It is not yet clear whether they were "mentally ill" or put up to it by Bush, Blair and The Mossad, but The Australian reports British authorities have indicated the 21 suspects arrested so far in the ambitious Britain to U.S. in-flight bomb plot are "Islamic extremists" of Pakistani descent.
The plan to commit what police called "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" sparked the tightest security clampdown on international flights since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US. Police indicated the suspects were Islamic extremists of Pakistani descent and said the plan involved smuggling explosives, believed to be "liquid chemicals", on to flights in hand luggage. It is believed the plan was to orchestrate several rounds of simultaneous attacks, with each round destroying three planes. The terrorists had targeted three US airlines - United, American and Continental - according to US counter-terrorism officials.
Police believe there are up to 50 participants in the plot. This article from the Seattle Times has more, including, at the time of this blog posting, the following:
President Bush said that the plot shows "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."
Meanwhile, Iranian Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel shared his perspective on current events, in a note to the Azerbaijani parliamentary speaker:
In his message, Haddad-Adel referred to the 'Zionist' regime's extensive crimes and holocaust in Palestine's occupied territory and Lebanon and said, "Under the present conditions, we along with all world freedom-seekers are obviously bound to do our best to end such killings and establish immediate cease-fire."
Haddad-Adel's daughter, by the way is married to the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the "Islamic leader superior to all national and lawful organs." We can expect that the Iranian regime and its friends will continue to try to do their "best," as Haddad-Adel puts it, for quite some time. Iran is central as a sponsor of the terrorist group Hezbollah. Hezbollah fans global flames of Islamicism, supported by the distributed infrastructure of al-Qaeda AND a growing cadre of terrorists acting individually.
Perhaps, as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen of Harvard's Center For European Studies suggests in this L.A. Times Sunday op-ed, it really is time for Israel to brave more condemnation by going further than merely defending itself in the current conflict, which was initiated by Hezbollah and at Hezbollah's behest encompasses residential communities in Israel and southern Lebanon. Specifically, Goldhagen suggests Israel should closely consider direct military counter-measures against terrorism sponsors Syria and Iran. As Goldhagen notes, Iran has forthrightly declared that it might use its nukes against Israel. Is it possible that anything less than the neutering of Iran is just so much pissing in the wind? I don't know for sure. But as Goldhagen notes elsewhere, in an essential March '06 New Republic article, political Islam is increasingly flexing its muscle. The U.S. and the world are at continued and heightened risk, as recent events indicate. At home, we need a firmer commitment from the U.S. Congress, Senate and our President to the complex global objective of de-fanging the Islamic extremists.
If there were ever a time to send Republicans and right-minded Independents to Washington, D.C., this is it.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at August 10, 2006 10:26 AM | Email ThisWhen will people realize that they are not religious, but political. You could look at Hitler and say oh that was only political, but really it is as religious as Islam is being preached by radicals.
Some secular progressives and appeazers, want them to live by Sharia and that's OK. But if any Christian said we need to live by the 10 commandments (though our laws are based in part on those commandments) there heads would explode like the movie Scanners.
Posted by: Dengle on August 10, 2006 10:25 AMAdministration officials said that most of the 21 plot suspects arrested by English authorities were British citizens of Pakistani descent and Muslims.
And once again, we get the sanitized version in the Seattle Times, who remove as many references to "Muslims" as they possibly can. They go as far to describe the community as "South Asian". Unbelievable.
As early as 16 years ago, Lord Norman Tebbit, a British politician expressed his concerns about the increasing numbers of British Citizens who identified with a foreign nationality more than their British citizenship.
An example he gave was what he saw at a cricket match in Great Britain between their national team and that of Pakistan. He saw a great number of British citizens of Pakistani descent rooting not for England but for Pakistan. And they weren't all naturalized first generation British citizens, but third and fourth generations as well.
How, he wondered, can these people be considered British citizens and take part of the responsibilities of British citizenship, when they themselves don't even really think of themselves as British as indicated by them rooting for a foreign team instead their own national team?
And what are the consequences for British society of having a significant segment of its population that will not integrate itself into British Culture but instead identifies itself more with a foreign country than their own?
This "test" of British citizenship came to be known in England as the "Cricket Test" and as you can imagine was greeted with hostility and calls of racism from the Left.
But his concerns were unfortunately vindicated on July 7th, 2005 when "home grown" terrorists hit the London Underground subway system with suicide attacks
And now we have another terrorist plot which might have just included "home grown" terrorists in Great Britain.
Too bad people didn't listen to Lord Tebbit's concerns in 1990 instead of ridiculing his "Cricket Test".
