integrate this

I notice a certain degree of nervousness here and there over the national origins of Billal Abdullah. Take Brendan Simms, for instance:

Many will think that the recent attacks on Glasgow airport and a London nightclub were - like the tube bombings two years ago - a protest against the British involvement in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The presence - for the first time in Islamist terrorism in Britain - of an Iraqi among the suspects only lends credence to this view, of course. Few will realise that the process of radicalisation began in the 1990s, long before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; and it was driven not by sins of commission, but by those of omission.

I don’t think many people would characterize them as a protest of any kind at all, whatever their beliefs about the role Iraq may have played in increasing the threat of terrorism in the UK. Prof Simms takes the “Bosnian” line on this: that the military radicalization of Muslims happened because we failed to intervene in Bosnia, usually leading to the odd conclusion that the full dress invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq made no difference at all to anybody’s opinions or their inclination or ability to do anything about them.

The other main “Nothing to do with Iraq” line is the notion that Islamic radicalism has no basis in real world events at all; it just rises like marsh gas from the works of Qutb, himself driven to a frenzy of envy by beholding the gorgeousness of America, and then takes hold amongst a section of the population somehow autonomously more liable to paranoid grievances and religious manias. Having identified Muslims as being naturally more liable to terrorism, the call goes up for them to integrate.

As Matthew Parris points out here Muslims are already pretty well integrated on at least one important issue:

At the heart of the jihadists’ most insistent recruiting pitch lies Iraq. The flaw in this pitch is that a substantial majority in Britain and America don’t support the occupation of Iraq. That realisation has grown this year, and is growing still. Your Muslim newsagent knows that most of his white customers agree with him about the war. He is not part of a marginalised community in an alien land: he is part of a democracy that made a mistake in Iraq, and knows it, and will in due course repent of it publicly as well as privately. Democracy is working for him. Millions of non-Muslims, white, black and Asian, have kept faith from the start with a reasoned opposition to the war, and been prepared to march in that cause. We are not the neocon puppets that Islamists want to portray. And we are winning.

Right enough: Muslims, non-Muslims, the SWP, MI6, lefties, righties, soggy wet liberals, feral libertarians, believers, atheists…one thing I’ve never seen mentioned about the big antiwar march before the Iraq war took place is the fact that it was the most politically representative gathering in British history. It wasn’t a gang of fanatics out there; they were on the other side. It was we-the-people, including us-the-Muslims. If integration is the basis of your counter-terrorism strategy, you couldn’t build from a better starting point than acknowledging that we were right.

Comments

[.]

Exactly. This was always why those supposedly on the left who criticised the anti-war marchers for joining up with the SWP and Muslim groups got it completely wrong. They weren't agreeing with their agenda: they were together as one in opposing the war, whatever their reasons for doing so were.

[Peter Jackson]

And where does this 'being right' get anyone now? It might give you a warm feeling of justification, but doesn't point towards any policy that doesn't involve a time machine. Indeed, what difference would it have made in Iraq, by now, if the UK had decided to have nothing to do with Bush's obvious invasion plans in 2002-2003?

So let's assume Gordon Brown apologises tomorrow, says that you were quite right, and withdraws UK troops by the end of August. You can bask in self-righteousness a bit more, and the Iraqis will still be exactly where they were.

Congratulations on your self-congratulatory rightness.

[dsquared]

[And where does this 'being right' get anyone now?]

kind of the whole point of Jamie's post was that it is the first step toward normalising relations between ourselves and the Muslim world. Also, the general project of kicking people out of the mainstream of political life as punishment for catastrophically poor judgement (at best) and/or dishonesty (at worst) is good in and of itself. In related news, you Decents are really, really, poorly placed to lecture anyone on self-congratulation.

[Chris Williams]

What's so good about 'being right'? Well, for starters, it beats being wrong.

Caring whether or not you are correct in advocating megadeath-inducing wars is not a bug: it's a feature. This bizzare attempt to claim that it doesn't matter is the chutzpah of apparachicks who are staring at the wrong end of a P45.

In an ideal world they'd be waiting for a summons from The Hague, but for now I'll settle for throwing them out of office and never again paying their wages out of my taxes. Pour encourager les autres, you see.

It's like the reason I didn't pay the Poll Tax, even after it was on the way out - I want the _Big Boy's Book of Government_ to have an entry that reads ""Wars of Choice, Aggressive" - see: "Things Never To Fucking Do Again.""

[Alex]

It's not a pony, it's a pile of skulls, and it's your pile of skulls.

[Dan Hardie]

' Indeed, what difference would it have made in Iraq, by now, if the UK had decided to have nothing to do with Bush's obvious invasion plans in 2002-2003?'

Indeed, what difference would it have made to the 150+ dead British servicemen? You don't even think about them, Jackson, do you?

