Daily Ramblings:
There's A Battle Outside And It Is Ragin' ...07/08/2005 09:50:42 am
It's pretty clear that the London bombings did not cause as many deaths as the terrorists would have hoped. This can be partly attributed to the bravery and resourcefulness of both the victims and the rescuers. Terrorists always anticipate that blind panic will help their cause. It is to be hoped that the spirit of stoicism and unity that many Britons have been displaying will only strengthen and continue.
Some of-course did not need to see the war come to London to know that they already were at war. Melanie Phillips today has some harsh truth-telling to deliver:
It was nauseating to witness the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, deliver his ringing condemnation of terrorism yesterday — the same Ken Livingstone who invited the terrorism supporter and Islamic extremist Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi to speak in the capital last summer and physically embraced him on the platform.
And five months ago, a new Metropolitan Police Commissioner was appointed - one who, in a time of war with Islamofascism, has made issues of "diversity" one of his top priorities.
While few would disagree that the Met has to be sensitive to the needs of ethnic minorities, Sir Ian’s obsession with attacking ‘Islamophobia’ is now raising serious concerns among certain police officers and security sources. It is getting in the way of the job the police are called upon to do. Officers who try to address the delicate issue of terrorism and its supporters within the Muslim community now find themselves in danger of being accused within their own force of Islamophobia.
The situation has become so grave that some members of the security services no longer trust the Met with sensitive counter-terrorist information. Law-abiding and patriotic Muslims – and the great majority are just that --who try to give the police vital information about extremists sometimes find to their dismay and disbelief that it is not acted upon. And throughout, there is a woeful dearth of Islamic experts and a disastrous paucity of insightful and informed analysis.And yesterday the old school British leftist Tony Benn was doing the rounds and shamelessly blaming Britons themselves for the torn up bodies in the London Underground:
Well, it is a product of the war. I think of everyone killed everywhere as a product of the war, every Palestinian, every Israeli, every Iraqi, every Afghan, every American, every Spaniard, every Britain is a victim of the war. And I suppose our immediate concern is to protect London, obviously. That's our thought to look after the people who have been injured and the bereaved, but you do have to think about this. And when I hear the President and the Prime Minister saying, we will beat them, we will beat them, they are full of hate, and we are not, and we are killing people there, I think it will inevitably ask -- lead people to think and ask: Is there another way forward? And I was with Scott Ritter last night, whom you know very well, talking about the decent Americans who are really concerned and worried about what's happening, and with the casualties you are suffering, enormous, what is it, 1,750 service men and women killed and 8,000, 7 to 8,000 injured, bound to consider this and to ask, is this the only way? Is it really necessary that we should continue as if there's no alternative? What is the alternative? What could you do. Are there injustices that if they were resolved might ease the tension? But the tragedy is innocent people are killed. And that is people's first concern, but I feel the same for people bombed in Baghdad as I do in London or New York. I'm bound to.
So, he represents a significant and loud constituency who will react to this attack by demanding retreat and conciliation, blissfully unaware of the fact that in order to negotiate a peace, you must first have a negotiating partner. And there is none here. There is only a toxic movement of extreme Islamists who regard the West as being filled with infidels deserving of death, and who regard Muslims who do not support them as apostates deserving of death. Any demand given in to will only confirm their perception that the West is too decadent and weak to defend itself, and will leave only more demands to be made, up to and including requiring all women to be covered, the banning of music, movies and non-Islamic art, and the imposition of all of other aspects of Sharia law.
For those who react to hearing this by thinking that such a notion is too utterly ridiculous to even be considered or feared, please remember that the idea of creating a super-race of Aryans, exterminating Jews, the disabled, and homosexuals, and having a world where everyone swore loyalty to a nutty little man with a funny moustache was also utterly ridiculous. This fact did not, however, prevent World War II. In fact, it was precisely the inability of so many to recognize the seriousness of intent of the Nazi movement that allowed it to embolden, strengthen and indeed triumph to the degree that it did - coming terrifyingly close to engulfing Britain itself, but for the fantastic work of those few to whom so many owed so much.
Now, in other words, is not the time to give up Czechoslovakia. And while I do not believe that the British will do that, the battle will go on amongst ourselves - on both sides of the Atlantic - to maintain the confidence needed to repel this enemy.
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