Britain's MI-5 Chief Lays It Out
Hugh Hewitt picks this up this morning, and from this speech that was given by the head of MI-5, we should be worried about what is next to come from our enemies. And we must remember that these people are anything but "back-woods." They are sophisticated, and are taking every opportunity that the 21st Century world has to offer in terms of technology in their war.
In short, their war includes using propaganda, and they seem to be using it far more effectively than we are.
What I can say is that today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don’t know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas. The extremists are motivated by a sense of grievance and injustice driven by their interpretation of the history between the West and the Muslim world. This view is shared, in some degree, by a far wider constituency. If the opinion polls conducted in the UK since July 2005 are only broadly accurate, over 100,000 of our citizens consider that the July 2005 attacks in London were justified. What we see at the extreme end of the spectrum are resilient networks, some directed from Al-Qaida in Pakistan, some more loosely inspired by it, planning attacks including mass casualty suicide attacks in the UK. Today we see the use of home-made improvised explosive devices; tomorrow’s threat may include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology. More and more people are moving from passive sympathy towards active terrorism through being radicalised or indoctrinated by friends, families, in organised training events here and overseas, by images on television, through chat rooms and websites on the Internet.
The propaganda machine is sophisticated and Al-Qaida itself says that 50% of its war is conducted through the media. In Iraq, attacks are regularly videoed and the footage downloaded onto the internet within 30 minutes. Virtual media teams then edit the result, translate it into English and many other languages, and package it for a worldwide audience. And, chillingly, we see the results here. Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. We are aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy. What do I mean by numerous? Five? Ten? No, nearer……. thirty that we know of. These plots often have links back to Al-Qaida in Pakistan and through those links Al-Qaida gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale. And it is not just the UK of course. Other countries also face a new terrorist threat: from Spain to France to Canada and Germany.
Our enemy isn't going to silently sulk into the night when they are disrupted or captured. They're going to dig in, and come back swinging. And Eliza Manningham-Buller--the current director of MI-5--makes it painfully clear that we are losing one side of this war, and that side is the one gaining recruits. She explains this, in part, below. It deals with what motivates our enemy, and they have the propaganda machine up and running in this regard:
There has been much speculation about what motivates young men and women to carry out acts of terrorism in the UK. My Service needs to understand the motivations behind terrorism to succeed in countering it, as far as that is possible. Al-Qaida has developed an ideology which claims that Islam is under attack, and needs to be defended. This is a powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the globe, presenting the West’s response to varied and complex issues, from long-standing disputes such as Israel/Palestine and Kashmir to more recent events as evidence of an across-the-board determination to undermine and humiliate Islam worldwide. Afghanistan, the Balkans, Chechnya, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Kashmir and Lebanon are regularly cited by those who advocate terrorist violence as illustrating what they allege is Western hostility to Islam.
And she is quite correct. The tale that has been spun by these people dates back to 1979 with the riseof radical Islam out of Iran, and it has adapted to its place in time since that revolution. They have transitioned themselves from a regional jihad (an attempt to drive the West from the Middle East) to a global jihad (punishing the West for not heeding their "warnings" from the eighties and nineties). Now, to our enemies, this is their time and place for the final battle against the West, and buddy, they are pulling out all the stops.
Think about it. When the Iranian revolution came to pass, the Ayatollah Khomeini was scared when the US Embassy was seized; definitely afraid of what america might do in response. When the first response--the raid to retake the embassy--failed, Khomeini was emboldened. The ayatollah was expecting to be nuked back to the Stone Age, but such reprisals never came to pass. Since then, the terrorists--the jihadists--have only been emboldened more and more as nations are unable to graps the dire consequences of inaction or appeasement. These people believe they have a legitimate gripe against the West, and that is what the jihadists are banking on with their propaganda war.
The more they show the "aggressive" West--faux images from the Israeli/Palestinian/Hezbollah conflicts, the trumped up civilian body counts in Iraq and Afghanistan--the more their followers see as an affront to Islam. They're believing what the jihadis are selling, and that makes for a very dangerous situation in the world. Mark Steyn has made it clear in America Alone that part of the problem we are facing, especially in Europe, is that Muslims in Europe are breeding far faster than the europeans are; so self-assured that they were the nuanced sophisticates of the world, and population needed to be controlled. That mindset has led them to the crossroads that they're at.