For More Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_test
Tebbit attacks 'unreformed' Islam
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4163484.stm
Lord Tebbit said the 'cricket test' was a means of gauging whether a community had integrated.
"If a community was looking back at where it had come from instead of looking forward with the people to whom they had come to, then there is going to be a problem sooner or later."
I guess that's a Liberals attempt at humor. (remainder of comment redacted by editor)
Posted by: swassociates on August 10, 2006 10:36 AMhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Muslims-in-Seattle/
It's getting lots of activity.
For example, look at Prague in 1937-38 and what you will find is a great deal of criminal activity by Czech citizens against both the Jews and those opposed to Hitler. They operated in both autonomous and organized fashion and contributed to the eventual collapse of the government and the Nazi takeover.
Posted by: Diogenes on August 10, 2006 11:00 AMNo rational person would use the word genocide to describe Israeli defense to Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian soldiers that are firing misslies at Jewish Israeli and Arab Israeli civilians. It's an incredible fallacy and a moral abomination to use the word genocide in reference to Israel's actions. Genocide implies an organized effort to exterminate all Palestinian Arabs, but the facts expose this as an outright lie.
As long as Islamic Leadership continues this rhetoric and equivocation, we can expect to see the continuance of Muslim aggression and subsequent Israeli defense.
Posted by: Jeff B. on August 10, 2006 11:01 AMhistory? why learn from history? patterns? why watch for patterns? vigilance, monitoring & self-survival? too uncomfortable to think about; let's just watch the next episode of Desperate Housewives or American Idol; all's well; we'll get the 'survival recap' after sports on the news at 10pm; besides, your politicians will be safely tucked in bunkers; will you?
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on August 10, 2006 11:26 AMAfter 250 years of fighting on September 11, 1683 the Christians finally routed the Muslims from the gates of Vienna. During the siege the Muslim sappers tried to tunnel under the city and had to be driven back and killed by hand-to-hand fighting....
Anyone who thinks that this thing is going to be over soon is nuts....
Posted by: Lew on August 10, 2006 11:36 AMNow numerous young men of a specific ethnic origin are arrested for allegedly plotting severe crimes against the US.
What do we hear now? Grandmothers flying out of Des Moines can't carry their Preparation-H or denture paste.
Amazing how persons fitting one profile can be quickly assessed and dismissed but others have to be scrutinized and made to jump through continuous hoops.
Islam has a very clear agenda: it will not stop killing till the whole planet is brought into submission to it. That is a basic tenet of the ideology. If we don't ban it, there is no hope of seeing the end of Islamic terrorism. Period.
Posted by: emi on August 10, 2006 11:48 AMI would edit to say if there was ever a time to send real men to Washington this is it. The Current Crop of R's has played games for almost 5 years!!!!!!
Bush has morphed into Neville Chamberlain and where is Dave Reichert's unequivocal statements on letting our boys go postal on the islamonuts? No where! Wusses. Our B-52's should be buzzing Damascus and Tehran.
The border is as wide open as ever, Bush has spent the budget to the max and the scum in Gitmo get culturally sensitive meals while our 8 boys rot in Pendleton and 2 border patrol agents are rung up for 20 years for defending our borders! What a bunch of tough guys the current crop of R's we have. The golf playing generals and Donny Rumsfeld need to do something more than wonder about public opinion!
We need some more Tom Tancredos not wimps....Bush looked good at the heap of the WTC....and has given in at every turn since then....We need a General Patton not a bunch of wimps!!
McGavick where are you??? Afraid of the Northgater's? I hope the hell not.
Get the butter out for Cantwell, she is toast! Caught between the D freeks that want to wear burkas and kill Christians and Reality that became clearer today; she has compromised her way right to her poltical death.
There is no compromise with evil folks, they will kill you.
Can I have my moonbat membership card now?
Posted by: Fred on August 10, 2006 12:33 PMI blame BP/Exxon/Mobil/Halliburton.
OT: I saw a bunch of Darcy supporters on the corner by a gas station waving signs the other day. One of them was dressed in a Batman-like suit waving a gas pump and a sign with the price of gas a year ago vs. today. Guess they're trying to say that the price of gas is all Dave Reichert's fault.
Posted by: Palouse on August 10, 2006 12:38 PMBy telling China it should curb its own use, so worldwide demand will go down?
Posted by: Me on August 10, 2006 12:53 PMOkay. Islam is definitely a religion with a history of military expansion and bloody borders. When a Muslim *fundamentalist* talks of the world, there are two halves -- the world of Islam, and the the world of war. This is all true, so there is certainly a basis for the comment cited above.
