Inexorable leftist gibbering from someone somewhere. || "Our press, which you appear to regard as being free ... is the most enslaved and the vilest thing." -- William Cobbett. || “Tridents (sic) are not weapons of mass destruction.” -- Nadine Dorries MP
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.
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.
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.
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.
Scum-watch: Yet more lies about "evil terrorists".
Last week the Sun had to apologise to Abdul Muneem Patel for calling him an "evil terrorist" and claiming that he had been involved in the liquid explosives plot. He had in fact been found guilty of having a document which could be useful to terrorists, which the judge accepted he had unknowingly kept for a friend of his father's. The judge also stated specifically that Patel was not a radicalised or politicised Islamist, but this didn't stop the Sun from telling Patel's neighbours a pack of lies about his supposed secret terrorist past.
As could have been expected, the Sun has learnt absolutely nothing from having to print such a humiliating apology. You might have thought they might have waited a little longer though to repeat almost exactly the same exercise, but obviously not. This time the paper is outraged that
Except these three weren't convicted of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, as a few minutes of fact checking would have made clear. All three were in fact involved with the plot's ringleader, Parviz Khan, but in smuggling equipment to fighters in Pakistan. The prosecutors accepted that Iqbal and Irfan had nothing to do with the beheading plot, while Elasmar's house was used for discussing the plot, although whether Elasmar was there at the time or not is unclear; considering he received the most lenient sentence of the three one would suspect he wasn't. The Sun also has it completely wrong on Khan supposedly telling Elasmar that "we'll cut it off like you cut a pig"; Khan was in fact talking to Basiru Gassama, already released and presumably deported.
The Sun being the Sun, it couldn't just leave it at that. No, it had to include a leader comment on its completely wrong article:
Err, because they didn't plan to behead a squaddie?
Simple: They all behaved themselves in prison.
Oh, right, that must be it.
The breathtaking evil of the crime they plotted counted for nothing.
Or it counted for nothing because they weren't involved in the "breathtaking evil" of the crime?
Good behaviour sprung them early from already derisory sentences. One was released in only five months, to a life on housing benefits.
Our justice system is a laughing stock.
Only the Sun could call a sentence of seven years "derisory", which is what Iqbal received. It might be derisory if Iqbal had been convicted of plotting to beheading a soldier, but he wasn't. The real laughing stock here should be a so called newspaper that either can't or won't do the very basics of actual journalism, checking facts. Anyone up for complaining to the Press Complaints Commission?
When a jury manages to see through a court case that lasted for two weekswithin 45 minutes, it's only natural to wonder whether it should have ever been brought. When it involves two teenagers who had previously never been in trouble with the police and their being kept on remand in a young offender's institution and Strangeways respectively for 6 months, it becomes a necessity.
Both Ross McKnight (the son of a police officer, no less) and Matthew Swift were found not guilty of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions, their plans for a supposed massacre at a school in Manchester as well as the bombing of a shopping centre on the 10th anniversary of the Columbine massacre ripped to shreds both by the defence, McKnight's father, who seemed to have sealed the verdict when he talked of his son's many "harebrained" schemes and finally by the jury. What really seems to have gone on here is nothing more than teenage angst and alienation being taken slightly too far up the scale. The rants the pair wrote in diaries are hardly out of the ordinary: the only real surprise might be that they didn't post them on a social networking site or somewhere else where they were even more easily accessible. The other slight indication that this went any further than just two friends messing around and engaging in fantasies was that they had "plans" of the school, although whether these were just simple sketches of outlines which they made themselves or genuine plans we don't seem to know.
It's easy to make presumptions, but you can't help but feel that if they hadn't mentioned Columbine or supposedly fetishised the two murderers who carried out that most notorious of school shootings, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, or were meant to have planned to carry it out on the anniversary of their assault, that this "plot" wouldn't have got anywhere near the court system. There is indeed perhaps some cause for concern in this area: it's quite true that some teenagers, especially those who feel themselves outsiders or not accepted by their peers, not to mention those who are bullied, can engage in the kind of fantasies which these two boys were meant to have, and while such feelings of striking out at those that have harmed them are natural and are very rarely acted upon, they do need to be nipped in the bud. Some of those at the very extreme end of this type of thinking do indeed idolise the likes of Harris and Klebold; Seung-Hui Cho in his claim of responsibility for the Virigina Tech massacre referred to both as martyrs, and there is a strain of thinking surrounding such spree-killers that all such attacks are in fact copy-cat crimes, a view that I'm partial to. The vast majority though who dream or fantasise about doing violence to their tormentors never do; hell, I can even remember at one point during my early teenage years writing a list of those that I'd kill if I had the chance. As far as I'm aware I never carried through on my written promise.
