work? It was the first real "terror plot" post-9/11 in this country, came two months before the invasion of Iraq (in the context of which it was used by Colin Powell during his now notorious presentation to the UN), and the press coverage was massive in both response and in its hyperbole, the government doing its best to help it along by not bothering to inform anyone until Bourgass' trial was over that there had been no ricin after all.

You would then expect a case where ricin actually was found to provoke a similar media response. After all, while ricin is not the most deadly of potential "biological/chemical" warfare poisons, it is still usually deadly when used "properly", as in the assassination of Georgi Markov, a cold war precursor to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

It's strange then that almost no coverage whatsoever has been given to the case of Ian Davison, although perhaps that name itself somewhat gives the game away. Unlike Bourgass, Davison actually produced ricin, which was found in a jam jar in a cupboard in his kitchen. He today pleaded guilty to producing a chemical weapon, possessing the usual array of explosives manuals, including the Anarchist's Handbook and the Mudgahein's (sic) Explosives Handbook and preparing for acts of terrorism. It seems, if indeed you needed telling, that Davison is the latest in a string of extreme right-wingers to be brought before the courts on explosive or terrorist charges, although little seems to be known in this instance about what groups, if any Davison was associated with, with the police only hinting when he was arrested that it could be related to "a worldwide terror plot targeting ethnic minorities", something which we should probably take with a pinch of salt. Davison's son is also to face charges of "possessing material containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing acts of terrorism", after which he'll be sentenced.

Our old friend Kamel Bourgass was sentenced to a quite incredible 17 years for his impossible and implausible plot to kill using the ricin which he didn't have, on top of the life imprisonment he received for murdering PC Stephen Oake. One wonders what sentence will be passed on Davison, considering he actually had ricin in his possession, even if he didn't have the flawed plan which Bourgass has. The Met's then head of anti-terrorism Peter Clarke claimed after Bourgass' conviction, with a straight face, that a "real and deadly threat" had been averted. If it had then, one wonders in what terms a police chief with a similar agenda and a sense for exaggeration would describe Davison's conviction.

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3/08/2010 10:10:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 

The illusion of safety.

Amid all the predictable over-reaction to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's successful attempt to set fire to himself, the first thing to go out the window was any sort of perspective. We are now after all fast approaching the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks, which also marks the last successful attack by takfirist jihadists on a Western city. Not that al-Qaida and its franchises haven't tried to attack or haven't been plotting; it's just that all their attempts have either been spectacular failures or have been successfully prevented.

While America supposedly worries that this otherwise inconsequential island has the highest number of al-Qaida operatives in the West, they don't seem to have noted how, even if accurate, just how incompetent they are. First we had the 21/7 group, whose chapati flour bombs sadly failed to rise (surely explode? Ed), the liquid doom plotters, who needed to be tried twice before a jury was convinced that the main three were going to target aircraft, and where it has never been successfully proved that they were ever going to be capable of constructing a viable explosive, even if they had the necessary material, and then, and most humorously, we found ourselves threatened by two geniuses who thought that they could make a bomb by simply filling a car with patio gas canisters without realising that they needed either a detonator or an oxidiser to create an explosion that was going to actually hurt anyone. Instead, they, like Abdulmutalab succeeded in only harming themselves rather than anyone else.

No, instead we have politicians to do the harming for us. Admittedly, the "underpants" bomber's attempted attack was more serious than the Glasgow airport duo's failure, both for the reason that it focused attention on the deteriorating situation in Yemen, but also because he used proper military explosives, even if they also failed to detonate. It is though unclear whether even if he had created a successful detonation he would have managed to bring the plane down; he may well have killed both himself and some of those seated around him, but the plane could well have limped home, close as it was to its destination. The key fact is though that he failed, and that once such a method has been attempted, it's unlikely to be repeated. Not even the morons "who love death more than we love life" tend to repeat themselves once they've failed once; instead they somewhat innovate. Project Bojinka became the liquid bomb plot, similar but involving suicide bombers and with a different more obtainable explosive. Richard Reid's attempt led to Abdulmutalab's, and in turn will likely lead to a further attempt along the lines of the failed assassination of the Saudi prince Muhammad bin Nayef by Abdullah Hassan Al Aseery, in which the explosive might well have been inside his anal canal, although some have since suggested it was sewn into his underpants ala Abdulmutalab.

Is there any point then whatsoever to today's "package of enhanced security measures"? It seems doubtful, especially the ludicrous stopping of direct flights between Britain and Yemen, as if that'll somehow stop anyone travelling between the two countries instead of just inconveniencing them somewhat. It's also unclear just what use a "no-fly" list will be when almost all those who have attempted attacks in this country have either been British citizens, been here since childhood or here legitimately, such as the Glasgow attackers. As for the full-body scanners, Abdulmutalab went through rigorous security in both Nigeria and the Netherlands which failed to detect his explosives; as it simply isn't possible to go over everyone with a fine tooth comb there's still no guarantee that a bomber wouldn't get on a flight in similar circumstances. The only part of the proposals that might help is the further sharing of intelligence and the security services joint investigation team to be set-up.

In short, this is the same old illusion of safety that we've always had. If the intention is to do something rather than doing nothing, then the government has succeeded. If instead the intention was to increase the fear factor, then it might work amongst a few people; more likely though is that it will just further infuriate those who regularly travel. If al-Qaida in Yemen's real motive was to further discourage air travel they might have succeeded, although then again, the government seems as determined to do the job just as well for them.

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1/20/2010 11:41:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, January 15, 2010 

Hurrah for the Blackshirts!

Via Next Left, it's 76 years to the day since the Mail declared its support for those ahead of their time left-wingers known as the British Union of Fascists. By coincidence, the latest far-right nutjob to be found in possession of "improvised explosive devices", joining the ranks over the last few years of Neil Lewington, Robert Cottage and Martyn Gilleard was today convicted and sentenced to 11 years.

Unlike the others, whom were either connected to different far-right groups or whose membership to the British National Party had lapsed, Terence Gavan was a fully paid up member of the party, as the last leaked membership list makes clear (XLSB), a Mr Gavan appearing on the list from West Yorkshire with the postcode WF17 7HQ, which covers Healey Lane in Batley. Indeed, Gavan wasn't just a normal member but rather a "Gold" member, having opted to pay the £60 fee in return for his spangly yellow party badge. Still, the BNP, despite being unwilling to admit that Gavan was what they call an "elite" member, with the news being strangely absent from their current home page, admitted that the charges against him were "serious" and that the sentence passed "correct". Whether the members themselves agree is another matter.

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1/15/2010 09:33:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, November 05, 2009 

The unreality of Afghanistan.

