Ruminations on Russia

Just in case you happened to be on Mars for the last couple of weeks; there were a number of bombs in London on July 7th. 55 people have died so far.

So working on the theory that lightening does not strike twice in the same place, and that the original bombers were seeking an early meeting with the virgins, my wife and I are heading for London for a visa run (and the subject of a whole new post).

Which leads me to the point of this post; the relationship between Islam and Britain.

Some guides to my politics;

• I come from that part of UK society that make me a “Foreign Office Arabist”
• I have immense respect for Jewry but very little for the State of Israel
• There are very few areas of foreign policy on which George W. Bush and I would agree
• I know more people who have died from the results of terrorism than old age

Which I have to say because this is a politically incorrect post.

British news outlets on Sunday were (ostensibly) reporting that the British Muslim community is in the majority responsible and is sickened by the events of July 7th. So I delved deeper and followed the links to the statements from the Council of British Muslims, amongst others. They were all saying that they deplored violence, and I am sure that they do, but if you read all the way to the bottom of the text they seemed to deplore Islamaphobia and the unjust occupations by the US and UK forces in Iraq and by Israeli forces and settlers in the West bank etc not to mention the pacifying effects of Russian forces in Chechnya. My take was that the response was we dislike what they did and the way that they did it but at the end of the day we understand that the outside world has created pressures that cause this sort of violence in our communities.

As Mao once said (w/o an Internet connection I am going to paraphrase); you don't need active support from the population, passive will do. In effect the Muslim societies of Leeds and Bradford, amongst others are the Sea in which the fish of radical Islam are free to swim. My direct accusation is that the legitimate mainstream Muslim community has yet to truly condemn those inside its society who daily foment violence and anger. Passive support will become active resistance only when the pain of doing nothing is greater than the ease of doing nothing. My link to Mao and guerilla warfare comes from an in depth study of the Malaysian guerilla insurrection of 1948-60 - which may be the only counter-insurgency war to have ever been truly won. The key to counter-insurgency warfare is separating the terrorists from their support where they will literally be like a fish out of water.

The “troubles” in Northern Ireland began to end when MI5 and Special Branch convinced the Army that the IRA was never going to be defeated. It could be marginalized provided that the Army did not antagonize the local population. And so soldiers were taught to be nice (its all relative). Soon local IRA was stigmatized for what it had been for a while; a criminal organization and its local support died away.

I can't say that I see a clear route to removing the sea from radical Islam. But given that Britain stands accused by a host of nations from the US and France, to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and (of course) Russia of being a home to radical Islam, it's clear that the current path needs some amending. Londonistan is apparently the European centre for radical Islam. I was going to suggest that the carrot was offered with the stick, but it appears that the carrot has been chewed on for a while so maybe it is time for some good old fashioned stick to convince moderate Islamic leaders that a greater peace can be found by being more actively against radicalism.

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