Adam's Apple
Senior Member
- Apr 25, 2004
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This article is about the U.K., but it has such a familiar ring to it. Interesting comments posted by readers at end of article.
We're Still in Denial about the Threat from Radical Islam
By Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph
June 14, 2006
Normally we should celebrate our national trait of seeing a funny side to the most trying predicaments.
However, the amount of pleasure given to certain people by the failure of the police raid on a house in east London on June 2 is deeply disturbing. The police acted on intelligence, and this raid was (we were told) the result of an operation lasting for some time.
The approach taken seems to have been less Dirty Harry than previously, following the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes 11 months ago. Despite this, a man was shot.
He and his brother seem to have been suspected of making a weapon that would have released toxic gases, and possibly killed scores of people in a confined space such as a Tube train. They have been released without charge, and yesterday treated us to a quite troubling press conference.
Now a torrent of recrimination against the police - and by implication against the Government's anti-terrorist policy - has been unleashed. The brothers' sister said yesterday that "you do not expect to be woken at 4am with a gun in your face". The Muslim community in the area is outraged and complains of harassment and disruption.
There are assertions that the Government is being repressive in its treatment of minorities, using a trumped-up security scare to restrict our civil liberties.
There are the usual submissions that any threat to our society exists only because we chose to assist our American allies in the war against Iraq (a submission that, even if true, would be pointless until such time as scientists devise a means of turning back the clock).
And, inevitably, it is also said that the police should be put back in their box, the security services exposed to full accountability and that we should stop this paranoia about radical Islam being any sort of threat to us.
Anyone tempted to buy that line might - depending on the extent to which he is sunk in his own prejudices - benefit from a book out this week. Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating A Terror State from Within is written by a seasoned observer of radical Islam, Melanie Phillips.
I must declare an interest: she and I were colleagues, are friends, and I defer to few in my admiration for her relentless logic and the courage and persistence with which she expresses it.
Perhaps it would be truer to say "tries to express it". She had difficulty finding a publisher for a book that is well researched (complete with extensive footnotes) and finely written. The newspaper for which she writes a column has yet to print a syllable about this achievement by one of its own.
And when Miss Phillips is allowed on to the BBC - for some years she has been a regular on Radio 4's The Moral Maze - it is usually only when she is outnumbered by those who regard her as a crackpot or a spokesman for the international Jewish conspiracy.
I point this out not merely to describe the difficulty she has had in exercising her freedom of speech on an issue that causes her to fear for the future security and safety of her country and its people, but to give a flavour of the resistance in Britain to statements of the obvious when they conflict with the deeply held bigotries of the bien-pensant class.
Miss Phillips's book details the many warnings given to this country, not just after the attack on America in 2001, but before it, from 1994 onwards, about the intentions of radical Islam.
Politicians, policemen, officials in Whitehall, journalists and academics all rubbished them. The result was that a small and poisonous group of people whose aim was to Islamify British society - by violent means, if necessary - were allowed to flourish on our soil.
for full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/06/14/do1402.xml
We're Still in Denial about the Threat from Radical Islam
By Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph
June 14, 2006
Normally we should celebrate our national trait of seeing a funny side to the most trying predicaments.
However, the amount of pleasure given to certain people by the failure of the police raid on a house in east London on June 2 is deeply disturbing. The police acted on intelligence, and this raid was (we were told) the result of an operation lasting for some time.
The approach taken seems to have been less Dirty Harry than previously, following the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes 11 months ago. Despite this, a man was shot.
He and his brother seem to have been suspected of making a weapon that would have released toxic gases, and possibly killed scores of people in a confined space such as a Tube train. They have been released without charge, and yesterday treated us to a quite troubling press conference.
Now a torrent of recrimination against the police - and by implication against the Government's anti-terrorist policy - has been unleashed. The brothers' sister said yesterday that "you do not expect to be woken at 4am with a gun in your face". The Muslim community in the area is outraged and complains of harassment and disruption.
There are assertions that the Government is being repressive in its treatment of minorities, using a trumped-up security scare to restrict our civil liberties.
There are the usual submissions that any threat to our society exists only because we chose to assist our American allies in the war against Iraq (a submission that, even if true, would be pointless until such time as scientists devise a means of turning back the clock).
And, inevitably, it is also said that the police should be put back in their box, the security services exposed to full accountability and that we should stop this paranoia about radical Islam being any sort of threat to us.
Anyone tempted to buy that line might - depending on the extent to which he is sunk in his own prejudices - benefit from a book out this week. Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating A Terror State from Within is written by a seasoned observer of radical Islam, Melanie Phillips.
I must declare an interest: she and I were colleagues, are friends, and I defer to few in my admiration for her relentless logic and the courage and persistence with which she expresses it.
Perhaps it would be truer to say "tries to express it". She had difficulty finding a publisher for a book that is well researched (complete with extensive footnotes) and finely written. The newspaper for which she writes a column has yet to print a syllable about this achievement by one of its own.
And when Miss Phillips is allowed on to the BBC - for some years she has been a regular on Radio 4's The Moral Maze - it is usually only when she is outnumbered by those who regard her as a crackpot or a spokesman for the international Jewish conspiracy.
I point this out not merely to describe the difficulty she has had in exercising her freedom of speech on an issue that causes her to fear for the future security and safety of her country and its people, but to give a flavour of the resistance in Britain to statements of the obvious when they conflict with the deeply held bigotries of the bien-pensant class.
Miss Phillips's book details the many warnings given to this country, not just after the attack on America in 2001, but before it, from 1994 onwards, about the intentions of radical Islam.
Politicians, policemen, officials in Whitehall, journalists and academics all rubbished them. The result was that a small and poisonous group of people whose aim was to Islamify British society - by violent means, if necessary - were allowed to flourish on our soil.
for full article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/06/14/do1402.xml
