Jacques Chirac tells his people, “you are so lucky you are not British.”
PRESIDENT CHIRAC sought to regain favour with his worried nation yesterday by telling the French that they are far better off than the British and have no reason to take lessons from across the Channel.
The head of state’s focus on Britain would normally have seemed out of place in his traditional Bastille Day television interview, but this year M Chirac could not avoid France’s theme of the season as he grapples with record unpopularity. London’s victory in the race for the 2012 Olympics was the final straw in what France sees as a period of British superiority in the ancestral Anglo-French duel.
After leading the silence for the London bombings at an Élysée Palace garden party, M Chirac was asked about France’s losing streak and what is seen as Britain’s triumphant prosperity under Tony Blair.
He said: “I have a lot of esteem for the British people and for Tony Blair. But I do not think the British model is one that we should envy.
“Certainly, their unemployment is lower than ours. But if you take the big elements in society — health policy, the fight against poverty, . . . spending involving the future — you notice that we are much, much better placed than the English.”
After several inevitable paragraphs about “Muslim anger” over Iraq, the New York Times comes clean about radical Islam’s goal for the United Kingdom: Anger Burns on the Fringe of Britain’s Muslims.
A recent poll commissioned by The Guardian found that 84 percent of Muslims surveyed were against the use of violence for political means, but only 33 percent of Muslims said they wanted more integration into mainstream British culture. Almost half of those surveyed said their Muslim leadership did not represent their views.
The grievances of the boys of Cross Flats Parks have not propelled them toward political action. But Dr. Waheed, a practicing psychiatrist, and Mr. Khan, a documentary filmmaker, are acting on their alienation.
Both men, eloquent, better educated and better off than most in their community, are also among the more politically motivated. They have embraced one of the more conservative, if not militant, Islamic movements in Britain today - Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation.
The party’s stated goal is to rebuild the Caliphate - the Muslim state dissolved with the fall of the Ottoman Empire - to displace corrupt dictators in the Muslim world, and to instill Islamic mores and Islamicize almost every aspect of daily life.
The group has drawn about 10,000 members to its recent annual meetings, its members say, and includes chapters abroad in places like Uzbekistan. It is a controversial movement, even among British Muslims, and its members have become emblematic of the shift of Muslims born in Britain to more conservative and outspoken expressions of their faith.
In interviews earlier this week in Birmingham, where they were born and bred, Dr. Waheed and Mr. Khan described the group’s struggle as one for the very identity of Muslims in Britain.
Britain’s left-wing papers are holding a contest to see which sensitive, caring writer will create the most outrageously self-loathing article in the wake of the London terrorist attacks, and Scott Burgess looks at today’s strong contenders from the Independent: Indy Comes Out Swinging in Self-Blame Stakes.
Here, the Independent asks us to sympathize with the family of one of the 7/7 mass murderers, who feel “criminalised, persecuted and vilified:” Bomber’s family: why we fear the racial backlash.
UNDERCOVER police sniper squads are tracking as many as a dozen Al-Qaeda suspects because security services fear they could be planning more suicide attacks, writes David Leppard.
The covert armed units are under orders to shoot to kill if surveillance suggests that a terror suspect is carrying a bomb and he refuses to surrender if challenged.
The deployment of the teams in the past week signals the huge “intelligence gap” that has opened up since the London bombings.
Police fear the suspects could be planning a further wave of attacks but do not have enough evidence to arrest them, or place them under the government’s new anti-terror control orders.
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, warned last week that there was a “very strong possibility” of more terrorist bombings.
Scotland Yard and MI5 say there may be more “bomb factories”. However, officers admit that they have no idea which suspects could be planning the next attacks so they are deploying the sniper squads as an emergency measure.
A member of S019, Scotland Yard’s elite firearms unit, said: “These units are trained to deal with any eventuality. Since the London bombs they have been deployed to look at certain people.”
July 15, 2005 — One of the bombers in last week’s attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York.
Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.
In addition to Khan, two other men linked to the London bombings also had direct ties with the United States.
“Whilst we are watching the ports and the airports trying to prevent people from coming in,” said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, “al Qaeda and its global jihadi friends are a step ahead. They have already penetrated into the West and are recruiting Western born Muslims to join terrorism.”
Lindsay Germaine, one of the four dead bombers and a Jamaican who left behind a pregnant wife, had recently traveled to see relatives in Ohio.
