After Abdulmutallab
Posted on Tuesday 29 December, 2009
Filed Under War on terror
ODDS are that the 278 passengers on board the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day represented a reasonably random demographic. Opinions about Afghanistan and Iraq will naturally have varied, but a majority of adults on board will probably have been liberal-minded opponents of the invasions.
I’m guessing entirely, of course, but it also seems reasonable to assume that there will also have been quite a few Muslims on the plane. Statistically speaking, the numbers involved even make it quite likely that those travelling on the Airbus A330 included one or two of the kind of people who habitually resort to such formulas as ‘refusal to condemn’ when discussing terrorism that they would classify as anti-imperialist.
None of this made any difference to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the rich kid Nigerian al Qaeda wannabe who tried to blow Flight 253 out of the sky, with no regard for political opinions, outlooks, perspectives or religious alignments of those he tried to kill.
There is an old joke that runs ‘just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean the bastards aren’t out to get you’. Unfortunately, the same consideration now applies to sane, rational, left of centre civil libertarians.
However morally outraged us lot get when the US blitzes an Afghan wedding party to Kingdom Come, it’s a fair bet that Osama bin Laden and his mates do not reciprocate our sincere Guardianista indignation when their team clocks up a home run.
We do not know yet what laudable goals Abdulmutallab thought that successfully executed mass murder would have attained. But one immediate practical impact will be to boost calls from the authoritarian right for tough measures in the name of the war on terror. Counter-arguments from the left will be dismissed with accusations of wooly-minded hippie dippiness. If you will the ends, we will be told, you must will the means.
Thus the Daily Mail today blasts New Labour for allowing ‘extremists to preach murder in British mosques’, permitting the operation of ‘terrorist cells in our universities’ and presiding over a ‘disgracefully lax’ immigration policy.
If this country is to ‘face up squarely to the terrorist threat’, we will need to introduce ‘effective action against preachers of hate’ as well as ‘amendments to our human rights laws if necessary’, not to mention ‘far tougher border controls’.
Somewhat more cerebrally – if that’s the correct word for its slightly more upmarket rantings – the Daily Telegraph argues that Jihadist Islamism is comparable to Nazism, and thus requires a ‘fundamental rethink of Britain’s attitude towards domestic Islamism’. What do they want? ‘Fewer “consultations” with “community leaders” and more arrests.’ When do they want them? Now!
Elsewhere in the same paper, blogger Stephen Hough calls for ‘searching more carefully those statistically more likely to commit an atrocity’. He’s too well brought up to say it – he is a concert pianist, doncha know – but basically he means ‘let’s strip-search blacks’.
The wish lists are not spelled out, of course. What exactly would constitute ‘effective action’ against Abu Hamza, for instance? If incarceration is not enough, what then? When the Mail fulminates against ‘our human rights laws’, precisely what ‘amendments’ does it have in mind?
Even if we accept the equation of Jihadist Islamism and Nazism, is it not the case that Nazi groupings operate openly in this country? Note how the Telegraph abstractly insists on ‘more arrests’, without specifying on what grounds those arrests should be made. That presumably doesn’t matter too much, so long as a few more Mussies get banged up. Especially black ones.
Let’s be clear; I want the state – and especially the secret state – to do everything it can to prevent the perpetration of the kind of atrocities that Abdulmutallab was mercifully too incompetent to pull off. Inevitably, that is going to mean close monitoring of Islamist radicals, including the infiltration of their organisations.
The reality-based left has to accept that there are balances and trade-offs to be made, and that marks will sometimes be overstepped. But Britain has already accepted curtailments of civil liberties, freedom of speech, and even such basic human rights as habeas corpus and the ability to travel without hinderance that were not considered necessary during the Irish Republican Army campaign on the mainland, and which would not then have been tolerated by the electorate.
Essentially, the toolbox is there already, and then some. Even after Abdulmutallab, further erosion should be rejected. There’s a good rule of thumb that is worth invoking in this context; whenever the likes of Paul Dacre demand a blank cheque, you are invariably better off refusing to sign it.
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19 Responses to “After Abdulmutallab”
If handed a tenner and steered towards a betting shop, a novice punter will instinctively want to put the money on a horse s/he reckons will win.
Put that same novice punter at an international airport in charge of deciding which passengers to search thoroughly – in other words, which ones are most likely to be a suicide bomber or would-be hijacker – and all sorts of considerations other than mere probably creep in.
Rationally considered, they ought not to.
Consider which people an alert police officer would stop and search for weapons at the entrance to a football ground. Now take the same sharp brain to an airport and stay focussed on the people who are the most likely suspects.
See the problem?
To be ‘fair’ you’ll end up strip-searching Swiss nuns and freckle-faced Dutch boys, just to balance out the people whom you felt really OUGHT to be searched.
