Al-Qaeda warns Britain to expect "very precise response" to recent honouring of Salman Rushdie

Overnight Britain had a video warning from al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri that his terrorist group was preparing a "very precise response" to the recent knighthood for Salman Rushdie.  Conservative Member of the European Parliament, Dan Hannan supplied BritainAndAmerica with this reaction:

“Whenever something terrible happens, it is human nature to fit events into your existing belief system. If you are already convinced that Britain should not be allied to the United States, you will see terrorism as a response to our foreign policy choices. If you already believe that inequality is the worst problem in the modern world, you will tell yourself that “poverty breeds violence”.
   
The trouble is that the terrorists themselves evince only a marginal interest in these questions. We’d be better off taking them at their word. When they say that their real enemy is Western liberalism, we ought to listen carefully. After all, Osama bin Laden never cited Israel or Iraq among his grievances until comparatively recently: he was responding, as it were, to the Michael Moore interpretation of his actions. And, as this new statement reminds us, modern Islamist terrorism has had domestic British freedoms in its sights for far longer than our soldiers in the Middle East.
   
Yes, alright, foreign policy might be an aggravating factor at the margins. The radicals occasionally cite Chechnya, the Balfour declaration, the Crusades, the loss of al-Andalus. But when they say that their ultimate objective is to replace our way of life with a different way of life, we ought to believe them.”

Related link: Dan Hannan on terrorism being 'a middle class pursuit'

Comments

[Helen Smythe]

It does seem that Britain is now the number one target for terrorism. We are getting many more attacks than America. I find it very worrying.

[Ken Stevens]

Helen Smythe | July 11, 11:25 AM
It is easier to get into UK than USA and to sink from view amongst our population. Perhaps "Western liberalism" is our own enemy as well as that of terrorists.

We need much stricter conditions regarding entry and during sojourn here. Strong border control would thereby enable maximum feasible freedom within our boundaries.

[Trevor]

The 7/7 bombers were born and rasied here.

[Jon Gale]

"when they say that their ultimate objective is to replace our way of life with a different way of life, we ought to believe them.”"

That might be their objective, but the chances of them succeeding are nil.

Just treat them like any other serial killers - Harold Shipman killed more people than the Madrid Bombing.

Immigration is a much bigger threat to our way of life.

[Patric Ratnaraja]

Its fine to have Border controls as we certainly need strict immigration controls. Most of these so called terrorist were born here or legally entered Britain.

Its time for the Home office to look into how people enter Britain legally and change the rules.

In the fight against terrorism I hope we don't target any one and everyone who is Asian.

The Asian Community leaders should do more to prevent Terrorist attacks in Britain.

[billm99uk]

In the fight against terrorism I hope we don't target any one and everyone who is Asian.

That would be a little harsh on the poor old Hindus and Sikhs who haven't done anything wouldn't it? Question is, can you design an immigration policy that doesn't include them. I'm sure a specifically anti-Muslim policy would cause a lot of international disapproval in the current climate.

[Rob Smith]

The only terrorists whove maged to kill anyone were the 7/7 ones who were British. All the foreigners attempts have been laughable. It shows you we can do some things well in this country.

Rob

[Scot]

"the Crusades, the loss of al-Andalus"

What really gets me about the Muslims bringing up the Crusades as some moral outrage against Islam is that they invaded Spain almost 300 years before the first crusade. They lost "al-Andalus" only after having taken it by force in the first place. They would have taken France too if they weren't stopped by the forces of Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer - Charlemagne's grandfather). So it was OK for them to invade countries by force hundreds of years ago but it was wrong of the west to do the same thing.

[Ken Stevens]

I take the point that we have home-grown terrorists, as well as imported ones. However, had more stringent control entry controls existed some time back, these might have inhibited entry of those who subsequently inspired the radicalisation of the domestics.

[TomTom]

The 7/7 bombers were born and rasied here.

Posted by: Trevor | July 11, 2007 at 12:00 PM

Not so. They spent so much time in Pakistan as children and adults, probably watched Zee TV on satellite and Al-Jazeera - they may have been resident in Britain but they weren't really raised here - but in a twilight world of Pakistan as a failed state with its crackpot gangsters offering freedom from morality and law to adolescents and the mentally stunted

[Simon Denis]

Well said, Scot. The West's habit of denigrating itself has completely distorted our view of history. As now, Islam in its earliest days was an extremely aggressive ideology. The Crusades were a response to that aggression.

[Man in a Shed]

Its a shame people didn't take Mein Kampf seriously, but kept talking about peace and appeasement.