Undoubtedly the female friend that reported McKnight's drunken referral to the supposed attack was right to let the authorities know of her concerns. That was though surely as far as it should have gone. Dave Osler compares the case to that of the "lyrical terrorist", Samina Malik, but if anything a far wider comparison to terrorism is equally applicable. Just as in cases like that involving DhirenBarot, neither McKnight or Swift had the guns or explosives necessary to carry out their plans, nor the funds to get hold of them but they did have ideas or nous which suggested they could have done. As it happens, Barot's ideas were even more fantastical than the teenage pair's were, whether it involved destroying builders by filling limos with gas canisters, a plan thoroughly debunked by the Glasgow airport idiots, exploding a bomb on the Underground which would somehow penetrate the tunnel and cause the Thames to flood in, or constructing a dirty bomb out of smoke alarms by placing the americium he harvested from them in a coke can. He however was sentenced to 30 years in prison, more on the fact that he had been trained and probably had connections with al-Qaida, even if his ideas were even more harebrained that McKnight's. Interesting here is that Swift had a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, a book which another teenager was previously prosecuted for possessing, despite it being freely available, as well as also a gun which could fire ball bearings. You can bet that if someone with links to extremist Islam had either that they would have also been indicted on similar charges.
The terrorist trials where the prosecution have tried and almost always convinced juries that that extremists were only days or weeks away from mass murder or horrific casualties are perhaps the significant precursor to both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service imagining that they could do much the same in this instance. It does though have to be asked, did they genuinely believe their own case, or rather did those unlucky enough to prosecute it believe it? It certainly doesn't seem, for instance, that the headmaster of the school believed it. There is of course a very fine line between caution and a potential tragedy, but in this instance what just seems to have been very normal teenage ennui could have been criminalised, and if they weren't bitter and depressed prior to their time on remand, McKnight and Swift very well may be now.
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.
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.
If there's one thing that's worse than releasing a convicted mass murderer on cynical grounds, to help with trade between two countries, it must be to play politics on a decision that was in fact made in good faith on purely humanitarian grounds. The nauseating sight of seeing all three other main parties in Scotland, Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems, all opposing the decision made by Kenny MacAskill, must almost certainly be the Scottish parliament's lowest point since it came into existence. The Tories and Labour may well have opposed the decision if it was theirs to make - their playing to the gallery can never be doubted - but for the Lib Dems to do the same is pure political calculation.
This would be fully in line with New Labour's foreign policy both past and present, yet it still hasn't personally passed the buck north, just rather letting the SNP take the blame whether it is entirely theirs or not.
The continuing outrage from the US however continues to amuse, most hilarious being Robert Mueller and others comment that al-Megrahi's release gives comfort to "terrorists worldwide". Only someone so up themselves and so crimson with unjustified rage could believe that anyone would take comfort from the fact that if they happened to find themselves in Scottish custody and with just three months to live they might just be released. It's instructive to wonder however just how al-Megrahi might have been treated had he found himself in US custody - would he have been threatened with having his children killed, or having his mother sexually assaulted in front of him? Would he have been waterboarded, threatened with a gun, and told that a fellow prisoner had been summarily executed in order to get him to talk? Perhaps just the sheer inhumanity of so-called American justice can be encapsulated by the 7 years that a 12 year old Afghani spent in Guantanamo, having finally been released. It says something about the imperial arrogance of the United States, even under Obama, that it feels it can lecture anyone on how to treat terrorists, although when everyone except the very lowest of the low have been prosecuted for the rendition programme and all the according prison abuses, it perhaps still believes itself to be above the law.
As almost always, American and Western lives are regarded as having far more worth than those towards the east. You might have thought that some would have mentioned Iran Air Flight 655 today; after all, it's still possible that the Lockerbie bombing was revenge for it. Flight 655 was shot down by the USS Vincennes whilst it was inside Iranian territorial waters, killing all 290 on board. The crew of the ship were not even slightly disciplined: they instead received Combat Action Ribbons, while the captain received the Legion of Merit. The Iranians received no apology, the US has never accepted responsibility and also never admitted wrongdoing. It did however eventually pay $131.8 million in compensation. Libya, by contrast, ended up paying more than $2.16 billion for the Lockerbie bombing.