In discussing airport security, a subject dear to my own heart as one who flies several times a year, it is to be assumed – or to be hoped – that one’s own society does not have a masochistically self-hating death with.
To illustrate the mindset of a death-wish thinker, here’s a quote repeatedly attributed to Jens Orback, a Swedish government minister – a Social-Democrat, of course:
“We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and the Muslims because when we [Christian Swedes] become a minority, they will be so towards us.”
The industrious chaps at Islamophia Watch could hardly have phrased it better.
Some readers may be familiar with the work of John Derbyshire, a white man with a Chinese spouse [not that such a fact is sufficient protection against strill squeals of “racist”, of course:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWRjNTdhMmU5MWUyNTUwYjFjNmI2ZmQwNjhkMzg2OTk=
Always a thoughtful writer, I’d say.
Maybe the Old Bill really should start searching people who are a little more likely to be planning an atrocity?
The current policy is reminiscent of the 1980′s movie ‘Airplane,’ which featured scenes of confused grannies being wrestled to the floor by over zealous security guards whilst bearded terrorists brandishing obvious weapons were waved on board.
Probably best not to allow brown people on aeroplanes at all I would have thought.
In this case, as in the July bombings in London the perpetrators were already known to the security services. A moments thought leads you to the conclusion that it is not more restrictive regimes or more intelligence collecting or more blanket searches that are needed. Rather, a more intelligent assessment of what is already known is required.
Might it be that we are already collecting so much information that we cannot see the wood for the trees? Does anybody really think that, for instance, all the information collected from transatlantic passengers every day is really closely scrutinised? Perhaps it is time our ?intelligence? services started giving some thought to what they really need to know rather than indiscriminately collecting so much information that the cannot process it. Perhaps that may at least ensure that they deal with the threats they already know about.
I can see why some on the looney left have an admiration for Islamic fundamentalists. Should I say envy. The left have never in their wildest dreams been able to brainwash people to the extent of blowing themselves and others to pieces for something that does not exist. The Glasgow Airport bombers for instance. One of them was on fire and was hitting out at someone trying to extinguish the flames. Beat that lefties!
The economic cost, to airlines, but more particularly to those relying on air travel for business reasons, must already be considerable and could escalate considerably more if a way of regularly blowing up planes is achieved.
The IRA could have killed RUC member til the cows came home but hitting a target like Bishopsgate, in the City of London, (I read a figure of £1bn of damage caused) acted a lot more efficiently in getting the Brits to negotiate.
I would imagine that it is calculations like that, as well as the effect of demoralisation and fear that such deaths would cause, rather then hundreds (or thousands) being killed on planes (and on the ground) that is the calculation behind the actions of those organising the bombings rather than, as I’m sure some think, it is all borne from some religious belief to kill unbelievers in enemy nations, or similar.
And I’m sure they would rather be sending missiles to rain down on US military bases, or conduct air-raids on Tel Aviv, but people fight with what they have. I wouldn’t fight like that, but I can understand why they do.
But one thing I can never can see is that old abject argument that action can lead to “calls from the authoritarian right for tough measures” The idea of ‘don’t do anything, you will only make it worse’ is as old a chestnut as it is craven; as millions who did do something, and won, would be happy to tell those who suffer in silence.
And a red, would I hope, always give cause to check themselves when they find themselves writing stuff unalloyed Daily Hate Mail or Telegraph stuff like “there are balances and trade-offs to be made, and that marks will sometimes be overstepped.”
But then as the author of this blog is now quite right on many matters (e.g., see the often correct criticisms here by Eddie Truman) and writes stuff that enthuses the many open bigots who now commentate here, it all makes me think there often isn’t a reason for coming here now and I wish there was a popular hard Left blog to comment on – one without the SWP control of Lenin’s Tomb or even the soft ‘Stalinist’ line on Castro, Chavez, China & official ‘communism of Socialist Unity.
As one who flies to, from and within the Middle East, I always take a good look at my fellow-passengers.
One point to bear in mind is that airlines in the Middle East, like Gulf and Saudia, are not infected by PC-insanity and are impervious to howls of “racism!” or plausible charges of profiling or discrimation – “This is because we are MUSLIMS!” – when they order bearded zealots off for a thorough search.
There is no constitutional right to fly, whether in Britain or the U.S.A.
Any airline should be at liberty to exclude any passenger or have them removed from a plane at the last minute.
Is ‘Southpawpunch’ really Slab Murphy of the I.R.A. Armu Council writing under a pseudonym?
The I.R.A. was not victorious in forcing a draw and it was certainly not the victor; by the time the Fenians were ready to squeal “Uncle!” and start playing at being Government Ministers just like grown-ups the IRA was penetrated at all levels by informers.
The tactic of quietly passing the right kind of useful information to Loyalist assassination squads was a better idea, of course, but always likely to end up with a ghastly embarrassing fiasco difficult to explain away in Washington D.C.
