The brief wave of Islamic terrorism in the UK followed our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and effectively stopped when those occupations ended. In every case of actual terrorist attack, the terrorists involved cited those invasions as a key part of their motive. There may yet be another residual attack, but as a campaign it is over, and historical perspective will show it related purely to our invasion of Islamic lands.
Yet we have suffered a week of media propaganda aimed at repeating the mantra that Isis’ success in Iraq will lead to terrorist attacks in the UK. The only apparent purpose of this mantra is to justify some degree of US/UK intervention in Iraq’s current civil war. As it was the US/UK invasion which caused this civil war in the first place, this is ironic. As any form of UK intervention is the only thing that might in fact provoke Iraq related terrorist attacks in the UK, it is a crazed argument; the absolute opposite of the truth.
The brief period of Islamic linked terrorism in the UK killed about eighty people – a tiny percentage of those who died in the UK from Irish linked violence in the 70’s and 80’s – but had two disproportionately dreadful effects. The first was a massive reduction in civil liberties in the UK. The second was the spawning of a vast and parasitic security industry, both within government, and in the private sector but government funded.
The patent absence of any genuine Islamic terrorism in the UK to fight is an obvious threat to the funding of this huge industry. Hence the current hype about the threat from Birmingham school governors or British residents fighting in Iraq and Syria. We have the usual propagandists for this threat thrust upon the airwaves again – Frank “Goebbels” Gardner and even the utterly discredited “Quilliam Foundation” who have been back on the BBC. At the moment they are peddling the utterly untrue line that 9% of those who travel from the UK to participate in fighting abroad, on return get involved in terrorist activity in the UK. Frank Gardner has been repeating this ad nauseam.
This claim is absolutely unfounded. It is brought to you by the same people who claim there are 4,000 active terrorists in the UK, or that MI5 foiled 34 active terrorist plots.
How gullible do you have to be to believe that in the last seven years this 4,000 committed terrorists in the UK, with their 34 active plots, managed to kill nobody at all, except for the two deranged and utterly disorganised Nigerians who murdered the unfortunate Lee Rigby? The other 3,998 must be the world’s least productive terrorists. Surely between 3,998 fanatical and committed murderous terrorists they could at least have injured somebody? The truth is that in the last seven years Irish political violence has again killed more people in the UK than Islamist political violence.
If you have 4,000 totally non-productive fantasy terrorists, then it is not surprising that you think that one in nine of those who go to fight abroad are involved in such “terrorism” in the UK. In fact, the terrorist threat in the UK is miniscule and the entire narrative is a nonsense. You have a much greater chance of drowning in your own bath than of being killed by a terrorist. The death of Gerald Conlon should be a sobering reminder of the willingness of English juries to make completely improbable terrorist convictions on the say-so of the authorities.
There has probably not been a war abroad in the last two hundred years in which some UK resident did not go and fight. The BBC and Sky news headline today is about someone from Aberdeen who went to fight for Isis. That is meant to terrify us about terrorism here.
Nonsense.
Somebody else from Aberdeen went to fight in a war abroad. George Gordon, Lord Byron, went to fight for the Greek revolt against Ottoman rule, and died of fever in a Balkan swamp. (Under Blair’s “anti-terror” legislation, that would have made Byron guilty of terrorism in the UK). In the same decade George De Lacey Evans went to fight for the Spanish Infanta against her uncle. Several Britons including David Urquhart fought against the Russian invasion of Circassia. I am talking in all these cases of politically motivated volunteers, not mercenaries. A number of British residents fought in the Franco-Prussian war. Several Britons fought for the Confederates in the US civil war – almost certainly some fought for the Union as well, but I can’t claim to know of them. Garibaldi had a Welsh officer called Griffiths. We should all be terrifically proud of the Britons in the International Brigades in Spain. British residents fought on all sides in the recent civil wars in the Balkans. I should be astonished if some British residents of Ukrainian and Russian heritage had not gone to join militias there at present.
Nor should we forget that the same political establishment which so deplores Britons going abroad to fight, has legalised, massively encouraged and financed the mercenary activities of hired killers like Tim Spicer and Tony Buckingham. The hypocrisy is rank and stinking.
The dreadful violence and destruction the West has inflicted and promoted in recent years in its efforts to gain control of the mineral resources of the Middle East continues to play out. Those who see communities with which they identify abroad engaged in military conflict will always produce a small number of people going to join the fight. This is in no sense unusual, and in no sense a threat to ordinary citizens in the UK. The link to terrorism here is entirely a fiction. The unfortunate thing is that the mainstream media allows no outlet for people to mock its false assertions and point out its sinister agenda.
So whose profits does ISIS in Iraq threaten?
Craig you are a shining light on the dark underworld of the criminals in power. Your insightful blog needs as much exposure as possible. Please could you add a share this widget to your blog. I would like to share your posts with my 5000 twitter followers and I’m sure many other readers would like to spread the word too
Mods
Can anyone implement Adrian’s suggestion?
Good suggestion.