It's also fairly remarkable how in this instance the Scottish government has managed to stand up to American pressure not to release al-Megrahi. How very different to the extradition of Gary McKinnon, where Westminster has refused to intervene and where Denis MacShane even claimed that McKinnon's diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome was a ruse. Similarly, David Miliband continues to refuse to disclose 7 paragraphs of a memo concerning Binyam Mohamed, claiming that if he did the Americans would withdraw intelligence cooperation. It might well be that the Scottish, unlike the UK government as a whole, doesn't have to worry about the relationships which would be affected by playing politics as it were, but it also exposes both the cowardice and the disparity of the "special relationship", as well as just how nasty both Labour and the Conservatives have become, both of whom would have apparently denied a man with three months to live a compassionate release. I'm no fan of the SNP, and their authoritarian tendencies especially over alcohol are repugnant, yet they've made the right decision for exactly the right reasons, the only downside being that al-Megrahi apparently had to drop his appeal for his release to be agreed. Justice may not have been fully served, but this may well have been the best outcome out of a slew of worse ones.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's decision to drop his appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing appears to be just the latest stitch-up in the now over 20-year-long search for both justice and the truth in what remains one of the most murky and unexplained terrorist attacks of recent times. In what seems to be an attempt to keep all sides reasonably happy, including the American relatives of the dead who seem to be far more convinced of al-Megrahi's guilt than many of the British relatives, it now appears likely that rather than being released on compassionate grounds, as first thought, al-Megrahi will take advantage of a prisoner transfer agreement signed by Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi. While al-Megrahi could continue with his appeal if he was released due to his terminal illness, the transfer treaty is not applicable while criminal proceedings are still under way. This presumably is aimed at tempering American criticism that someone convicted of mass murder should be freed on compassionate grounds, having shown none whatsoever to his victims.
There are however multiple factors at work here, as there have been from the beginning. Going from being the Mad Dog to being one of those dictators which we can quite literally do business with, Gaddafi's Libya is a key emerging market, especially for the likes of BP, having invested $1bn in the country, prompting the Americans in particular to wonder whether the oil industry which their own government so heavily supports is influencing policy over here also. Most critical however is that none of those involved, apart from al-Megrahi, want the case to be reopened and examined in anything approaching precise detail again. Certainly not the UK or US governments, both of which moved from being almost certain that the perpetrators were not Libyan but rather Palestinians based in Syria, quite possibly funded by Iran, around the time that both countries were needed over more pressing matters concerning Operation Desert Storm, and certainly not the Libyans, who although continuing to cast doubt on their involvement, gritted their teeth and paid an obscene amount of compensation in return for both UN and US sanctions being lifted. These numbers are expected to be earned back in reasonably short order: Libya's Mahmud al-Ftise, the privatisation and investment secretary, says the country has "very big potential".
Al-Megrahi however has just months to live, and with his death it also seems likely that any chance of revisiting the evidence will also perish. This is especially depressing when new information suggests that he suffered what Hans Köchler, the UN's nominated observer of the Scottish trial and appeal in the Netherlands described as a "spectacular miscarriage of justice". Al-Megrahi's lawyers had demanded access to a US government document which cast doubt on the origin of a digital timer which was integral to his conviction, as well as obtaining information that suggested that the key prosecution witness, Tony Gauci, the owner of the Maltese clothes shop where al-Megrahi was supposed to have bought the items which were packed in the suitcase around the bomb, was paid more than $2 million for giving evidence against him. It seems that as a member of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism, the body set up by the US after the bombing allegedly told Martin Cadman, one of the relatives of the dead:
Your government and ours know exactly what happened. But they're never going to tell.
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.
It probably says something about the mounting cynicism concerning the war in Afghanistan that even the Sun, by far the most ardent supporter of our presence in Helmand province, has been moved to commission a justificatory article on the "chain of terror". As you might have expected though, to call the arguments made piss poor, utterly confused and easy to rebut would be an understatement.
