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Mark Steyn on Britain’s options:
The choice for Britons now is whether they wish to be Australians post-Bali or Spaniards post-Madrid. That shouldn’t be a tough call.
Not for your average Brit, certainly; they’re already back at work and in pubs and sending me emails mocking Australia’s latest cricket defeat. But, as Steyn points out, “if the governing class goes about business as usual, that’s not a stiff upper lip but a death wish.” To the enemy, after all, business as usual means killing as many of us as possible. Amir Taheri:
Sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.
David T. at Harry’s Place has more on this, in a letter to an appeasenik friend:
Perhaps you think that Islamism is the same thing as Islam. Perhaps you think that it is some form of national liberation struggle, or a reaction against imperialism or Bush’s failure to sign up to Kyoto.
It is not.
Some fine reading there. Hit them links.
UPDATE. Editorial in The Spectator:
Yesterday’s disgusting attack on London will naturally be seized upon by politicians of all hues to advance their various agendas. Opponents of the war in Iraq have lost no time in blaming Tony Blair and British engagement for the bombs that hit London and killed dozen and injured many hundreds. They have a point. As the Butler report revealed, the Government was explicitly warned before the Iraq war that our involvement would exacerbate the risk of terrorism in this country. But that does not for one moment mean that if Britain had not been involved in Iraq, then London would have been safe. It bears repeating that more British people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre than in yesterday’s brutal outrages, and it must never be forgotten that 9/11 preceded the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, as did the series of vicious Islamicist bombings in Paris in the 1990s ...
A survivor of yesterday’s bombings has something to say on the subject.
(Via Tim Worstall)
This might be a suitable time to revisit some thoughts by Lawence of Arabia which anticipate some of the themes and tactics of Islamic terrorism.
What a loathsome stew of nasty semi-articulated pokes and digs from Mark Steyn.
Some of the things he nods and hints at:
The Brits have a track record of surrender to terrorists (Good Friday Agreement). Bob Geldof was to blame for the bombing (police distracted by Live8). Blair is the equivalent of Chamberlain (with Britain itself as Czeckoslovakia).
Lovely stuff!
Rudd is"going to destroy this operation root and branch and destroy its heart too”.
He wants to make sure that we have” the BEST defences and plans”.
O.k. kev,galvanize your"warriors” into passing all the anti terrorism laws and measures the gov and the public wants.
Do not oppose excluding islands from asylum seekers’Australian territory.
Do not oppose mandatory detention,support it.Do not oppose offshore detention centres.
Do not attempt to get people out of detention who are not co-operating with authorities and refuse to say who they are.(why was Laurie Ferguson immediately fired for telling the truth about that.)
Do not talk of pulling troops out of Iraq,Solomon Islands etc or opposing troops in Afghanistan.DavidS
To take just one of the points you raise, this is what Steyn wrote about Geldof and the G8:
“Of course, many resources had been redeployed to Scotland to cope with Bob Geldof’s pathetic call for a million anti-globalist ninnies to descend on the G8 summit”
It seems very likely to me that this will have contributed to a security shortfall for which Geldof has some responsibility. It is a very different thing to blame him for the bombing.
Islamicist bombings in Paris in the 1990s ... I was busy at work all during the 90’s and hardly even took a vacation - I just don’t recall the aforementioned, but it seems a good reminder to those ninnies who keep saying, “it’s all Blair’s fault, yadda-yadda.”
Posted by -keith in mtn. view on 2005 07 08 at 12:01 PM • permalinkHere’s a translation of the middle section of Steyn’s article - with the rhetorical flourishes stripped out. (1) Blair says he won’t surrender to terrorism, but he surrendered to the IRA.
(2) This was appeasement equivalent to Chamberlain’s refusal to stand up to Hitler.
(3) The British government is now appeasing Islamic terrorists at home - partly because it is unaware that terrorist cells exist.
Italy is calling for a solidarity March:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4664085.stmI always liked Steyn, even when I don’t agree with him. And I do not blame the rockers at all.
But….if it were not for the fact that the anarchists use any and every gathering of this kind to tear the hell out of things it would not be necessary to divert so much security. No doubt the terrorists used this time for that reason.
As for how the Brits respond, it will depend on whether they want to start taking orders from freaking jihadis as to what they can do and where they can go and how they can live.