There's a distinct air of unreality which must around hang around newspaper offices and also the realms of Whitehall. The reaction to the killing of 5 British soldiers by an Afghan police officer, who depending on who you believe, either had a grudge against an officer called Manam, who was also injured and may well have been the original target, or a long-term Taliban agent waiting for his opportunity, was one of a still aloof nation that regards it as unbelievable that it can be so apparently easy to kill Our Boys, while also perplexed at how "Terry Taliban" isn't prepared to play by good old fashioned Queensbury rules. It wasn't so long ago that IEDs were being described as "new" and "asymmetrical" tactics, as if guerilla warfare was some new concept, and that it was perfectly beastly that the other side weren't allowing themselves to be shot out in the open like the clearly inferior fighters that they are. How dare they make the greatest, best trained army the world has ever seen look bad?

The imperial hangover which this country suffers from is reasonable enough, but it still makes you wonder what planet some people are living on when the Mail incredulously asks on its front page "[W]hat kind of war is this?" A fairly standard war, really, considering you're battling against non-state backed fighters. Anyone would think that infiltrating organisations, spying on others and even occasionally carrying out the type of operation as took place on Tuesday was a unique and untested innovation. We seem to forget that our enemy probably feels much the same when a unmanned, unsighted drone suddenly unleashes a Hellfire missile and turns what was the centre of a village into a scene of utter carnage. We like to imagine that we're the ones with the moral authority, that we're not the ones that use children as either suicide bombers or distractions, even while we without a second thought call in airstrikes that are not exactly discriminate in those that they kill and maim. In terms of similar attacks, this one wasn't even exactly highly sophisticated; it was an opportunity which was taken when it arrived. Compared to say, the suicide bomb attack inside the Iraqi parliament, or the attack carried out by Ansar al-Sunnah in which they got inside an American military base in Mosul, killing 14 soldiers, it's not even in the same league.

The problem the attack poses though is obvious: when our policy is to train the Afghan army and police and then get out, or at least that's what it's meant to be, that this officer was apparently not a new recruit and had been in the police for three years raises the nightmare that there may be many more "cells" where we have in fact trained those will then turn on us when the chance arises. This isn't exactly new either though: the Iraqi police and army were and probably still are riddled with those with their own distinct agendas, and that was in a country where there are only two major sects in conflict with each other. In Afghanistan there are at least five different ethnic groups, speaking at least six languages, and where tribal rivalry and personal fiefdoms are far, far older than the modern state itself. Like in Iraq, where a job in the police or the reconstituted army were around the only ones going, that there is a such a low threshold for potential recruits to pass to become officers creates problems in itself. The Afghan army and police are notorious for their unreliability, and I don't think there's been a film yet shot of either Americans or British troops working with them where spliffs haven't been passed around at some point by their companions. The Taliban of course, despite their supposed purity, are probably much the same, especially those who are being paid rather than the true believers, but that doesn't make the situation any better.

Again, none of this would much matter if we had anything approaching another plan to put into place should everything go wrong as it seemingly is, but we don't. The closest thing either us or the Americans have to an advanced military strategy is to flood ever higher numbers of troops into the country. This has been vastly encouraged by the supposed success of the "surge" in Iraq, but that coincided with two much more important occurrences: firstly the setting up of the Awakening councils, when the insurgent groups outside of the hardline Salafists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Ansar al-Islam turned on their former allies, and secondly the ceasefires declared by the Mahdi army, which vastly decreased the attacks by the Shia around Baghdad, as well as the sectarian killings. Despite attempts to encourage something similar to the former in Afghanistan, there's little sign of it happening. The increase in troops is also meant to go hand in hand with the strategy of "taking and holding", having previously only taken land held by the Taliban to then withdraw and let them take it again. This is all well and good, but it still leaves us at some point having to give that which we've taken back, with no guarantee whatsoever that the Taliban won't then come straight back. Training up the Afghan army and police is meant to stop just that, but there's still no real belief that they'll be able to hold their own when the time comes.

With there being no apparent alternative, you have to wonder if Kim Howells' intervention yesterday was meant to further cement the current policy as the only one in town. Only someone in the chair of the completely toothless Intelligence and Security Committee could think that the best way to spend the money saved by getting out of Afghanistan is to raise up the drawbridge here and in Howells' words introduce "more intrusive surveillance in certain communities", which has to be one of the most cowardly ways of calling for more spying on Muslims imaginable. Howells seems to be basing this on the false premise that getting out of Afghanistan would make the security situation here deteriorate, when if anything the opposite would be the case, as well as helping to ameloriate the attitudes which some within this country hold. Just to further flesh out his attitude that this whole mess isn't our fault but rather the Afghans' own, just like some blamed the Iraqis for not embracing the democracy we so kindly imposed down the barrel of a gun, he continues: "I assumed, wrongly, that a desire among ordinary Afghans for peace would prevail over the prospect of continued war and the spectre of being ruled by a tyrannical theocracy in one of the world's poorest and most backward countries." He seems to think that what they're currently experiencing is somehow better. Indeed, some would doubtless suggest, despite the Taliban's brutality, that at least during their short rule there was something approaching security, hardly the case now and hardly the case during the previous years.

We shouldn't pretend that getting out of Afghanistan immediately would either be easy or not have major, long lasting effects on our relationships both with the United States and NATO. It would however be better to consider it as a genuine option and to plan for it than to continue with the lunacy of our current position, knowing that it is untenable as a going concern. Our politicians however, with the exception of the Liberal Democrats, who finally seem to be coming round to the fact that this war is just as unwinnable and disastrous on all fronts as our adventure in Iraq was, seem to be far more prepared to continue lying to the public about al-Qaida and safe havens than admit that this simply cannot go on.

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11/05/2009 08:50:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 

Verbal pogroms, or the continuing jihad of Melanie Phillips part two.

Yesterday I hypothesised that Melanie Phillips has become so entrenched in her "Israel First" ideology that she could no longer separate her own persona from that nation as a whole (which was cross-posted over on Lib Con). Attacking her views was, as she wrote, a "verbal pogrom", the equivalent of actually perpetuating violence against her.

Thanks then to Flying Rodent, who brings my attention to this piece from yesterday, making clear I couldn't have been more wrong. Writing this time on the timidity of Britain's leading Jews, who are standing by while "Israel [is thrown] even more brazenly under the bus", Mel uses the exact same term for the second time in as many days:

However, I fear that his hope that British Jews get rid of these leaders and replace them by individuals who are prepared to mount a proper defence of Israel in the face of this verbal pogrom is tragically unrealisable.

Attacking Phillips herself then is a verbal pogrom, and being critical of Israel is also a verbal pogrom. I really wish I was making this up.

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11/04/2009 09:27:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, November 03, 2009 

The continuing jihad of Melanie Phillips.

At the weekend Ed Husain wrote an eminently reasonable, measured and very restrained in the circumstances attack on the more out there views of Melanie Phillips. Husain clearly feels that Phillips is a potential ally in the battle against radical Islam, although quite why judging by her record it's difficult to tell. His main concern now seems to be that rather than being an ally, she's becoming a prominent obstacle to any kind of progress, especially in the way she seems determined to see conspiracies where there are none, in this instance with Inayat Bunglawala and his determined opposition to the remnants of al-Muhajiroun. Again, this isn't anything new with Phillips: a few years back she was convinced that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been buried beneath the Euphrates and that Saddam's crack team of WMD experts had upped sticks and moved to Syria. Nonetheless, it was also going to be interesting to see how Phillips responded.

