Terrorism

Friday

John Bew

Talking to the Taliban | 29 January 2010

After the London conference, it is clear that “talking to the Taliban” will become part of the strategy in Afghanistan. But the conference left a number of important questions about what this means in practice unanswered. Talking to the Taliban is not a new idea. Even though he expelled a British and Irish diplomat for holding secret talks with Taliban in December 2007, President Karzai has become an advocate for such negotiations over the last two years. In the Spring of 2009, Saudi Arabia hosted tentative negotiations between Karzai’s representatives and former Taliban, with links to the current movement. But the idea now has a head of steam behind it.

David Blackburn

Blair, the Special Relationship and the Clash of Civilisations

So far so good for John Rentoul: Blair’s walking it, but there have been intriguing moments. The suggestion that Blair’s foreign policy was motivated solely by vanity is false. The former Prime Minister’s thinking is extremely coherent. That is not to say that he is right nor to deny his obvious vanity, or to overlook that this may simply be Blair in matinee idol mode. But he subscribes to an ideology. He stated, once again, that he saw 9/11 as an attack on “us”, not just America. The language is redolent of Samuel P. Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilisations. Blair perceives a band of religious fanatics and a crucible of oppresive

Saturday

James Walton

Not cowardly enough

Nobody who reads Nigel Farndale’s The Blasphemer is likely to complain about being short-changed. Nobody who reads Nigel Farndale’s The Blasphemer is likely to complain about being short-changed. It tackles five generations of the same family, three wars, Mahler’s ninth symphony and contemporary Islamic terrorism. Along the way, it ponders the nature of male courage, the theological implications of Darwinism and, rather more surprisingly, the existence of angels. As a journalist himself, Farndale also seems to have noted the career path of Sebastian Faulks — that great exemplar for all British journos dreaming of literary glory. Like Birdsong, The Blasphemer depicts a soldier’s affair with an older French woman who

Friday

Alex Massie

The World’s First Suicide-Bomber Comedy

I think Chris Morris’s new film Four Lions is probably the (English-speaking) world’s first suicide-bomber comedy. So it’s all but guaranteed to offend just about everyone. Splendid. Doubtless it’s a sign of terrible, even craven decadence to admit to looking forward to seeing it… Here’s a clip, anyway:

Thursday

David Blackburn

Poor communication is damaging the Afghan mission

He may be a chateau-bottled shyster, but there is no better communicator of policy than Alastair Campbell. He has penned an article in the FT arguing that the lesson that should have been learned from the Iraq war was how to communicate strategic ideas and objectives. The lack of clarity that came to define Iraq now afflicts Afghanistan: ‘It was hard to discern that approach in the run-up to the Afghan surge being announced, or after it. The surge should have been followed by co-ordinated communications across the alliance. That job is not being done with the vigour and consistency that it should, and the systems of co-ordination have weakened

David Blackburn

Ultimately, Brown is responsible for these anti-terror cuts

Seriousness comes naturally to Gordon Brown and yesterday he gave a speech detailing how Britain is defending itself by striking at the heart of the ‘crucible of terror’. What Brown has in seriousness of delivery, he lacks in realism. Britain has not fought for such a sustained period since the high-water mark of empire; but the ambitions of two prime ministers, and to be fair the severity of the threat that Britain faces, have outstripped resources; Britain is now completely over-extended. Hours after Brown’s speech, Baroness Kinnock divulged that anti-terror measures run by the Foreign Office have been cut – anti-narcotics campaigns in Afghanistan and de-radicalisation programmes in Pakistan. These

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

David Miliband’s big idea: an Af-Pak-India Council

An idea that has received little media attention in Britain, but is giving Foreign Office diplomats sleepless nights, is David Miliband’s push for a “regional stabilisation council” involving Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, to be unveiled at the international conference scheduled for January 28. The idea is seen as an innovate way to bring the three countries together, while at the same time allowing the Foreign Secretary, who will formally host the conference, to show leadership and initiative. The pretender to the post-election Labour throne needs something to get rid of his “Banana Boy” epithet. So far, however, the idea is not meeting with local support. Pakistan, in particular, is opposed

Friday

James Forsyth

Fighting terror with the National Security Council

Since September 11, Britain has lost one war and is not winning another. But the question of why this is the case remains depressingly low down the agenda. There is remarkably little interest in why the “British army was defeated in the field in southern Iraq”, to quote Gordon Brown’s and David Miliband’s favourite counter-insurgency expert, David Kilcullen. Today, the Tories launched their green paper on national security with speeches by Pauline Neville-Jones and David Cameron. The document is a mixed bag. But the Tories deserve credit for squarely facing up to the fact that Britain is now an “incubator of extremism and an exporter of terrorism”. They are also

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The cost of saving the Army

We have led the magazine this week on coming Tory defence cuts, with a brilliant piece by Max Hastings. Look closely at the cover image (our second by Christian Adams) and you can see the guillotine blade will hit he RAF and Navy guys before the Army. This, Hastings argues, will be the effect of the Tory Strategic Defence Review. And even this will leave cuts of up to 20 per cent across the defence budget under the Tories. How could Cameron justify that, in this dangerous world of ours? David Cameron prepares the ground today with an important speech in Chatham House promising “one of the most radical departures

David Blackburn

The Tories may raid the aid budget to fund the military

The think tank, Chatham House, is the next venue for Cameron’s intermittent policy blitz. He will unveil his national security strategy, part of which, the Telegraph reports, will enable the government to raid the international development budget to fund military projects. ‘The Conservatives are committed to increasing the international development budget to meet a United Nations target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national product on aid. However, some Tories believe the party can honour that pledge by counting some spending done by the Ministry of Defence as development aid, since the work of the Armed Forces contributes to the development of countries like Afghanistan. Taking that approach could