Furthermore, Magdy El Nashar, 33, who was captured last night at his family’s home outside of Cairo and then questioned by British agents, studied at North Carolina State University. Police believe he helped the bombers build their explosive devices. Now they want to know if there are more bombs and would-be bombers.
Last year, one of the London bombers was given a guided tour of the British House of Commons.
Suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan was given a guided tour of the House of Commons last year - raising the disturbing prospect that Parliament was on the hit list of targets.
Khan, 30, was a guest of Labour MP Jon Trickett, whose wife Sarah is head of a school where the bomber taught.
During the visit in July he also met International Development Minister Hilary Benn, whose constituency includes the school, and was shown areas of Parliament which are off-limits to unaccompanied members of the public.
They included Portcullis House, the new extension where many MPs have their offices and where security has been exposed as worryingly lax in recent years.
After what happened on 7/7, this isn’t just stupid or irresponsible—it’s downright suicidal. When is the British government going to start defending its people? Cleric who defended suicide bombers allowed into Britain.
Just hours before heading south to London with two of the three fellow suspected bombers, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, had played cricket, his favorite pastime, and kicked around a soccer ball on the local sports field.
The previous evening, Tanweer, who had been studying sports at college, had greeted friends cheerfully as he drove his brand-new red Mercedes-Benz.
The car had just been given to him by his adoring father, Mohammed Tanweer, who immigrated to Britain from Pakistan 30 years ago.
During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents.
Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st “Saber” Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemy’s position.
After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist who’d tried to kill him just minutes before.
Yorkies are people from yorkshire, as were the London bombers, my point being it makes about as much sense to blame everyone from yorkshire as it does to blame every muslim...
Gotta love these relatives, saves me a bunch of time! The major problem here is total lack of any idea what is going on. I have no doubt that the 'intelligence gap' is larger than they're letting on. Had ISTBO heard that chuff about "no group with the capability or intent to attack" then by goodness thou wouldst have seen a ruck on this here site. Bloody anyone can make a basic bomb. Anyone can get anything they like onto the tube. Deep Shine regularly travels with a big wheely bag full of poison, he's got workin' clothes on, so it's obvious he's not off on holiday, and he's not had his bag checked once ever. He's actually not sure if he's allowed to carry the stuff around, but there's never been a copper on the station to ask until this last week. A book i read ages ago points out you could put a bomb on a train in glasgow with a mobile and gps rigged to it, and blow it up when it gets to kings cross. you don't even have to be a suicide bomber. I knew all this. You knew all this. Everyone knows someone with a copy of the anarchist's cookbook. Security should have been going up and up, not down and down. Borders should have been tightened long since. Rank stupidity lead to this. Now if they want to arm the police, put a polis on every train, put in airport style xray machines at ticket barriers, delay us for ten minutes at the start of every journey WE'LL JUST HAVE TO COPE. The police and government have long since had the laws and powers required to stop this sort of thing, but have failed to use them properly. They have failed to recruit officers who can convincingly work undercover amoungst the current batch of terrorists, despite the high heidyin of the police saying years ago he knew iraq would make us more of a target. whether iraq is a cause or not, you might have thought if he really thought that, that that would be the time to prepare? Stupidity, laziness, failure to take the 'kind' action long ago. Now we're standing in the water up to our waists wondering why our toes are wet. And now the chances of building a society where spreading hateful lies and inciting violence are as unacceptable as a heart surgeon smoking over your open chest are close to nil. Thus Tony pre-created an situation condusive to terrorism. but i will still consider gross generalisations made about muslims as seriously off as i consider gross generalisations about the British, the non-mulsims etc. Any making a target out of one individual because they belong to a group being judged on the actions of a few members of that group is clearly wrong. I am not Tony Blair.
14 Comments:
What is a Yorkie?
Jacques Chirac tells his people, “you are so lucky you are not British.”
PRESIDENT CHIRAC sought to regain favour with his worried nation yesterday by telling the French that they are far better off than the British and have no reason to take lessons from across the Channel.
The head of state’s focus on Britain would normally have seemed out of place in his traditional Bastille Day television interview, but this year M Chirac could not avoid France’s theme of the season as he grapples with record unpopularity. London’s victory in the race for the 2012 Olympics was the final straw in what France sees as a period of British superiority in the ancestral Anglo-French duel.
After leading the silence for the London bombings at an Élysée Palace garden party, M Chirac was asked about France’s losing streak and what is seen as Britain’s triumphant prosperity under Tony Blair.