Muslims have been emigrating to Europe for several years now, and they usually end up in the run down, ghetto-like areas of nearby metropolis'. We've seen it in France where the streets of Paris were ignitied in 2005 with the rioting Muslim youths. In poor areas, sequestered from the rest--either by choice or by government inclinations--these people have taken their jihad against the West to the streets. Even scarier is that while the West demands assimilation to its culture, the Muslims are swiftly working on changing that culture. It is, in effect, a side effect of the propaganda war. And assimilation, we've learned, is what the Muslims are doing, only in the inverse; they are assimilating Europe to a life under Muslim diktat.
I have spoken as an intelligence professional, describing the reality of terrorism and counter-terrorism in the UK in 2006. My messages are sober ones. I do not speak in this way to alarm (nor as the cynics might claim to enhance the reputation of my organisation) but to give the most frank account I can of the Al-Qaida threat to the UK. That threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation. It is a sustained campaign, not a series of isolated incidents, It aims to wear down our will to resist.
And thus ends the lesson, but the closing words bring us to the heart of the fight. Will. Simple, effective, sheer will is what can turn this fight around. The Islamicists in Europe have seen that the "old Continent," as Mark Steyn graciously refers to it, lacks that will. Rather than fight them, those there choose to capitulate a piece at a time. Don't like Piglet. We'll ban him. Don't like St. George's Cross? It's gone, too. Upset that your daughter may have to swim in the same pool as a boy at the same time? No problem, says Germany, we will separate them. The Islamic assimilation works well when they adopt the tactics of the supposedly aggrieved, and force their way on everyone. And you had better do it before they hand you your head in protest.
Ms. Buller is very astute in noting the problems that Europe faces, but she is rather naive when it comes to what must be done. Granted, we all want to be tolerant of others, but there is a point where that can go too far, and what do you do when your enemy doesn't respect tolerance? And what do you do when your enemy doesn't respect your laws and life? There is a point where the ideals that make us great nations have to be set aside if the nation is to survive. I'm not saying chuck it all out the window, but a realistic perspective dictates that if your enemy wishes to behead you because you refuse to believe in their theological vision, you don't hand them the sword.
Publius II
Hugh Hewitt picks this up this morning, and from this speech that was given by the head of MI-5, we should be worried about what is next to come from our enemies. And we must remember that these people are anything but "back-woods." They are sophisticated, and are taking every opportunity that the 21st Century world has to offer in terms of technology in their war.
In short, their war includes using propaganda, and they seem to be using it far more effectively than we are.
What I can say is that today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don’t know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas. The extremists are motivated by a sense of grievance and injustice driven by their interpretation of the history between the West and the Muslim world. This view is shared, in some degree, by a far wider constituency. If the opinion polls conducted in the UK since July 2005 are only broadly accurate, over 100,000 of our citizens consider that the July 2005 attacks in London were justified. What we see at the extreme end of the spectrum are resilient networks, some directed from Al-Qaida in Pakistan, some more loosely inspired by it, planning attacks including mass casualty suicide attacks in the UK. Today we see the use of home-made improvised explosive devices; tomorrow’s threat may include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology. More and more people are moving from passive sympathy towards active terrorism through being radicalised or indoctrinated by friends, families, in organised training events here and overseas, by images on television, through chat rooms and websites on the Internet.
The propaganda machine is sophisticated and Al-Qaida itself says that 50% of its war is conducted through the media. In Iraq, attacks are regularly videoed and the footage downloaded onto the internet within 30 minutes. Virtual media teams then edit the result, translate it into English and many other languages, and package it for a worldwide audience. And, chillingly, we see the results here. Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. We are aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy. What do I mean by numerous? Five? Ten? No, nearer……. thirty that we know of. These plots often have links back to Al-Qaida in Pakistan and through those links Al-Qaida gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale. And it is not just the UK of course. Other countries also face a new terrorist threat: from Spain to France to Canada and Germany.
