A year after the Twin Towers fell, the Americans had shown their bottle and the result was a free Afghanistan, an Al Qaeda that looked as though a hammer had hit it, Saddam's murderous regime playing out its last days, and the dawn of the Cedar Revolution on the horizon. Britain had played its part and played it very well in helping to bring down the Taliban and in turning Iraq from a charnel house into a functioning democracy, but a year after our own wake-up call and on the domestic front seems to be nothing but a 52 week run of that very unfunny comedy Jihadists? What Jihadists?
Instead of putting the country on a war footing, as the Americans have more or less done with theirs, New Labour still insists on pretending that this is not war, but a police matter and that all we need to do is pass "tough" laws and roll out "tough" policing combined with some touchy-feely community outreach, then the whole thing will go away. In a way, of course, that's understandable. After all, it worked so well with the IRA, who were roundly defeated, their footsoldiers imprisoned for life and their leaders hanged and didn't end up with terrorist MPs in the House of Commons and guaranteed seats at Stormont and not having to hand over a single bullet. Oh, wait.
A year on, Great Britain has shown her courage by standing firm rather than cutting and running, but aside from screwing to the sticking place, little else is positive. The Metropolitan Police claim to have foiled three major attacks on the city, but that 70 more are still under investigation. The latter is distinctly ominous, given how badly the Forest Gate raid turned out, and how the poison of political correctness makes it virtually impossible for the police to even use the words "Muslims" and "terrorist" on the same day, never mind the same sentence.
In a sane world, 7/7 would have been a call to arms. Tony Blair would have told the nation point blank that we are at war and that war must be fought if our civilisation is to survive. He would have said that a deadly fascistic ideology had taken root in a segment of the Muslim population in Britain and that the government had no fight with Islam, but would give no quarter to Islamofascism. He would have told the Muslim community that the days of multiculturalism and political correctness were over. That if there was any "outreach" or "building bridges," that was up to the Muslims, not their neighbours. He would have told them that they had two and only two choices: assimilate into British society and help to fight the Jihadists as they would a pack of rabid dogs, or leave the country.
In a sane world, laws would have been passed to fight a specific threat, not a tactic called "terrorism." Legislation would not have been "anti-terrorist," but "anti-Jihadist." Instead of ludicrous battles over how many days the police can hold "terrorist" suspects, Jihadists would have been regarded as enemy combatants if foreign, and traitors if domestic-- and both put under the jurisdiction of military tribunals. And if the Human Rights Act was invoked, the only reply to the courts would have been four words "we are at war."
Instead, what have we had? A government that passes law after law that tightens the screws on everyone, but which still allows the Jihadists to operate in the open. It is a country where it is almost impossible to gaol or deport a radical imam, where former Guantanamo inmates are set loose on the streets the moment they hit the tarmac at Heathrow and where "protestors" carrying placards promising death to anyone who dares insult Islam can go free, but where a counter-protestor handing out leaflets of "offensive" cartoons is frogmarched away. It is a country that bans piggy banks, Piglet, ice cream tops, St. George and anything else that might "offend" Muslims, but dares not stand up for its own history, traditions or religion. It is a country that quickly forgets how many of its own died on 7/7, died on 9/11, died in Iraq and died in Afghanistan, but makes sympathetic noises as Muslims whine about how people give them suspicious looks if they board a bus with a rucksack.
Indeed, this is a country that has seen its Muslim community since 7/7 not hang its head in shame over what its brethren did, but have had an alarming percentage express sympathy, if not outright support for the bombers and throat-cutters. This is a community that worries more about MI5 infiltrating their mosques than in Jihadists infiltrating MI5. Rather than reducing their sense of grievance, it has instead grown and grown until each day I expect to see the headline "Muslims condemn anti-Islam backlash after next bombing."
Oh, 7/7 is being marked. Look at the BBC web site and you'll see the lot. There are the two-minute silences, the photos of local dignitaries with so many imams in shot that it looks like somewhere in Tehran. There are the stories about survivors and "coping" and "closure." The word "tragedy" is used over and over, but never uncomfortable ones like "atrocity" or "murder." A Martian looking in wouldn't be at fault if he went away thinking that the bus and Tube trains detonated by accident rather than design.
There is even a tepid article on police work since 7/7, and one on a "possible" link between the murderers and Al Qaeda, though "possible" is derisive, as after the broadcast by Al Jazeera yesterday of a video left behind by one of the terrorists the link wouldn't be any more "possible" if he'd been wearing a neon sign on his head with a big arrow reading "Hey, everybody! I'm an Al Qaeda operative." But any mention of the ideology that motivated those young monsters to slaughter their fellow human beings? Of the bland, frightening world that they dreamt of imposing on the rest of us? Of the importance of moderate Muslims to throw off the burkas and put as much daylight as possible between them and the Jihadists? Not a sausage.
Sometimes I think that this is some sort of subtle plot on the part of MI6 to defeat the Jihadists. Sometimes I imagine that they deliberately ignore the Bin Laden tapes, the Jihadist web sites, the Hamas press releases, the frothing imams, and the hate-filled madrasas as they jump up and down screaming "Death to America! Death to Britain! Death to the Jews! Death to the Infidels! Death to the apostates! Death to all who do not bow before us! Death! Death! Death!"
And what's Britain's reply? "Nope. Nothing there. Must be the wind."
Allah Akbhar! What does a Jihadist have to do to get attention around here? Kick over an oil drum?! Eventually the idea is that Bin Laden et al become so enraged at not being taken seriously that finally their heads explode.
At least, I hope that's the plan. It has a better chance of success than the one they're using now.
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