Maintaining support for the permanent occupation of Afghanistan on the extraordinary grounds that it protects us from terrorism at home is difficult enough, but made harder by the absence of any credible Islamic terrorist incidents in the West in recent years.
The 2,000 Islamic extremists in the UK of whom Jonathan Evans warned us in 2007 that they posed “a grave threat to national security” have in the ensuing three years managed to kill a grand total of, umm, nobody.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/nov/06/alqaida.politics
Now if I were a vicious extremist suicide bomber, careless of my own life, indeed anxious to die in a glorious cause, I would undoubtedly over three years have managed to kill somebody, somewhere. If there were two thousand of me, at least someone positively must have succeeded in killing somebody. Lone nutters like the neo-Nazi who bombed gays a decade ago can wreak havoc, so 2,000 people, many of them in cells and networks? The UK should be littered with bodies. Yet not one.
The only possible conclusion is that Jonathan Evans was talking scaremongering bullshit. For which you and I pay him £165,000 a year plus accommodation and car and index-linked pension.
Anyway, fortunately for support for the war, the State Department has been able to issue a warning that there is definitely an active plot to do something, somewhere in Europe.
Old news, you may scoff. Indeed. But I can reveal to you from my own sources that this again depends in large part on information from the Uzbek secret service torture chambers, passed to the German security services. Germany continues to occupy the Termez airbase in Uzbekistan for NATO supply into Afghanistan, and continues to receive Uzbek natural gas via Gazprom.
The US has opened negotiations in Tashkent to increase still further the “Northern supply route” into Afghanistan through Uzbekistan, using Gulnara Karimova, the dictator’s daughter, as the supply contractor. This is in light of continuing disruption to supply convoys through the Khyber Pass.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11489955
As usual, lack of interest by western media and public in Uzbekistan enables British, German and American government collusion with Uzbekistan’s vicious totalitarian regime to pass unremarked – even though yet another dissident journalist, Abdulmalik Boboyev, faces a long hell in one of Uzbekistan’s notorious gulags. Not a word of protest from the West, despite the fact that his crime is working for the Voice of America.
This from Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Journalist Abdulmalik Boboyev is facing a possible five-year jail sentence for working for the US-funded Voice of America radio station in the trial that began today in Tashkent, the capital of one of Central Asia’s most repressive countries, Uzbekistan.
He is one of Uzbekistan’s few remaining independent reporters and his trial could signal the start of a new offensive against journalists who persist in gathering and disseminating news and information that is not controlled by President Islam Karimov’s government.
Everything about the case is political, from the defendant to the charges and the probable outcome. The trial will almost certainly be a sham. Boboyev has fallen prey to a dictatorial regime that has been reinforcing its control over the media for the past five years and constantly violates human rights.
But the international community had decided that it is in its interest to look the other way and support this appalling regime. If Boboyev become Uzbekistan’s 12th imprisoned journalist, it will constitute another serious failure of this policy of rapprochement.
The Uzbek authorities could still change course in this case if they want to embark on a real dialogue with their partners, above all the European Union and the United States. We urge them to do so.
A total of four charges were brought against Boboyev on 13 September. Three of them relate to his work as a journalist: defamation (article 139 of the criminal code), insult (article 140) and “preparing and disseminating material constituting a threat to public order and security” (article 244-1). The fourth is a trumped-up charge of “illegal entry into the country” (article 223). He was banned from leaving Uzbekistan the same day.
What’s the point in voting? We expected it from Labour, you joined the Libs & I worked for the Tories and yet not 1 of them, not a single one of them gives a toss. Unbelievable. How far up US arse’s do we need to be to check out their teeth?
I thought we were meant to be skint?
Good to have you back, Craig.
I actually agree with you that being in Afghanistan isn’t for our protection. However, it doesn’t follow from your argument. You say:
“Maintaining support for the permanent occupation of Afghanistan on the extraordinary grounds that it protects us from terrorism at home is difficult enough, but made harder by the absence of any credible Islamic terrorist incidents in the West in recent years”
The fact that there have been no terrorist incidents could be evidence that we have been successfully protected.
