THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 188, July 31, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ENDING LONDONISTAN
By Melanie Phillips
THE UNITED KINGDOM -- SOCIETAL COHESION, INTERNAL SECURITY POLICY, & THE ISLAMIST THREAT: THE
PROFOUND CONCEPTUAL FLAWS AT THE HEART OF BRITAIN'S STRATEGY FOR COMBATTING THE THREATS FACING THE
COUNTRY -- THE INCONGRUITY BETWEEN CURRENT DEFENSE DISCOURSE & THE THREAT POSED BY MILITANT ISLAM -- THE
BRITISH GOVERNMENT'S MISGUIDED APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM, PURSUING A STRATEGY OF MULTICULTURALISM
INVOLVING CULTURAL APPEASEMENT OF ISLAMISM -- THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT SEEKING TO BUY OFF THE WORST
PROSPECT OF TERRORISM & URBAN VIOLENCE, BUT ENABLING THE ISLAMISTS WITHIN BRITAIN TO ACHIEVE THEIR
SUBVERSIVE GOALS
FULL STORY:
In February, 2008, Gwyn Prins, a professor at the London School of Economics, and Robert Salisbury, the Marquess of
Salisbury and a privy counselor, published in the RUSI Journal "Risk, Threat, and Security: The Case of the
United Kingdom" -- a breakthrough essay in the on the incongruity between current British defense discourse and the
threat posed by radical Islam. [1] The essay, a portion of which is excerpted
below, represents the consensus view not only of the authors, but also of ten former military chiefs, diplomats, analysts,
and academics. As important as are the authors is the place of publication: The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
sits at the heart of Britain's defense establishment and is recognized internationally as an authority on defense and
security issues. Their paper highlights the profound conceptual flaws at the heart of Britain's strategy for combating the
threats facing the country, criticism made more devastating by the combined weight and authority of its authors.
The RUSI paper is a direct challenge to current British government policy that pursues a strategy of cultural appeasement
in order to buy off — as it believes — the worse prospect of terrorism and urban violence. But the British government's
misguided approach merely enables Islamism, or radical Islam, to achieve its goals. By chance, the paper was published
during the uproar generated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, on February 7, 2008, suggested that the British state
should accommodate Islamic law, so that British Muslims could choose whether to be regulated by English law or Shari‘a
in certain civil matters. [2]
The public was appalled at the Archbishop's prescription for the Balkanization of Britain. But, in fact, the British
government is already affording Islam a special status provided to no other religion or culture, thus bringing about the
development of parallel jurisdictions and the growth of an Islamic state within a state.
Multiple wives of Muslim men can now receive welfare benefits, effectively sanctioning polygamy. Banks now offer
"Shari‘a-compliant" mortgages, and the Treasury is currently considering the introduction of Shari‘a bonds — regardless
of the links with terrorism. A number of people serving on the Shari‘a advisory boards for British and Western banks have
connections with Islamist extremism. In addition, a number of experts have said that Shari‘a finance offers an obvious
camouflage for terrorist financing.
While the British Security Service (MI-5) says it is monitoring thousands of British Islamist terrorists and hundreds of
terror groupings, [3] the government and many within the security establishment refuse to acknowledge that religious war
is the motivation for these Islamists; too often, they describe such terrorism, instead, in Orwellian terms as "anti-Islamic."
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Moussawi, the head of Al-Manar, Hezbollah's anti-Semitic television station, is welcomed into
Britain on a speaking tour, and Hizb ut-Tahrir — banned around the world — continues freely to recruit countless
thousands of impressionable young British Muslims to the cause of Islamist takeover of Britain and the West.
It is against this backdrop that the true importance of the RUSI paper becomes clear. It asserts for the first time that the
core problem is Britain's profound loss of confidence in itself. British society is fragmenting under the pressures of
multiculturalism, which have paralyzed any attempt to draw a line in the sand against Islamist demands. Both at home and
abroad, Britain has lost any shared understanding of the threats that must be faced and how to do so. Indeed, with its
steady loss of the power of self-governance to the European Union, there is no longer any clear idea of where political
responsibility lies.
In short, the RUSI paper asserts that Britain's security is being put at greater risk from without because British democracy
itself is at risk from within. In allowing the progressive fragmentation of British society and the weakening of its military
and defense infrastructure, the government has left Britain open to the pincer movement of cultural colonization and
terrorist attack. The only solution is for Britain to rediscover its historic identity, restore its power to rule itself, and
reassert the mutual obligations between government and people. As such, the Prins and Salisbury paper should resonate
not only within Britain but also within other Western countries struggling to balance immigration, assimilation, and
identity.
SECURITY
"… The security of the United Kingdom is at risk and under threat.
The mismatch between the country's military commitments and the
funding of its defense moved Lords Bramall, Boyce, Craig, Guthrie,
and Inge — five former Chiefs of the Defense Staff — to take the
unusual step of raising their concerns publicly in a House of Lords
Defense debate on 22 November 2007 … Security is not only a
question for Chiefs of the Defense Staff. It matters to every citizen
of the United Kingdom. Security is the primary function of the state,
for without it there can be no state, and no rule of law. The former
Chiefs of the Defense Staff have stepped outside their traditional
reticence to speak on behalf of all. Anxiety about defense and
security runs far and wide. This essay addresses the bases of that
anxiety: the sources of risk and threat, both overseas and at home.
