But he doesn't consider the possibility that this "view" of a "strand" of Islam is "proving powerful" because its proponents successfully present it as pure and authentic Islam, faithful to the Qur'an and Sunnah, and peaceful Muslims have mounted no effective response to this challenge. "Bomb suspects 'radicalised in weeks,'" by Michael Holden for Reuters, with thanks to Montague:
LONDON (Reuters) - A group of British Muslims suspected of plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners flying from Britain had been radicalised in just weeks or months, London's police chief said on Wednesday.British detectives announced last August they had foiled a suicide bomb plot to blow up planes using liquid explosives.
Officers have charged 15 people over the suspected plot with offences including conspiracy to murder and planning acts of terrorism. The suspects are due to go on trial next year.
"One of the really shocking things ... is the apparent speed with which young, reasonably affluent, some reasonably well-educated, British-born people were converted," police chief Ian Blair told a conference on Islamophobia.
It is only shocking because he still clings to what has been disproven many times: that jihadists are poor and uneducated. Note also that he was speaking at a conference on "Islamophobia," not on...jihad terrorism.
He said the suspects had been converted "from what would appear to be ordinary lives in a matter of some weeks and months, not years, to a position where they were allegedly prepared to commit suicide and murder thousands of people".Authorities are trying to understand what has caused a growth in extremism among the Britain's 1.8 million Muslims, dramatically exemplified by the July 2005 suicide bomb attacks on London's transport system by four British Islamists who killed themselves and 52 other people....
Blair said the "extreme view of one austere strand" of Islam was proving powerful.
"It seems to be very potent," he said, repeating his warning that the threat to Britain was "growing, and extremely grave" and the conspiracies were growing in "number and gravity".
He said he was concerned about recent opinion polls taken amongst British Muslims which found support in "principle at least" for terrorist action.
A poll of Islamic students and Muslims generally found that 4 and 6 percent of those questioned thought the July 7 London bombings were justified -- the equivalent of about 80,000 and 120,000 people, Blair said.
"I'm not suggesting that means there are that many terrorists. It does however indicate the power of the ideology involved."
Blair said it was vital to get over the message of "Britishness" based on values of tolerance, fairness and respect for faiths and traditions of others.
"We have to get over the message this is not a clash of civilisations."
And of course, it is entirely incumbent upon British authorities, in Ian Blair's mind, to get that message out. Muslim leaders have no responsibility whatsoever to demonstrate their loyalty.
Did the Muslimah officer who refused to touch Sir Ian fall under this particular 'austere strand' of Islam?
Did he mean Brit Infidels being converted to Islam, or Brit Muslims being converted to this 'austere strand'?The 4-6% mentioned looks low - I'd think that's the number of Muslims who don't support terrorism
Losers in life often find the right match in joining crackpot groups. Cults are full of such people and Islam, being the oldest and largest of them, will always attract a larger than normal number of losers who will soak up all the BS with frightening speed. Income levels, education or profession carry little weight with such losers.
I found this article re: police chief Ian Blair. If i may borrow a phrase from an influential American...
D'oh!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6296789.stm
my bad, already mentioned here,
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/014958.php#comments
D'oh!
"We have to get over the message this is not a clash of civilisations."
What is it then; a minor tiff between bosom chums, a lovers spat, two mates havin' a bit of a dust up?
Loosely translated, Chief Ian Blair's message is: "This clash of civilisations is not of our making. We have no desire to make war on Islam. We have tried, and will continue to try to reason with and placate Islam, but I don't have much hope for it.
God willing, I will be able to keep the lid on things until I'm able to retire and hand the job off to some idiot who will be forced to take the action I was too timid to take."
"One of the really shocking things ... is the apparent speed with which young, reasonably affluent, some reasonably well-educated, British-born people were converted," police chief Ian Blair told a conference on Islamophobia.
Here in the U.S. it's another case of "been there, done that". Does no one remember the wave of cults of the 70's and 80's? The U.S. was awash with Gurus, Perfect Masters, Ascended Ones, Anointed Leaders, etc. These all drew their followers largely from university students -- "reasonably affluent, reasonably well-educated" -- not from working youth.