Our enemy isn't going to silently sulk into the night when they are disrupted or captured. They're going to dig in, and come back swinging. And Eliza Manningham-Buller--the current director of MI-5--makes it painfully clear that we are losing one side of this war, and that side is the one gaining recruits. She explains this, in part, below. It deals with what motivates our enemy, and they have the propaganda machine up and running in this regard:
There has been much speculation about what motivates young men and women to carry out acts of terrorism in the UK. My Service needs to understand the motivations behind terrorism to succeed in countering it, as far as that is possible. Al-Qaida has developed an ideology which claims that Islam is under attack, and needs to be defended. This is a powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the globe, presenting the West’s response to varied and complex issues, from long-standing disputes such as Israel/Palestine and Kashmir to more recent events as evidence of an across-the-board determination to undermine and humiliate Islam worldwide. Afghanistan, the Balkans, Chechnya, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Kashmir and Lebanon are regularly cited by those who advocate terrorist violence as illustrating what they allege is Western hostility to Islam.
And she is quite correct. The tale that has been spun by these people dates back to 1979 with the riseof radical Islam out of Iran, and it has adapted to its place in time since that revolution. They have transitioned themselves from a regional jihad (an attempt to drive the West from the Middle East) to a global jihad (punishing the West for not heeding their "warnings" from the eighties and nineties). Now, to our enemies, this is their time and place for the final battle against the West, and buddy, they are pulling out all the stops.
Think about it. When the Iranian revolution came to pass, the Ayatollah Khomeini was scared when the US Embassy was seized; definitely afraid of what america might do in response. When the first response--the raid to retake the embassy--failed, Khomeini was emboldened. The ayatollah was expecting to be nuked back to the Stone Age, but such reprisals never came to pass. Since then, the terrorists--the jihadists--have only been emboldened more and more as nations are unable to graps the dire consequences of inaction or appeasement. These people believe they have a legitimate gripe against the West, and that is what the jihadists are banking on with their propaganda war.
The more they show the "aggressive" West--faux images from the Israeli/Palestinian/Hezbollah conflicts, the trumped up civilian body counts in Iraq and Afghanistan--the more their followers see as an affront to Islam. They're believing what the jihadis are selling, and that makes for a very dangerous situation in the world. Mark Steyn has made it clear in America Alone that part of the problem we are facing, especially in Europe, is that Muslims in Europe are breeding far faster than the europeans are; so self-assured that they were the nuanced sophisticates of the world, and population needed to be controlled. That mindset has led them to the crossroads that they're at.
Muslims have been emigrating to Europe for several years now, and they usually end up in the run down, ghetto-like areas of nearby metropolis'. We've seen it in France where the streets of Paris were ignitied in 2005 with the rioting Muslim youths. In poor areas, sequestered from the rest--either by choice or by government inclinations--these people have taken their jihad against the West to the streets. Even scarier is that while the West demands assimilation to its culture, the Muslims are swiftly working on changing that culture. It is, in effect, a side effect of the propaganda war. And assimilation, we've learned, is what the Muslims are doing, only in the inverse; they are assimilating Europe to a life under Muslim diktat.
I have spoken as an intelligence professional, describing the reality of terrorism and counter-terrorism in the UK in 2006. My messages are sober ones. I do not speak in this way to alarm (nor as the cynics might claim to enhance the reputation of my organisation) but to give the most frank account I can of the Al-Qaida threat to the UK. That threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation. It is a sustained campaign, not a series of isolated incidents, It aims to wear down our will to resist.
And thus ends the lesson, but the closing words bring us to the heart of the fight. Will. Simple, effective, sheer will is what can turn this fight around. The Islamicists in Europe have seen that the "old Continent," as Mark Steyn graciously refers to it, lacks that will. Rather than fight them, those there choose to capitulate a piece at a time. Don't like Piglet. We'll ban him. Don't like St. George's Cross? It's gone, too. Upset that your daughter may have to swim in the same pool as a boy at the same time? No problem, says Germany, we will separate them. The Islamic assimilation works well when they adopt the tactics of the supposedly aggrieved, and force their way on everyone. And you had better do it before they hand you your head in protest.
Ms. Buller is very astute in noting the problems that Europe faces, but she is rather naive when it comes to what must be done. Granted, we all want to be tolerant of others, but there is a point where that can go too far, and what do you do when your enemy doesn't respect tolerance? And what do you do when your enemy doesn't respect your laws and life? There is a point where the ideals that make us great nations have to be set aside if the nation is to survive. I'm not saying chuck it all out the window, but a realistic perspective dictates that if your enemy wishes to behead you because you refuse to believe in their theological vision, you don't hand them the sword.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 1:21 PM
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