George W. Bush said that the British bomb plot was a “stark reminder this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation. I want to thank, uh, the government of Tony Blair, and officials in the United Kingdom–“
For radicalizing his Muslim subjects? The plotters were largely British-born Muslims. Whatever you want to call these people–“fascists,” or whatever–they are British. How does that comport with “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here?” Also, why the award show-style thank-yous? Then, Bush continued:
“for their good work, in busting this plot. I thank the officials in Washington D.C. and around the country […] Travelers are going to be inconvenienced […] The American people need to know we live in a dangerous world, but our government will do everything we can to protect our people from these dangers.”
Not being able to take a few bottles of water or pop onto a flight is an onerous burden to put on the air travel consumer, whatever Bush wants to “urge” people to do. And taking more rights away from passengers to try to compensate for inadequate bomb detection equipment must be weighed against the problems of dehydration and lack of caffeine for millions of travelers.
So Bush used the occasion to typically try to induce fear and paranoia (it is an election season). Though he talked about “cooperation” with Britain, it is questionable how much cooperation occurred when all the action seemed to be in Britain and Pakistan anyway, as the Guardian reports:
“A brother of one of the 24 suspects seized by detectives investigating a plot to bomb up to 12 planes was seized in Pakistan shortly before police launched their raids, it emerged tonight. The arrest of Rashid Rauf in the border area with Afghanistan was a trigger that led anti-terrorist investigators to start an immediate pre-emptive operation with officers fearing that the alleged cells were ready to strike. […] It also emerged today that at least one of the suspects arrested in Walthamstow, east London, regularly attended Islamic camps run by Tablighi Jamaat, an organisation which the Americans believe has been used as a recruiting ground for al-Qaida.”
The New Republic online has posted a piece by Scotsman newspaper writer Alex Massie. One key paragraph follows from the piece:
“In the days to come, we will surely hear bleating that British support for the war in Iraq has increased the threat […] Britain faces. (Certainly, there is neat symmetry in targeting British and American aircraft leaving London for the United States.) But Iraq alone has not radicalized British Muslims. Nearly 5,000 British troops are garrisoned and fighting in Afghanistan, and the British youths who attended training camps in the Hindu Kush are unlikely to look too kindly upon them. In other words, Iraq may have exacerbated the threat, but it did not cause it. Anyway, to treat the Afghan invasion as a just cause for domestic terrorism is to argue that there should have been no military response to September 11.”
Well, let the “bleating” begin. First of all, this all amounts to a flawed circular reasoning working its way back to that great rhetorical bludgeon of war-mongers on both sides of the Atlantic–“September 11.” Somehow Massie hopes we will forget the earlier parts of the paragraph, including the strangely constructed “unlikely to look too kindly” argument and the concession almost upfront that the bleaters have a point (“Iraq alone has not radicalized British Muslims”). The article is just another platform for anti-Muslim tirades, which are coming fast and furious these days. Consider what Massie says:
“This disdain for their homeland, it should be noted, comes despite […] Britain’s record as a tolerant and liberal country–just as much, if not more, than any other European country. Britishness has always been a baggy concept, requiring little from immigrants.”
Not only is this convenient to say but hard to back up (the reality of intolerance and racism in Britain is actually rather more sinister than he would like to admit, especially in northern English towns), but it is very possible that Massie actually stole the “baggy” idea from the article he links to! Consider this from the Guardian piece by Timothy Garton Ash that the New Republic article contains a link to:
“I have always thought that the very undemanding vagueness, the duffle-coat bagginess of Britishness was an advantage when it comes to making immigrants and their descendants feel at home here. After all, what have you traditionally required in order to be British?”
Well with all this talk about “undemanding” Britishness that’s “requiring little from immigrants,” consider this notice from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
“The British National Party (BNP), a neofascist political party that limits membership to whites, more than doubled its number of local councilors in British elections this May [2006], shocking anti-racist leaders and the political establishment.”
All this talk about “Britishness” is both offensive and unconvincing, but then what of the troubles with integrating Muslims into European societies. Do the British Muslims (many of the them from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India) want to integrate, the way the “baggy” people see it? At the end of the day, one thing is clear–Jacques Chirac respected the will of his Muslim citizens (many Algerian), while Tony Blair signed on to an appalling aggression in Iraq in defiance of his. A mass of French Muslims tipped cars and set them aflame in their suburban slums in late 2005, while a handful of British Muslims blew up transit vehicles in July 2005. While French society has a high tolerance for protests, scuffles, migrations, even riots and revolutions from time to time and may yet take absorbing Muslims in stride (relatively speaking), Britain has now after the July 7 attacks in 2005 discovered another apparent group of angry British-born Muslim fanatics ready to commit mass murder. However much some Brits want to congratulate themselves for being so much of a “tolerant and liberal country,” they have a major problem on their hand
s with their own native-born subjects that has little to do with religion and distant terror networks and a great deal to do with their own society and its racism and the limited opportunities its offers the children and grandchildern of South Asian migrants. From BBC News:
“It is thought that the group of suspects were planning to blow up several planes by using liquid explosives carried in soft-drink bottles, and detonators disguised as electronic equipment. UK police said the explosions could have caused “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”. As a result of fears over liquid explosives, all liquids are among items now banned from the cabins of planes taking off from the UK.”
The events surrounding the apparent bomb plot might be a big deal–but they haven’t been enough to convince Tony Blair to end his Barbados vacation. According to BBC News:
“Prime Minister Tony Blair is on holiday in Barbados but Downing Street says he is in “constant contact.”
There was no indication that action was going to be taken “imminently” against the alleged terrorist plot when Mr Blair left the country, said Mr Reid – that had only become clear in the last 24 hours.”
While Blair is gone, it isn’t even clear who is in charge of Britain, declared the Times online:
“Today it looks very much as if John Reid is in charge of the Government, starting from this morning at a dramatic press briefing when he announced that the country was on “critical” alert.
It was the Home Secretary who swiftly chaired two meetings of the Cobra committee, one late last night and one this morning to hear the results of the pre-emptive action taken by the police and security services. But Mr Prescott was also busy, in talks with Muslim organisations.”
[photos: Heathrow Airport–American traveler by AP, plane overhead by Reuters, armed British policeman by Reuters]