Islam is nothing more than the monster cult of all time, the Godzilla of cults. There are any number of similarities. There's the unique position of the Leader, who alone is in touch with the Almighty (or the Powers That Be, or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, or whatever), and to whom nothing is forbidden, especially nothing sexual. Meanwhile the followers are bound by all sorts of rules, regulations, and taboos. Then there's the Us vs. Them mentality, where outsiders are to be shunned, where outsiders were "fair game" who could be tricked, swindled, lied to, or robbed with impunity. Even one's family: cult members were advised to steal as much as possible from their parents when leaving to join the cult's commune.
Many Europeans were simply astounded that we put up with that crap in the U.S. They had in place various laws that dealt with cults. I seem to remember that the Germans dealt rather strongly with the Scientologists. The same laws could be applied to islam, if only the political will could be found.
"...it's a clash of civilisation versus barbarity"
I imagine this is how the quote ended before Reuter's did surgery on it. Direct quote from Daniel Pipe's debate in which he and his second slaughtered London Mayor Ken Livingstone and his second (a born-again-Islamist muslima politician). Apparently there was so much blood and gore on the stage after they were done the video has been withheld to protect the sensitivity of young viewers (how else can we explain the total media blackout, even though major networks were there to record an event they crowed about in advance and apparently expected to be a once-and-for-all "exposure" of Pipes' "islamophobia").
I'll bet the good police chief was there for the debate, and was just echoing the line that best summarized the outcome.
Actually, I think even Pipes would submit that he was only quoting Wafa Sultan, but perhaps it was folklore before her...some ideas just come when it's their time...
Just a few questions, m'lud, of Chief Inspector Blair.
Inspector Blair, I'd like you to tell the court of Infidel public opinion your answers to the following questions.
First:
What beliefs are held by Muslim adherents of this "one austere strand" of Islam. Are they, is that "one austere strand" of Islam you refer to, part of Sunni Islam? Or might those who follow that "one austere strand" also include Shi'a Believers, such as the revered former leader, and eminent theologian (he did attain to the condition of ayatollah, after all), Ayatollah Khomeini?
Second:
What are the identifiable beliefs that characterize this "one austere strand" of Islam, beliefs that apparently are not to be found in all those other versions of Islam that apparently almost all Muslims -- save that group that belongs to that "one austere strand" -- adhere to?
Third:
What are the precise texts or parts of texts that those who preach and spread tha "one austere strand" of Islam rely on? Are they passages in the accepted Qur'an? Are these certain Hadith, and if so what muhaddithin assigned a rank of authenticity, and in what collections do these hadith occur -- Bukhari, Muslim, or perhaps others less authoritative? Finally, what among the facts of Muhammad's life, his words and acts, as found in the Sira (the biography of Muhammad), inspire an emulative desire in those Muslims who follow this "one austere strand" of Islam?
Fourth:
How is it that some Muslims apparently are kept permanently from finding out about those same passages in the Qur'an, those stories in the hadith, those details of Muhammad's life in the Sira? Or do they know and merely refrain from immediately and openly acting on such knowledge, but choose to further the aims of Islam, and to fulfill the duty of Jihad, in ways less obvious, using instruments other than terrorism?
Fifth:
How should Infidels be able to detect when an outwardly peaceful Muslim means well, and permanently, and how should Infidels be expected to detect those who are merely feigning now, and even now, or later, be engaged in Jihad through collective support rather than through individual participation in violence against Infidels (both are possible, depending on the circumstances and the comparative effectiveness of various instruments of Jihad?
Sixth:
How can Infidels be certain that a particular Muslim who, by appearances, appears at this point a rather indifferent or perhaps secularized Muslim will not revert, perhaps in response to nothing more than a personal setback in his own life, whcih Infidels might not even be aware of, and certainly would not know what the effect might be to turn someone into a potential menace, even a murdering one?
