The war to defend the free world

James Strong

'some sensible policies on beefing up physical security' What are these? The headlined changes that I've seen are ridiculous. Airport style security at the 250 busiest stations; how long would it take even the least clever terrorist to work out that he would need to change the point of attack? These increaed security measures are a sham; they are not going to make us safer but they are going to inconvenience a lot of innocent people. We know what motivates the terrorists; it's their interpretation of Islam. They have to be confronted on the ground of ideas.And it's going to be a long-term process that will have to be addressed to the whole country, including but not confined to any particular 'faith community' as some term it nowadays. Hearts and minds are imporatant; and also let's give the terrorists' ideas, demands and visions of society the 'oxygen of publicity'. Expose what they want and what they do, let the nation energise against them. That might have an effect, but be clear it won't be completely successful. 100% security, dream on!

Lee Jakeman

I believe that everything happens for a purpose. Even terrorist attacks. What possible purpose can terrorist attacks serve? Well, to wake us all up, for a start.

Tiberius

The British Labour Party has never done strong government, and New Labour is no different. I do not believe that Britain will lose the war Melanie describes because there will eventually be the required reaction. But the later that reaction comes and the more entrenched the enemy becomes in the meantime, the greater the likelihood of violence. And one can only hope that if that does happen, it is limited to action by the security forces against the enemy.

Mladen Andrijasevic

Incredible that decisions in both the Israeli and US governments, let alone European, are made by people who are lazy to read books on Islam. Why is it that those who during the Cold War had a fair understanding of what Marx, Lenin and Stalin and their followers stood for are today completely ignorant about what jihadists believe in and why. Ask about abrogation and you will almost certainly get a blank stare. Never in human history has the future of our civilization depended on the group so reluctant to look into quite easily accessible information.

Helen

The government knows that terror is running out of control and that when the next successful attack happens people will say: 'What was done to prevent it?'

Just as the government prefers a housing debate to an immigration debate deflect attention from its abandonment of our border controls, so it will prefer the focus to be on internal security because it will cover for the failure to keep an eye on who comes into this country. There is little still to stop would-be terrorists and hate preachers skipping over our borders to spread hate.

The bulk of these new measures are pathetic and meaningless, but they give ministers the chance to blether and fill the airwaves and make it look as if they're busy and serious and getting on with it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Victor Purinton

Time for the UK government to make a clear and definitive statement:

This government will never implement religious laws of any kind. If anyone wants that in their lives, they should move to another country because it's not going to happen here. End of discussion.

Allan Sharp

Following the attempted atrocity at Glasgow Airport, I am happy with increased restrictions at Scotland's other airports because they serve to remind me about who wants to have me and my kind killed.

JJS

What on earth is Mladen Andrijasevic talking about? I think HE is the one too lazy to THINK......

ANTHONY POSNER

When Brown became PM and made his first speech outside No 10, he made no mention of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also didn't mention the problem of Islamic extremists within The UK.
I have to conclude that Brown is either determined to sanitize the problems facing The UK or is living in a parallel universe.

Manuel

We should all despair of any sensible policies coming forth from this joke of a government regarding both the nation's secuity and the islamofacist threats to society. Brown really needs to consult John Howard, the Australian P.M., for advice on how to deal with threats and demands of sharia here. Howard got it perfectly right when he told his islamofacists that there was one law in Australia, Australian law, and anyone not liking that could get out. As for security, everyone but everyone desiring entry into the UK must be confronted & interviewed by an immigration officer, no matter how long the queues and to hang with any EU directives on free-entry for EU 'citizens' - our well-being & sense of security is far more important. If Brown and his gang think they will curry favour from these extremists by bowing to their every demand, his heading for a big surprise. The more you concede, the bigger the next demand and the implied threat of violence will still be there. The British people are by and large a tolerant lot, but you sense they are being pushed too far and they don't like it any more. Unless the government starts to act like a government, there will be a nasty price to pay - for all of us.

David Saxon

Well said, Melanie. As always you show yourself capable of disecting problems with a razor sharp scalpel wielded with surgical precision. What you do not offer, though, is any alternative. We need a new way forward. The Lib-dems and Tories are serving up exactly the same dish of appeasement and cultural and spritual suicide. We need a new dish, maybe a new menu. A change is needed. Is there anyone on the political scene, other than the BNP, who can offer us that change? I think not.

Max Kaye

I agree with Tiberius. Recently I (re)watched the excellent old TV series 'Churchill - The Wilderness Year' which dealt with the rising tide of the Nazi menace. The delays and enfeeblement caused by the policies of apeasement meant that the reckoning - when it finally came - was far more destructive than it would have been had the problem been seriously confronted earlier, and eventual victory was bought at a far higher cost.

I wonder whether we ever really learn from history.