It argues that weaknesses at home, particularly divisions in our
attitudes toward our defense, contribute to turning risks into threats.
It proposes that positive steps to strengthen and update our defense
and security efforts involve returning to long established
constitutional arrangements of the Queen in Parliament. Thus we may
meet the needs of today and tomorrow. ... Repeated assertions by
Ministers that all is well, that the matter is well in hand and can be
safely left to them to manage in-house, no longer carry conviction."
UNCERTAINTY
"The electorate is uncertain and anxious ... The 'war on terror' is with
us now in all its ugliness. Both current military operations and the war
on terror together raise a deeper point. Is there any longer a clear
distinction between being at war and not being at war? A declaration
of war is almost inconceivable today, and, yet, both our defense and
security services are in action against active forces, abroad and at
home, at this moment.
"The electorate sees this paradox. It also worries about the way we
were committed to war, especially in Iraq, and about Washington's
sway and leadership. But, equally, the electorate is disturbed by an
undertow of doubt about the wider muddling of political
responsibilities between Westminster and Brussels. Who actually
holds, or will take, responsibility for our foreign relations, for our
defense, and for our security? Who — for instance — should
guarantee our borders?
"Such uncertainty should be of primary concern because it weakens
the bond between government and the governed, which is precisely
what terrorists seek to achieve and what other enemies of the United
Kingdom will exploit. For this reason, it is not enough for anyone
(even Her Majesty's Government) to say, 'Don't worry, we have it in
hand.' The uncertainty has to be addressed. The confidence and
loyalty of the people are the wellspring from which flows the power
with which all threats to defense and security are ultimately met. Our
constitutional arrangements and institutional dispositions must both
deserve and grow out of that loyalty and confidence. The present
uncertainty suggests our arrangements need review and renewal."
RISK AND THREAT
"Latent risks can become patent threats. What marks the change of
a risk into a threat is usually the emergence of a factor which has
been misjudged. It has been the reduction of traditional threats
(aggression from nation-states) combined with the increase of
possible risk factors (most notably, Islamist terrorism, but there are
many others) which has so destabilized world affairs and increased
uncertainty. But linked to these changes is a loss in the United
Kingdom of confidence in our own identity, values, constitution,
and institutions. 'This England that was wont to conquer others,'
wrote Shakespeare, 'hath made a shameful conquest of itself.' This
is one of the main factors which have precipitated risks into threats.
As long as it persists, it will have the power to do so again. Islamist
terrorism is where people tend to begin. The United Kingdom
presents itself as a target, as a fragmenting, post-Christian society,
increasingly divided about interpretations of its history, about its
national aims, its values and in its political identity. That
fragmentation is worsened by the firm self-image of those elements
within it who refuse to integrate. This is a problem worsened by
the lack of leadership from the majority, which, in misplaced
deference to 'multiculturalism,' failed to lay down the line to
immigrant communities, thus undercutting those within them trying
to fight extremism. The country's lack of self-confidence is in stark
contrast to the implacability of its Islamist terrorist enemy, within
and without. We live under threat. We sense that now is a time of
remission, between the frontal attack of 9/11, and its eventual
successor, which may deliver an even greater psychological blow.
Significant though they were in their different ways, neither the
2004 Madrid train bombings (which affected a national election),
nor the London Underground and bus bombings of July, 2005,
(which exposed the weakness of the "multicultural" approach
towards Islamists) were that successor. Thus, we are in a confused
and vulnerable condition. Some believe that we are already at war;
but all may agree that generally a peacetime mentality prevails. In
all three ways — our social fragmentation, the sense of premonition,
and the divisions about what our stance should be — there are
uneasy similarities with the years just before the First World War.
"We are fortunate in not having the specific external state enemies
who once posed threats to the British state and against whom we
could therefore define ourselves. There has been no straight
substitution of the Cold War threat with another threat of different
source, but similar type. But the range and nature of the threats to
the security of British citizens in 2008 are not confined solely to
what the Islamists call their 'jihad' against the West.
"A shifting complex of risks faces us. An adequate approach to
Britain's security in the next few years must address questions that
are intricate, delicate, and strange to our conventional way of
thinking. The familiar categories of 'home' and 'abroad,' which have
long reassured the British in a deep part of their national identity,
are breaking down. We know much less about what threatens us
and how it does so than our official policies assert."
NOTES:
[1] Gwyn Prins and Robert Salisbury, "Risk, Threat, and Security," RUSI Journal, Februrary, 2008.
[2] "Archbishop's Lecture — Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective," Februrary 7, 2008.
[3] Jonathan Evans, address to the Society of Editors, Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Manchester, England, November 5,
2007; The Times (London), November 6, 2007.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Britain -- The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland:
Mother Country & Close Ally of the United States of America
The Anglosphere -- The English-Speaking World:
The U.S.A., Britain, Canada, Australia, & New Zealand
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Melanie Phillips, British journalist and graduate of Saint Anne's College, Oxford, United Kingdom, is the author of
Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating A Terror State Within (New York: Encounter Books, 2006) -- a revelation of
what has been happening to Britain's societal cohesion and internal security during the past twenty years, i.e., the
establishment and growth of an Islamist fifth column and terror network in London, as well as the institutional and
cultural decline that allowed this very dangerous situation to emerge.
The foregoing Preface to the essay, "Risk, Threat, and Security," appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Summer,
2008, and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which
seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1964)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
July 31, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity