From an American vantage point, a successful terrorist plot launched from Heathrow would have been doubly Britain's fault. Its proximate cause would have been a lapse in British security. Its root cause would have been the infiltration of British society by radical Islamism.
As details emerged about the perpetrators, Americans' worst suspicions about Britain would have been confirmed. It has been clear for a while that Britain's Muslim communities are proving fertile recruiting grounds for Islamist extremists, and that it is the disaffected sons and grandsons of Pakistani immigrants who are most susceptible.
Perhaps even more troubling, it has been evident since the arrest of attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid that ordinary British dropouts can also be lured, via religious conversion, into the terrorist network.
August 28, 2006
"What if 8/27 had happened?"
Niall Ferguson asks how the response to "8/27" -- the liquid bomb plot -- would have differed from the response to 9/11:
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15 comments:
I was forced to give up reason and civilized Law as the means to settle this whole nasty business when I started seeing pictures of smiling terrorist kids wearing suicide vests. As long as they regard our civilians as infidel assets, we are forced to rely on the likes the UN and Koffi Anan, since it appears we are unwilling to engage in the hideous things that must be done to survive. I feel like a Jim Jones follower waiting for the koolaid to be passed around. They aren't going to stop you know.
"we are unwilling to engage in the hideous things that must be done to survive."
It's nice to know where, besides FrontPageMag and LGF, the petrified and morally bankrupt go for their commentary.
Ferguson's prediction about how a successful terrorist attack on US airliners would have been perceived here seems a bit silly. Blaming the British for Islamic terrorism would make about as much sense as blaming Bush (or Clinton) for 9/11. Or Janet Reno for getting McVeigh so riled up because of Waco that he just had to blow up a federal building.
I don't know enough about British domestic politics to comment on his prediction that a renewed terrorist attack originating from a British airport would result in a Spanish-style response in the UK. But it wouldn't surprise me if the Labour Party along with the UK's chattering classes might respond in that way. Even the Tories seem to have gone a bit wobbly. Where's Maggie now that the UK needs her?
Regardless of the UK government's actions, a few more successful terrorist attacks would bring about a white backlash.
Mr. Blair's devolution program has already conditioned a generation of Brits to think of themselves as Welsh, Scots, or English, not as subjects of a united kingdom. If the authorities cannot protect them from the depredations of "Asians," they will stop using their street-fighting skills on each other after closing time and start using them on the minorities in their midst.
The British criminal-law establishment, emasculated from years of coddling the diverse elements of the population, will be powerless to stop the forces of reaction.
In the words of Sting, "Billy's joined the National Front...."
JM
(word verification: lnlnaff - Welsh exclamation of anger)
Two British factors argue against the central premise of the author.
1. First, if 8/27 had occurred, it would not have been solely US citizens on those planes, but rather a good mix of Yanks and EU residents with a high % of Brits. In proportion to the UK population, their casualties might have been higher than US ones.
2, Secondly, the Brits have a successful history of resistance and fortitude when faced with outside military threats.
- Spanish Armada
- Napoleon
- Battle of Britain / Post Dunkirk
- IRA times of troubles in general
- Brighton bombing
- Falklands war
When pushed hard, the Brits tend to rally round Queen and Country and support sacrifice to defend their freedoms. I would not expect a Madrid capitulation.
Doyle, Doily . . .
Nice try at baiting thinking people to "take on" your vacuous and morally questionable views on everything that the adults are doing to protect Americans. "Americans" includes even people such as yourself and others who perhaps can't take care of themselves.
I'm sorry . . . real discussions take place here. If you need a blog to go do your "I know you are but what am I?" Pee-Wee Herman whining, I suggest your fellow compatriots at Daily Kos. Bonus: they use small words there, including a lot of four letter ones.
Freder Frederson said,
"Let's just keep repeating "Madrid capitulation" over and over. Maybe if you say it long enough, one day it will become true."
It appears from his comments that nothing would give him more pleasure than a Madrid capitulation. Watching Bush, Blair, and Niall Ferguson getting their comeuppance would be satisfying enough that he'd overlook minor inconveniences like sharia.
"Niall Ferguson is an Imperialist and a Racist."
Two things so terrible that they require Capital Letters. I like how one can smear someone with the "racist" moniker with no evidence and then proceed to make up bad thoughts and dark, hidden motives and attribute them to the person that they're smearing. If that's acceptable according to Marquess of Frederson rules, then I accuse Fred Frederson of being a Communist and a Cat Boiler who types out yards of boilerplate leftish snark but is secretly writing in code about his love of pink chiffon evening gowns and Sanka enemas but can't get away with saying that.
No pink chiffon gowns allowed under sharia.
"After all, imperialism presupposes that your culture and civilization is so superior to that of another country or region that you are entitled to forcibly take over that country, rule over that country without the consent of the native peoples, subjugating them by force of arms, taking their land, or even exterminating them if you want, all in the name of bestowing upon them the benefits of "civilization"."
Sounds like a good working definition of the spread of radical Islam.
Freder Frederson said,
"The slander of the "Madrid Capitulation" is yet another viscious lie (this time about the voting majority of an entire country) spread by the right wing media machine."
"Viscious lie?" Do you mean "vicious lie" or "viscous lie?" Probably the latter.
"Right-wing media machine?" Have you looked at the NY Times lately?
Unless the NYT DOES seem right-wing to you, in which case we can abandon further attempts at rational discussion.
Palladian correctly focused on your use of "Imperialist" and "Racist" as the ultimate insults. This usage reflects the left's view that no culture may find fault with the practices of any other -- unless the practices are those of the West, which are automatically presumed to be oppressive and corrupt. Thus the left can dismiss things like stoning adulterers, beheading captives, and blowing people up as culturally valid responses to the writings of Niall Ferguson.
Freder Frederson said,
"Are you implying that the NYT spread the lie that the Spanish people voted out the Conservative government and voted in the liberal one because they were afraid that retaining the Conservative government, with its support for the U.S. position in Iraq, would result in more Islamic terror attacks."
Actually, that's what the NYT did say. It was offered as one explanation among several others. For all its faults, the NYT is still capable of some degree of nuance in its reporting. (Unlike certain leftist commenters, to whom any shade between black and white is an alien concept).
Freder, could you please go troll Volokh? Your comments were marginally less dogmatically collectivist over there, and they were mercifully fewer. It was a much nicer arrangement.
BTW, you left out "Blair is a worker-exploiting Bush poodle Running Dog of the Capitalist Pigs." Good grief, man! Even you can troll better than your efforts above.
Keep fighting the power, man...
Al Maviva:
Don't be so quick to dismiss Freder's comments. It's true that on the surface they appear to be nothing but pointless leftist drivel. Happily, though, Palladian has found the key to Freder's secret code. We can now see an actual meaning in Freder's latest effusion -- it's a ringing affirmation of Cat Boiling.
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