To begin with, Oliver Harvey seems to be confused exactly where it is and who it is we're at war with. It is Afghanistan or Pakistan? Is it the Taliban or is it the Pakistani Taliban, who for the most part are entirely separate? This extends to Harvey's geographical knowledge: he claims that Malakand is near to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border when it is in fact quite some distance from it. This is an attempt to link Mohammad Sidique Khan and Omar Khyam to the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban; the problem here is that there is no link. Khan and Khyam, if trained by any particular grouping, were most likely trained by individuals with links to al-Qaida. Khan might well have left for Pakistan with the intention of fighting in Afghanistan; he left behind a video for his daughter which made clear he wasn't expecting to return. The fact that he did rather undermines any links he had with the Taliban, who are fighting only in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than having worldwide ambitions.
Next we have just the word of Gordon Brown and Barack Obama to convince us that somehow British troops in Afghanistan do make us safer:
Gordon Brown made his remarks last week as the war in Afghanistan entered a particularly grim phase, with 17 British soldiers killed already this month.
The PM argued the sacrifice made by our troops - 186 have died since operations began in Afghanistan - was vital and that to stop fighting the Taliban would make the UK "less safe".
Justifying the UK military presence in Helmand, he said: "It comes back to terrorism on the streets of Britain.
"There is a chain of terror that links what's happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain.
"If we were to allow the Taliban to be back in power in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda then to have the freedom of manoeuvre it had before 2001, we would be less safe as a country."
US President Barack Obama agreed, insisting: "The mission in Afghanistan is one that the Europeans have as much, if not more, of a stake in than we do.
"The likelihood of a terrorist attack in London is at least as high, if not higher, than it is in the United States."
Government officials state around three quarters of the most advanced plots monitored by MI5 have Pakistani links.
They said the security service is aware of around 30 serious plots at any given moment, suggesting that at least 21 of them are tied to Pakistani groups.
Again, we're meant to take it that Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable. Yet we have no military presence in Pakistan, and nor does the United States. The only thing that comes closest to it is the incessant drone strikes on alleged high profile militant targets. Afghanistan and Pakistan might be connected, but our military offensive is not, despite the recent AfPak change in emphasis by the Americans. The fact remains the al-Qaida doesn't need the freedom of manoeuvre it had in Afghanistan up to October 2001, both because it has something approaching that freedom in Pakistan and because its ideology has gone global, just as it hoped it would. 9/11 was mostly planned in Germany, having been first proposed years before by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, just as 7/7 was mostly planned in this country. While attending a training camp is still integral to those who go on to become terrorists, most information can now be found and accessed through the internet. Furthermore, the fact that so many of these plots have roots in Pakistan is not always to do with how they can be linked back to the Taliban or al-Qaida there, but simply because so many of the Muslims in this country originate from Pakistan and have support or themselves support relatives back there.
And Afghanistan provides the bulk of the heroin on Britain's streets - with the profits funding Taliban guerrillas.
A staggering 93 per cent of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan - two thirds of it from Helmand, where British troops are fighting and dying.
Taliban chiefs often "tax" narcotics gangs ten per cent for providing security.
Afghan police chief Lt Col Abdul Qader Zaheer, 45, told me last year: "If it wasn't for heroin there wouldn't be a war here. It pays for Taliban guns."
Of course, this omits the fact that the Taliban themselves first almost eradicated the poppy crop. They only turned to it once they needed to. It also fails to acknowledge that solutions to the poppy crop, such as buying it to be turned into medicines have been ignored or rejected. That the Sun also objects to even the most timid moves towards liberalisation of the drug laws also means that the opportunities that legislation offers are completely off the table. Heroin itself though has nothing to do with our presence in Helmand - we're not fighting a war against drugs in Afghanistan - this is just another distraction.
The tentacles of jihad linking Britain and Afghanistan begin on the Helmand frontline.
One dead Taliban fighter was found with an Aston Villa tattoo. The discovery suggested the insurgent was from the UK and followed news that RAF radio spies picked up Brummie accents while listening in on Taliban "chatter" over the airwaves.
These UK-born fighters arrive through the mountainous and sieve-like border from Pakistan - the same desolate, lawless region where Khyam and Khan received their bomb-making masterclass.
We've dealt with these same, unconfirmedand impossible to verify claims before. There probably are some Brits fighting in Afghanistan, but if there weren't fighting there, they probably would be somewhere else. In a way, this actually gives some credence to the claim that we're safer due to our presence in Afghanistan - fight those jihadists who want to do battle with their own countrymen outside the actual country rather than here. This isn't though the government's case - their case is that through defeating the Taliban and preventing al-Qaida from returning they're making us safer, which was dealt with somewhat above.
