Beating terrorism

Further to my post below about the dangerous inanity of those who advocate ‘engaging with’ terrorists Bret Stephens observes, in a must-read in the Wall Street Journal, that the authorities in Iraq, Colombia and Sri Lanka are getting on top of terrorism not by talking to terrorists but through military offensives which destroy them. He writes:

All this is good news in its own right. Better yet, it explodes the mindless shibboleth that there is ‘no military solution’ when it comes to dealing with insurgencies. On the contrary, it turns out that the best way to end an insurgency is, quite simply, to beat it.

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Britain's Terrorism Derangement Syndrome

 
Mr Clarke, what kept you so long?

Today’s article in the Telegraph by Peter Clarke, the former Metropolitan Police officer who was until recently national co-ordinator of terrorist investigations, is a straightforward and sensible endorsement of the government’s embattled proposal to extend the detention period for terrorism suspects from 28 to 42 days. The opposition to this measure, when it is not merely playing mischievous politics, borders on the hysterical. Opponents shriek that it is internment by another name, and that if it is passed Britain will have destroyed its ancient liberties and handed victory to the terrorists. They also declare triumphantly that, since no-one can identify a case that has already occurred where 42 days was necessary and its absence caused terrorists to be released, this clinches the argument that it is totally unnecessary.

What utter drivel. Pointing...

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Britain's slide into dhimmocracy

There can hardly be a more graphic illustration of Britain’s helter-skelter slide into dhimmitude that this story:

Two Christian preachers were stopped from handing out Bible extracts by police because they were in a Muslim area, it was claimed yesterday. They say they were told by a Muslim police community support officer that they could not preach there and that attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity was a hate crime.

The community officer is also said to have told the two men: 'You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.' A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district.

The noteworthy point about this incident is that...

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Terror and appeasement

The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde (who most certainly should know better) said a few days ago that Britain could only stop al Qaeda by negotiation. A little while back there was a clamour for talking to the Taleban. This is all part of a huge establishment push for talking to terrorists (on both sides of the Atlantic – indeed, this is already becoming a major issue in the US presidential election) including Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The argument is a perfect distillation of the hubristic ignorance and solipsism of the west which views everything through the prism of its own cultural assumption that the entire world operates according to the rules of rational self-interest and that all conflict can be solved by dialogue. Indeed, the dominant belief is that conflict can only be...

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The strange death of political Britain

Gordon Brown continues to stagger punch drunk round the ring, blows still raining down. Today’s round brought a Guardian story that only five weeks are left before Brown and other Labour apparatchiki are personally bankrupted by the party’s unpaid loans. House prices are continuing to crash through the floor, exceeded in velocity only by Brown’s continuing plunge in the opinion polls -- the latest from You/Gov appears to show the Tories on course for a majority of several trillion seats; newspapers bring breathless dispatches every day from the Commons tea-room about which of Brown’s loyal ministers is now selflessly preparing to step up to the plate should a desperate nation beg him or her to stand, before concluding that none of these pygmies is up to it and then starting the...

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The universities' witch-hunt against the Jews

Today, the Universities and Colleges Union is discussing whether universities should single out Israeli and Jewish scholars for active discrimination.

Yes, you read that correctly. The UCU is debating a motion which not only raises the spectre yet again of an academic boycott of Israel but demands of Jewish and Israeli academics that they explain their politics as a pre-condition to normal academic contact. The motion asks colleagues

to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating... the testimonies will be used to promote a wide discussion by colleagues of the appropriateness of continued educational links with Israeli academic institutions... Ariel College, an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure.

The implication...

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