According to Phillips, the reason why Husain "feels so viciously" towards her is because of her support for Israel, on which Husain is "unbalanced and obsessional". This is a quite extraordinary example of projection, even for Phillips. Husain's views on Israel could hardly be much more orthodox with the average view in this country: he felt that the attack on Gaza in December and January was "disproportionate". In a press release for the Quilliam Foundation, he called for:

"The UK Government cannot seek to win hearts and minds across Muslim communities while failing to stop Israel from murdering Palestinians en masse. Gordon Brown and David Miliband have reached out to Damascus and Darfur in recent weeks in an attempt to bring peace and stand for fairness. That is commendable. And in that spirit, where is the outright condemnation of Israeli atrocities and pressure on Israel to stop its inhumane operations?

Perceived double standards from our Government and the current green light (from Washington and London) to Israel's killing machine will strengthen Al Qaeda's metanarrative and radicalize yet another generation of young Muslims.

Isolating and angering millions of Muslims by sitting on the fence will not aid the PREVENT agenda, or the moderate majority of Muslims. The FCO and Downing Street has a duty to stand, condemn, and call for immediate cessation of Israel's military operations, and end the siege".

Undoubtedly those who are as vociferous in their support for Israel as Phillips will disagree with much of that, yet to second guess someone who has dedicated himself to countering radicalisation, having himself been a major player at one time in the likes of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, doesn't seem to be the best way to deal with jihadist propaganda. The problem is, as Husain himself notes, that Phillips espouses an "Israel First" mindset, where Israel can do absolutely no wrong, regardless of who leads it or regardless of what it does. If Israel tomorrow decided to nuke Iran without any warning, Phillips would almost certainly defend it on the basis that the country had long been planning a "second genocide", another of her own obsessions, and not even pretend to cry crocodile tears for the innocent among the Iranians who hadn't been involved in such plotting.

Whether it's down to a neurosis or otherwise, what's becoming ever more apparent is that Phillips is now associating Israel and the history of the Jewish people with her own persona. If you attack her, you now seem to be attacking Israel itself. In fact, you might even, without having any way of knowing it, be advocating the very destruction of Melanie Phillips. In her latest post, headlined "Two-Minute Hate at the Guardian" (Goldstein, after all, was almost certainly modelled on Trotsky, who was Jewish, which is unlikely to be a coincidence) she even calls the attacks on her a "verbal pogrom", which, as Rhetorically Speaking points out, seems to suggest that she regards criticism of her a form of violence.

Even more hilarious, or worrying, depending on your view, was part of her initial response to Husain. Husain alleged that in Phillips' world view, if you don't support Israel in the same way which she does, then you're with the Islamists who want to see it destroyed. Phillips says this is absurd. Then, err, she says this:

A number of anti-jihadis told me from the start that my support for Ed Husain was misplaced because he had never properly renounced Islamist extremism. To begin with, I defended him as a naif. Even when he came out with boilerplate bigotry against Israel, I put it down to the fact that he had been brought up in that kind of milieu. He was on a steep learning curve, I said. Everyone can change for the better.

It was I who was naive.


Husain then still must be an Islamic extremist because um, he doesn't support Israel in the way which Phillips demands. This is a rather spectacular way to prove Husain's point, and one which Phillips must be immensely proud of. Not that she likely has any idea whatsoever of quite how she's just hoisted herself by her own petard.

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11/03/2009 10:29:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, November 02, 2009 

Afghanistan and neo-colonialism.

While I was away I read Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh - hardly the most politically correct of novels today, and it is indeed horrendously racist in places - a satire based around a fictional African country where an Oxford-educated native comes to power and attempts to impose his own idea of "progress" upon a country which is first indifferent then turns resistant when his megalomania extends to introducing a new currency, resulting in a coup launched by the disaffected English general who first brought him to power and the French ambassador. While not an exact fit by any means, the parallels with Afghanistan are there, and beginning to become ever more evident.

There certainly is in any event a satire to be written about the complete gibbering lunacy of our Afghanistan policy, a policy which has never been more exposed that with the reappointment of Hamid Karzai as president after Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of a second round of voting. To get just a flavour of the insanity of our current policy, you have to know that despite this being the absolute nightmare scenario, it is at the same time the one which was most favoured given the circumstances. For months the Americans and our own representatives have been pulling their hair out at the intransigence of Karzai - the corruption surrounding him, the patronage he gives to warlords, the obstinacy of the man who is meant to be president of his own country but who has essentially forgotten that he owes everything to us - while knowing full well that he was going to be re-elected not thanks to but along with massive vote fraud. The hope was despite the ballot box stuffing, Karzai would turn out to have got above the 50% needed to avoid a second round, and while the biased in Karzai's favour Independent Election Commission tried its best, it still had to throw out enough votes to take Karzai below the threshold. A second round of voting suited absolutely no one - Karzai was still going to win, especially as Abdullah and the UN's demands to stem the voting fraud by reducing the number of polling stations were thrown out, and yet more lives would be lost as the Taliban would have again stepped up its attacks for a day. Attempts at getting Karzai and Abdullah to lead a coalition were half-hearted at best, and so we have the utterly half-hearted endorsement of a second Karzai electoral term.

If the Bush adminstration was still in power, hardly anyone would be batting an eyelid. After all, an administration which first came to power not on the popular vote but on the verdict of the supreme court, despite the neo-conservative fervour for the installing democracy elsewhere, wouldn't have had much opposition to a similar installation of another president. Now though we have Obama and Clinton, who if anything have even less influence over Karzai and less idea about what the policy actually is than the last lot. Those who have tried to do things differently have now been humiliated by the very man they secretly wanted rid of, and have been left not only looking stupid but have also undermined support back at home by doing so. Lives were lost in keeping those polling stations which were either unused or where the boxes were stuffed open, and for what? So that the same man could be put back in on the back of a vote now regarded as largely illegitimate?

Afghanistan has been described optimistically by some as "the good war". In terms of lives lost, it almost certainly does so far pale into insignificance with the number killed in Iraq. There is though surely now a case to be made for a full reassessment of just what has took place as a result of the initial overthrow of the Taliban. Justified mainly now on the grounds of the threat which was posed by al-Qaida to the West, a threat which has at every single turn been vastly and outrageously exaggerated, we have through our bull in a china shop approach succeeded in forcing al-Qaida and the Taliban into an uneasy but fruitful alliance, have destabilised Pakistan to such an extent that it now faces daily suicide attacks in its major cities, and attempted to impose a democracy on quite possibly the most socially conservative country in the entire region, with predictable results. The more you look at it, the more ridiculous it becomes: Afghanistan was a safe haven, a base for al-Qaida, but it was one in which they were relatively constrained and mainly useful only for training; the actual planning and training for 9/11 itself took place in Germany and America, not Afghanistan. What we have done is involve ourselves in a civil war which has been going on for decades, and which will most likely continue for decades: it would have done had we not involved ourselves and it will do if we leave tomorrow. The justification for staying is no longer any such high motives as protecting a democracy (it isn't one), keeping the Taliban out (they're already there) or protecting women's rights (always a fantasy to begin with and even more so since the passing of the law involving Shia Muslims), but someone protecting ourselves from attack. It doesn't matter that in the same breath ministers admit that the plots which are directed against us are overwhelmingly planned over in Pakistan (where they fled from us in the first place) and that they involve British citizens rather than foreigners, still they parrot the same lies which even they they must know to be completely false.