But, its important to remember that that is a *fundamentalist* interpretation of the Koran, and that there are many, many Muslims who would not agree. There are over 200 million Muslims in India who are largely peaceful (the recent terrorist attacks were almost certainly infiltrators from Pakistan). The Bengali regions, which consists of the West Bengal region in India and the country of Bangladesh, observes a more syncretic religios tradition than you are apt to find in Saudi Arabia. And both India and Bangladesh are democracies (although Bangladesh is not the most successful example of the system). The problem is not Islam, it is political Islam.
So not every Muslim follows the logic cited by the comment above. But emi goes beyond acceptable discourse when he calls for Islam to be banned. WTF. Who the hell thinks banning a religion is acceptable policy? How would you enforce that? Let me guess -- quiz people on their religious beliefs? Make them swear fealty to -- what? Jesus? Or the non-god of secular humanism? And what would you do with recalcitrant but peaceful Muslims, who refuse to convert to an "acceptable" religion? Throw them in jail? Send them to get re-educated? Political religious states are bad, regardless of the religion underpinning it.
I am a full-throated and unashamed patriot, Republican, hawk and Muslim-American. There are plenty of Islamo-fascist f**cks who need to have Marine bayonets run through their abdomens. But this sort of comment is stupid and gives ammunition to the moonbats. Keep your bigoted crap off of the posts.
Posted by: Razeeb Hossain on August 10, 2006 04:54 PMThis is World War III in its relatively early stages, that will be unlike any other modern war.
Posted by: KS on August 10, 2006 09:42 PMI'm not too keen on that idea.
As long as these savages proclaim their "prophet-given" right to exterminate their mortal enemies (basically anyone who doesn't subscribe to their death-cult), the rest of us are gonna be a little anxious. Given the pathetic response by your "largely peaceful" brethren (just what exactly is a "largely peaceful" anything? Does that mean that you only get violent on Fridays?) to distance and differentiate themselves from their more candidly bloodthirsty fellows, non-moslems have a legitimate wariness about you & yours.
You ask intriguing questions regarding emi's idea about banning islam. Interestingly, the answers to your questions, if asked in any moslem country, run diametrically opposed to the obvious answers in America. In America we've had to adopt one of your terms in order to describe that difference - Dhimmitude.
Personally, I don't agree with emi about banning your faith - pragmatically it wouldn't be worth the effort. But that doesn't in any way change the distrust that we infidels have of you.
BTW: this bigot also doesn't subscribe to stonings for alleged infidelity, being burned alive because the alternative would be the possibility that infidels might witness your un-burka-ed self, or beheadings for sins real or (mostly) imagined. Great "religion" you've got there.
I guess I'm supposed to believe that, by some inference of your words, you aren't my mortal enemy. That certainly makes me feel better. I don't usually go out and shoot (or stone, or behead) my enemies, so I guess you can rest easy that I'm not your mortal enemy either. But there will always be that uneasy feeling because, after all, you still worship a faith that preaches assimilation, servitude, or annihilation. When that day comes when the folks who have usurped your religion decide that Jihad does in fact mean kill all the Christians, which side will you stand on?
I hope that that day doesn't come. I train for the day that it does.
See you later razeeb (but not if I see you first)...
I am more of a right-wing hawk than just about anyone I know. I supported the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, I support Israel in Lebanon and just about anywhere else. I suppose I could have gone the extra mile and enlisted -- but hopefully I'm not opening myself up criticism as a chickenhawk -- not exactly what I'd expect on this blog.
And just so you know, ALPHABET SOUP -- I use my real name when I post. I do it because, generally, I've felt safe espousing my views. Clearly I'm not belligerent or blockheaded enough for your taste, so you throw in a little threat at the end of your post. Well, next time you decide to do that, I'd appreciate it if you used your real name as well, just so everything is on the table.
Posted by: Razeeb on August 11, 2006 09:27 AMThat threat. I guess maybe I took it too literally? But I'd be happy for someone to tell me why I shouldn't take that as a threat.
Posted by: Razeeb on August 11, 2006 10:13 AMWithin the context of everything else I said it is no more a threat to you than the presence of moslems is to me. That is my point - I cannot tell the "mostly peaceful" moslems from the rest, and I have no intentions of allowing myself or my family to fall victim to islamo-facism by practicing simple-minded PC politics.
I am your neighbor, and one that is more likely than not to stop and say "Hi", but I am also a citizen who is self-reliant and in a pinch, will make certain that I come out on top.
It is unfortunate if that offends you or makes you feel threatened. I didn't make the rules - I'm just working within them (along with a lot of other like-minded folks).
Posted by: alphabet soup on August 11, 2006 10:31 AM