South Asian Wrongfulness Update
Two more arrested in Britain’s Islamo-flambe case. AP doesn’t indicate whether these are more disenfranchised South Asians engaged in international wrongfulness.Â
Clarification: “Terrorists are criminals.”
But here’s some news. They may not be South Asians after all. Iranian Kurds, linked to Ansar al-Islam? Sounds more Middle Eastern to me. Somebody may owe the disenfranchised South Asians an apology. What’s that word, by the way. Yeah, that one. “Islam.” How’d that get in there? Someone’s going to get their feelings hurt: Â
 Philip Johnston, Telegraph:
… the police and intelligence agencies are only as good as the information they receive. There is an increasingly important role to be played here by the Muslim community. It was notable yesterday that when Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, spoke about the Glasgow attack, he was at pains to say it should not lead to suspicion falling on the Muslim community. “Individuals are responsible for their actions, not communities,” he said.
Mr Salmond is, of course, correct. To tarnish a whole group of people because of the activities of a few would be wrong. But this approach is too defensive, too apologetic. Instead of bending over backwards to reassure the Muslim community that it is not to blame, political leaders should be actively seeking to recruit its help. In a truly integrated society, we all have a duty to protect each other from those who would destroy it; and the majority of law-abiding Muslims are in the best position to help because, like it or not, the perpetrators live in their communities.
The arguments over why a small group of radicalised British Muslims, many of them from good backgrounds and well educated, hate this country so much that they want to inflict serious harm on it have been well rehearsed. Grievances over Iraq or foreign policy in the Middle East are known to be motivating factors, though there are many people who also feel strongly about these issues who do not then use them as justification for mass murder. “Social exclusion” has also been blamed, though many of the conspirators jailed recently have been far from down-trodden, and at least three were university graduates. In any case, the levels of deprivation that would even remotely justify such intense hostility do not exist here.
Meanwhile, Chertoff plays down ABC’s “spectacular” report:
“Al Qaeda and its affiliates do intend to carry out further attacks against the United States and the West,” Chertoff said.
“We also know that they tend to want to do attacks that are spectacular or high-profile, so it’s not surprising to have analysts comment on the fact that this kind of an attack is a very definite possibility,” he said.
“But again I want to say that’s more general analysis that is not based on a specific piece of information about a particular attack.”
Chertoff had made similar comments in interviews on Sunday about the possibility of a specific security threat to the United States.
British authorities have linked the three incidents late last week to al Qaeda and detained seven people as part of an investigation that police say is likely to yield more arrests.
“I wouldn’t rule al Qaeda out,” Chertoff said.
“We have seen, however, different kinds of attacks. Sometimes there are al Qaeda-affiliated groups that use different methods than what we might call core al Qaeda.”
The great lesson from the British plots, he said, was the two London attacks were foiled partly because people saw something suspicious and alerted the authorities.
And that’s where you come in.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:01 am on Monday, July 2, 2007
2 Responses to “South Asian Wrongfulness Update”
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July 2nd, 2007 at 10:56 am
Web Reconnaissance for 07/02/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
If the larger Muslim community doesn’t want to be lumped in with the terrorists, they need to be more vigorous about rooting out the terrorists and enablers who hide among them. So far, all I’ve seen are “spokesmen” who natter on about “Islamophobia” and “backlash”, usually with a tepid “we don’t approve of these acts” tacked on at the end.