Seventh:
Finally, how can Infidels be expected to believe not only that those called "moderate" Muslims are, in fact, unfeignedly and permanently so? We can all see for ourselves, around the world, the spectacle of so many Muslims making so many demands for alterations in the legal and political and social institutions of the Infidel lands within which they have been allowed, without any understanding or knowledge by the governments of Infidel lands, to settle, behind what they themselves have been taught to regard as enemy lines, in lands now part of the Bilad al-kufr, or Lands of the Infidels, or Dar al-Harb, the House of War, which ultimately must, like all the world, belong to Allah, and where Islam by right must dominate, and Muslims, by right, must rule. How can we believe, or be asked to believe, that the descendants of those who have already settled and presented or been described as "moderates" will through the generations necessarily follow in the "moderation" (such as it is or may be thought to be) of the first or second generation of Muslim immigrants, when all the evidence suggests the reverse, suggests that those who come after the first generation or two are much more interested in Islam, and many much more fanatical in their faith, than the original immigrants, and that faith in Islam becomes stronger and claims not a dual loyalty, but rather something worse: a single loyalty from members of the Umma, and only hostility toward the Infidel nation-state, which from the viewpoint of Islam is a hostlity, not only to institutions made by mere mortals, but still worse, institutions, legal and political, that have been made by mortals who are Infidels and thus without any real authority, in the view of Allah and those who submit to his will, whatsoever.
Such "conversions" from ordinary citizens to homicidal conspirators would not happen within a matter weeks or months unless such persons weren't already preconditioned and reasonably well predisposed.
Archimedes:
You are right about Pipes's comments being "edited" by the Reuters hack. From an attendee, as posted at the Adloyada blogsite:
“Can a world civilisation exist?” asked Pipes “No, not as Huntington defined it”. But a world civilisation was possible as a coalition against what he termed “barbarism”. He then defined what he called ‘Ideological barbarians’ – fascists, totalitarian Communists and most recently – Islamists. The great question – he said – is how to oppose the barbarians. The Mayor , he said, proposed multiculturalism. But he – Pipes – wanted to win what he termed a War against barbarism. The UK had become a safe haven for terrorists. David Blunkett had noted that British based terrorists had carried out incidents in 15 countries. President Mubarak of Egypt had denounced the UK for protecting terrorists.
Read Jonathan Hoffman's account - Daniel Pipes Survives Livingstone's Lions' Den at http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/
Oliver Kamm on Livingstone's folly: http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2007/01/livingstones_fo.html
Pipes's own account: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/724
When a person is mentally sick, can you treat him with simple psychology, better get an exorcist ! If a person has been convinced that civilization is not civilization but really a controlled anarchy, do you let him live his life uncontrollably, you better put him in a pen, as in prison. There's no way to convince a person to be anything then what he wants to be, if it he chooses be a criminal or a civilian.
Laws are made after the fact is known, better not be late, or death will strike the innocent before it's known; then, at the end, you will be left with more criminals; and that's anarchy.
The good news is that there seems to be an ever so slight dawning here in the US.
I have the NEWS on all day and have been hearing words like 'Jihad' and 'senseless barbaric killing' in the last few days. That last from a right wing member of Congress
In fact the word barbaric has been occuring quite a lot.
"We have to get over the message this is not a clash of civilisations."
So he is saying it is a clash?
The 4-6% mentioned looks low - I'd think that's the number of Muslims who don't support terrorism
Posted by: Infidel Pride
i totally agree with you. Where do they come up with that ridiculous figure? Do they really think they can fool us much longer? Or are they fooling themselves? Now that's a truly scary thought.
The British people need to wake up,i saw a documentry the other day and it said the Muslims want to build a huge mosque in Britian that can hold 40,000 people.
You have a war coming and your leaders are to weak to stand up and admit that they have fucked up letting muslims in your country and all western leaders for that mattr have the same problem.
"one austere strand"
Or you might call it "the strand most Muslims seem to prefer, whichever denomination they herald from."
For short you could call it "genuine Islam".
All 'moderates' are either fake Muslims or lying prevaricating Muslims. All "moderate Islam" is either a most personal and idiosyncratic form of Islam, immaterial in our discussions of Islamic Jihad, or an altogether fake version of Islam deployed as a weapon by sinister Muslims to fool, confuse, and obfuscate the truth so that Islamic Jihad can continue unobstructed...
We must stop with the oblique euphemisms.
Islam is a War Doctrine.