Mladen Andrijasevic

JJS asks what on earth was I talking about. He proves my point. Here is the answer: Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam http://www.meforum.org/article/1754

Ian Parker

Your comparison with Nazi Germany in the 30’s is absolutely appropriate. Recall, however, that appeasement was the strategy right up until the point at which Britain faced public and international humiliation by pursuing that course. That appeasement was, of course, borne out of fear. Even after the outbreak of war, many still sought some form of negotiated surrender. Britain no longer has the pretence of being a world power, hence its capacity for total capitulation is unrestrained. Eventually, the majority will react to the growing threat. There is only one way in which this can occur, however, and that is through the rise of stringent nationalism. Currently, the simple truth is that there is only one ‘party‘ that would have any credibility in terms of standing up to the Islamic menace, the BNP. Can we really countenance what that implies?

George Steiner

I admire Ms. Phillips's fortitude. She keeps slugging away at the intellectually and phisically lazy Brits. The British political class, Labour and Conservative are in sympathy with the electoral class at large. Multi-culti, lefty, relativist, anti-American and anti-Jew. What a combination. The "eventually" of some of the commenters will never happen.

R.Rowan

This kind of thinking on the part of Politicians is typical,votes of Muslims are more important to Brown than the interests of the greater population.This Prime Minister is only interested in holding on to power by any means regardless of the cost to the rest of us.

Bobbsterr

Lets face it...Brown & his cronies will do anything to avoid upsetting the Moslem community in the U.K., so desperate are they for their votes. It's a similar situation with the current immigration shambles. New Labour will never take any serious steps to rectify the situation as they view every illegal immigrant as a potential, future, voter! All they have to do is sit back...and wait for the Illegal Immigrants amnesty, which, as sure as eggs is eggs, is just round the corner.

Elgar1857

People have a choice at the next election, they can either vote for more of the same or give the establishment the biggest kick up the backside ever with a large vote for the BNP. Only when this happens will the politicians treat the British voters with respect, until then they will continue to pander to the muslim vote.

Phil

The British Public have to be motivated for real changes to take place. The last few decades have seen an upsurge in living standards, albeit at the expence of mounting debt. The motivating change will come shortly in the form of both rising fuel costs and the massive credit problem we face as a nation. Home grown terrorism, of course, will play a psycological part in these preceedings. When this happens, motivated Brits must seek community cohesion and strong ideological principles, or this land will fall peacefully and electorally into the hands of a new breed of politican. Terrorism brings fear, but demographical change will be the silent undoing of this nation.

david

The plain and obvious truth of so many of the posted comments fills me with total despair at the nightmare we are nurturing in our midst and the manifest inadequacy of this generation of politicians to deal with it. We are experiencing the total failure of British mainstream politics to address the central issues concerning the future identity and welfare of our society -the legitimate concerns of the people. It is not just with the Armed Forces that the Government has broken the Covenant -it is with the entire majority population.

Arthur

If its such a worry why keep voting for it while ignoring the elephant in the room? There is only one party standing between us and the nightmare ahead.

Ysabel Jehan Howard

'A religious war', indeed, but its terms have not, I think, been properly delineated. I am a sort of spiritual poetic atheist. I didn't have religion at home. I grew up in Anglican England and attended Morning Assembly and RE and trilled 'The King of Love my Shepherd is/Whose goodness faileth never' and such like. None of these hymns made any allusion to the Old Testament. Certainly we learned about Moses and Daniel in the lions' den, but I do not recall such stories as being considered theologically pertinent. The wellspring of such an education was that God is boundless love and this love was manifested in Jesus. 1. This concept of God is at odds with the Allah of the Qu'ran. 2. Suddenly 'interfaith movements' are telling me Christianity is an Abrahamic faith. To theologians, no doubt it is but most of us grew up in a Christian country to which the Old Testament was irrelevant, not one following in the footsteps of the patriarchs. Jesus, love, forgiveness are being squeezed out here. Deuteronomy expresses the enthusiasm for stoning women (the rejection of love and supremacy of the Law) expressed by the rulers of Iran. The Islam of the Qu'ran is hell-fire religion with a vengeful god. Christians certainly have espoused that god and do espouse him but to billions of people that is not the god of the Christian world. There is no accommodation between the two. It is possible to conclude certain clerics prefer Deuteronomy to 1 John 4 ('there is no fear in love' etc) but I think they may find there will come a point when the rest of us, despised unchurched secularists that we are, do not. What we hate about the conduct of some Muslims is the vindictiveness, the heartlessness, the absence of any love. You're so jolly perfect, huh? You cast the first stone. Oh, you are so righteous, but inside you are full of it. We may never go to church, but that is our Christian heritage and I don't think it's going to obediently vanish.

Bob Mack

The first casualty of war is the truth. And truth be told, the refusal to call this war what it is will seal the West's fate. So, when we lose, we won't be able to name those who defeated us or what the war was even about.