“The fact that there have been no terrorist incidents could be evidence that we have been successfully protected”.
Please explain how the occupation of Afghanistan might have impacted on the “2,000 Islamic extremists” already in Britain?
@Julian
You are right in the context of just the sentence you quote.
But if you read the rest Craig is clearly making the case that if, as has been stated, there were some 2000 or so loonies out there trying to blow something up, then it seems highly like that one of them would have succeeded by now. Therefore, his conclusion is that the number is an over-estimate (in fact, deliberate scare tactics).
One of the big problems, I think, about the prevention of terrorism, is that any state that could really successfully prevent 100% (or nearly) of all attacks would have to have a massively intrusive and dracionian system of policing and surveillance. In the process it would be taking a big step in the direction of becoming a police-state.
Of course, this does not mean you should do nothing. But taking all possible measures, or rolling back hard won civil liberties, because (paraphrasing) “it’s worth it if it only saves one life” is the height of folly. It time this leads to the state becoming a much greater danger to people
(cont. – oops, hit the wrong key)
…than terrorism will ever be. After all, governments throughout history backed by the full power of the state, have consistently been able to kill and persecute orders of magnitude more people than any group of terrorists.
So any power given to the state (or taken from the people) on the grounds that it *might* help prevent terrorism should weighed against all the other possible consequences (many potentially very bad) of granting the state that power. And part of the weighing should include the massively disproportunate capacity of the state to cause harm, than that of a small number of terrorists.
“We are told that today the state is increasingly ‘benign’, yet this is a modern myth.” – Helena Kennedy.
“One of the big problems, I think, about the prevention of terrorism, is that any state that could really successfully prevent 100% (or nearly) of all attacks would have to have a massively intrusive and dracionian system of policing and surveillance. In the process it would be taking a big step in the direction of becoming a police-state.”
Describing a system of policing and surveillance I couldn’t help thinking about the UK. Though that system didn’t prevent a few real terrorists from accomplishing an attack.
Bout time you were back !
@Martin Kliehm
Yes. I don’t think any state could, even with universal surveillance and Orwellian powers, prevent all terrorist attacks.
But in trying to become a state that can prevent all such attacks, and by increasingly taking on such powers, a state will become the kind of state against which internal resistance is justified. The level of resistance that is justifiable will depend on the extent of the powers and the degree to which they are abused.
You can see this today in the number of states justifying persecuting and abuse of human rights in the name of preventing terrorism. The level of abuse by the state varying widely of course: Guantanamo, oppression of Uyghurs in China, dissidents (especially Muslims) in Uzbekistan, minority and dissident oppression in Burma/Myanmar (though this has now reach the level of genocide). And historically, of course: the KGB, stazi and all the rest.
Of course, a far more affective way to reduce terrorism would be to stop killing massive numbers of people from communities that terrorists (and potential terrorists) identify with.
But you have to contend with Tony Blair’s obtuse public stance (repeated by many in power, it seems). That is, that any consession to the idea that the anger felt (against U.S./U.K. foreign policy and wars) might be justified (and which is expressed in the words of some of the terrorists) is tantamount to condoning terrorism.
It isn’t of course. The anger against U.S./U.K policy is justifed, and is of course felt and expressed by millions. It is the actions of the terrorists, and not this element of their motivations, that can *never* be condoned. Yet the Blair’s and Bush’s would have us believe, against the statements of the terrorists themselves, that they are motivated by their ‘hatred of our freedoms’.
Good points martin and yes the UK is rapidly becoming a ‘controlled state, despite the police cut backs.
The seasonal reiterations of fear and loathing, this time in Europe, always seem to come accompanied by other bad news, a mere balancing act for Mr. Evans, echoed by our media who knows to play this game well, a good day to get out some library pictures.
The only logic, should there be any terror threat, is that of an increasing risk, proportional to the time nothing has happened. The longer nothing happens, the higher the risk of a probable incident.
