Ending Londonistan

Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2008, pp. 63-66
http://www.meforum.org/article/1964
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Preface by Melanie Phillips

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 a breakthrough essay in the RUSI Journal 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 radical Islamism 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 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 the Islamic 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 to 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 "multi-cultural" 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 peace-time 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.

Melanie Phillips is the author of Londonistan (New York: Encounter Books, 2006).

[1] Gwyn Prins and Robert Salisbury, "Risk, Threat and Security," RUSI Journal, Feb. 2008.
[2] "Archbishop's Lecture—Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective," Feb. 7, 2008.
[3] Jonathan Evans, address to the Society of Editors, Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Manchester, Eng., Nov. 5, 2007; The Times (London), Nov. 6, 2007.

July 13, 2008
McCain’s Conservative Model? Roosevelt (Theodore, That Is)

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MICHAEL COOPER
HUDSON, Wis. — Senator John McCain in a wide-ranging interview called for a government that is frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change, regulating campaign finance and taking care of “those in America who cannot take care of themselves.”

“I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” Mr. McCain said, referring to Roosevelt’s reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy.

The views expressed by Mr. McCain in the 45-minute interview here Friday illustrated the challenge the probable Republican presidential nominee faces as he tries to navigate the sensibilities of his party’s conservative base and those of the moderate and independent voters he needs to defeat Senator Barack Obama, his Democratic rival.

His responses suggested that he was basically in sync with his party’s conservative core but was not always willing to use the power of the federal government to impose those values. He also expressed a willingness to deploy government power and influence where free-market purists might hesitate to do so and to consider unleashing military force for moral reasons.

In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has left many Republicans unsettled about his ideological bearings by toggling between reliably conservative issues like support for gun owners’ rights and an emphasis on centrist messages like his willingness to tackle global warming and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Those tensions were apparent in the interview as well, as Mr. McCain offered a variety of answers — sometimes nuanced in their phrasing, sometimes not — about his views on social issues.

Mr. McCain, who with his wife, Cindy, has an adopted daughter, said flatly that he opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” he said.

But he declined to take a specific position when asked whether only evolution should be taught in public schools. “It’s up to the school boards,” he said. “That’s why we have local control over education.” Mr. McCain has said he believes in evolution.

Many social conservatives strenuously oppose California’s decision to allow same-sex marriage. But Mr. McCain, who also opposes same-sex marriage, has always said that the issue is up to the states, and in the interview he said he would stick to that position as president even if California chose to continue allowing gay marriage after putting the matter to a statewide vote in November. “I respect the right of the states to make those decisions,” he said.

Asked if he considered himself an evangelical Christian, Mr. McCain responded, “I consider myself a Christian.”

“I attend church,” he said. “My faith has sustained me in very difficult times.” Asked how often he attended, he responded: “Not as often as I should.” He has recently been photographed going to church as his campaign has begun to make public the times he attends services.

Mr. McCain sat down for the interview, conducted after he held a town-hall-style meeting on economic issues, at the end of a week that his campaign had hoped would mark a turning point in a candidacy that has been plagued with missteps and often seemed unsure of its message.

After a period in which his campaign again endured internal battling and staff upheaval, Mr. McCain argued that competing tensions in an organization — be it a presidential campaign or a White House — can be good thing, up to a point.

“Because of the bubble that a president is in, and the bubble that a candidate is in, sometimes you find out afterwards something that, ‘Oh boy, I wish I had heard thus and such and so and so,’ ” he said. “So I appreciate and want some of the tension. I don’t want too much of it.”

When asked if he felt that it was more difficult to run against Mr. Obama because of the sensitivities of race, Mr. McCain responded wryly: “I’d like to make a joke, but I can’t.”

“We are in a situation today where all words are parsed, all comments are diagnosed and looked at for whatever effect they might have,” he said. “We have to feed the beast, the hourly cable shows, the instant news in the blogs and all that. That is just the situation that we’re in, and I’m not complaining about it, because that would be both foolish and a waste of time.”

Mr. McCain went on to say that he did not consider running against Mr. Obama any more complicated than running against, say, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “No, I have to base my approach to Senator Obama as one of respect,” he said. “As long as I do that, then I don’t have to worry about any language I might use.”

He said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.

“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

Asked which blogs he read, he said: “Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.”

At that point, Mrs. McCain, who had been intensely engaged with her BlackBerry, looked up and chastised her husband. “Meghan’s blog!” she said, reminding him of their daughter’s blog on his campaign Web site. “Meghan’s blog,” he said sheepishly.

As he answered questions, sipping a cup of coffee with his tie tight around his neck, his aides stared down at their BlackBerries.

