Britain Only Now Sees It's Harbored Terrorist Cells

[Broken Glass Can]

Britain Only Now Sees It's Harbored Terrorist Cells (http://www.nysun.com/article/16991)

Britain is in shock. Not just from the traumatic and grudging realization last Thursday that the country is at war, but from the discovery that the attack on London was the work of four suicide bombers, all of them young British Muslims. Readers of this column will not have been surprised by this realization, but it is only just dawning on the great British public that it has unwittingly harbored a terrorist cell in its midst, and that more "sleepers" may emerge to destroy us at any moment.

The uncanny dread that this knowledge engenders cannot be allayed by assurances from the authorities or from Muslim leaders that the attack on London had nothing to do with Islam. Such rhetoric has a hollow ring, now that we know the identities of the terrorists.

For these were ordinary young Muslims, born in Yorkshire to families who migrated from Pakistan a generation ago. One family ran a fish-and-chip take-away, another a grocery. Their fathers were pillars of the Leeds Muslim community. And yet these respectable families were incubating monsters who set off with backpacks full of explosives to kill and maim as many of their fellow countrymen as possible.

One of the suicide bombers, Hasib Hussain, aged 18, had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, having become a devout Muslim two years ago and grown a beard. According to friends," he never came across as any sort of fanatic." Shahzad Tanweer, 22, was a cricketer, who apparently told friends that he disapproved of the attacks on America of September 11, 2001. A third bomber, Mohammed Sidique Khan, was married and had become a father eight months ago. A fourth man, whose remains are still being identified in the grisly forensic operation in the subway deep below King's Cross station, probably came from a similar background.

As long as the visible face of the Islamist threat in Britain was the one-eyed, hook-handed imam of Finsbury Park mosque, Abu Hamza, whom American authorities have accused of setting up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, the public could at least feel that they knew their enemy. The imam, who lived a few doors away from me in our quiet West London street until his arrest last year, looked and sounded like a demagogic fundamentalist. His trial on terrorism charges has only just begun, and it is a scandal that it took so many years to assemble a case against him, but he was too identifiable ever to blend into the crowd.

That is not true of the Leeds suicide bombers. None of them obviously fitted the stereotype of the religious and political fanatic. If these young men could suddenly turn on their neighbors and kill them, why should those neighbors trust other young Muslims? It is hard to believe that none of their friends and relations suspected anything, but if they genuinely did not, then the implications are even more alarming.

There are up to 3 million Muslims living in Britain, the great majority of whom are British citizens. If, as the security services believe, about 3,000 of them have been recruited and trained by Al Qaeda, then one in a thousand Muslims is at least a potential terrorist. But at the last general election the Muslim community voted en bloc against the Blair government, on account of its support for the Iraq war and the Bush administration. Opinion polls confirm that a large proportion of Muslims, perhaps as many as half, have at least some sympathy with terror attacks against America and Israel.

So the one-in-a-thousand who is prepared to die for Islam can count on a much larger number who at the very least will not lift a finger to stop him. What is the government going to do about them?

It doesn't trust us enough to tell us the truth. We Londoners have been patting ourselves on the back about the lack of panic last Thursday, but it is now clear that the transport chiefs deliberately lied to us, claiming that a "power surge" had obliged them to close down the Underground, because they did not trust us not to panic if they admitted that we were under terrorist assault. Next time, nobody will believe such announcements.

It is also becoming clear that the government thought the British public would turn on their Muslim neighbors if it were told the truth. The police themselves have contributed to the myth that the real problem now facing us is not Islam, but Islamophobia. There have been a handful of incidents since last Thursday, but certainly nothing that could be called a backlash.

Yet the desire to prove that London's Metropolitan Police is not Islamophobic has created grotesque examples of political correctness. Scotland Yard is contributing $15,000 of taxpayers' money to enable a Swiss Islamist academic who is a recognized apologist for terrorism, Tariq Ramadan, to address a conference of young Muslims in London next month, despite knowing full well that Mr. Ramadan had been banned from America.

The result of this bad faith between the government and the governed is quite serious. Now that at last we know who and what we are up against, we are no longer sure that the authorities are on our side. The police protect Islam - I saw two constables standing guard outside the local mosque yesterday morning - but they are powerless to protect the rest of society against the Islamists. Exhorted to be vigilant, people fear accusations of Islamophobia if they voice their suspicions. It is so much easier to blame the Iraq war or the Americans or the Israelis than to face the horrific truth: that we now have a fifth column, nameless, faceless, and utterly ruthless, dedicated to transforming Britain into an Islamic republic.