At present, imho, the interests of the Taliban, and that of General Petreaus,for that matter, are in the SWAT valley, in North and South Waziristan, etc.
The floods and US drone attacks have opened up discrepancies in the Pakistan Government which can topple it. The ISI is up to their old tricks, playing every side possible and all at once.
Why should any terror organisation rely on a controlled and observed force of 2000 possible, middle class and aspiring, British Muslims, when they have poor, hungry and willing Muslims much nearer to their power bases, more angry. Every mudhut bombed, every civilian that has lost a family member in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, are potential supporters of the evershifting sands of forces fighting the occupation of Afghanistan, whatever the organisation is they support and join.
The threat here in blighty can only be justified if we are made to fear, although I believe that this politics loathing public will take anything, lying down on their backs/on all fours, as long as someone tells them its fair, shared pain and they’ll be doing it for Ingeland.
Ingo,
There’s always a straw that breaks the camel’s back
“The 2,000 Islamic extremists in the UK of whom Jonathan Evans warned us in 2007 that they posed “a grave threat to national security” have in the ensuing three years managed to kill a grand total of, umm, nobody.”
This threat from the Muslim hordes which never quite materialises has always reminded me of the Fermi Paradox, concerning the existence of alien intelligent life. Said Fermi (after a quick mental calculation): If they existed, they have had time enough to get here. They’re not here, so….?
@ all
There are three main reasons why the US remains in Afghanistan:-
1. The US economy is in essence a war economy. What President Eisenhower termed the “military-industrial complex” needs a raison d’etre. The industrial aspect is about manufacturing and providing jobs and stimulating the economy with production. The military side also needs a raison d’etre. That comes from the US in terms of having a strong military to “protect our freedoms” and to “keeping the world safe for democracy”, but it is industrial production that provides the military hardware. There also has to be a reason provided for continually increasing the military budget and that comes from the internal and external threats of “terrorism”. Demonise Islam and there is then ?” voila ?” this external threat in the billions around the world justifying all the military expenditures because they are out to get us. With Afghanistan you have a meeting of the points. There is the 9/11 attack and then the casus belli is the invasion into Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden as the intial justification for expansion of this “war on terror”. Thus, the military must be funded, so the argument runs, since they are needed, invasion into Afghanistan included, to keep us safe at home by attacking them abroad where they breed.
2. The second reason is that the region which Afghanistan sits in is of geopolitical strategic importance to the US global hegemonic designs when it weights its options in Central Asia vis a vis Russia and China.
3. The third reason is that there is good business in making war, with an assurance that taxpayers dollars are available from the US government for the payment to contractors and suppliers such as Halliburton in the trillions.
Wonderful way to run the world? Not quite, but that is just how it is.
The truth of the matter is that the so-called “war on terror” is, as regards Afghanistan, in essence a geopolitical projection of power, coupled with a strategic decision to build an oil pipeline so as not to rely on Russian routes.
But ?” if I told you that the soldiers are there to provide military protection for the building of an oil pipeline ?” now ?” I must be labeled as mad as the Mullahs. Nevertheless ?” based on this purportedly sane assessment ?” you decide.
“But ?” if I told you that the soldiers are there to provide military protection for the building of an oil pipeline ?” now ?” I must be labeled as mad as the Mullahs. ”
But of course you’d be right, Courtenay, which is why England’s current scotch Prime Minister keeps on about how they attacked us on 9/11 and why Julian Assange “leaks” documents proving that Osama is still at it in Pakistan (which has to be broken up to create the independent democratic republic of Pipelinestan, aka the Pakistani province of Balochistan, which will become a US-controlled corridor from Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea).
However, there is more to the war in Central Asia than pipelines. Pipelines provide control of energy and control of a sufficient proportion of the World’s energy means control of the World.
But there are other means of control, and extension of US influence in Central Asia means the further encirclement of Russia. The breakup of Pakistan would mean the elimination of what is both the World’s only Muslim nuclear power and an important Chinese ally. It would also end the insurgency in Kashmir — thus rendering a service to America’s most important Asian ally, India.