The biggest success of the war in Afghanistan is that very few outside of the circle of rabid Trots or the likes of Simon Jenkins actually describe this war for what it really is: neo-colonialism orchestrated by those who are supposed to be horrified and opposed to such control over other nations. This is colonialism where the rulers back in London and Washington can't actually influence anything, and where they can't admit that outside of the colonial capital and indeed increasingly within it, they have absolutely no control whatsoever. This is colonialism where the armies, under the auspices of NATO, are left to provide security to a nation which has never been secured in its existence. Their real role is to act as target practice for when the Taliban feel like launching an ambush and as moving, armoured targets for the increasingly sophisticated IED manufacturers. The entire war is based on the false premise that you can stop an idea from flourishing by dropping over a hundred thousand troops in the place where it briefly had a safe haven. Ideas cannot be beaten militarily; they have to been fought intellectually, and in this case by those inside Islam, not outside it. Our approach has resulted in extremist, takfirist, Salafist Islam being far more disseminated than it would have been otherwise, gaining footholds in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and western Pakistan where it may have existed before but without gaining momentum and allegiance. All of these places are and now could be as dangerous as Afghanistan was between roughly 1998 and 2001, but the ideology also doesn't need a safe haven in any event: all it needs is those dedicated enough and knowledgeable enough.

The argument against getting out of Afghanistan now would be that we would abandoning the country to the Taliban when they Afghan people themselves still overwhelmingly reject their return to power. Others would argue that such a move could be just the catalyst needed for those in pursuit of a global caliphate as their ultimate goal to establish the country as the first outpost, the attempt to make it Iraq having failed. The reality however is that the Taliban themselves never successfully conquered Afghanistan, just as no outsiders ever have. They would not immediately overrun the Karzai government, nor would we let them. The best alternative is to draw back now from frontline duties and to concentrate on building up the Afghan army and police as a matter of the utmost imperative. Just as we gave up our old colonies, we have to give up our new ones as well.

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11/02/2009 06:04:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, September 11, 2009 

Al-Qaida is dead. Long live al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida faces recruitment crisis, claims the Graun.  One has to wonder if this isn't just to do with all the associated problems currently facing them in Pakistan, with the army apparently ready or getting ready to move into Waziristan, but rather because Ayman al-Zawahiri is an increasingly derided figure within jihadi circles while bin Laden may as well be dead, even if he isn't, such is his current input.

As well as that to contend with, it's the simple truth that al-Qaida in Pakistan is on the back foot.  Young idealistic fighters aren't attracted to lost causes, hence why Iraq has also now dropped down the list of places that most wished to travel and fight in.  Afghanistan suddenly looks attractive again, while probably the biggest success now is al-Shabaab in Somalia, a triumph for which American interference, in the form of the Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu a couple of years back can be squarely linked to.  Al-Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb, formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat is also apparently proposing.  The key here also is that these are nationalist struggles, not global ones.  They might fight with the intention one day of going global, but nationalism rather than globalism can still motivate the locals far more than the utopian idealism of a global caliphate can.

Finally, there's also the fact that this could, despite so much academic concern, just be a fad, somewhat like the left-wing terrorism of the 70s and 80s in Europe was.  There's also the fact that 9/11 is now to those who were only say, 10 at the time and are now entering adulthood, almost ancient history.  Bin Laden?  Who's he?  There will be others, surely, to take his place, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi already has to an extent in jihadist idealism, but bin Laden himself is not getting any younger.  New heroes emerge as the old ones decay.  The real thing to fear might well be the next generation of Islamic extremists, just as deadly in their ambition as Zarqawi, and with even less qualms about things like shedding blood, definitely including that of fellow Muslims.  The old al-Qaida might be withering away, but a new one or a successor will surely take its place.

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9/11/2009 09:35:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 

The sense of impending doom returns.

Did you notice anything missing over the past few months?  That slight feeling of dread which you could constantly feel in the marrow of your bones?  That cloud of doom which had hung over the country ever since 7/7, being whipped up at least once a year by either further supposed disruptions of supposed plots or by newspapers demanding that we wrap ourselves in the flag in the face of such unmitigated horror as two idiots succeeding in only setting themselves on fire.

For a while this year, since the Manchester raids turned out to be the latest example of "security sources" briefing their poisonous hyperbole to an ever compliant media, we've actually had something approaching a thaw, helped along both by the actual reduction in the supposed threat level from severe to substantial, and also MI5's own acknowledgement that there are now less "active" plots than there were previously.  Considering the claims that there was up to 30 active plots and 2,000 individuals dedicated, presumably, to the militant variety of radical Islam, this was a sudden turn around and still remains so.  In line with this, we've had less blatant scaremongering, including from the worst offender, the Sun.  The recession and expenses scandal have of course helped also.

It was perhaps to be expected then that when the verdicts were finally returned in the retrial of the "liquid doom" plotters, with this time round the three ringleaders all being convicted of conspiracy to murder on airplanes that the headless chicken act would return once again.  Yesterday we warned to be alert that al-Qaida would try to bomb aircraft again, as clearly they don't learn from both their successes and mistakes, while today the Sun has attempted to do something approaching investigative journalism by discovering that, shock horror, those convicted of terrorism offences or offences related are being released from prison when they've served their sentences.

OK, perhaps that's a little unfair to the Sun, but not by much.  As per usual though, the story doesn't live up to its billing:

FORTY convicted Islamic terrorists are back on the streets after being released from jail, a Sun investigation has revealed.

"Islamic terrorists" as a description is being used rather loosely here.  Almost all the "big names", which is another loose description, have not been released yet, as we'll come to.  In fact, the biggest name that has already been released is Abu Bakr Mansha, a quite clearly deadly individual.  When arrested, Mansha had a blank firing pistol, which someone had been attempting to convert to fire live ammunition, a balaclava, a Sun newspaper article on a soldier who had won the military cross, and the soldier's former home address, as well as the expected radical material.  Mansha though also happens to have an IQ of 69, and allegedly gave the "intelligence" which led to the Forest Gate raid.   Truly someone to worry about.