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Islam4UK: the clue’s in the name

Irony of ironies, proselytising liberal and convinced egalitarian, Anjem Choudary, told the Today programme that the banning of Islam4UK, al-Muhajiroun and their aliases is a ‘failure of democracy’. A further irony is that he is right, sort of. Alan Johnson’s decision is understandable but incorrect; the surest way to silence these repugnant extremists and reactionaries is through equality and free debate, even though they hold those principles in contempt. The members of Islam4UK abuse freedom to peddle their reactionary ideals and disregard their duties towards society, but that is no reason to proscribe the group. Unless it entertains something more tangibly serious than marches and hosting lunatics on its discussion boards, Islam4UK and its ilk

Monday

Alex Massie

Terrorism? No Big Deal. Keep Calm & Carry On

I’d like to think that if the Christmas Day underwear-bomber had been en route to London rather than Detroit then our response to the attempted attack would have been a little more phlegmatic than the Cousins’ but I’m not wholly convinced that would have been the case. So Fareed Zakaria’s excellent column in today’s WaPo applies to this country too. The whole thing is well worth reading* but Zakaria’s intro and conclusion are especially bang-on: In responding to the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day, Senator Dianne Feinstein voiced the feelings of many when she said that to prevent such situations, “I’d rather overreact than underreact.” This appears

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Fox News Effect

According to James Carville there’d be 67 Democratic Senators if it weren’t for those ghastly chaps at Fox News. As with everything Carville says this must be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevetheless one need not look too hard to discover evidence of the impact Fox has had on American journalism* in precincts far from and not naturally disposed to take their orders from Roger Ailes’ command-bunker. Why, the very same edition of the New York Times contains an excellent example of how Fox’s “framing” of an issue has leached into the mainstream. In the paper’s Week in Review section Helene Cooper “examines” the burning issue of whether Barack

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Peter King Watch | 11 January 2010

British readers probably don’t need any reminding that Congressman Peter King (R-NY) spent decades raising money for the IRA and championing their cause at every available opportunity. However my experience is that plenty of Americans remain all too unaware of his terrorism-supporting record. Happily the nice folk at the Daily Beast asked if I’d compile a quick refresher course, detailing some of King’s more egregious soft-on-terrorism moments. So here it is. It’s also worth recalling that though King “broke” with the IRA in 2005 (so long ago!) and called for their disbandment he was still happy to shill for the Republican movement in the aftermath of the murder of Robert

Friday

John Stokes

Where’s the accountability?<br />

The verdict is in and just about every part of the US intelligence community failed to perform. The Solomonic decision of President Obama is that no individual is at fault – no systemic leadership problems here – and so nobody will be held accountable. Instead, there will be improved processes and better technology. This was exactly the response after 9/11 when 3,000 people died. At that time, the man in charge of US intelligence, George Tenet, stayed in his job and was later given the Medal of Freedom – America’s highest honor. This week’s verdict was over the intelligence failures that led to a Nigerian boarding a flight in Amsterdam

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Cancel the London Afghanistan Conference

In a few weeks time, a slew of foreign ministers will descend on London to attend a conference on Afghanistan. No.10 will use the event to sell Gordon Brown as a statesman, confidently dealing with the nation’s threats. The Conservatives, in turn, will probably try to score the usual points about Britain’s failure, alongside its NATO allies, to make any in-roads in the fight against the Taliban. Together with Tony Blair’s evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, the conference may create one of the few moments in the drawn-out election campaign when the three party leaders stop talking about the NHS and focus on national security issues instead. Too bad, then,

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Oh dear, Gordon’s done it again

The knicker-bomber must love this. Twice Gordon Brown has jumped on the bandwagon and bounced straight off on both occasions. Sky News reports that the UK did not pass vital information to the US, despite the claims of a Downing Street spokesman. Here’s the key section: ‘During a briefing to journalists today, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “There is no suggestion the UK passed intelligence to the US that they did not act on.” But Sky’s political correspondent Joey Jones said it had been an “awful” briefing. “He tried to clear things up but only succeeded in muddying the waters still further,” Jones said. “After he read Downing Street’s statement,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Case Against Profiling

In the wake of the Knicker-Bomber’s attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner it’s hardly a surprise that plenty of folk are calling for more rigorous profiling of muslim (or arab) passengers wanting to board aircraft. Some go so far as to suggest that all young muslim men should be strip-searched. Brother Blackburn doesn’t go that far but does say that it’s just common sense at work. Plenty of commenters agree with him. So, since I don’t think profiling of this sort is a terribly good idea let me concede that it might make a difference to airline security. This might be the case even though there are plenty of

Monday

John Stokes

Overcoming America’s intelligence woes

The failed terrorist attack on a North West Airlines plane last month has reignited the debate about just what can be done to improve the performance of America’s intelligence agencies. Despite spending close to $100 billion since the attacks of 9/11 nine years ago, it has become clear in the aftermath of the failed attack that all the old problems that were identified after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still remain: Intelligence is not shared effectively and the analysis of available data remains weak. To the reformers inside the intelligence community, none of this is exactly news. As money poured in after 9/11 there was

Sunday

Alex Massie

Fighting a Lukewarm War

What sort of war do we find ourselves fighting and, more than eight years after the destruction of the World Trade Center, who is winning? Like Norm, I commend a couple of columns from today’s papers. First up it’s Matt d’Ancona (late of this parish of course) in the Sunday Telegraph who writes: [T]here are two competing narratives in the West. The first is frightening, difficult and poses a host of deeply unwelcome questions. According to this version of events, we face a global struggle against a new mutation of militant Islamism ready to use all and any means at its disposal, bonded by anti-semitism, hatred of America and a