The greatest error made in planning America’s war for global hegemony has been to seek justification in a supposed terrorist onslaught against the West. Clearly, America and its vassals, Britain and more reluctant NATO allies, are the greatest, and indeed almost the sole, exponents of international terrorism, which fact insures that the Western leadership will be continually challenged by the more intelligent minority of the population who have the slightest interest in what is happening.
It would have been better to conduct the war on the basis of the Rhodes-Milner plan for global confederation of truly democratic states. As it is, we have a world war instigated by proponents of oligarchic democracy, i.e., a top-down form of government which relies on propaganda to ensure that the people will vote for one or other faction of the oligarchic elite, without questioning the underlying policy, which, currently, entails not only massive western terrorism in central Asia, but state authorized torture and assassination both at home and abroad, plus an end to habeus corpus and the bill of rights.
“England’s current scotch Prime Minister”
He’s Britain’s prime minister, not England’s, and only whisky can be Scotch – people are Scots or Scottish. In any case, the bugger is as English as a wet Sunday.
Perhaps you may be a little PTSD – the last British PM was Scottish, and admittedly as daft as a brush. Please accept our most sincere apologies – you have no idea how much we wish there could be no repetition.
Scary Europe – scary catalysts
7/7 Inquiry
Lady Justice Hallett has requested submissions to the Inquiry and J7 have submitted the following in summary. A full account can be viewed here:
julyseventh.co.uk/J7-Inquest-Submission/index.html
The released CCTV footage contains anomolies as listed:
1. MISSING CCTV FOOTAGE FROM LEEDS
Regarding the footage of the Nissan Micra when parked in Westfield Road, there is footage missing between 03:59:47 and 04:00:21.
2. MISSING CCTV FOOTAGE FROM WOODALL SERVICES
What is contained in the missing footage taken at Woodall Services from 04:53:21 and 04:53:51 when the passenger door to the Nissan Micra is opened and it appears that the passenger is about to exit the vehicle? Why is this not shown, given that the narrative holds that this would be one of the accused, and why is the footage of the Micra at Woodall Services partial and incomplete?
3. TANWEER’S ALLEGED CHANGE OF CLOTHES
When did Tanweer’s change of clothing happen and what evidence is there to support this? When, where and how were the tracksuit bottoms found?
4. LINDSAY & THE FIAT BRAVA AT LUTON
What measures were taken to verify that the footage showed what is described? There is a considerable gap of over 90 minutes in the released footage, between 05:07:44 and 06:39:42. Why? What does this footage show? Is there any footage in which the cars and four accused are actually identifiable?
5. LUTON PARKING TICKETS
Was there a day parking ticket on the Micra and when and where was it purchased. Why and when was the Fiat Brava removed from the car park and where is the CCTV
footage of this?
6. THE INFAMOUS LUTON TO KING’S CROSS JOURNEY
Where did the erroneous Luton to King’s Cross train time come from, given that,technically, it is the police who interview witnesses in the aftermath of a crime? Who were these witnesses and who, if not the police, interviewed them to supply the Home Office with the incorrect information?
Further, why was the original and erroneous train time based on hearsay as opposed actual, verifiable evidence, the likes of which could be obtained by ordinary members of the public and would stand up to the scrutiny of a law court? Do any eye-witness
statements exist which claim to have seen the accused on the 7.25, rather than the 07.:40, Luton to King’s Cross train?
7. TICKETS TO RIDE
What was done to ensure which timestamps were correct and how were multiple potentially erroneous timestamps correlated?
Has it been determined when and where the tickets were purchased? If so, were they return tickets as reported? What evidence exists to demonstrate when and where the
tickets were purchased? If tickets were not purchased at Luton, they would certainly have been required to gain access to the underground network so, if this is the case, when and where were these purchased?
7. MISSING CCTV FOOTAGE FROM THE LONDON UNDERGROUND
Will any footage from the London Underground, platforms and trains be released to the Inquest?