The others already released are in much the same category, and so dangerous that the Sun doesn't actually name them.  According to the paper, at least three of those convicted in connection with the 21/7 attacks have been released.  This would be surprising for the fact that as far as I'm aware, the shortest sentence passed was six years and nine months, which even with the deductions made for current overcrowding and for time spent on remand would seem to have been released early, although the sentences could have been reduced on appeal.  None of these individuals were charged with directly helping with the bombings; they provided sanctuary or helped after they had failed, while others were either relatives or wives that helped.  The vast majority of these are unlikely to be "fanatics" but helped out of friendship or even because they were under pressure to.  The organisers of the Danish embassy protests have also been released, unsurprisingly, given that however disgraceful the views expressed, there was no action behind the words, and considering that they seem to be from the usual suspects who are all mouth and no trousers.  Others include those involved on the periphery of the Birmingham beheading plot, on similar charges to the 21/7 accomplices of not disclosing what they knew even if they weren't involved, while one was convicted of having the "Encyclopaedia Jihad".  Two had helped the ringleader, who has not been released, with supplying equipment to fighters in Pakistan, but again that doesn't specifically involve any sort of violent threat in this country.  Those involved with an Islamic school in Sussex have also been released, such an important set of convictions that there seems to be very little on it anywhere.  That doesn't begin to add up to 40 but we'll let the Sun off.

How about those soon to be released then?  We'll, there's Sohail Qureshi, not to be confused with the Canadian "terror suspect".  Qureshi was arrested when attempting to travel to Pakistan, and had night vision equipment, medical supplies and £9,000 in cash in his bag.  Material was found where he talked of hopefully "kill[ing] many", and presumably hoped to join fighters in Afghanistan.  Sentenced to four and a half years, with time on remand and reductions, he's meant to be released next month, which will still mean he's served 3 years.  The judge said his offences were at the "lower end of the scale", and while undoubtedly he could be a threat, with careful supervision and the confiscation of his passport there doesn't seem to be any reason why he shouldn't be released.  Much the same is the case with the next person mentioned, "[H]ulking thug Andrew Rowe", who Peter Clarke, that former king of hyperbole as anti-terrorist chief at the Met, called a "global terrorist".  In reality the evidence against him amounted to the usual radical material, supposed code referring to attacks and a guide on how to fire mortars.  Oh, and don't forget the socks bearing traces of high explosive.  How dangerous he truly was or is is anyone's guess, as he was under careful police supervision prior to his conviction.

Next up is the other "shoe bomber", Saajid Badat, who had meant to carry out an attack on a plane at the same time as Richard Reid, but pulled out at the last minute, also cutting himself off from his handler in Pakistan.  Considering that he failed to go through with the attack and also seems to have been about to settle down when he was arrested, the threat he poses seems low to negligible.  Finally, we have Kazi Nurur Rahman, who had links to the fertiliser bomb plotters, and probably the most serious risk as a result.  He was however entrapped by the police and security services, and there was no evidence whatsoever that he actually had the money to buy the weapons beyond the 3 Uzis which he agreed to purchase.  Again though, there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to be handled by MAPPA.

There are other problems with the Sun's story beyond the actual facts.  Does anyone really believe that a "senior security source" genuinely told the Sun this?:

If this was the United States, a great many of these people coming out soon would have been sentenced to 99 years and locked away for the rest of their lives.

But in this country much weaker sentences have been handed down and a large percentage of them have received reductions from the Appeal Court.

As a result, we are faced with an extremely worrying situation. We have got to hope these people come out without violent extremist views. But the likelihood of that is slim.

This simply isn't true in any case: Jose Padilla for example, convicted of charges similar to some of those here, received 17 years and four months. The wife of one of the 21/7 bombers received 15 years just for the help she provided.

Then of course we have the views of the contacted politicians, including the egregious Chris Grayling:

IT'S time to get tough on the extremists.

Yawn.

It's time we stopped these people from operating in our society. Yet the preachers of hate continue to preach.

Who? Where, Chris? The idea that it's still preachers of hate behind most of the radicalisation is years out of date.

It's also time we outlawed radical groups who propagate extremist views and in doing so incite violence against innocent people.

So you're going to ban the BNP and other neo-Nazis are you Chris? Good luck!  As for the Sun's editorial, it calls those released and soon to be released a "Terror army".  I don't think they're going to be challenging any of the more famous fighting units any time soon.

There were two other more important terrorism stories yesterday which didn't make the Sun's front page.  There was, oh, err, a huge fucking bomb discovered on the Northern Ireland border, twice the size of the one which caused the largest single loss of life during the Troubles in Omagh in 1998.  The Real IRA just aren't as sexy or as terrifying as the "terror army" though.  Or there was Neil Lewington, given an indeterminate sentence with a minimum of 6 years for carrying what were glorified Molotov cocktails with him, supposedly on the cusp of a "terror campaign".  He though was white and a neo-Nazi, even though he was actually more prepared and ready to carry out attacks than the liquid bomb plotters were, who hadn't constructed any devices while some didn't even have passports.  Terror though no longer just corresponds to individual nutters and old, boring causes: it's planes exploding one after another however implausible and however well covered they are by the security services.  If we're left meant to be fearing those who were stupid enough to get caught once, then we really are scared of the wrong people.

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9/09/2009 11:42:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, September 08, 2009 

Crying over spilt liquid part 94.

Congratulations are then in order to the Crown Prosecution Service for second time around managing to convince a jury that the three main ringleaders of the "liquid explosives plot" had indeed intended to target airplanes.  There was never much doubt that they had indeed been plotting an attack; the devil was in the detail of just what they were planning to target, and the case that it was to be transatlantic flights was flimsy at best, amounting it still seems to little more than the fact that when arrested Abdulla Ahmed Ali had a USB memory stick with flight times on it, as well as an e-mail, supposedly written in code to a handler in Pakistan where Ali made clear that all he had to do was "sort out opening timetable and bookings".

Not that you would have noticed from the celebrations from the authorities and also from the press that the "liquid doom" plot was indeed viable, but this second trial was also a miserable failure in as far as convincing a jury again that the underlings, including those who recorded "martyrdom videos" were guilty not only of conspiracy to murder on aircraft, but also conspiracy to murder persons unknown.  Only Umar Islam was convicted of the second charge, the jury hung on the first; the three others were cleared of the first charge while they were hung on the second, and lastly Donald Stewart-Whyte, who had only converted to Islam four months before his arrest, was cleared of any involvement in the plot.  This, it's worth remembering, is what the police are again calling "the strongest terrorism case ever presented to a court".  This strongest ever case has now been presented to a jury twice, and it's still only succeeded in convicting 3 individuals of conspiracy to murder on two separate charges, and one on a single charge.

Also interesting is that this time round everyone is openly accusing Rashid Rauf of being the plotters' main conduit to al-Qaida, which just shows how you can smear the dead, or rather, supposedly dead, of anything you like.  Suddenly Rauf is the new Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of international jihadist terrorism, not just helping the liquid plotters but also the 7/7 and 21/7 crews.  Rauf, of course, mysteriously disappeared from Pakistani custody while visiting a mosque, then equally mysteriously turned up, apparently dead, in a missile strike.  His family, quite reasonably considering that no body has been forthcoming, think that he's either still alive and his "death" is to cover up Pakistani embarrassment, or that Rauf has instead entered the American "black" system, or at least the parts which haven't been shut down, a view that I'm partial to, even if I dislike believing in a conspiracy theory.

It remains the fact that there was no need whatsoever to retry the main three convicted again today; the sentences that they would have received, which have been deferred and they will presumably now receive, likely to run concurrently with the sentences to be handed down for the new convictions, would have been substantial, likely to be in the 30 year range.  The real reason for doing so was two-fold: both to prove that there definitely had been a "liquid bomb" plot, regardless of whether or not it could actually have been carried out, and also to ensure that the government and security services were not embarrassed again for hyping up a plot out of all proportion, ala the ricin fiasco and the other plots which haven't even got past the arrest stage.  Hence tomorrow the Telegraph is running with the front page legend that up to 10,000 could have died, despite the fact that only four people have actually been convicted.  They keep claiming that up to 18 could have taken part in the attacks, but where are these supposed people and how can they even begin to suggest that was possible when they can't even convince a jury that those whom recorded videos were out to commit "mass-murder on an unimaginable" scale as John Reid so famously put it?

It would be even worse if the government were to use today's verdicts to rally support for the war in Afghanistan as Alan Johnson already seems to be doing.  The whole plot in fact illustrates the folly of what we are doing in that benighted country.  Not only does the exact foreign policy we continue to insist on enrage the likes of Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar, if not radicalising them entirely then sowing the seeds which lead to them coming into contact with those of like minds who then poison them further, the policy is even further counter-productive because it's in the wrong country.  What's happening in Afghanistan is a civil war which we still seem to imagine is a global one; what's happening in Pakistan rather, is a civil war with global dimensions.  This isn't even to begin to suggest that what we're doing in Afghanistan we should start doing across the border, but it is about being honest both with ourselves and with them that the real problem is in the autonomous areas of the Pakistani state where they do still exist safe havens.  We need to help Pakistan without getting ourselves fully involved.  Tackling Salafist ideology involves not walking into exactly what it feeds upon: Western states acting like bulls in a china shop.  When we finally learn that we might not have to keep pretending that we're all doomed by 500ml bottles of soft drinks.

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9/08/2009 12:03:00 AM | | | links to this post

Thursday, September 03, 2009 

Joyced.

Eric Joyce's resignation as PPS to defence minister Bob Ainsworth is to say the least, intriguing.  Joyce is most certainly on the Blairite wing of Labour, and even under Brown until recently a major loyalist, and with little chance of influencing any sort of attempt to overthrow the prime minister, it seems his decision to go is based purely on his considerable discontent over the war in Afghanistan.

Judging by his previous tenacity in supporting and defending the war in Iraq, Joyce's apparent conversion to an almost anti-war stance on Afghanistan, as that is very close to what he outlines in his resignation letter, is an indictment of current policy.  Then again, anyone could have already pointed that out: the madness of the status quo, where troops apparently give their lives so that tens of ordinary Afghans can vote, sitting ducks acting as target practice for the fighters who disappear as soon as they launch their attacks, while back home the only justification given by a government that also seemingly doesn't believe in what it's doing, the complete joke which is that somehow what the soldiers are doing is preventing terrorism on British streets, is close to being truly offensive in its fatuity.

Joyce sets out, while clearly trying to be as non-threatening and as lightly critical as he can while questioning the entire current strategy, that the public is not so stupid as to believe or to much longer put up with the "terrorism" justification, that we are punching way above our weight in our current operations, and that we should be able to make clear that there has to be some sort of timetable outlining just how long our commitment is both able and willing to last.  All of this should be way beyond controversy, yet already we have the ludicrous sentiment from both Bob Ainsworth and the even more ridiculous Lord West that they don't recognise the picture which Joyce sets out (confused and disjointed was West described it).  This would be reminiscent of Nelson putting the telescope to his bad eye if he hadn't done so with the best of intentions.  The only part which it's difficult to agree with Joyce on is his criticism of the other NATO countries' contribution: who can possibly blame France, Germany and Italy for not wanting to spend a similar amount of both their blood and treasure to us on a war in which they can't even begin to claim as we do that it's preventing terrorism on their streets?

The reason why it doesn't seem right to truly coruscate Labour over the utter cowardice of their current lack of a policy is that it's a failure of leadership which is shared across all three of the major parties.  For all their protests and attacks on the government over Afghanistan, you could barely get a cigarette paper between both the Conservatives and Lib Dems' own ideas on what we should be doing.  All still think, at least in public, despite doubtless their private misgivings, that this is both a war that is worth fighting and one which can be "won", whatever their own idea is of a victory.  Again, perhaps this isn't entirely fair: the Americans, after all, have only just got around to the idea that they should be focusing on hearts and minds and not blowing everywhere where they think there might be a Talib to kingdom come, and to hell with the consequences when it turns out there was actually dozens of civilians in the same compound.

At the same time, it's also hard not to think there might be a touch of cynicism, even conspiracy here on the part of the government and also some of the more pliant sections of the media.  Last week the Sun launched its "Don't they know there's a bloody war on?" campaign, which while not being entirely fair on the government did make me wonder whether there was some collusion with the paper when Gordon Brown the next day turned up in Afghanistan.  Now, exactly a week on from the start of the campaign, Brown will tomorrow be giving the major speech on current policy which the paper demanded, undoubtedly organised weeks if not months in advance.  These could of course all be coincidences, or even the government responding remarkably quickly to a newspaper which it has always gone out of its way to woo, but it's also suggestive of past cooperation between the two.  For the paper which goes out of its way to claim to be the forces' first and last line of both defence and support, such collusion would be incredibly shoddy.  At the same time, it's also a government that cares more for its image, still, than it does for those fighting for it.  To be succinct, there has to be an exit strategy, and at the moment absolutely no one is offering one.

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9/03/2009 11:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, July 27, 2009 

Great success!

It's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the hailing of the first stage of Operation Panther's Claw as a success, not just because of the 11 deaths so far, but also because of the lessons which seem to remaining unlearnt from Iraq. Part of the reason might be due to the fact that it was the US army that made the similar mistakes time and again, but there can't be any excuse for us not to have recognised how the insurgents in Afghanistan are using exactly the same tactics as the Sunni insurgency in Iraq did.

It's even more worrying when the tactics are so alarmingly simple. Whenever the US would launch a "major" offensive, aimed at ridding a certain area of the various fighters both allied and non-allied fighting against them, only the hard core tended to stay to fight. The rest simply left, and then either returned once the soldiers had moved on, or instead engaged in classic guerilla tactics, planting IEDs at night, ambushes etc. This pattern only ceased once the tribal elders and other insurgent groups grew tired of al-Qaida and the other Salafis' brutal tactics and launched the salvation councils/Awakening groups, which along with the "surge" helped to bring the casualties, both of Iraqi civilians and of American troops down. Even then and even now pockets of resistance remain, and Mosul, as well as parts of Diyala province, remain highly dangerous.

