You’d think nearly 3,000 Americans had gotten their car doors keyed on 9/11. No, they were murdered at their desks, or as captives aboard airliners by a group that wanted jihad, that had declared jihad, and that considered itself at war in a jihad against the United States.
How soon we forget — but not all of us. “Former MI5 boss wants Al Qaeda settlement,” by Rachel Brown for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, September 3:
The former head of MI5, Britain’s intelligence unit, says she hopes the UK and US are looking at different ways to talk to Al Qaeda.
Eliza Manningham-Buller, who ran MI5 until 2007, has used a BBC lecture to say she hopes British and US intelligence are examining who to talk to within Al Qaeda, as well as how and what could be discussed.
But she says negotiations are still a way off.
Baroness Manningham-Buller says military and security responses to terrorism can only go so far and eventually a political settlement with terror groups is needed.
If we can’t engage the ideology of the enemy and confront putative allies who are playing a double game, then yes, we are painting ourselves into that corner. But it is not a foregone conclusion.
She says the September 11 attacks were “a crime, not an act of war”.
She adds she has always the phrase “war on terror” unhelpful, saying the Iraq invasion was a distraction in the West’s pursuit of Al Qaeda.