[Zeno]

Bump.

An interesting post that deserves some comment.

-Zeno

[Arnfinn Madsen]

What sorts of comments, and from whom?

[[censored]]

[ QUOTE ]
Abu Hamza, whom American authorities have accused of setting up a terrorist training camp in Oregon,

[/ QUOTE ]

not suprising

[[censored]]

I think the obvious result is that in the future there will be a real discussion if the Islamic and Western world can mesh into one functioning society.

The outcome? I don't know.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

No real alternative though. Too dependant upon eachother. Two civilizations sitting on each their turf with both having nuclear weapons may be recipe for disaster.

[[censored]]

[ QUOTE ]
Two civilizations sitting on each their turf with both having nuclear weapons may be recipe for disaster.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seemed to work out out fine during the cold war.

[lastchance]

But it was touch and go for a few times (Cuban Missile Crisis), and it's a very dangerous game of Chicken.

[SheetWise]

We are beginning that discussion.

SheetWise

[[censored]]

[ QUOTE ]
But it was touch and go for a few times (Cuban Missile Crisis), and it's a very dangerous game of Chicken.

[/ QUOTE ]

very true and I am not saying it is the best outcome. Only that there is some merit to mutually assured destruction.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

[ QUOTE ]
But it was touch and go for a few times (Cuban Missile Crisis), and it's a very dangerous game of Chicken.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point, the crisis led to more frequent dialogue to avoid misunderstandings. On list of nations likely to misunderstand eachother I put USA-Iran high, since both sides' leaders use harsh rhetoric in public.

Difficult to know these things though, might even be secret red-line arrangements made between Iran and USA as none of them really wants a big conflict with the other.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the obvious result is that in the future there will be a real discussion if the Islamic and Western world can mesh into one functioning society.

The outcome? I don't know.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am optimistic on this, probably since I live in a city where this meshing has been relatively successful. When I look at the youth I get more optimistic. Why it could not be successful on a larger scale I really don't understand.

The culture which has developed contains some consensus though:
-Some kind of anti-Israeli, slightly anti-American sentiment (jews think this is not a good place to live so the picture is not perfect).
-Scepticism to religious authorities of both religious.
-Intercultural humour (icebreaker).

[KaneKungFu123]

they only killed 50 people.

the chance of getting killed by a terrorist are equal to hitting the lottery.

Buttom Line: Lets play the fear card.

RED ALERT LEVEL.

$$$$$$$$$$$$

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
[ QUOTE ]
Britain Only Now Sees It's Harbored Terrorist Cells (http://www.nysun.com/article/16991)

Britain is in shock. Not just from the traumatic and grudging realization last Thursday that the country is at war, but from the discovery that the attack on London was the work of four suicide bombers, all of them young British Muslims. Readers of this column will not have been surprised by this realization, but it is only just dawning on the great British public that it has unwittingly harbored a terrorist cell in its midst, and that more "sleepers" may emerge to destroy us at any moment.

The uncanny dread that this knowledge engenders cannot be allayed by assurances from the authorities or from Muslim leaders that the attack on London had nothing to do with Islam. Such rhetoric has a hollow ring, now that we know the identities of the terrorists.

For these were ordinary young Muslims, born in Yorkshire to families who migrated from Pakistan a generation ago. One family ran a fish-and-chip take-away, another a grocery. Their fathers were pillars of the Leeds Muslim community. And yet these respectable families were incubating monsters who set off with backpacks full of explosives to kill and maim as many of their fellow countrymen as possible.

One of the suicide bombers, Hasib Hussain, aged 18, had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, having become a devout Muslim two years ago and grown a beard. According to friends," he never came across as any sort of fanatic." Shahzad Tanweer, 22, was a cricketer, who apparently told friends that he disapproved of the attacks on America of September 11, 2001. A third bomber, Mohammed Sidique Khan, was married and had become a father eight months ago. A fourth man, whose remains are still being identified in the grisly forensic operation in the subway deep below King's Cross station, probably came from a similar background.

As long as the visible face of the Islamist threat in Britain was the one-eyed, hook-handed imam of Finsbury Park mosque, Abu Hamza, whom American authorities have accused of setting up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, the public could at least feel that they knew their enemy. The imam, who lived a few doors away from me in our quiet West London street until his arrest last year, looked and sounded like a demagogic fundamentalist. His trial on terrorism charges has only just begun, and it is a scandal that it took so many years to assemble a case against him, but he was too identifiable ever to blend into the crowd.

That is not true of the Leeds suicide bombers. None of them obviously fitted the stereotype of the religious and political fanatic. If these young men could suddenly turn on their neighbors and kill them, why should those neighbors trust other young Muslims? It is hard to believe that none of their friends and relations suspected anything, but if they genuinely did not, then the implications are even more alarming.

There are up to 3 million Muslims living in Britain, the great majority of whom are British citizens. If, as the security services believe, about 3,000 of them have been recruited and trained by Al Qaeda, then one in a thousand Muslims is at least a potential terrorist. But at the last general election the Muslim community voted en bloc against the Blair government, on account of its support for the Iraq war and the Bush administration. Opinion polls confirm that a large proportion of Muslims, perhaps as many as half, have at least some sympathy with terror attacks against America and Israel.

So the one-in-a-thousand who is prepared to die for Islam can count on a much larger number who at the very least will not lift a finger to stop him. What is the government going to do about them?

It doesn't trust us enough to tell us the truth. We Londoners have been patting ourselves on the back about the lack of panic last Thursday, but it is now clear that the transport chiefs deliberately lied to us, claiming that a "power surge" had obliged them to close down the Underground, because they did not trust us not to panic if they admitted that we were under terrorist assault. Next time, nobody will believe such announcements.

It is also becoming clear that the government thought the British public would turn on their Muslim neighbors if it were told the truth. The police themselves have contributed to the myth that the real problem now facing us is not Islam, but Islamophobia. There have been a handful of incidents since last Thursday, but certainly nothing that could be called a backlash.

Yet the desire to prove that London's Metropolitan Police is not Islamophobic has created grotesque examples of political correctness. Scotland Yard is contributing $15,000 of taxpayers' money to enable a Swiss Islamist academic who is a recognized apologist for terrorism, Tariq Ramadan, to address a conference of young Muslims in London next month, despite knowing full well that Mr. Ramadan had been banned from America.

The result of this bad faith between the government and the governed is quite serious. Now that at last we know who and what we are up against, we are no longer sure that the authorities are on our side. The police protect Islam - I saw two constables standing guard outside the local mosque yesterday morning - but they are powerless to protect the rest of society against the Islamists. Exhorted to be vigilant, people fear accusations of Islamophobia if they voice their suspicions. It is so much easier to blame the Iraq war or the Americans or the Israelis than to face the horrific truth: that we now have a fifth column, nameless, faceless, and utterly ruthless, dedicated to transforming Britain into an Islamic republic.

[/ QUOTE ]

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two civilizations sitting on each their turf with both having nuclear weapons may be recipe for disaster.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Seemed to work out out fine during the cold war.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah we could bring back 'duck and cover' and start training our kids to hate anyone who's different from an early age, I'm telling you its a recipe for a better world.

Regards Mack

PS Don't forget to check your sarcasometer.

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
they only killed 50 people.

the chance of getting killed by a terrorist are equal to hitting the lottery.

Buttom Line: Lets play the fear card.

RED ALERT LEVEL.

$$$$$$$$$$$$

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow did you just say something sensible, damn.

Mack

[coffeecrazy1]

Well...since President Bush pledged to show no mercy to any country found to be harboring terrorists, does that mean we should declare war on Great Britain?

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
Well...since President Bush pledged to show no mercy to any country found to be harboring terrorists, does that mean we should declare war on Great Britain?

[/ QUOTE ]

Look at home first, the terrorists are in GWBs other pants, just like Saddams WMD.

Mack

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
they only killed 50 people.

the chance of getting killed by a terrorist are equal to hitting the lottery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since you like to put metrics on everything, I'd like to ask a few questions. I'm considering a life of crime, and my life would be a lot easier if you liberals would simply lay out for me a few numbers;

1) How many people can I kill before I'm going to get a rise out of you? Because, if that number is 50 -- I'll be sure to stop at 49. But If the number is 1,000 or 5,000 -- I'd hate to leave that much unfinished business on the table.

2) How much money can I steal, or damage can I inflict, before you will consider it significant? Again, I'd like to take as much as I can -- but if I knew where your tolerance level was it would help me immensely.

Eagerly awaiting your reply.

SheetWise

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
Bush pledged to show no mercy to any country found to be harboring terrorists, does that mean we should declare war on Great Britain?

[/ QUOTE ]

tr.v. har·bored, har·bor·ing, har·bors
To give shelter to: harbor refugees; harbor a fugitive.

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they only killed 50 people.

the chance of getting killed by a terrorist are equal to hitting the lottery.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Since you like to put metrics on everything, I'd like to ask a few questions. I'm considering a life of crime, and my life would be a lot easier if you liberals would simply lay out for me a few numbers;

1) How many people can I kill before I'm going to get a rise out of you? Because, if that number is 50 -- I'll be sure to stop at 49. But If the number is 1,000 or 5,000 -- I'd hate to leave that much unfinished business on the table.

2) How much money can I steal, or damage can I inflict, before you will consider it significant? Again, I'd like to take as much as I can -- but if I knew where your tolerance level was it would help me immensely.

Eagerly awaiting your reply.

SheetWise

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets get it straight one is too many, but it shouldn't be used as a lever to take away our basic freedoms, or as an excuse to annihilate every Muslim on the planet, they want us scared so we'll let them kill without us asking questions, thats the problem here. If we let them turn us into paranoid police states then terror will have achieved its goals.

Mack

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
Britain Only Now Sees It's Harbored Terrorist Cells (http://www.nysun.com/article/16991)

Britain is in shock.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm from the UK - London, actually. It isn't in shock at all. We just get on with it, as always. In shock suggests a violent reaction or response.

Don't believe everything you read. The media is geared to sensationalism.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
Well...since President Bush pledged to show no mercy to any country found to be harboring terrorists, does that mean we should declare war on Great Britain?

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. He'd have a job. We'd be too difficult for GWB to handle.

Try the French, they'll be a pushover (just ask the English, the Germans etc etc).

[lehighguy]

What's your proposed solution? Ethnic internment camps worked in WWII. However, I don't want to go down that road again.

[daveymck]

I think we are starting to see a political backlash on this with calls coming on some of the Islamic leaders to start taking a bit more control over what is happening within the faith including a meeting at downing street with some religious leaders.

It seems within Islam from what is being said there is a gap between the religious elders and the new younger westernised generations, there is a lot of conflict for a lot of these young people anyway as they try to balance western living with their own culture and perhaps more so their families expectations.

Some of the clerics who are seen as moderate who condemn 9/11 and the London suicide bombings are pro suicide bombings in Isreal so there is a lot of complexities
around the whole of this issue.

Are their terrorist cells in the UK I am sure there still are, I am sure there are those actively recruiting as well, however I suspect this is the case in the US as well. The problem comes though if you come down hard on these people you then create an enviroment where more moderate people feel victimized as they get caught up in it and you possibly encourage the cycle of hate just like in Isreal and Ireland where conflicts have been ongoing for so long.

We probably need to look to adress why these young people feel so disillutioned with the country they were born and raised in and address things that way rather than cracking down so hard that things get out of control.

[Hasso]

[ QUOTE ]
We probably need to look to adress why these young people feel so disillutioned with the country they were born and raised in and address things that way rather than cracking down so hard that things get out of control.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard some nonsense in my time but this takes the biscuit. Evil murderers should be; caught, tortured in order to extract information ( and pour encourager les outres) and then killed. Things are already 'out of control', the liberal elite that has allowed this to happen in my city believe this crap. My father was Latvian when the Nazis came to his country he didnt care about their motives for being Nazis he along with many of his country men fought them un-remittingly. When the Russians came more of the same, the Russians ended Latvian insurgency by brutal methods, I can tell you from my own family history killing insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters doesn't led to more 'terrorists' its leads to more corpses (and victory).

[daveymck]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We probably need to look to adress why these young people feel so disillutioned with the country they were born and raised in and address things that way rather than cracking down so hard that things get out of control.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard some nonsense in my time but this takes the biscuit. Evil murderers should be; caught, tortured in order to extract information ( and pour encourager les outres) and then killed. Things are already 'out of control', the liberal elite that has allowed this to happen in my city believe this crap. My father was Latvian when the Nazis came to his country he didnt care about their motives for being Nazis he along with many of his country men fought them un-remittingly. When the Russians came more of the same, the Russians ended Latvian insurgency by brutal methods, I can tell you from my own family history killing insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters doesn't led to more 'terrorists' its leads to more corpses (and victory).