The change of tactics in Helmand, from clearing areas of insurgents to now attempting to hold the ground, with the help of the Americans, is a partial recognition that the past policy has failed badly. The insurgents just waited until the troops left and then came back. The problem is that unlike in Iraq, there is no real support from the civilians or other groups to help with the holding of ground. Poll after poll shows that the Afghans prefer the international presence to the Taliban, but on the ground that doesn't turn into enthusiasm for it, let alone armed support. There are no Awakening councils to be formed, and the presence of the coalition, which will undoubtedly increase the risk to civilians, who got out along with the insurgents when Panther's Claw was launched, will exacerbate the problems. Already one soldier has died in the "holding" phase: hitting and running, along with the ubiquitous IEDs, is now likely to be the order of the day.

As Conor Foley points out and as David Miliband today recognised, to imagine that in our present shape we can militarily defeat the Taliban is madness. Up to 80% of those fighting are not the religiously motivated, but either criminal groupings or other insurgents not linked to the Taliban or al-Qaida. Some of these can be either dealt with or bought off: the ceasefire with the "Taliban" in Badghis is encouraging, but whether it will last or not is another matter. The other problem with such deals was shown in Pakistan, when the truce in Swat with the imposition of Sharia law led to the Pakistani Taliban moving to within 100 miles of Islamabad. What has to be dropped is the repeated rhetoric that what "Our Boys" are doing in Helmand is helping to "break" the "chain of terror", an idea that is utterly fatuous and which may well spectacularly backfire. Ministers still though, despite David Miliband's attempt at honesty today, find it difficult to defend a war which they know full well if anything only increases the threat to us, not decreases. Until they come straight, support is only likely, quite rightly, to keep going down.

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7/27/2009 09:56:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, July 20, 2009 

Of Revelation and terror threat levels.

Thanks to my glorious religious upbringing, an upbringing so successful that instead of inculcating the fear of God in me it instead made me a God mocker, I can't approach the "terror threat level-o-meter" without thinking of Revelation. It brings to mind the four horsemen, the seven seals, the pouring of bowls, the moon turning to blood, the whore of Babylon and the 1,000 year reign. There are, of course, dozens of different interpretations of Revelation, as well as those that dismiss it as either the hallucinations of a madman or drug-inspired similar visions. I, belonging to a well-known sect which preach expressly that the end is nigh, was only taught the strictly literal interpretation; indeed, there is an entire book dedicated to "understanding" Revelation, which was relatively recently updated to take account of "changes" to the interpretation. Also connected in is the "King of the North and King of the South", both of which are mentioned in Daniel, and also taken literally. During the Cold War the King of the North was Russia, while the South was the United States, or rather the "Anglo-American" world power; since the Soviet Union's collapse they have hedged their bets and said they don't yet know who the King of the North will be.

Some of the more independently theorising members (something which itself is not often encouraged) believe that the King of the North may yet turn out to be radical Islam. This fits in with the belief that the Wild Beast of Revelation 13:1-18 is the United Nations, and that at some point in the near future the United Nations, probably prompted by war between the South and North, will attempt to eradicate all religion except for the chosen sect, which will then be turned on once all other belief has been stamped out, heralding the beginning of Armageddon proper. That this entire utterly bizarre interpretation gives the United Nations the sort of power which some of its members could only dream of, and that members of the UN keep attempting to get it recognise religious defamation as well as the other varieties makes no difference to the true believers: it's simply going to happen.

Waiting for the apocalypse and for the four horsemen to appear is much like the sort of belief required to think that the brown trousers-o-meter actually means something. In a long predicted move, the level of threat has been lowered from "severe" to "substantial", although why has not been explained. In fact, those making the decision have gone out of their way to say that there'll be no change in actual resources being used to ensure that the level doesn't have to rise, and that rather gives the impression that they're doing it simply because you can't in a democracy where there hasn't been an attack in four years forever keep up the impression that exploding Muslims are just around the corner or over the hill. Even politicians and terrorism "experts" eventually get weary of maintaining that the sky is perpetually dark, and that death, famine, war and conquest will soon be clippity-clopping along the High St.

You can't however not notice that it still is a step change from the last few years, where scaremongering was the order of the day and where there was talk of 30 plots and 2,000 individuals ready to heed their own call of duty. What's happened to those 30 plots and those 2,000 individuals? Few of those plots have been publicly broken up, as we're sure to have heard about them had they been, and while the courts have been relatively busy dealing with those charged with terrorism "offences", the numbers don't come close to the magic round number which was pushed around. It might simply be that like the intelligence which suggested that Pakistani students were ready to go with their own attack, it was wrong; it might be that the security services are telling lies, having enjoyed years of plenty after their own years of famine which were the mid-90s; or a cynical "expert" on the BBC suggests it might be to underline just how fabulously the troops in Afghanistan are doing in protecting us from terrorists here, yet not even the politicians themselves believe their own lie, and Gordon Brown has after all said himself that the crucible of terrorism is Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

Whatever the reason, it's one we should embrace, even if the "threat level", then not publicly declared, was similarly lowered before 7/7 occurred. Now that the threat isn't so severe, any further legislation on terrorism should be even more rigorously opposed, and the target should be set on repealing control orders, bringing the detention limit back to 14 days, lifting the Kafkaesque ban on some "suspects" not being informed of the evidence against them, and campaigning for investigations into our role in rendition and the potential "outsourcing" of torture. Fear, whether it's of the end of the world or of terrorism, is what makes numerous individual worlds go round.

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7/20/2009 09:31:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 

The neo-Nazi "threat".

What are we to make then of Neil Lewington, the latest in a string of neo-Nazis to be convicted of terrorism offences? There is one constant between Robert Cottage, Martyn Gilleard and Lewington, which is either reassuring or worrying, depending on your view: despite their world view, whether it be imminent race war, or the intention to try to start one, all were only interested in "small" explosive devices. Gilleard had film canisters with nails wrapped around them, intended to be used like grenades; Lewington went instead for tennis balls which he "converted" into shrapnel bombs. Neither was suddenly going to become the next David Copeland, although it appears that Copeland was someone that Lewington admired, along with the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh, the latter being the most "successful" of the three.

Lewington was arrested, somewhat fortuitously on his way to meet the latest woman he had contacted either over chat lines or the internet, having verbally abused a train conductor and then urinated on the platform at Lowestoft station. In his bag were two of his converted tennis balls, which were deemed "viable" explosive devices. Whether he was actually intending to attack somewhere with them is unclear; other female witnesses said that he had boasted to them of making such devices. He might just have been taking them along on his date to show them off, and his refusal to answer any questions has not shone any light on anything in the case at all.

While much about him is shrouded in mystery, what does seem clear is that he was the archetypal loner, a social failure, an alcoholic, who probably blamed everyone other than himself, especially the "non-British", while he fulminated in his room, still living with his parents at 42, although he apparently hadn't spoken to his father in 10 years. Unlike Islamic extremists, where the internet has been key, both in providing them with information for bomb-making and the kind of social encouragement and moral support which leads to them putting thoughts and prejudices into action, Lewington doesn't appear to have had a computer at home, although he may have had a laptop at some point, and must have used the internet elsewhere to meet some of the women who gave evidence against him. Indeed, he also doesn't seem to have been an actual member of any far-right or neo-Nazi organisations (there appears to be confusion over whether he belonged to the National Front), although he had some material from the Blood and Honour grouping, which mixes music with white nationalism. The other main find was the "Waffen SS UK Members Handbook", which doesn't seem to be recognised by anyone with any expertise on neo-Nazis, and may well have been of Lewington's own creation, even if the material within bore resemblance to some of the manuals distributed by the likes of Combat 18.

Most puzzlingly of all, it doesn't even seem that his defence bothered to put much of one up. They called no witnesses, produced no material, and Lewington himself didn't give evidence. David Etherington QC seems to have simply depended on the "lonely, pathetic fantasist" angle, which might well have washed prior to Copeland and prior to 9/11 and 7/7, but not now. It makes you wonder whether perhaps this was to protect others that Lewington was associated with, yet there was little to no evidence that he was connected with anyone. Again, this depends on perspective: are the loners the most dangerous, or is it those who have connections with formed organisations that provide the crucial confirmation that their views aren't lonely or strange?

Whatever the case, and however serious Lewington was, few are going to quibble with the custodial sentence he is undoubtedly facing. More worrying is that, as pointed out, this is only the latest in a series of such prosecutions. While mainland Europe in the past had problems mostly with left-wing terrorism, something that we avoided, having our fill provided by the IRA, we now seem to face twin threats from jihadists, and although they are diametric opposites in ideological terms but actually have much in common when it comes down to it, race war baiting neo-Nazis. In essence, they want the same thing but target the opposite communities: jihadists want Muslims in Western countries to face isolation, humiliation and suspicion to such an extent that they themselves become radicalised; neo-Nazis aim to get a response from those they target similar to that which triggered the race riots of 2001, fomenting the race war which they believe they will emerge triumphantly from. Both are deluded, both are dangerous, but we only focus on the former rather than the latter. That ought to change.

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7/15/2009 09:13:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, July 13, 2009 

The folly of Afghanistan.

All nations have their ways of referring to their glorious, and also inglorious, dead. Those who we often find ourselves sided against prefer "martyrs", or shaheeds. We, on the other hand, like "heroes", and even our supposed neutral news organisations sometimes slip into describing them as such, as ITV did last night. It isn't of course fair to focus on the language used to describe the dead when there is little other way to eloquently express the loss when asked to do soon after being informed of the death of loved ones, but when two soldiers are described in almost exactly the same terms, it also shows the fatuity underlying the deaths. Relatives talked in one case of "pride", as if there was something especially noble in dying for a cause which only just less than half the country believes in.

As ever, the Sun remains the most shameless in its boilerplate depictions of those who have laid down their lives for something which it seems only politicians, newspapers and the usual belligerents can find the words to start to justify. "The magnificent eight" it starts one sentence with, which can only bring to mind the way that al-Muhajiroun described the 9/11 hijackers: the magnificent nineteen. Not that the two groups are in any way comparable, but it remains the case that such hyperbole only does disservice to those who were far more modest about what they did than those wishing to lionise them.

It's worth remembering that although we have been in Afghanistan since October 2001, it was only three and a half years ago that British forces were sent to Helmand, in what has turned out to be one of the most ill-briefed and disastrously commanded missions in recent British military history. Supposedly predicated on reconstruction, then defence secretary John Reid hoped that the 3,300 soldiers deployed would be able to return, job done, without "firing a single shot". Since then around 4 million bullets have been expended. From the very beginning there has been two connected failings: a lack of suitable equipment, and a lack of anywhere near the numbers required to be able to hold the ground that the Taliban is either forced to retreat from or which it gives up, only to return to later. Even now that there are approaching 10,000 troops, having finally withdrawn from Iraq, there are still almost certainly nowhere near enough to be able to convince those who they are supposed to be protecting, the Afghan civilians, that they can vote in the elections in a month's time free from threats.

Combined with this we have a political class that simply cannot even begin to be straight with the British public about why the war is being fought, let alone why it should be fought. The poll for the BBC and Guardian shows that the vast majority know the reasoning for why the war is being fought: 80% saying that it's part of the fight against al-Qaida, 78% helping the Afghan government against the Taliban. The problem with this is that these justifications are facile and only half-true. It begins with the false perception that the Taliban and al-Qaida are one and the same thing; they are not. In 2001 al-Qaida were simply the Taliban's guests, and ones which supposedly some of the main benefactors of the regime. Only when both were pushed out towards the Af-Pak border did the two begin to merge somewhat, forced to band together in order to survive. The emphasis on Iraq allowed both to build themselves back up, hence the situation we are now in. They can still though be separated again, and the more moderate elements of the Taliban can be dealt with.

The biggest lie of all, and one which is comparable to those told about Iraq, is that our presence in Afghanistan prevents terrorism, and that by staying there we prevent al-Qaida from returning. Not only does our presence there in fact increase the threat, just as our role in Iraq increased the threat exponentially, but al-Qaida is of course already there, just as it always has been. It might not have the presence that it had for years in Iraq, and still does to an extent, holding whole provinces and cities, but it is there, and it can still operate with impunity.

As has become ever more clear over the last few years, the real problem is not Afghanistan, it is Pakistan. Pakistan's ISI created the Taliban and only very recently has that support seemed to have finally come to an end. As long as there is another safe haven, both for the Taliban and for al-Qaida over the border, wasting a single drop of blood is a waste of time. It took the Pakistani Taliban moving within 100 miles of Islamabad for the government to finally wholeheartedly launch a campaign which has either seen the group routed, or, more likely, as happened in Iraq and in Afghanistan, merely fallen back so that it can once again engage in guerilla warfare, the only way in which it has a chance of winning.

Yet it is the very weakness of Pakistan as a coherent state that also makes the war in Afghanistan unwinnable. Even though the chances of Pakistan either collapsing or being overrun by Islamic extremists have been vastly exaggerated, if Pakistan cannot have sorted itself out having had 50 years to do so, the possibility of turning a nation which has been at war with itself and invaders for over 30 years, where there are five different ethnic groups, six different languages spoken and whole sectors controlled by warlords and distinct fiefdoms is negligible.

Despite knowing every word of this, our politicians, regardless of party or affiliation, all profess in public that either progress is being made, the war is being won or it can be won. The very least they must do is set out something approaching a strategy which is achievable, whether it's building the Afghan army up until it isn't just renowned for those in its ranks marijuana intake, establishing something like government control over areas which are currently no-go zones, or simply declaring victory in Helmand, even if it isn't close to being won. There has to be honesty, but expecting that from either of the main parties is like waiting for Godot. We owe something to those who have lost their sons and daughters, but once that has been achieved, we simply have to get out.

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7/13/2009 09:32:00 PM | | | links to this post

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