Playing devils advocate, these young men have made up their mind to, in some cases leave their families in secret, to die abroad fighting for some goal in the middle east more important to them then their own life’s with little regard given to their family at home.
Fine by me, but when they are weary of the blood they spilled for some Saudi prince, why should they be allowed back to infuse others with tales of heroics?
Have they themselves not made a case and reasoned argument for not letting them go back to Aberdeen? or wherever.
you fight for Saudi Arabian princes and survived it, now go live in Saudi under their system.
A wonderfully erudite essay, the content of which gives us the truth.
I still deeply regret that the electorate of Norwich North chose a non- entity instead of Craig. Think of the contribution he could have made to our country as an independent MP and how he would have enlivened and greatly improved the currently dismal proceedings in the HoC.
It all takes the spotlight off our fucked economy and the consequences thereof, doesn’t it?
I’m thinking the government is a good deal more scared of general unrest at home than it likes to let on. A bit of divisive dog-whistle politics and ever-enhanced security (plainly all-embracing, not directed) can’t hurt. And as you say, the security industry can only benefit, ditto the finance houses.
What of the 400? While I’m a bit dubious when you suggest that anyone voluntarily entering a warzone isn’t pretty strongly motivated, let’s say that only half have been successfully indoctrinated, and the rest are in it for shits ‘n giggles. The fundies will be happy to go to Paradise, and maybe half of them will succeed in this. Of the rest, if no-one’s offering them cash to stay, they’ll be happy to go back – if they go back – and get their MBA’s and ChB’s somewhere they don’t have to live in a trench with sandflies. If our system.s that good, they will recognise its advantages. Is it? Ah, that’s another question.
Not forgetting this dreadful construct of Brown’s, Armed Forces Day 28 June 2014.
A special flag is flying over central and local government buildings and on Saturday there are march pasts and there is CoE involvement in accompanying services.
http://news.surreycc.gov.uk/2014/06/23/surrey-ceremony-kicks-off-armed-forces-week/
I honour the men and women of my father’s and grandfather’s generation for their parts in the two defensive wars but that’s it. Certainly no commemoration of the 52 (I think I read) actions that this country has been involved in since 1945 can be justified.
Absolutely bloody sickening. Shades of the Limp Ics even. Note the ‘goodies’.
http://www.armedforcesday.org.uk/supporting/buy_afd_goodies.aspx
http://www.armedforcesday.org.uk/
Another excellent piece Craig. Keep them coming. I also echo the calls above for a “Share” widget (twitter and facebook). With the ever increasing MSM blackout of anything that shows our masters for who they really are it’s vital that contributions such as your own are shared far and wide on social media.
Adrian
There is a “tweet” button at the bottom of Craig’s post. (And one for Facebook)
The Medialens editors on Ms Maitlis’s contribution to the war on terrrrrr.
You didn’t hear this on Newsnight
Posted by The Editors on June 24, 2014, 8:42 am
Emily Maitlis introduces Newsnight:
‘They’re young, British and fighting for the US. Who’s persuading teenagers from Coventry to fly to Iraq and pursue imperialism? We ask their parents.’
No, I must have misheard that. Correction:
‘They’re young, British and fighting for Isis. Who’s persuading teenagers from Coventry to fly to Syria and pursue jihad? We ask their parents.’
That makes more sense, right? As if the BBC would ever adopt the first approach above. ‘Balance’ means you don’t get to see that happen!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0486cm7/newsnight-23062014
I understand that her guests were an Imam, Lord Carlile (no comment possible for fear of legal action) and an Arab observer who had been a ‘jihadist’ himself.
Maitlis is acting political editor on Newsnight pending the return of Allegra Statton from maternity leave. Stratton was on the foreign desk at the Times and is married to James Forsyth political editor Spectator!
Their first child is named Vaughn Casper Stratton Forsyth. Poor kid going through life in the C21 with that handle.
‘So whose profits does ISIS in Iraq threaten?’
Good question, Clark, as ISIS is a construct of Saudi paid mercenaries and some hopefull jihadies persuaded to leave their families.
So Saudi interest are not our interests? We do like a little chaos and division for our own business to flourish, but Saudi taking control and marching on Iran, just when we trying to make peace with(get more oil out of)Iran.
Isis, imho is threatening the profits of multinationals already involved in Iraq and hence our control over politicians who say Yes. Maliki’s tribal exascerbations were never going to work, it was clear that he could not run a Shia only Government, so Kerry’s urgent noises now, when the brown matter has finally hit the fan, are somewhat ancient, were predictable.
Adrian, are the buttons Dreoilin pointed out what you want?
No irony.
The Queen meets Northern Ireland’s First Minister and Deputy First Minister as she visits an ex-jail where 25,000 were imprisoned.
http://news.sky.com/story/1288105/ex-inmates-show-queen-around-the-crum
Amazing what people will do for a shake of the royal {gloved) hand.
Cheers Craig. When Cressida Dick pops up as some kind of bloody expert you know it’s time to stop listening – useless would be an improvement.
Two other examples come to mind.
Future Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson and his friend Arthur Henry Hallam,whose death was the inspiration for ‘In Memoriam’, carried money and secret instructions to General Torrijos during the first Carlist War.