Maybe we should ask for a list of things to do to make the terrorists like us.
Nuke Israel, if the fall out kills the Pals who cares because once the Zionists are all gone they will be more trouble than they are worth anyway.
pay $200 a barrel for oil
offer up our daughters before the age of 12
Do away with our governments and replace them with sharia law.
public hangings and stonings for unbelievers because Allah appreciates human sacrifice.
Not only will there not be gay marriage, the penalty for homosexuality will be death.
Any woman who shows her face in public will be beaten.
Any woman who commits adultery will be stoned to death.
There will be no Desperate Housewives, no dancing, no singing, no drinking, no smoking and no sex unless it is with farm animals or one of your four wives.
Mandatory Islamism of the most fundamentalist kind and the promise of death to all infidels and Sufis.
And of course all infidels out of Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East because we are subhuman and have no right to breathe air anywhere, but especially in the land of Islam.
Maybe if we do all these things they will let us live.
I don’t see the Britis making this choice.
At least I hope not.
I don’t think they will Terry, at least not in London. The attack appears to have woken the slumbering English spirit sonewhat, though whether it’s permanent remains to be seen.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 07 08 at 01:21 PM • permalinkSorry A. G., I would like to believe you are right, but nothing in the character of modern west makes me feel we will be willing to do what is necessary to defeat this foe. We are unwilling to call what is going on by its real name. This is a war of civilizations and the west has too many people (sadly many of them considered educated) who hate who they are. This is a handicapp the Islamofascist is not burdened with. They wish to destroy us and establish sharia law everywhere. They cannot be negotiated with, or bribed (favorite western responses), they must be destroyed (many westerners have little stomach for this action). We will move along for many years, but I expect much of Europe to be under effective Islamofascist control by 2040.
Maybe now the British press and public will stop ridiculing the moron cowboy dry-drunk unilateralist inarticulate born-again Yank George Bush for calling evil what it really is: evil. Did anyone else notice W’s demeanor during Tony Blair’s speech? He was staring straight into the camera, right at the terrorists. W knows who the enemy is in this war, he has since the afternoon of 9/11, and he’s not afraid to confront them.
Thankfully, Reuters has suddenly stopped enclosing “terrorist” in scare quotes. I guess the “news service” finally figured out that there really are terrorists out there.
I think Steyn is on the money but is also non PC - bad move in PC Europe.
Its the lack of outrage and the stiff upper lip that will allow the UK to be bombed again and again.
Over on LP all the chat is for surrender and reparation - useful idiots?
It’s terrorism without the quotes when they blow up your favorite pub…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 09 at 12:46 AM • permalink1. This is war. I guess, for some on the liberal/socialist/atheist/left its a very hard concept to comprehend. Especially if you have a graduate degree from an Ivy University or are a Rhodes Scholar, like Billy Clinton.
War requires fighting the enemy and killing them. Period.
2. This is not a crime issue. This can’t be solved with therapy or understanding. Or worse, if we think we might “offend” some Muslims.
3. This satire exemplies the foolish attitude prevalent among the left and the British elite ruling class.
“London-istan Introduces Multi-Color Beneton Trains To Prevent Future Bombings”
NOTE: My site has some pictures of semi-clad beautiful women, and therefore is not work place safe.
Mark Steyn’s article is good. He adds something to the debate, rather than twist it.
Did somebody mention political correctness? There’s a concept that deserves a post-modern death.
Did we learn enough, for example, from the case of Omar Sheikh? He’s the fellow convicted of the kidnapping and beheading in Karachi of the American journalist Daniel Pearl. He’s usually described as “Pakistani” but he is, in fact, a citizen of the United Kingdom - born in Whipps Cross Hospital, educated at Nightingale Primary School in Wanstead, the Forest School in Snaresbrook and the London School of Economics. He travels on a British passport. Unlike yours truly, a humble Canadian subject of the Crown, Mr Sheikh gets to go through the express lane at Heathrow.
The enemy is within the gates. You have to be tough to survive. Are most of our pollies tough, or is it a case of they couldn’t get a real job? Some qualify, some do not.
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I am sure the Brits will follow the Australian example.
OT: here come the conspiracy theories from the arab extermists..It was a British/Zionist conspiracy:
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=11494&TagID=2