As they tapped, Mr. McCain said he did not use a BlackBerry, though he regularly reads messages on those of his aides. “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail,” Mr. McCain said.

The interview underscored the extent to which Mr. McCain defies easy ideological characterization, a fact that might help him in a general election but has been a persistent cause of concern among some conservatives. Mr. McCain has long argued that his stances are evidence of his political independence; many of his critics say it is more an example of a politician deftly trying to shade positions to win an election in complicated electoral terrain.

Mr. McCain said he believed that the United States government had an obligation to intervene to stop genocide, though only if it was clear that a solution was possible. Mr. McCain also said that the Federal Reserve was right to step in during the collapse of the investment firm Bear Stearns, and that he would similarly support some sort of aggressive action to avert a meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, should that prove necessary.

“I don’t know if a government, quote, bailout is necessary now,” he said. “Because there are other courses of action that are being explored in order to ensure their survival. But I don’t believe we can afford to have them fail, because of their impact on the overall economy.”

Asked to name a conservative model, he skipped over the suggestions of three names typically associated with the conservative movement — Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barry Goldwater, the founder of the modern-day conservative movement who occupied the Senate seat Mr. McCain holds today — to settle on Theodore Roosevelt.

Mr. McCain has long admired Roosevelt, and in the interview he identified with him as a fellow reformer and environmentalist and also touched on his assertive foreign policy. The choice might to some extent be an indication of how Mr. McCain would like to position himself now that he has moved from the primary to the general election.

“I believe less governance is the best governance, and that government should not do what the free enterprise and private enterprise and individual entrepreneurship and the states can do, but I also believe there is a role for government,” Mr. McCain said. He added: “Government should take care of those in America who can not take care of themselves.”

A Forgotten Humanitarian Crisis

GMT 7-31-2008 17:32:15
Assyrian International News Agency
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I am writing this article from Jeramana, a suburb of Syria's capital Damascus. The desperation in such places, where many Iraqi refugees have taken refuge, is growing by the day. There has been no rain in Syria for the last twelve months, a country with a population still living largely from agriculture. Some Syrians accuse the Iraqi refugees using the example that the price of meat has increased by 120 percent. Other Syrians agree that it is harder to live in Syria but say that they still are happy to share their bread with the victims of a horrible war.


The Syrian government regards the refugees as guests who are allowed to use public health facilities and send their children to the public schools. But if they don't have a valid permit, something the majority lack, they are not allowed to work. A Syrian work officer told me yesterday they don't chase after Iraqis who work illegally; "but it cannot continue since they are taking jobs from Syrian citizens". Murwan earns circa 250 dollars per month. He works 9 hours a day and on the average, six days a week. Being an engineer he belonged to the middle class in Iraq. He has not much left of his savings after living as a refugee for two years. The rent for the small apartment where he lives with his wife and children is 250 dollars per month. They have nothing over after the rent is paid. Most Iraqis are in the same situation, or worse.


In Jordan, Iraqis I met told me they are afraid to work because they can be deported. They have remained alive thanks to the aid from UNHCR and other private organizations. Relatives and friends in the Netherlands, U.S., Sweden and other places send them money. But for how long? And at the UNHCR I meet frustration, the organization is out of money.


More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes, two millions within Iraq and two to the neighboring countries Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Official numbers disclose that there are more than one million Iraqis in Syria and 750 000 in Jordan. No one knows exactly how many. The UNHCR has registered 207 000 Iraqi refugees in Syria. The fact that not all are registered depends on, according to the UN press secretary, the lack of trust the Iraqis have towards the UN. Many also don't even know of the possibility of registering.


Those who are in touch with the UN hope to get out of the Middle East. Many Iraqis registered themselves when the UN ran an ad in February 2007 informing that they could get status of quota refugees through a special program and be transferred. They believed in a mass resettlement to the U.S., Europe and Australia. But only 11 492 have received criteria of resettlement and only 1 123 have left Syria through the UN. The Iraqis have now lost hope. "But many have returned to Iraq", an American colleague told me in Amman last week. That isn't correct, it's only a couple of hundred who have returned. Images of the same group of returning Iraqis has filled TV screens around the world and given the impression that many Iraqis are returning.


The UN has prepared some statistics on how many of the Iraqis have post traumatic stress syndrome. They have compared the results with other current wars and also with the war in Vietnam. The numbers are frightening. No other war has caused so much damage to the individual as the war in Iraq. One of four refugees has someone in their family who has been kidnapped, killed, raped or threatened to death; many of those are children under the age of fifteen.


