Minimum Damage

In the cold aftermath of a terror attack, it is very easy to want to round up all the Muslims and….

And there is the crunch. Send them back? Not really a viable option. There are several million Muslims in the UK most of whom are entirely blameless, many of whom were born in the UK. “Sending them back” is not any sort of solution. Nor is “rounding them up”. What would you do with millions of pretty ordinary, non-terrorists?

We were chatting about this over dinner. Rather than impossible and extreme solutions, what can the Brits actually do? And, because I run a political philosophy/legal/political science seminar most nights over dinner (my sainted Susan is owed far more than I can ever repay), how can they do it with minimal destruction of civil rights?

At this point, the security services in the UK have a list of around 23,000 people who are “at risk” of terrorism and another list of 3000 people who are suspected of terrorist activity. Inclusion on either list is, I suspect, a fairly hit and miss enterprise. There are, of course, no-fly lists as well. What might a determined government do with this sort of information?

At the outer range of what could be done, every person on the longer list could be detained, questioned and sorted. It would be a massive operation and a massive invasion of the civil rights of the people on the list. 22 dead children and 7 dead Londoners might be enough to trigger the roundup. I don’t know.

What I do know is that such an intervention could accomplish a number of useful things. First off it would likely reduce the size of the list. People wrongfully on the list would, after some fairly light questioning, be removed. It would also give the authorities the opportunity to get the fingerprints, biometric data, internet usage patterns, associates and such like of people already identified as potentially dangerous.

I suspect, after an initial vetting, most of the people on “the list” would be removed from the list and sent on their way. The people who are left would be subject to further, more detailed interrogation and, again, the majority would be deemed not to pose a threat and be sent on their way.

Now for the rest. The Katie Hopkins faction wants to see internment. I don’t. I think internment of people who are legally presumed innocent is wrong and an unacceptable violation of civil rights. But we do not have to intern people to keep an eye on them.

The security services in the UK are stretched to the breaking point. It takes 20 people to keep one guy under 24-hour surveillance.

A reasonable alternative is to seek Court orders for tracking ankle bracelets for the people identified as most likely to be actual terrorists. This might require legislation but it is minimally invasive and avoids the horrors of mass internment. (It would also, in all likelihood, be a treasure trove of useful information. Who sees who when and where.)

Between ankle bracelets and a thorough search of the suspected terrorist’s computers and mobile devices, the security services could gain a picture of what the tiny minority of terrorist Muslims in the UK actually do.

Draconian? Somewhat. Though there could easily be constructed a means for the Court Orders to be challenged by way of bringing evidence of bona fides. The orders could run for a year or two and only be renewable upon application by the Crown.

It is not a perfect system but it would address the need for Britian to protect itself at a minimum cost in terms of civil rights. Compared to internment it is a measured and reasonable response. Compared to doing nothing? The body count may not be high enough for the doing nothing option to stop making sense; but that count is likely to continue going up and as it does the demands on the UK government to “do something” will become deafening.

Think Again

One of the Paris terrorists apparently arrived in Greece in October claiming to be a refugee. link

Canada proposes to accept 25,000 “refugees” on an expedited basis. The government needs to give us an undertaking that it will not let a single “refugee” in who cannot be positively vetted no matter how long that takes.

Do We Get Serious?

To repeat what I said a few days ago, I’m Islamed out. I’m tired of Islam 24/7, at Colorado colleges, Marseilles synagogues, Sydney coffee shops, day after day after day. The west cannot win this thing with a schizophrenic strategy of targeting things and people but not targeting the ideology, of intervening ineffectually overseas and not intervening at all when it comes to the remorseless Islamization and self-segregation of large segments of their own countries.

So I say again: What’s the happy ending here? Because if M Hollande isn’t prepared to end mass Muslim immigration to France and Europe, then his “pitiless war” isn’t serious. And, if they’re still willing to tolerate Mutti Merkel’s mad plan to reverse Germany’s demographic death spiral through fast-track Islamization, then Europeans aren’t serious. In the end, the decadence of Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the rest of the fin de civilisation western leadership will cost you your world and everything you love.

So screw the candlelight vigil. mark steyn

I think the events in Paris bring us a bit closer to being serious. A bit closer to the recognition of the fundamental incompatibility of Islam with Western liberal democracy. We’ll see in the morning.

The way we will see is by paying close attention to our leader’s words and their actions. To allow a million Muslims to arrive in Europe in the guise of refugees is an obvious mistake and one which, with political will, can be corrected. (And, in the Canadian case, to invite 25,000 so called refugees in on a timetable which precludes serious vetting is an excellent test of Trudeau’s seriousness as a leader.) But will it be?