The gross and disgusting paradox about Britain's involvement in the Iraq war is that most of the soldiers who fought it didn't want it, and ALL of the 'decent' blowhards who wanted it made sure they didn't have to fight it. Cowards.

[Antipholus Papps]

part of a democracy that made a mistake in Iraq

Oh please! We are part of an increasingly totalitarian police state that committed the supreme international crime of launching a war of aggression. Britain ain't no democracy. I thought that myth had been well and truly put to rest.

[jamie]

"Indeed, what difference would it have made in Iraq, by now, if the UK had decided to have nothing to do with Bush's obvious invasion plans in 2002-2003?"

Iraqis would be fearing death from one less militia. Not to say that Her Maj's finest and the Jaish are on all fours, but there would be one less heavily armed player in the world's largest gang war.

Anyway, if I can interrupt this fascinating conversation with your pet imaginary moonbat, the subject here was the alienation of muslim opinion in the UK and whatever contribution this might make to terrorism. It seems pretty straightforward to me that it makes sense to mention that on the biggest foreign policy issue since Suez, mainstream opinion is not, in fact, alienated and that the consensus is that our role in the debacle was somewhere on the scale between a crime and a blunder.

[Dan Hardie]

'Iraqis would be fearing death from one less militia.'

This, like the standard Blood and Treasure post, is adolescent sarcasm, bereft of the intelligence that brighter adolescents sometimes display. If you've got evidence that British troops are responsible for the mass killing of civilians, present it. If you haven't, could you spare us this performance of Kevin The Teenager Does Politics?

The evidence I've read, from memoirs like Stewart's and Alderson's, is that when the British Army had some control of urban areas they were able to prevent the use of artillery fire by militias, and at least limit death squad activity, whilst not using artillery or air strikes themselves. Now that the Army appears to be losing control over Basra, there are going to be plenty more militia artillery and rocket strikes, plenty more death squads and plenty of dead civilians. The Army shouldn't have been sent and shouldn't still be there, but comparing the military to gangsters (and then, in the usual gutless Kenny mode, sorta almost withdrawing the comparison, but not quite) is the rhetoric of a fool as well as a coward. I know one of your testicles got lopped off, but that's no excuse for acting as if you had no balls at all.

And if you're going to attempt the standard rhetorical move of feigning concern over the thuggish killing of Baha Mousa, you'll need to quickly invent an explanation of why you haven't yet written on the subject, whilst I, in my murderous hatred for all Arabs, have posted at some length on it.

[jamie]

Clearly I should have inserted the words "presence of" before the words "one less", which was closer to my actual meaning, for which apologies. Otherwise, Dan: screw your head back on.

Locals are clearly going to be in danger if they get causght up in firefights between British troops and local militias; clearly also if they happen to be around when Basra palace gets mortared. And to what end? We've lost any say over the political control of the area. In fact we're fighting militias associated with parties elected to the city and provincial governments under our auspices. The local clans are doing their thing and even the criminal elements presumably have long term mansion related ambitions in the vicinity.

We get attacked because we're there and we conduct raids to demonstrate that we can't be attacked with impunity, and that seems to be about it. Of all the factions, we're the one that's most purely a gang, even if we're the Robin Hood gang.

[bb]

UK forces haven't recently lost control of Basra, it was lost almost from the start. Anyone doubting this should read the excellent posts written by Steve Vincent, an independent journalists who was murdered in Basra for telling the truth about militia infiltration of Iraqi army and police in 2005.

Steve's excellent blog In The Red Zone, was one of the few non-army sources in Basra, and he is sorely missed.

[Dan Hardie]

Locals are clearly going to be in added danger if the presence of UK troops increases the level of violence, or in decreased danger if the presence of UK troops lowered the level of violence: agreed. Violence is almost certainly increased by the dishonest policy of 'let's pretend that we're withdrawing to please the voters, and actually stay to keep George W. sweet': agreed.

But the British Army is 'one more militia'? Gosh, Jamie, why do you think I find a statement like that grotesque as well as utterly stupid? Just possibly because we're talking about a country teeming with militias which all ethnically cleanse neighbourhoods, murder hospital patients, and run death squads...

[Chris Williams]

Dan, does _every_ militia in Iraq do all three of those things?

[Dan Hardie]

Does the British Army do one of them?

[Chris Williams]

Dunno. The question about the militias wasn't an attempt to score a point - I just want to know the answer.

[Dan Hardie]

So Chris Williams's answer to the question 'has the British Army, funded by your tax money, indulged in ethnic cleansing or the use of death squads?' is...'Dunno'. You really would get a more intelligent discussion from the average group of fifteen year-olds.

[Phil]

Dan, you made a statement about every militia in Iraq. Chris queried it. Rather than answering him, you asked him a different question. That he declined to take a position on it probably just indicates that he'd rather you stick to the point.