8. MISSING CCTV FOOTAGE FROM THE BUSES
Why was the 30 CCTV not operational? Why is there no released CCTV footage of Hasib Hussain from Euston Road, Euston Station or the number 91 bus it is claimed he also boarded? Who was the driver of the number 91 bus, and why did the driver of the 91 bus ‘usher passengers onto the number 30 at Euston Station’, a bus which did not follow the same route?
( April 10, 2008 7/7 helpers trial at Kingston Crown Court)
9. ABSENCE OF CORROBORATING WITNESSES
How can it be that three years later Lisa French is able to testify under oath that it was Hussain rather than the nondescript person with a bag, as reported in the Telegraph?
telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1918523/CCTV-footage-of-77-explosion-shown-in-court.html
Why are there no other witnesses to corroborate the travel of the four alleged perpetrators on 7 July 2005?
Were the eye-witnesses referenced by the Home Office narrative Richard Jones and Danny Biddle? If not, who were they?
Have the police ever identified the man that Richard Jones claims he saw? Did this ever become an avenue of investigation for police, particularly as reports exist of a “6ft 3in tall”, with “a Mediterranean look” and “dark, curly hair” in the vicinity of 18 Alexandra Grove, one of the suspected ‘bomb factories’.
mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2005/07/15/cricket-to-carnage-115875-15738492/
Neither Richard Jones nor Danny Biddle were called upon to give their testimony under oath at the trial of those cleared of conspiring with the alleged perpetrators on July 7th. Why was this? How did the testimony of someone who could not positively identify the accused in the wake of the attacks later become admissible as evidence in an allegedly related trial after she had decided she now could positively identify one of the accused?
10. INCONCLUSIVE IDENTIFICATION EVIDENCE
How is it possible that the accused made their alleged journeys, but were not captured in further CCTV images?
11. THE ‘ICONIC IMAGE’ THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN
At what location is the “euphoric hugging” alleged to have occurred and on what evidence are these conclusions based. What are the details of the alleged movements of the accused thereafter, and what evidence is used to corroborate the allegations? Where is the ‘iconic image’ and why has it never been published?
12. THE FIFTH MAN
There is also the presence of a reported fifth rucksack left in the boot of the Micra –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-356180/Primed-bombs-point-suicide-cells.html
– one more rucksack than four people would require. Who was the person that the Home Office claimed “The press reported later that a known extremist figure and possible mastermind left the UK shortly before the bombings. There is no evidence that this individual was involved.”
With sincere thanks to Bridget and Ant for their hard work on behalf of the bereaved families and the British public.
It’s surely worth torturing or killing a few of the inferior races to protect the white man. The world without white civilisation would be a jungle.
“only whisky can be Scotch ”
Yeah?
Scotch (skch)
n.
1. (used with a pl. verb) The people of Scotland.
2. Scots.
3. Scotch whisky.
adj.
1. Scottish. See Usage Note at Scottish.
2. Offensive Frugal with one’s money.
[Contraction of Scottish.]
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Scotch
As for England, I use the term as did historian A.J.P. Taylor in “English History 1914-1945 (1965)” — as a synonym for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
@ Gulag Galore
@ “The world without white civilisation would be a jungle.”
The sentence might as well read: ” The world with the white man is a jungle.”
If you consider a short list for the twentieth Century:-
The civilized Beligian Congo slaughters
The Kaiser’s civilized role in advancing First World War
The most civilized genocidal actions of Adolph Hitler
The civilized bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
The civilized taking of half a million Asian lives during the Vietnam war and the defoliation in Cambodian and other human and environmental destruction
The civilized invasion of Iraq ( sorry ?” that brings me to the next century).
Off topic:
Just read a nice article on the most profilagate group involed in the black slave trade?
who do you think they are, French, English, American…think again, any takers?
Thank you for posting that Mark. The stink of rotten fish?
“The world with the white man is a jungle.”