He said: “I have a lot of esteem for the British people and for Tony Blair. But I do not think the British model is one that we should envy.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1694794,00.html
“Certainly, their unemployment is lower than ours. But if you take the big elements in society — health policy, the fight against poverty, . . . spending involving the future — you notice that we are much, much better placed than the English.”
After several inevitable paragraphs about “Muslim anger” over Iraq, the New York Times comes clean about radical Islam’s goal for the United Kingdom: Anger Burns on the Fringe of Britain’s Muslims.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/international/europe/16muslims.html?
A recent poll commissioned by The Guardian found that 84 percent of Muslims surveyed were against the use of violence for political means, but only 33 percent of Muslims said they wanted more integration into mainstream British culture. Almost half of those surveyed said their Muslim leadership did not represent their views.
The grievances of the boys of Cross Flats Parks have not propelled them toward political action. But Dr. Waheed, a practicing psychiatrist, and Mr. Khan, a documentary filmmaker, are acting on their alienation.
Both men, eloquent, better educated and better off than most in their community, are also among the more politically motivated. They have embraced one of the more conservative, if not militant, Islamic movements in Britain today - Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation.
The party’s stated goal is to rebuild the Caliphate - the Muslim state dissolved with the fall of the Ottoman Empire - to displace corrupt dictators in the Muslim world, and to instill Islamic mores and Islamicize almost every aspect of daily life.
The group has drawn about 10,000 members to its recent annual meetings, its members say, and includes chapters abroad in places like Uzbekistan. It is a controversial movement, even among British Muslims, and its members have become emblematic of the shift of Muslims born in Britain to more conservative and outspoken expressions of their faith.
In interviews earlier this week in Birmingham, where they were born and bred, Dr. Waheed and Mr. Khan described the group’s struggle as one for the very identity of Muslims in Britain.
Britain’s left-wing papers are holding a contest to see which sensitive, caring writer will create the most outrageously self-loathing article in the wake of the London terrorist attacks, and Scott Burgess looks at today’s strong contenders from the Independent: Indy Comes Out Swinging in Self-Blame Stakes.
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2005/07/indy_comes_out_.html
Here, the Independent asks us to sympathize with the family of one of the 7/7 mass murderers, who feel “criminalised, persecuted and vilified:” Bomber’s family: why we fear the racial backlash.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article299460.ece
Multiculturalism battles with the survival instinct, as Police snipers track al-Qaeda suspects.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1697326,00.html
UNDERCOVER police sniper squads are tracking as many as a dozen Al-Qaeda suspects because security services fear they could be planning more suicide attacks, writes David Leppard.
The covert armed units are under orders to shoot to kill if surveillance suggests that a terror suspect is carrying a bomb and he refuses to surrender if challenged.
The deployment of the teams in the past week signals the huge “intelligence gap” that has opened up since the London bombings.
Police fear the suspects could be planning a further wave of attacks but do not have enough evidence to arrest them, or place them under the government’s new anti-terror control orders.
Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, warned last week that there was a “very strong possibility” of more terrorist bombings.
Scotland Yard and MI5 say there may be more “bomb factories”. However, officers admit that they have no idea which suspects could be planning the next attacks so they are deploying the sniper squads as an emergency measure.
A member of S019, Scotland Yard’s elite firearms unit, said: “These units are trained to deal with any eventuality. Since the London bombs they have been deployed to look at certain people.”
London Bombers Have Ties to United States.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/LondonBlasts/story?id=943648&page=1
July 15, 2005 — One of the bombers in last week’s attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York.
Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.
In addition to Khan, two other men linked to the London bombings also had direct ties with the United States.
“Whilst we are watching the ports and the airports trying to prevent people from coming in,” said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism analyst at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, “al Qaeda and its global jihadi friends are a step ahead. They have already penetrated into the West and are recruiting Western born Muslims to join terrorism.”
Lindsay Germaine, one of the four dead bombers and a Jamaican who left behind a pregnant wife, had recently traveled to see relatives in Ohio.
Furthermore, Magdy El Nashar, 33, who was captured last night at his family’s home outside of Cairo and then questioned by British agents, studied at North Carolina State University. Police believe he helped the bombers build their explosive devices. Now they want to know if there are more bombs and would-be bombers.
Bomber Had Guided Tour of Parliament
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?
Last year, one of the London bombers was given a guided tour of the British House of Commons.
Suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan was given a guided tour of the House of Commons last year - raising the disturbing prospect that Parliament was on the hit list of targets.
Khan, 30, was a guest of Labour MP Jon Trickett, whose wife Sarah is head of a school where the bomber taught.
During the visit in July he also met International Development Minister Hilary Benn, whose constituency includes the school, and was shown areas of Parliament which are off-limits to unaccompanied members of the public.
They included Portcullis House, the new extension where many MPs have their offices and where security has been exposed as worryingly lax in recent years.
After what happened on 7/7, this isn’t just stupid or irresponsible—it’s downright suicidal. When is the British government going to start defending its people? Cleric who defended suicide bombers allowed into Britain.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1696077,00.html
The Guardian's Pet Islamofascist
‘Guardian’ man revealed as hardline Islamist
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article299681.ece
Muslim Association of Britain Rallies Against Terror
The Muslim Association of Britain held a demonstration against terror today.
Of course, their definition of “terror” may differ slightly in the details.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20050717-MABIllegalWar.jpg
The MAB demonstration in Glasgow provided this pastoral multicultural vignette:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20050717-GlasgowMAB.jpg
Killer in a New Red Mercedes
Bombing suspects led unassuming lives.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050714-090938-7384r
Just hours before heading south to London with two of the three fellow suspected bombers, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, had played cricket, his favorite pastime, and kicked around a soccer ball on the local sports field.
The previous evening, Tanweer, who had been studying sports at college, had greeted friends cheerfully as he drove his brand-new red Mercedes-Benz.
The car had just been given to him by his adoring father, Mohammed Tanweer, who immigrated to Britain from Pakistan 30 years ago.
(A brand new red Benz is “unassuming?”)
Snipers Praising Allah
An amazing video confiscated from Iraqi holy warriors shows a US soldier targeted by a sniper, with an unexpected conclusion: CG Sniper Video.
http://gojackarmy.castpost.com/156.html
The full story of this incident is even more amazing: Soldier survives attack; captures, medically treats sniper.
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-976420.php
During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents.
Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st “Saber” Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemy’s position.
After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist who’d tried to kill him just minutes before.
PRAYER DURING KILLING...RELIGION OF PEACE?
Yorkies are people from yorkshire, as were the London bombers, my point being it makes about as much sense to blame everyone from yorkshire as it does to blame every muslim...
Gotta love these relatives, saves me a bunch of time!
The major problem here is total lack of any idea what is going on. I have no doubt that the 'intelligence gap' is larger than they're letting on. Had ISTBO heard that chuff about "no group with the capability or intent to attack" then by goodness thou wouldst have seen a ruck on this here site. Bloody anyone can make a basic bomb. Anyone can get anything they like onto the tube. Deep Shine regularly travels with a big wheely bag full of poison, he's got workin' clothes on, so it's obvious he's not off on holiday, and he's not had his bag checked once ever. He's actually not sure if he's allowed to carry the stuff around, but there's never been a copper on the station to ask until this last week.
A book i read ages ago points out you could put a bomb on a train in glasgow with a mobile and gps rigged to it, and blow it up when it gets to kings cross. you don't even have to be a suicide bomber. I knew all this. You knew all this. Everyone knows someone with a copy of the anarchist's cookbook. Security should have been going up and up, not down and down. Borders should have been tightened long since. Rank stupidity lead to this. Now if they want to arm the police, put a polis on every train, put in airport style xray machines at ticket barriers, delay us for ten minutes at the start of every journey WE'LL JUST HAVE TO COPE. The police and government have long since had the laws and powers required to stop this sort of thing, but have failed to use them properly. They have failed to recruit officers who can convincingly work undercover amoungst the current batch of terrorists, despite the high heidyin of the police saying years ago he knew iraq would make us more of a target. whether iraq is a cause or not, you might have thought if he really thought that, that that would be the time to prepare? Stupidity, laziness, failure to take the 'kind' action long ago. Now we're standing in the water up to our waists wondering why our toes are wet. And now the chances of building a society where spreading hateful lies and inciting violence are as unacceptable as a heart surgeon smoking over your open chest are close to nil. Thus Tony pre-created an situation condusive to terrorism. but i will still consider gross generalisations made about muslims as seriously off as i consider gross generalisations about the British, the non-mulsims etc. Any making a target out of one individual because they belong to a group being judged on the actions of a few members of that group is clearly wrong. I am not Tony Blair.
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