Will Hollande’s “pitiless” crusade against terror actually deploy troops to the “no-go zomes” of Paris for the house to house searches to find the weapons, the illegals and the intelligence? Will the rest of Europe cheer the French on or retreat behind the tut, tuts of multikulti delusion?

We are about to find out if this night in Paris has been enough. I would have thought Charlie Hebdo would have been enough. But I was wrong then. Everybody had a nice march and went home.

Will this be enough? I am afraid I doubt it. Mark is right in that the West simply will not confront the reality of political, imperial, Islam. We’re lazy and we’re nice and we simply can’t imagine the sorts of action which might stop the flow of illegal migrants or the terror in the streets of Paris. Because to imagine that is to treat people who are deeply different from us as alien, as “other”. We are too polite to recognize and treat the cancer which is Islam.

This is a war. It is a war which has been going on since the 7th Century. The other side has always, right from the time of the prophet, understood that this is a war. The West, most of the time, pretends it isn’t. Will Paris convince us to take the war seriously? I hope so but I doubt it.

I really think it will take a mass atrocity: biological, chemical or nuclear with 100,000 or a million deaths, to put a bit of fight in us. And, sad to say, when that happens the terrified left and muddled center will probably try to figure out how to negotiate.

No, really.

When asked Thursday by CBC about confronting ISIS, Sajjan said:

“We need to get better as an international coalition … better at looking at the threats early on, to making sure that we identify them early so they don’t balloon into these big threats,”

“They were smaller at one time, we need to get better at identifying the subtle indicators so we might be able to have dealt with it diplomatically.” the rebel

(Sad to see a Sikh warrior say something so craven about the traditional enemy of the Sikhs.)

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez v. Marines

A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire at two military facilities Thursday in Tennessee, killing at least four Marines and wounding a soldier and a police officer, officials told CBS News.

The shooter also was killed. Two law enforcement sources told CBS News that the shooting suspect was identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. cbs news

Altogether now:

• Lone Wolf
• Nothing to do with Islam
• Islam is a Religion of Peace
• Root Causes!

Those poor people. There is a war being fought if anyone would actually notice it.

Taking Islamic Terror Seriously

The Daily Mail, whose coverage of the Paris atrocity has been outstanding, reports that there have been at least three incidents of “revenge” attacks overnight. The attacks have focused on mosques and a kebab shop rather than on actual Muslims.

The desire to lash out at the symbols of Islam (and a kebab shop) makes sense in the wake of the atrocity; but it actually reflects the correct perception that the political class is incapable of anything beyond in the moment police work and platitudes as to how the Charlie Hebdo attack had nothing to do with Islam. All of which is an indication that the political classes don’t have a clue what to do about terrorism and it roots in Islam.

This is largely because the political classes are in a state of deep denial as to what might be termed the root causes of Islamic terror. Here’s a hint – it is Islam and at its very root, the Koran.

Assorted “far right” commentators have taken the time to read the Koran and have been shocked at what it contains. Understanding the texture of the Koran requires a bit of knowledge of Mohammed’s story and how that influenced the early Mecca portion of the Koran and the later, much more violent, Medina surah. (A quick guide can be found here.) The “death to the unbelievers” portions are generally from the later period.

I argued yesterday that Islam is not a religion. It is, however, a political cult based upon a willingness to spread its power by the sword. Jihad is not a peaceful inner struggle, it is a tactic with the strategic goal of converting or killing unbelievers. (And for all those ahistorical dimwits out there moaning about how Christians have killed for their faith, find a single gospel story where Jesus exhorted the faithful to murder “unbelievers”. You won’t.)

Against this view are arrayed a good deal of scholarship which suggest the admonitions of Allah through his prophet were situation specific and the Juden haus of the Koran was directed at specific tribes of obstinate Jews who got in the way of the spread of Islam. Which may very well be true, but the first thing a serious approach to Islamic terror needs to recognize is that this liberal interpretation of Islam is not what drives the terrorists.

One would think that would be obvious, but listening to the great and good exonerate Islam at large for the Paris atrocity it becomes obvious they are willfully blind to the interpretation of the Koran which fuels Islamic terror. So long as the political class takes this Pollyanna approach there is not the slightest chance Islamic terror will be taken seriously enough to be defeated.

Rather than taking the mildest, most liberal, construction of the Koran, politicians and opinion leaders need to look at the darkest, nastiest, most brutal interpretation which, in fact, drives the lone wolves, the wolf packs and outfits like IS and Hamas. It is that dark version of Islam which implies a never ending war, mandated by God, until the Peace of Submission encompasses the entire world.

