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| Britain |
| The astounding shallowness of Britain's Foreign Secretary |
| 2009-01-15 |
| By Melanie Phillips With his article in the Guardian today arguing that the ‘war on terror’ was a mistake, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband displays a deeply alarming level of shallowness and ignorance. While there is indeed a valid criticism to be made of the phrase ‘war on terror’ for the simple reason that terror is merely a mechanism and that therefore the phrase is absurd, Miliband’s error lies in the deeper point he is making that the military approach to dealing with global Islamist terrorism is wrong. He reveals in this a profound failure to understand the nature of this global threat. He thinks it’s all about local 'grievances’ and therefore can be dealt with by negotiation, compromise and arresting people and bringing them to justice rather than waging war upon them. Although his argument is a general one, he specifically mentions Mumbai and Gaza; indeed, I guess that it is Gaza that is really on his mind. He says there is no unified enemy: The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.This is an astounding error for the British Foreign Secretary to make. There is indeed a unified transnational enemy and it is the Islamic global jihad. Yes, the specific causes which carry the jihad are many and various around the globe. But they are unified by one common goal which transcends all divisions, including those between Sunni and Shia, and that is to conquer all unbelievers and spread Islamic theocracy around the world. The roots of this modern phenomenon lie in post-colonial thinkers such as Syed Qutb, Abu ala Maududi and Ali Shariati, and before them in Ibn Tamiyya, and before him in a line of ideologues and clerics going back to early Islamic history and the Koran. Is goal is global domination and it is unalterable. To say that Lashkar e Taiba’s cause is merely Kashmir or that Hezbollah stands only for the return of the Golan Heights is simply risible. As LeT has itself said, its goal is the restoration of Islamic rule over the whole of South Asia, Russia and China. It wants to destroy India and wipe out both Hinduism and Judaism. Backed in part by Saudi financing, it derives its ideology from the Wahhabi strain of Islam which gave birth to al Qaeda and accordingly has declared the United States, Israel and India as existential enemies of Islam. As for Hezbollah – the ‘Party of God’ – it is a proxy army of Iran which is currently heavily engaged in imposing Iranian domination over Lebanon. It has also conducted numerous terrorist attacks on the United States, and has terrorist cells planted all over Europe waiting to do Iran’s bidding in prosecuting the Islamic revolution against the west. To say that Hezbollah is merely concerned with the grievance of the Golan is astounding. Similarly, although he doesn’t say it, Miliband presumably thinks that Hamas is concerned with the ‘grievance’ of ‘the occupation’. This is demonstrably not the case, since there is no occupation of Gaza. What Hamas is actually about, as it repeatedly informs us all, is the annihilation of Israel and of every Jew on the planet. It is as absurd therefore to say as Miliband does that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is co-operationas it would have been to say that the best antidote to Nazism in the 1930s was co-operation. Does he really think that we should be sending out the police to arrest Osama bin Laden; or that the Israelis should sit on their hands while the Grads and Katyushas fly towards Beersheba Ashkelon and eventually Tel Aviv while they politely request from Syria the extradition for trial of the Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, and invite the Supreme Leader of Iran to discuss his ‘grievance’ about the continued existence of Israel, America and western civilisation? When Miliband writes: We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroadhe means this to be an argument against waging war. On the contrary: in certain circumstances, unfortunately, war is the only means of securing the human right to life and liberty and the ability of people to live under democracy and the rule of law. For Britain’s Foreign Secretary not to understand any of this and get this to terribly wrong is not just a reflection on David Miliband. It shows that Britain is currently the weakest link in the war to defend civilisation. And that most certainly is a war. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #4 Could be that Miliband and others of his ilk are attempting to defuse the civil war that might result if he told the truth. Yes, because we all know that you can defuse a civil war by ignoring that a large percentage the population is fighting against you. |
| Posted by: Glolusing Barnsmell3409 2009-01-15 19:07 |
| #3 Come the civil war between the Islamists and the rest... Could be that Miliband and others of his ilk are attempting to defuse the civil war that might result if he told the truth. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-01-15 15:10 |
| #2 Come the civil war between the Islamists and the rest, 5th comumnists and Quislings like this should be the first to go. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-01-15 14:07 |
| #1 Labor is hanging on by a thread. They need the UK muzzie vote to stay in power. A little apology like this goes a long way. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back 2009-01-15 12:50 |