The refugees want to create a future in a "safe country". The only way to safety that they have left is through paying smugglers of human beings. As Europe catches more and more of these smugglers in order to stop this kind of organized crime which is on the rise, the Iraqis become more vulnerable. They still take the chance. To pay tens of thousands of dollars to a smuggler is seen as the only alternative to the suffering in Syria and Jordan. The money is collected by selling everything they own and borrowing from everyone they know. In most cases they never reach Sweden or other countries because they are caught on their way, in Turkey for example, and are forced to return to Baghdad, and then back to Syria or Jordan.


UNHCR has minimum resources to maintain its aid. What are we going to do to solve the refugee situation in Iraqs neighbouring countries?

Copyright (C) 2008, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.

Cuba to Allow Private Farming
Land Will Remain in Government Hands, However
By Will Weissert
Associated Press
Saturday, July 19, 2008; A12

HAVANA, July 18 -- Communist officials decreed Friday that private farmers and cooperatives can use as much as 100 acres of idle government land, as President Rául Castro works to revive Cuba's floundering agricultural sector.

The law, published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, did not say how much state land would be turned over to private hands and gave no indication of how many Cubans might apply.

But it described the measure as a way to help Cuba solve the problem of underused land while cutting food imports that are expected to cost the government $2 billion this year.

Landless Cubans can be given a bit more than 33 acres, while those who already have fully producing plots can add enough state land to bring their total holdings to 100 acres.

Existing state farms, cooperatives and factories also can apply for underused land.

Ownership will stay with the state. Private farmers can get concessions of as much as 10 years, renewable for another 10. Cooperatives and companies can have renewable 25-year terms. And all will have to pay taxes for the lands, though the decree gave no details.

Although the individual parcels are small, the widespread transfer of farmland from public to private hands could change the face of farming in a country where the government controls more than 90 percent of the economy.

The decree noted that Cuba now suffers from "a considerable percentage of idle state lands," making it necessary to grant concessions "with the objective of elevating food production and reducing importation."

Government statistics released last month show that the percentage of fallow or underused Cuban farmland increased to 55 percent in 2007, up from 46 percent in 2002. Twenty-nine percent of land on state farms is actively used.

After Fidel Castro took power in 1959, the government expropriated many large farms and agricultural holdings while allowing thousands of small farmers to keep their plots and sell their produce to the state.

The new measure does not specify where farmers will sell their output, but nearly all private farmers now are required to sell most of their produce to the state.

Iraq’s Interior Minister Thanks U.S. Troops for Liberating Iraq
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer & Keriann Hopkins, Correspondent

Jawad Karim al-Bolani, minister of Interior in Iraq, visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Tuesday. (Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)
Washington (CNSNews.com) – A top Iraqi official visited wounded American troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to thank them for their part in ending Saddam Hussein’s rule in his country.

“We have come … to express our gratitude and appreciation for the sacrifices made by these great warriors, soldiers, in freeing the Iraqi people and in helping us in Iraq recover from tyranny and dictatorship,” Jawad Karim al-Bolani, Iraq’s minister of the interior, said through a translator to a handful of journalists in the lobby of the medical center.

“We also want to express our gratitude to the families of all these great men and women and express how important their sacrifices are for our nation,” he added.

Bolani’s visit with troops comes on the heels of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) recent trip to the Middle East, where the Democratic presidential candidate caused a stir when he canceled a planned visit to wounded American soldiers.

Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose campaign has just released a new television ad on the canceled visit, charged that Obama had “shunned” the troops. An Obama campaign spokesman denied the charge, saying the Illinois senator “did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perceived as a campaign event.”

The Pentagon, meanwhile, said Obama was welcome to visit the troops – without his campaign entourage.

The medical center is part of the Walter Reed Health Care System, which serves more than 150,000 soldiers, family members and retirees.
The Iraqi government official, who didn’t mention presidential politics, said that he also wanted to visit Walter Reed because it was a “great institution.”

“(We wanted) to witness firsthand the level of technical (and) medical sophistication that is being practiced here so that we may learn from it to help our foreign wounded and the many, many victims of terrorism and violence in Iraq,” Bolani added.

CNSNews.com asked the minister if he supported a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.

“I would like to talk about all the progress and all the improvements that have taken place throughout Iraq at the security level,” Bolani said, adding that Iraq still faces challenges in the future because of “regional considerations.”

Although Bolani did not express support for a timeline, he said the Iraqi government is doing what “is necessary to be ready and to step up and to fulfill our requirements … for this transitional time.”

In a response to a question from a Department of Defense official, Bolani tried to reassure Americans about the status of the Iraqi National Police.

“Our national police in Iraq have demonstrated that it is very professional and has increased its performance level,” Bolani said.

While at Walter Reed, Bolani visited soldiers at its Military Advanced Training Center, which provides physical therapy and counseling for troops who have lost limbs or the use of limbs.