Armed with that understanding, the political class will be able to intellectually, and eventually tactically, separate the sheep from the goats. Understanding the dark, violent, side of Islam is the only way to beat Islamic terrorists. And to reach that understanding, the political class will have to actually learn some history and read within the Wahabbi and Safalist traditions. When they do they will discover that Islam is not, by the lights of its terrorist theologians, a religion so much as a complete tactical guide for the forceful conversion of all non-Muslims.

Happy clappy, kumbaya approaches to Islam which have so far characterized the Western elite’s limited engagement with the problem, rest on the presumption that only a tiny minority of Muslims accept the dark vision of Islam triumphant by the sword. To address Islamic terror that presumption needs to be tested against reality.

There is a fair bit of survey research which suggests that Muslims in Middle Eastern and European countries are broadly supportive of sharia law. A significant minority indicate support for the bloodier forms of jihad including IS and Hamas. Digging into this support will identify the sources of these profoundly anti-democratic views.

A root cause is just that: a cause to which specific acts of terror and support for terror can be traced. For example, it may well turn out that the Paris murderers were influenced by a specific imam, or a specific book or website. And there is where the pushback needs to happen.

Randomly bombing kabab shops will do nothing to address the roots of Islamic terrorism. Deporting radical imams, closing Islamic bookshops which sell hate literature and shutting down Islamic websites which support violent jihad are all easily justified and potentially effective ways of countering radical Islam.

As importantly, creating a chilly climate for Islamists is the least Western societies can do to protect themselves. Ending immigration from Muslim nations without positive security and cultural vetting – which will, because of the resources required, slow immigration to a trickle – is a necessary first step. Prohibiting the construction of mosques on the basis that they are political rather than religious buildings is another useful step. Cancelling the so called “reasonable accommodation” provisions which create gender segregation and allow self ghettoization should make Western countries less attractive.

Creating a hostile environment for Islamic terrorists will, necessarily, create a somewhat unpleasant environment for non-terrorist Muslims. Tough. There is no reason to accord a political movement’s members any privileges which are not enjoyed by the rest of the society. If someone shows up for a job interview wearing Nazi regalia we expect that fact to be taken into account. The political dress adopted by Muslims in the West should have exactly the same status.

A serious, measured, approach grounded in an understanding of Islam as a political movement with totalitarian aims will begin the process of defeating Islamic terror. The time to start was twenty years ago, but today will have to do.

Useful Horror

But it is Islam

The murder of a dozen people is, simply, horrible. It does not matter why they were murdered, the fact of their massacre is the horror in itself.

Even as the terrorists are still on the loose there are things which are clear about these murders. They were committed by Muslims in the name of Islam to shut up people who mocked Islam.

There is no room for Western liberal spin about lone wolves and metal illness. This was murder by and for Islam.

It was, if further demonstration was needed, proof that Islam is not compatible with liberal democracy. There may be individual Muslims who can meet the demands for tolerance and non-violent liberal democracy imposes;but Islam the religion/cult/ideology as it is presently constituted cannot. A fact underscored by President Sisi’s recent speech to the religious in Egypt.

Collective punishment is also contrary to the tenents of democracy;but that does not mean France or any other civilised nation needs to allow Islam to continue to undermine our Enlightenment values.

The first thing to do in the wake of these murders is to strip Islam of its status as a religion. Recognize that in its unreformed state Islam is a political cult and treat it that way.

Close the mosques. Once Islam is recognised as an essentially political cult there is no reason to allow it to preach it’s hateful doctrines which rely on the Koran which is, itself, a manual of incitement and justification for murder. Closing the mosques would send a clear message to the Muslims that their brand of hatred and violence was not welcome in France or anywhere else in the West.

Prohibit all immigration from Muslim nations by Muslims. Of course the poor Christians and others should be allowed to come but for a decade or two Muslim immigration to the West needs to end.

Third, systematically look at every recent Muslim immigrant and, if citizenship has not been granted, send them back to where ever they came from on the basis that the danger of Islam increases as it’s numbers increase. Once the non-citizens have been deported, look at the recent citizens and determine if their pledge of loyalty to their new country was honest or if loyalty to the political cult of Islam made taking such a pledge sincerely impossible. Look for evidence of conduct. Participation in radical activities, keeping women in bags, evidence of female genital mutilation would all suggest that loyalty to the cult made taking the citizenship oath honestly impossible.

The faint hearted will object that this program would deny Muslims the right of free speech and the right to freedom of religion. Even the most passionate advocate of free speech will draw the line at incitement and treason or sedition. At its core Islam incites murder, advocates treason and promotes sedition – silencing it does no damage to free speech. Recognising that Islam is a political cult puts it outside the protection extended to religions so the issue of religious freedom does not come up.

The murder of a dozen people by Islamic terrorists is a horror but it is the sort of atrocity which reminds people of how dangerous Islam actually is.