Saturday, August 19, 2006

Peter Hitchens on Terror

... the real cause of terrorism against us is that it has worked in the past, and it is reasonable to suspect that it will work again. Since Ted Heath released the terrorist hijacker Leila Khaled back in 1970, and since Yasser Arafat was elevated from gangster to politician thanks to his terrorist actions, the Western powers have signalled to the Arab and Muslim worlds that terror works. In case they have been in any doubt, the British and American governments have also handsomely rewarded terror in Ireland. It doesn't, I'm afraid, take a sophisticated organisation with dirty bombs or nuclear weapons to grasp this or act upon it. Any freelance killer in a back street with access to some pretty easily available materials can keep up the pressure, in the name of 'Al Qaeda' or whoever he chooses as his franchise. I think this is what we saw on July 7th last year. It is hard to see how any sort of surveillance will be able to spot all such attempts.

What is not true is that we are under attack because Muslims 'hate our freedom' or 'hate our way of life', though some Muslims undoubtedly don't think much of our society and nor do I, or quite a lot of British Christians. The attacks are far more specific, and we need to decide if we want to give in to them or resist them. At the moment we pretend to resist them while actually giving in, this making sure we get more. The choice lies between resolve or surrender, and we should make up our minds which we actually prefer. Personally, I'm for resolve.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

j'accuse Peter Hitchens of being a dissembling Islamophile. 'The attacks are far too specific' indeed. One could also divide WWII into 'specific' attacks and deny that it was actually a war!

And note that he neglected to mention Pakistan, when some of his ilk rewarded Muslim terrorists, averse to pluralist democracy, with their own country after half a century of terrorising their innocent neighbours.

I humbly predict, in most fearful apprehension, that many Peter Hitchens's will 'come out' as Muslim converts in the near future - he already suggests that he shares some Muslim views - and then it will really be on.

We need to be talking about this.

Scipio said...

Never surrender to these scum!They will not defeat us they will not change the English way of life!

Anonymous said...

To be fair, I certainly agree with the drift of Peter Hitchens' argument, but I don't think he takes it far enough, back into the ambiguous admiration which British administrators always had for Muslims over, say, Hindus and Buddhists.

Few Indian Hindus wanted independence from the British (yet paradoxically they have now created the most successful independent democratic development of any former colony). The whole anti-colonial movement was begun and maintained by Muslims on religious separatist grounds.

First the Indian 'Mutiny' was essentially by Muslims averse to Kaffir contamination. Then Muharram, the Eid Husseini festival, became a focus of Victorian era separatist protest from Bombay to Trinidad. Then when Kamal ended the Caliphate in 1919, a violent terrorist movement arose in India called Khilafat, igniting Independence agitation for the 20th Century, but ending tragically in Pakistan after millions of deaths. Yet rewarded with it's own modern army which continues to spread mayhem even today.

This is the elephant in the room of British history.

Hitchens may not be aware how far he is in the Muslim camp. I think he is trying to dance on the volcano rim. And this is the dragon seed buried in British history. Time to draw the line, now or never.

Anonymous said...

AN INSPIRED STORY OF MARTYRDOM

A Muslim shaheed or ‘martyr’ (one who dies while killing infidels), may intercede with Allah to take 70 of his relatives to paradise with him, no matter what their sins.

This thought kept going through Papa's mind as he was considering a career for Sharif, the youngest and most useless of his eleven sons and umpteen daughters. Sharif wasn't much good for anything in this world, he couldn't even remember more than five aliases when filling in his welfare claims.

So a family council was called, and targets discussed. Aircraft, schools and trains had their pros and cons. But then Sharif's sister Parveen had a brain-wave. "Killing Christians is indeed pleasing to Allah, but you get treble points for killing Joooooz. - Let's send him to Israel"

Everybody was in agreement apart from Momma, who wondered how Sharif was going to feed himself in paradise since this was the first time he'd been away from home and he couldn't even open a can.

"No problem" Papa explained "Out of 72 virgins some of them are going to be able to cook." Momma was not convinced they’d be able to cook as well as her.

Meanwhile Sharif went to the local Mosque’s laboratory to mix the relevant ingredients in the correct proportions.

The great day came, and Sharif rushed into an Israeli seaside bar shouting "I love Pepsi Cola more than you love death! Akkah Albar!" - He never could get anything right.

He pressed the detonator and there was a fizzle, and then a flame from his bomb belt - but no bang. Sharif was no great genius at chemistry, he'd made an incendiary mixture instead of explosives.

In an effort to extinguish the flames, Sharif ran out and jumped into the sea. It worked, but then he remembered he’d never learned to swim.

The body was washed up in due course, leaving and Papa and Momma very uncertain. Could Sharif be a Shaheed by just killing himself without taking any infidels with him? Eventually they decided to visit a medium to make contact and find out what he was doing in the afterlife.

“Tell me what it’s like where you are” said Papa.
Sharif’s voice came through the medium sounding squeaky and distorted. “Well, I get up in the morning and have sex. Then I have a lettuce. I have sex again. Then I have a cucumber. Then more sex and celery and so on for the rest of the day.”

“Sex, sex and more sex!” Papa said “Truly my son you are indeed a Shaheed!”

But Momma was still a little anxious “You’ll need more than salad to keep your strength up with all that exercise. Aren’t they feeding you properly in paradise?”

“Who said anything about paradise?” Sharif’s voice replied. “I’ve been reincarnated as a rabbit in the allotments.”




… story inspired by http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3659885.stm