Bill Corr. Bill if you read Michael Collins you will see that when a government is prepared to get dirty then you can force the hand of its enemy to negotiate. eg: The Black and Tans. World War2, total war kill as many of the enemy as you can. The British got soft Bill they should never have negotiated with the IRA. The British should have had a real shoot to kill policy instead of the Panorama made up one!
One for the attention, in particular, of Gym Denim.
The Harare-Tehran-Swindon axis of bullshit goes confident into the new decade.
Swindon is not only in solidarity with the Basij-thug-backed theocracy, but also with the “similar” ZANU-PF Mugabe regime – “neither of which are socially and politically bankrupt”. Portugal before the ‘carnation revolution’ was much worse, comrades. The truth as told by Gary Numan. Source: http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=5051#comment-172770
(I’d be more scared about being on an aeroplane with someone who sucks up to islamicists than with “brown people” in general, incidentally. Most normal people would try and fight back or put out the flames if someone was trying to set fire to themselves and the plane they were all on. ‘Lefty antiimperialists’ would, seemingly, offer to help, “Need a light, comrade?”, “Here’s a swiss army knife I smuggled on.” “Would you like to write a column for my website from prison?”)
And of course, my comment on “Socialist Unity” (hah!), pointing out that this is just crap (without the abuse above) has been deleted.
Numan’s comment policy: straight from Chavez. Idiot. And he pretends to be a “social democrat” these days as well.
Jimmy Glesga – Arguing the case for a war of suppression of political opponents, a war of utterly ruthless barbarity, hardly needs doing. It is in progress in Sudan and West Papua even now. It has been completed in Western Sahara no less than in Danzig, Stettin and Karlsbad.
Where the presumed enemy has an irreducable ethno-cultural base, which is the case in South Armagh for example, the only courses of action open are ethnic cleansing by massacre or by deportation – the Oblast of Kaliningrad comes to mind – or by redrawing the map, which amounts to abandoning territory to the enemy.
Ethnic cleansing has its apologists; sometimes it is seen – retrospectively – as the only possible course of action.
Dr Henry Kissinger, that distinguished holder of the Nobel Peace Prize, observed as much of the “settlement” which the Turks imposed on Cyprus.
Here’s a photo of the undies:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24284.htm
Remember you saw it here first !
Here’s Ron Paul saying “… they are terrorists because WE are occupiers …”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/12/ron-paul-theyre-terrorists-because-were-occupiers.html
From the Jihadwatch site, so you get 2 for the price of 1
Here is La Thatcher on the immigration dimension:
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2009/12/margaret_thatch.php
The respondents sum up the cheap emptiness of her talk about England being swamped.
KALAM FATHI as the Arabs say: Empty Talk
AIRLINE SAFETY POLICIES ARE IN THE HANDS OF F**KWITTED IDIOTS
Are you all familiar with SLATE, which some – like Coates the Pabloite – will dislike instinctively because it is American and not put together by Congolese refugees subsisting on the dole [provided by UK taxpayers]in Ipswich:
http://www.slate.com/id/2239935/
Masochistically, I am rather looking forward to the challenge of flying on Gulfair in February. Will they look up my bum or just take off my shoes?
As someone who was once stopped and searched 4 times in one day (my personal record) by cops during an anti-fascist event in Kent, I know how irritating it can be. A lot of the time it is carried out to:
1. Go through the motions
2. Give the cops something to do
3. Piss people off
However, without wishing to come over all liberal democrat, there are two clear sides to this argument. Firstly that the demographic of the jihadist is largely male, largely under 45 and overwhelmingly comprised of non-whites. (A couple of white converts have been jailed for jihadist activities in the UK, but no more)
Ergo, if you have time to stop and search only 10 people who are going to board an aircraft at Heathrow, guys in the above demographic are the logical one’s to go for. That is if the policy is actually about stopping/deterring an attack, rather than just pissing people off or going through the motions.
The second issue is that if you are searching for bombs, the attack may not be carried out by a conscious suicide bomber. Al Qaeda in Iraq have strapped bombs to disabled people and sent them into a market place, whilst back in the 1980s an Arab terrorist put a bomb in his girlfriends suitcase and put her onto a plane at Heathrow without telling her what he had done.
There is nothing to suggest such tactics would never be contemplated here.
One final point. Go back to 1999, and imagine if David Copeland had not been caught after the Soho bomb attack. Would anyone have objected if, a week after the attack, white people walking in Stamford Hill or Southall were more likely to be stopped and searched than Jews, Muslims or Sikhs?
Paul Stott. Palestinians strapped a bomb vest onto a mentally infirm young man. The young lad was a waste of rations to them. Nazi ideology. The left in Britain support Palestinian Islamic fascists. The left have lost the plot and are in the wilderness. They do not know their left from the right.