It is believed Khan filmed his "martyrdom" video in Pakistan. In it, he glares at the camera with his hatred of the West clearly evident and declares icily: "We are at war and I am a soldier."
Pakistan is the next link in the chain of terror. British jihadis receive not only weapons training there but are also further radicalised by preachers of hate at madrassas or religious schools.
Khan's fellow 7/7 murderer, Shehzad Tanweer, is said to have worshipped at Islamabad's notorious Red Mosque.
This is more nonsense - the idea that jihadists go to Pakistan to be "further radicalised" is specious. They wouldn't have gone in the first place if they weren't already somewhat committed to the cause. If anything, this further undermines the case for presence in Afghanistan: if all the radicalisation, training and hatred is going on in Pakistan, why are we in Helmand province? How does being there make us safer than stopping what goes on in Pakistan would?
We're then treated to some boilerplate rabble-rousing from a cleric whom Harvey had the privilege to meet:
The Islamist radicals in Afghanistan and Pakistan make no effort to disguise their aim to introduce Sharia law to Britain. In the dusty Pakistani town of Kahuta, a cleric was happy to tell me last year of his desire to bring beheadings and stonings to our shores.
Imam Qari Hifzur Rehamn, 60 said of Britain: "Non-believers must be converted to Islam. Morals in your society, with women wearing revealing clothes, have gone wrong.
"We want Islamic law for all Pakistan and then the world.
"We would like to do this by preaching. But if not then we would use force."
The Imam of the town's religious school, where kids as young as nine are taught jihad or holy war, added: "Adulterers should be buried in earth to the waist and stoned to death.
"Thieves should have their hands cut off. Women should remain indoors and films and pop music should be banned.
"Homosexuals must be killed - it's the only way to stop them spreading. It should be by beheading or stoning, which the general public can do."
Again, this fails to even begin to back up the case for our presence in Afghanistan. If Harvey had met this imam in that country perhaps he might have a point - but he didn't. The idea that those taught similar things are suddenly going to be any sort of threat to this country except as an irritant is ludicrous - if they can't even begin to impose their beliefs on Pakistan, how are they meant to do it in a country thousands of miles away?
But the US-led coalition has vowed to stop the radicals from governing the desperately poor nation again and fermenting an ideology of holy war against the West.
The final link in the jihadi chain is a return to Britain.
Khan slipped back into the UK in February 2005. Just five months later he detonated his rucksack bomb at Edgware Road Tube station, murdering six people.
On the sun-baked plains and river valleys of Helmand today, our forces - some just 18 - are locked in deadly combat with a resilient Taliban army.
The prize in this bloody war, and the legacy for those brave soldiers who have returned here to heroes' funerals, is to snap the chain of terror for good.
Except there is no such thing as a Taliban "army", just as there is no such thing as one Taliban. This so-called "chain of terror" cannot be snapped by an army based in just one province, with just less than 10,000 soldiers on the ground, in a country which has been at war for almost 30 years. It would require an army at least 10 times that size to have even the slightest chance of controlling the whole of Afghanistan, let alone Pakistan, which this piece invokes repeatedly. The Soviets had over 100,000 units on the ground post-1980 and they couldn't manage it. How can such a fragmented coalition as Nato currently is even begin to?
The article doesn't even begin to consider any alternatives, let alone any counter-arguments. It can be argued that our very presence in Afghanistan in fact makes us less safe: it makes us a target for reprisals whereas if we were not involved we would not be. 9/11 and 7/7 did not occur in vacuums; they did not happen simply because "they hate us". The chain of terror would have breaks in it if we did not involve ourselves in battles in which we have no dog in. It would not completely remove the threat, but it would decrease it exponentially. That the Sun doesn't even start to imagine the opposing side even exists speaks volumes.
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.
Turns out then that David Shayler, the ex-spook who revealed that MI6 had co-operated with jihadists in an attempt to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi, is now calling himself Delores Kane and living in a squatted commune with members of the "Rainbow Movement". He also supposedly believes that he is the Messiah, as his website details.
All of which is remarkably sane when compared to his previous activities within the UK section of the 9/11 Truth Movement, where he wasn't just someone who believed that it was an inside job, but that there weren't any planes involved at all:
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.