( Imagine the BBC’s report: The question being asked in the quiet Lincolnshire village of Sommersby is : how did these Cambridge undergraduates, one the Rector’s son, become involved with traditionalist Catholic violence?”)
The second example is my late ex-wife’s great-great-grandfather, a seaman from Portsmouth, who jumped ship in an American port during the Civil War and joined the Northern Navy.
Discharged following an accident in which his hand was crushed by a swivel on Chesapeake Bay he returned home.He received a US pension until his death in about 1930 and was buried under the US flag in Milton Cemetery.
“Isis, imho is threatening the profits of multinationals already involved in Iraq”
So far they’ve kept clear of the oil-fields so multinational profits are unaffected. In fact the oil price has increased. There have been attacks on refineries but these only produce gasoline for the domestic market.
Iranian long-term interests are certainly threatened. Iran is planning to build a gas pipeline to serve the European market. It will go across Iraq and terminate at the mediterranean coast in Syria. Can’t see that happening with all this kerfuffle going on.
I don’t call them ISIS. I call them the BSI (Bankster Street Irregulars).
my blogpost> Isis ? What Crisis ? bit.ly/1yAYE03
http://xtcuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/isis-what-crisis/
New details emerge on Aberdeen jihadist
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27994085
Father: Teenager fighting in Syria was ‘radicalised by imam’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27989893
Third jihadist in Isis video from Aberdeen
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27987594
Jihadists all over the BBC website today.
They are also reporting 1,000 deaths in Iraq so far this month.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Iraq between 5 and 22 June, most of them civilians, the UN says.
PS O/T Rebekah Brooks not guilty of phone hacking. Coulson guilty. Kuttner not guilty. Brooks seems to have got off on all charges. Surprise! Surprise!
Craig wrote:
Security services operate with no effective official public oversight whatsoever; their claims and allegations, by definition, cannot be challenged because the evidence necessary to do so is officially secret.
Theoretically, “press freedom” within democracies should confer the protection of healthy scepticism. But the “news” media, both state-controlled and commercial, mostly do the opposite, repeating and amplifying unsubstantiated pronouncements without challenge. This is to be expected even in the commercial sector, where juicy tid-bits from shady “experts” confer an air of “insider knowledge” upon a paper and hence its readers – ultimately an appeal to readers’ vanity.
Security services have thus come to occupy uniquely privileged positions within state apparatus. Now let’s all watch the drama 24 to assuage our conscience about torture.
Isis ? What Crisis ?
sir peter fahy could not defend or verify the 500 claimed radicalised. he could only say there were 30 plus known in an interview on lbc radio interview.
James Brooke the White Rajah of Sarawak
A refresher course on Frank Gardner: http://shaphan.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/franks-wild-yea.html
“The unfortunate thing is that the mainstream media allows no outlet for people to mock its false assertions and point out its sinister agenda.”
I totally agree. Unfortunately it happens here too from time to time, as when somebody criticises homosexuality for entering the political sphere. For example, the term ‘Sodomite’ is historically established from the Bible as meaning those that practice sexual perversion; and the people that refer to the ‘meaning’ of words from within the Bible, are not necessarily religious, or bigoted, themselves. Whereas those that censor for the use of such words, in accord to their political stance, are wholly bigoted.
Before you can lecture others about the freedom to scrutinise false claims, you must first show willingness to curtail all censorship from those that claim to help this site.
Classic tabloid stuff. What MI5 claimed was that “there are up to 4,000 active terrorists and supporters of terror” in the UK. It’s certain sections of the media that have inflated this to “4,000 terrorists”. Of course the phrase “up to” clearly includes the number 0 but if just one bloke was prepared to blow himself up whilst 3,999 stood around applauding the claim would still be correct.
I would suggest that there is a considerable difference between going to fight in defence of a legitimate government and seeking to overthrow one. If there’s a danger from returning fighters it’s not so much that they’ve been radicalised but that they’ll have undergone some form of military training which might make them half way competent. If we’ve had few successful terror attacks since 2001 we seem to have had a few hair-breadths escapes; and no thanks to the police or MI5.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22344054
Lawrence of Arabia
I think the relatives of the deceased Jean Charles de Menezes would see Operation Kratos as one of the ‘successful terror attacks since 2001’.
Perhaps none of this would have happened if he’d had his way…
http://www.cliohistory.org/thomas-lawrence/paris/
The British called their opponents in India ‘Fanatics’.
The real problem is not what the UK government tells its domestic audience about Islam, or what the domestic audience think about Islam. The purpose of the labelling is to divide and rule, by dividing the good Muslims, who smile sweetly and clap their local MPs and stick leaflets in the doors for them and say nothing about UK foreign policy, and the bad Muslims who refuse to shut up.
Treats and rewards are available for the silent, positions of respect and seats on councils, acceptance of bribes for restaurant licences and dodgier things than that. The silent ones have to be seen to put clear green water between themselves and the outspoken seekers after truth. The green water of the canal, and it stinks.