[dsquared]

The British Army doesn't carry out ethnic cleansing and it doesn't attack hospital patients. I would prefer to see a clearer description of what Dan means than "run death squads", because this is a very pejorative description of an actitity (killing people in order to advance your political aims) which can be good or bad depending on who you are and who you kill - if it's someone like Wissam Abu Qader then potentially[1] yay for political killing, but as Jamie says, I would not necessarily expect an Iraqi on the ground to agree with me on that point.

If Dan means "indiscriminately kills noncombatants of opposing factions" then the British Army don't that, but if he means "runs squads which kill people" then they do, and I think Jamie's point was that it's quite likely the Iraqis wouldn't share our assessment of which of them need killed, particularly since as Steven Vincent documented, our violence is meant to be justified by the provision of security and it isn't there.

[1] taking coalition assessments of Mahdi Army figures at face value is not really advisable as the whole history of our dealings with Sadr is a series of fiascoes, but there certainly are Mahdi Army death squads and if Wissam was running them he deserved it.

[Chris Williams]

Dan, I'm not yr enemy, nor am I the enemy of the British armed forces. I just wanted to know the answer to one sodding question. Are you giving up smoking, or what?

[Chris Williams]

OK, that's two questions. The smoking one was rhetorical though.

I'll come in again.

[Dan Hardie]

By 'running death squads', I mean running death squads in what has been the accepted English sense of the word since at least (IIRC) reporting from Latin America in the early '80s: the use of gangs to find and murder political opponents, or unarmed civilians belonging to groups seen as ethnically or politically undesirable. This is all pretty obvious, and it can be seen from Dsquared's last sentence ('there certainly are Mahdi Army death squads') that he knows and uses this meaning of 'death squads'. The statement 'the British Army runs death squads' is merely a juvenile provocation. If 'belonging to a death squad' means 'having military training and being part of a military unit', then I too have been a member of a death squad, but oddly enough I don't fancy myself to be the Roberto D'Aubisson of North London, and neither, when he is sober, does Dsquared.Apart from anything else, say something childish like that and you leave yourself nothing to say if, which God forbid, the British military really does start running a thuggish campaign on the lines of Kenya in the 1950s, or bombards civilian areas as per standard US practice.

As far as Basra is concerned- that the only morally and strategically justifiable policy is one of rapid withdrawal- why are you telling me something I stated myself, considerably more articulately than any of you, some time ago?

[Dan Hardie]

...And you'd damn well think I could spell a name like 'd'Aubuisson' properly. Is it ghoulish to say I'm rather glad he died of throat cancer?

[dsquared]

[the use of gangs to find and murder political opponents, or unarmed civilians belonging to groups seen as ethnically or politically undesirable]

This is just pushing the definitional problem out of the phrase "death squads" and into the word "gangs". The Iraqi special forces units referenced in the Wissam Abu Qader story above do murder political opponents and it is not at all clear that they stick to combatants - as Steven Vincent points out, somebody is certainly murdering civilian political opponents of the Iraqi government (and people who we might regard as militia members might be regarded by their friends and family as ordinary citizens trying to defend themselves). And we train and arm those units, and there doesn't look to me to be any plausible deniability. I'm sure that everyone involved is doing what they think is right, but I really would prefer to talk about this in terms of what actual physical things are happening rather than the definition of what is or isn't a death squad.

[Chris Williams]

Dan, you know more about this matter than I do. I'm interested to find out more, so I'm asking you to go into detail.

I'm actually less interested in the 'death squad' question. It's the reference to hospital killings and the ethnic cleansing that I found slightly puzzling. Are all (say) Sunni clan-based militias on record as doing these these things?

[Dan Hardie]

This is entirely incoherent, which wouldn't surprise me if you were posting in the evening but is a little unexpected in the morning. Of course there's a blurred boundary between 'death squads' and 'gangs' - both are terms that denote armed groups of criminals.

The current Army gossip (and has been for a long time) from Basra, by the way, is that the Iraqi police in the South are basically wholly-owned by various local militias, and the police members divide their time between killing local religio-political undesirables and trying, and sometimes succeeding, to kill British troops. One guy summed it up rather pithily: 'The blokes in police uniforms are the ones that plant the IEDs. So if we're told to patrol with the Iraqi police we always 'suggest' that they go down the street before us.' Returnees from Iraq don't say the same things abt the Iraqi army.

There is now no defensible British strategy beyond rapid withdrawal from Southern Iraq. We could disarm the police and confront the militias, and that will mean, as it has always meant, full-scale urban war in a city of 2.6 million people, massive casualties and a probable British defeat. We have no good options and the least worst is withdrawal.

I note that when I said this the other day, and said further that Brown would probably pursue the disastrous policy of keeping some UK troops in Basra to avoid a row with the Americans, Dsquared said that such a policy was the best that we could hope for. It's not. We are in a potentially even more serious position in Iraq than the Americans, since the British military in Iraq is hugely outnumbered and right next door to Iran, and the pragmatic policy is the same as the radical policy: get out of Iraq already.