July 18, 2005

Dialogue from the British Society that Gives Birth to Terrorists

Daniel Pipes quotes an article recounting conversations with the peers of some of the 7-7 suicide bombers.

The U.S.-led war was what likely drove him to blow himself up on a subway train last week, said [Tanweer's] friends.

"He was a Muslim and he had to fight for Islam. This is called jihad," or holy war, said Asif Iqbal, 20, who said he was Tanweer's childhood friend.

Another friend, Adnan Samir, 21, nodded in agreement.

"They're crying over 50 people while 100 people are dying every day in Iraq and Palestine," said Iqbal. "If they are indeed the ones who did it, it's because they believed it was right. They're in heaven.

This is a perfect example of what I have been discussing -- that the civilian society in which the terrorists grow up supports and encourages acts of terrorism. It's not enough to arrest the leaders and point men. The civilian society that supports and encourages acts of terrorism must be shown that so doing has consequences they cannot accept. One example would be to deport everybody belonging to one or more of the mosques in London where imams preach for war on England.

Five-by-Five

Great posts from around the blogosphere.

• "When the US President was a Democrat, in this case Bill Clinton, Saddam harbored terrorists and had connections to al Qaeda. More frightening, was the possibility Saddam would acquire a nuclear bomb or share it with bin Laden. That all changed when Bush was elected. Suddenly, despite all that had been said and written before, the Democrats claim there were no terrorists in Iraq before we liberated it, no connection to al Qaeda and Saddam never had any WMD's." [USS Neverdock]
• "The Salafi Jihadi presence in Britain was on the rise, six years before the London bombings, four years before the Iraq war, and two years before September 11.... 'Britain is an infidel enemy, but we live in it for now.'" [The Counterterrorism Blog]
• Scotland Yard Boss Ian Holm to a Muslim audience: "For you, I know, this is the worst nightmare that could happen to the British Muslim community. I am afraid this is your problem, and you are going to help us. We have to find the creatures of hate, and who they are talking to." [Daniel Pipes] 
• "CBS Refuses To Run Anti-Terror Ads" [Say Anything]

..and on the note of black comedy:

• "British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing" [Tim Blair]

Charles Krauthammer on the 7-7 Attacks

This whole article is brilliant. 

One of the reasons Westerners were so unprepared for this wave of Islamist terrorism, not just militarily but psychologically, is sheer disbelief. It shockingly contradicts Western notions of progress. The savagery of Bouyeri's act, mirroring the ritual human slaughter by Abu Musab Zarqawi or Daniel Pearl's beheaders, is a return to a primitiveness that we in the West had assumed a progressive history had left behind.

Our first response was, therefore, to simply sweep this contradiction under the rug. Put the first World Trade Center bombers on trial and think it will solve the problem. Even today there are many Americans and even more Europeans who believe that after Sept. 11 the United States should just have done Afghanistan -- depose the Taliban and destroy al Qaeda's sanctuary -- and gone no further, thinking that would solve the problem.

...But what about the vast majority of European Muslims, the 99 percent who are peace-loving and not engaged in terror? They must also join the fight. They must actively denounce not just -- what is obvious -- the terrorist attacks, but their source: Islamist ideology and its practitioners.

Where are the fatwas issued against Osama bin Laden? Where are the denunciations of the very idea of suicide bombing? Europeans must demand this of all their Muslim leaders. They must also dismantle and destroy all "known" Islamist cells before trains and buses are blown up.

Read the whole thing.