I think the root of the problem is the self delusion that is necessary for much of socialism and the liberal left. They want to be deceived as its their primary defence mechanism against the economic and other facts of life.

[Andrew Smith]

It is usually a good idea to believe what people say are their objectives until there is evidence to the contrary, even when these objectives are contrary to one's own assessments. At least, so I have found in business.

I agree with Dan Hannan on this and on accepting at their word the Continental EU politicians who say they want an empire and a single political entity. Only the UK political class manages to convince themselves what the EU and what Al-Qaede say is a bluff.

[TomTom]

Its a shame people didn't take Mein Kampf seriously, but kept talking about peace and appeasement.

It is a pity they weren't more awake in 1919 when General Von Seeckt made military cooperation agreements with Frunze and Trotsky with the common objective of dismembering Poland.....Hitler stopped the military cooperation between Germany and the USSR.

In much the same way the British went to sleep as Bhutto got funding from Saudi Arabia for his atom bomb in a country heaving with resentment and illiterate poverty with outposts in British cities

[TomTom]

Mark Steyn

Dalrymple

[webstar]

These are the same islamist with the same ideology who invaded Spain. Its just a different time. We will eventually have to fight the crusades over again.

[TomTom]

We will eventually have to fight the crusades over again.

Posted by: webstar | July 11, 2007 at 09:23 PM

Hopefully with more success this time

[peterfarley]

Dan - As always right to the quick. Dealing with the Muslim issue here is probably our biggest single challenge (alongside the European issues you regularly focus on) but I wonder whether we are taking this seriously enough. There are plenty of powers under existing legislation to tackle the problem of wayward and unqualified clerics, Why are the police not doing their job in this regard? It seems to me that all the intelligent Muslims I have spoken to recently would prefer this to happen rather than having to take the law in their own hands. Having seen Dave the other evening it seems he acknowledges this - How Do We Make it Happen? - Peter

[bundyfan]

Yes, citing the Crusades as a casus belli is quite ridiculous. Quite a lot of the Middle East was Christian before it was Islamic. So really we Westerners have a more ancient claim to senseless outrage.

[DP111]

A must read from the Frontpage

Britain Under Siege

Although last week’s terrorist attacks in Britain were shocking in their murderous intent, they were not at all unexpected. They are merely the latest in a long series of attempts – successful, foiled and failed – in what is in effect a war waged from within Britain’s Muslim community against the host country.

Even a cursory recounting of recent terrorist activity makes it immediately evident that Britain is a country under attack. Britain is now paying the harrowing price for decades of mindlessly admitting large numbers of Muslim immigrants. Ignoring the warning signs along the way, it pursued the policies of multiculturalism to their inevitable conclusion. Today its unassimilated Muslim minority is waging a war against its host country. Terrorized and attacked by those it so has unthinkingly welcomed with open arms, Britain is now a country under siege.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=29108

[TomTom]

Quite a lot of the Middle East was Christian before it was Islamic. So really we Westerners have a more ancient claim to senseless outrage.

Most of North Africa, Modern-Day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and the areas between into the Hejaz and Egypt....all conquered by force of arms as too was Northern India and Persia.........complaining about the Crusades is rather like condemning the Normandy Invasions in June 1944

[TomTom]

In fact if you look Chairman Mo created his own personality cult to give lawless and amoral Arabs the kind of status enjoyed by Jews and Christians in the Arabian peninsula so a bit of cut-and-paste with Zoastrianism and the Judaeo-Christian religion gave Chairman Mo a change to graft a new skin onto the old Arab pagan deities of Al-Lah and Al-Lat and Manat etc and to create a new narrative for the Ka'aba......obviously it needed force of arms to reward "the virtuous" with loot and booty.....Arabs loved to plunder caravans - now it could be sanctified.....just as the mindless thug and deadbeat can be assured of reward for murder and maiming through bombs....

Britain had a long colonial history - not one of those who had experience of those places would have proposed importing their culture and society into this country, especially importing its peasant class.......Europe imported the type of low-skilled labour it had spent the 19th Century exporting from Europe

[billm99uk]

The interesting thing about the Crusades is that, until fairly recently, they weren't considered particularly significant in the Muslim world. They were looked at largely as just another in a whole series of unsuccessful attempts by the West to respond to Muslim expansionism over the centuries. The Crusades as some sort of gross crime against the Muslim world is primarily a WESTERN view that they're just picked up and run with.

[davod]

Tom Tom:

A further part of the marketing of Islam were the number of times you have to pray in a day. Islam had two less than Judaism.