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok lets just bomb the mosques then lets have second british civil war. There really is no comparison to this and the Russian and Nazi invasions of anywhere.

There are some people with extereme views within the Asian community but in the main the overwhelming majority just want an ordinary life and have no intentions outside of that. There are right wing Nazis oops I mean Nationalists within the BNP and other parts of the white community as well who might not perform mass terrorism but terrorise neverthe less by their thoughts and racial attacks, maybe not so much in London but in places like Leicster and Bolton etc etc.

Things are not out of control we have had one bomb attack in however many years sice the last IRA one it is not the time for race wars and race crackdowns to be put into place and inflame the situation, otherwise you will just see repeats of the Brixton etc riots except asians instead of blacks.

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
I've heard some nonsense in my time but this takes the biscuit. Evil murderers should be; caught, tortured in order to extract information ( and pour encourager les outres) and then killed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Come on this is laughable, if you torture people they don't tell you the truth, they confess to things they never did, things they did, [censored] your sister, and your mom, and your pot-bellied pig horace. If you want the truth, then torture isn't going to get it.

Mack

[Hasso]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've heard some nonsense in my time but this takes the biscuit. Evil murderers should be; caught, tortured in order to extract information ( and pour encourager les outres) and then killed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Come on this is laughable, if you torture people they don't tell you the truth, they confess to things they never did, things they did, [censored] your sister, and your mom, and your pot-bellied pig horace. If you want the truth, then torture isn't going to get it.

Mack

[/ QUOTE ]
Ok you ask me the pin number to my ATM as rigorously as you want for as long as you want, then i'll secure you to a chair and with the aid of a pencil gets yours in 5 seconds.Torture doesn't work, where you read that, ask a torture victim they'll tell you otherwise.

Again real life experience look to how the Soviets destroyed the resistance in eastern Europe, torture works very very well, a lot better than flushing korans down toilet of having trailer park trash lead you around on a leash.You either fight a war or don't, you don't do things half arsed and let liberal assholes get involved thats how we'll loose.

'Torture doesnt work', 'killing terrorists makes more terrorists', thats bullshit we could should we choose kill every muslim on earth very quickly, or we could also expel them all to the arabian penisuslar. We have the power to kill them all; the guilty, the fellow travellers, the innocent.

The reason large sections of the muslim world are in the former two catergories is because they perceive us as weak, I wonder why?

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok you ask me the pin number to my ATM as rigorously as you want for as long as you want, then i'll secure you to a chair and with the aid of a pencil gets yours in 5 seconds.Torture doesn't work, where you read that, ask a torture victim they'll tell you otherwise.


[/ QUOTE ]

You are purposely being a prick, if you put bamboo shoots under someones nails and say 'did you do it?' enough times, you will find everyone did it. Your proposed methods are as fair as trial by water, in which innocent people drowned and the guilty swam and were burnt alive, grow up and live in the 21st century, if you want freedom and democracy you can't treat people in the kind of barbaric way.

I love the way people act tough on the internet too, you can get my pin number, really? FU I'm overdrawn anyway.

Mack

[QuadsOverQuads]

[ QUOTE ]
it is only just dawning on the great British public that it has unwittingly harbored a terrorist cell in its midst

[/ QUOTE ]

And, in a related story: right-wing columnist waves his hands and magically deletes the IRA from British memory. Local wingnuts rave: 'authoritative!', 'brilliant!'. Film at eleven.


q/q

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
And, in a related story: right-wing columnist waves his hands and magically deletes the IRA from British memory. Local wingnuts rave: 'authoritative!', 'brilliant!'. Film at eleven.


[/ QUOTE ]

the IRA were slowed down as soon as the yanks stopped allowing those wonderful little fund raising expeditions, I'm sure they never actually said 'join us for dinner kill a brit' but the picture was always pretty clear. I won't be going to any al quaida dinners, even if Osama has a book signing hour.

Mack

[daveymck]

Its the opne element of the US war on terror that pisses me off the most, wasnt that when it was the IRA.