NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
July 23, 2005
London, cont.
We have more bombings in London to mull over, from Thursday, and yesterday, police chases as the Islamists try to blast a few more. It is apparent that at least four more bombers are, or have been, running about the city, looking for opportunities. The best indication we have seen, that they are centrally organized, is that the bombings attempted Thursday all failed. We can assume the same clown made the same mistake in rigging all the detonator caps.I seldom share with readers my private theories about what is going on, backstage, among the terrorists. But since I’m absurdly confident of this one, I shall make an exception. I think three of the four bombers of July 7th were set up. The 30-year-old, who was the cell leader, told the younger ones they were merely delivering explosives, secretively, to the “real” bombers. But their satchels had been rigged with timers, and aren’t they surprised to find themselves in hell. It is why the follow-on bombers are now so skittish. The paradox here is that we are learning not how powerful “Al Qaeda” is, but how weak and desperate. We are also learning that its power to inspire psychopathic behaviour in Muslim kids from places like Yorkshire is happily limited. Yet the British public, brave at first, is getting its nerves seriously frayed, even by this spectacle of Islamist incompetence; and when people allow that to happen, terrible consequences follow. The gloves are coming off, for the bobbies. The raid on, for example, the Iqra bookstore in Leeds was long overdue. It not only sells inflammatory Islamist literature, but also video games, with which Muslim youth may play at being “infidel killers”. It is understandable that a society that hesitates to censor even child pornography, considers games like that, and their effects upon the players, to be yet another bogus “human rights issue”. But a lot of people are now getting killed, and the nonsense must stop. The police may be empowered, in a situation like this. The people must also empower themselves. In particular, the British nonsense chorale, muted by the terror hits on 7/7, has been returning to full volume. The terror strikes are blamed on the British presence in Iraq, and British Muslim organizations have resumed mentioning the mountain of historic, mostly imaginary grievances that constitute some “root cause”. Such blatherings should be drowned out, ideally by other Muslims. As John Howard, the Australian prime minister, said in England after 7/7, in reply to a snide question from the press: “Could I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq; and could I remind you that 9/11 occurred before the operation in Iraq; could I also remind you that the very first occasion that Bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor?” And so on. Anything we do to protect ourselves from the Islamists will add another pantload to their mountain of grievances, and give foolish “liberal” people in the West another opportunity to blame themselves. But let me quote one of William Blake’s proverbs of hell: “A dead body revenges not injuries.” No dialogue with the Islamists will ever appease them, nor enlighten their sick, vicious minds. The answer is to make Islamism extinct -- as Nazism before it -- and this will require a robust citizenry. "People started screaming and we all started running quite calmly up the stairs." I was struck by this eyewitness remark (to the BBC) from the scene of the bobby-gun-down in Stockwell tube station yesterday morning. I'm not even sure it qualifies as a non sequitur: for a non sequitur requires more ambition. It is a typical expression of the post-modern mind, which considers all contradictions to be trivial. It is the sort of murk in which the general citizenry are living today, and survival requires that we all wake up. By the way, I must correct one of my own mistakes. It has been brought to my attention that David Blunkett, the blind, brilliant, and straight-talking Home Secretary I praised for creating and running the remarkably efficient British domestic counter-terrorist operation (for a society in which the police are hamstrung by human rights punctilios), should have been referred to as the “former Home Secretary”. He went down in a sex, nanny, and visa scandal recently. Mea culpa: I should be following British sex scandals more closely. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top