I don’t think it is helpful to discuss the international struggle for power and its brutal and bloody consequences in racial terms. Hegemony, as Zbigniew Brzezinski will tell you, is as old as man and has been pursued by men of all colors. Much as some would like to see the white race annihilated, life would be no more peaceful under the rule of a latter day Ghengis Khan or some of the more brutal African aspirants to power.
If the white race has, since the enlightenment, been pre-eminent in the exercise of global power, those who live in the present or former white nations (I take it that all here but myself are agreed that the British are not a race and in any case if they were they rightly deserve to be submerged by the philoprogenitive immigrant flood) should feel fortunate to have lived on the side of the winners and in a world that until recently, at least, was very far from being a jungle.
The important question, I believe, for those who oppose the war for global empire was raised by Bill Clinton who asked, in a moment of candor: “how do we create a world in which we will be secure when we are no longer the greatest power on earth” or some such words. Could such a system exist? If so, how would it work?
It’s obvious that there have been several attempts to cause terrorist atrocities in Europe and the US over the last few years. Thanks to the fact that most of the alleged perpetrators are thick-as-shit, bone-headed religious fruitcakes, they haven’t had much success. But I remember Simon Jenkins, with magnificent timing, writing a similar article to yours, Craig. Right on the eve of the Atocha bombings.
Vronsky, I’ve had that ‘Scotch’ discourse with Alfred before. Words are malleable, polyvalent and meanings change over time. For many years, ‘Scotch’ was used by many English people to mean ‘Scottish’. However, nowadays, I think most Scottish people would probably bridle if referred to as ‘Scotch’. I sense that they might feel that it carries with it a dismissive and almost colonial arrogance. The term, in this usage, has become some archaic and obsolescent.
“the philoprogenitive immigrant flood…” Alfred.
Alfred, the only floods recently have been in Pakistan – they submerged 25% of the entire country, most of the arable land was under water. Sarko sent ‘back’ the Roma, so maybe Sarko should emigrate to Hungary? And Carla Bruni, to Italy? And you, to Devon?
Re. Islamist extremists: The two hypotheses are not mutually incompatible. In other words, the Islamist extremists most certainly exist and they exist in the UK and they would like to inflict death and damage. I know this to be true.
But I don’t think the relationship of the ‘intelligence and security services’ and the Islamist extremists is that of The White Knight and The Black Slasher. The ‘Spooks’ portrayal of spooks is far too simplistic and at times – though it’s certainly good entertainment – seems designed to maintain maximal existential terror among the populace. ‘Smiley’s People’ was more accurate. I reckon at times, the spooks and the nutters are riding the same tiger. And so, it is right to express deep suspicion of this whole area. Think, for a moment, of Northern Ireland.
Re Vronsky “the last British PM was Scottish”. More accurately the last two were, Blair born Edinburgh, Brown born Glasgow-ish!
Okay, okay, rub it in!
Well how about Cameron, David, of the crooked-nosed clan, father, Ian Donald Cameron, b. Huntly, Aberdeenshire, 1932, not to mention great great grandparent, James Duff, 5th Earl of Fife.
The English are clearly an occupied and oppressed people.
“Alfred, the only floods recently have been in Pakistan”
Not so, Suhayl.
From “UK population projected to grow by 4 million over the
next decade United Kingdom”
U.K. Office of National Statistics (October, 2009)
“… Of the 10.2 million projected increase in the UK population over the next 25 years, 55 per cent is projected natural increase (more births than deaths) and 45 per cent is projected net migration. However, future numbers of births and deaths are themselves partly dependent on future migration. Taking this into account, just over two-thirds of the projected total increase in the UK population between 2008 and 2033 is expected to be either directly or indirectly due to future migration.”
And note that many births between 2008 and 2033 were or will be to mothers who have already immigrated.
But keep saying it’s not happening and perhaps the British will not notice that they are the victims of the remarkable phenomenon of national autogenocide.
This a long but very good film about 7/7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAj6RF5inqw&feature=player_embedded#!
Thanks for the link Ruth
Seeds of Destruction [sic]…
Unless of course the British public ‘wise-up’…