Week 41 2014

Tendring Topics….on Line

Coping with Islamic State

            So now we are officially ‘at war’ with IS (Islamic State) with our aircraft already striking IS targets but with the promise that there will be no ‘boots on the ground’.  This may slow down Islamic State’s progress but I don’t think it will stop it; much less reverse it.  Its principal effect will probably be to recruit more enthusiastic young people from the UK and no doubt, from other ‘western’ countries, into the IS ranks.  Now, so it seems, British teenage girls are making for Turkey as the first step towards becoming brides of their IS heroes in Syria!  It’s strange (well perhaps it isn’t) that we never hear of young people travelling to Syria to help those ‘moderate forces’ opposing President Assad that the UK and the USA are so eager to support.

            I heard on the tv a few days ago an ‘authority’ on Middle Eastern matters declare that the IS uprising is a result of Britain’s failure a year ago to take decisive action against President Assad.  This, so he said, had enabled President Assad’s army to defeat the ‘moderate opposition’ and leave the extreme jihadists in control. What rubbish!  Does he really imagine that if Assad had been overthrown, those moderates would have prevailed over IS?   On the contrary, without Assad, his army and the substantial number of Syrians who remain loyal to him, IS would probably now be ruling the whole of Syria. 

            The Iraqi army has proved woefully unable to halt the IS advance.  The Kurds have been more successful but they are not a national army and the Turks are unwilling to let them have the heavy weapons they need, because of their fear that they might be used to create an independent Kurdistan – part of which would be part of what is now Turkey!  The only effective national army in the Middle East, experienced and hardened in battle with Islamic State, is that of President Assad.  It is time we made our peace with him and accepted him as an ally.

            No doubt the pre-civil war Assad regime had its faults (what Middle Eastern regime hasn’t?) but it was an oasis of freedom and tolerance compared with some of those whom we now claim to be our friends.  Saudi Arabia in particular is the source of the poisonous doctrines that IS puts into practice.  The overwhelming majority of those known to be responsible for the 9/11 outrage were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia regularly abuses human rights in much the same way as IS, but only on its own people.  Half its population (the women) are regarded as the property of members of the other half!   I have little doubt that IS’ initial funding came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  Now, of course, IS doesn’t need outside funding.  They have enriched themselves from their conquests in Syria and Iraq.

 A regular blog reader points out in an email that IS, unlike Hitler and his Nazis, is part of a militant movement that is sweeping the globe.  The Archbishop of Canterbury accurately described it as a ‘many headed Hydra’. Islamic State in Syria and Iraq has the same motivation and the same objectives as the Islamic jihadists who abducted, and still hold, those Christian teenage girls in Nigeria; those who constantly threaten the government of Pakistan, who are fighting for control of Libya, and who are likely to take over Afghanistan as soon as the last GI leaves.

I am reluctant to criticise Obama and Cameron for authorising air strikes on IS targets.  I am sure that they have done so reluctantly and that they are both well aware of the risk of their countries being dragged into a third ‘Gulf War’.  I really have no idea of what their course of action should be.  My blog-reading email correspondent clearly feels the same.  ‘I don’t think we can stand idly by and let these people take ever more and more land, forcing completely peaceful populations out of their towns and villages and murdering anyone who opposes them.  I feel that the priority should have been the defence of the innocent and humanitarian relief – and that does need boots on the ground.  Surely we have the hardware to put a ring of steel around these villages and keep the enemy at bay without getting deeply involved.  It can’t be right for all the Kurds to have to move into refugee camps in Turkey’.

No, of course it isn’t.  My knowledge of military tactics is (to say the least) extremely limited – but I am sure that it wouldn’t be possible to defend all those vulnerable towns and villages as my correspondent suggest. I don’t think we should underestimate the fanaticism and determination of these jihadists. National boundaries mean nothing to them.  If they successfully drove all the Kurds out of Iraq and into Turkey they’d drive on into Turkey!

I am just a little disappointed at the reaction to Islamic State of the majority of peaceful and moderate Muslims in the UK and Western Europe. Imams have condemned the actions of IS as unislamic but -  where are the angry street demonstrations and demands for a fatwa that were provoked by Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ and the cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper?  As well as increasing Islamophobia in the ‘western world’ and providing encouragement to members of such Neofascist organisations as BNP, English Defence League and some Ukippers, it is surely the ultimate blasphemy to suggest that the torture and slaughter of any of his human children is in accordance with the will of God.

I had been persuaded that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that jihad doesn’t really mean a ‘Holy War’ but the inner struggle within us all against the forces of evil.  The members of Islamic State and other similar organisations worldwide are doing their best to persuade me (and thousands of others) otherwise.

‘Ring of Steel’

My email correspondent’s  use of the phrase Rings of Steel to protect non-Islamic communities in Iraq and Syria from the fury of the Islamic State, reminded me that Ring of Steel was the headline on the front page of the weekly Clacton Gazette on Thursday 25^th September.  A sub-heading announced that Special Branch, undercover police and sniffer dogs are to be drafted into Clacton in a huge security operation for the town’s high-profile by-election on 9^th October – a fortnight away as that particular Gazette was published.  If I publish this blog on the internet on Monday 6^th October as I intend, it will be just three days away. 

A news article within the Gazette points out that this by-election will have the highest profile in English political history and its announcement has come just as the country is put on a heightened state of alert against possible terrorist threats.  Police say that there is no known terrorist threat in Clacton but electoral organisers are taking no chances.  Ian Davidson, Tendring Council’s Chief Executive and Returning Officer for the Clacton By-election, told a Gazette reporter that, ‘This election is massive in terms of attention and national politics – the spotlight is on Clacton politically.  We have been in touch with Special Branch and the Police because there are potential security issues and we are taking every precaution to make sure it is a safe and secure count.  We have never had Special Branch at an election before. There is no information of a specific security threat, but we are taking every precaution because of the national and international profile of the by-election’.

Tendring’s district police commander, Chief Inspector Russ Cole said that local police officers would be visiting polling stations throughout the day and there would be a police presence at the count.  ‘We are very much driven by intelligence, and the intelligence we are looking at says there are no major public disorder or counter-terrorist issues but we want to make sure we have enough policing assets’.

I don’t know whether or not my experience has been shared by others but it saddens me that have to say that Ukip and Douglas Carswell have dominated the election campaign.  I have lost count of the number of items of  election literature I have received telling me what a wonderful chap Carswell is, how fortunate we are to have had him as our MP and how important it is that he should be re-elected (but this time as a Ukipper) at the by-election.   These have included leaflets, posters to stick in my window and two apparently personal letters one that addresses me as ‘Dear Ernest’ and the other as ‘Dear Neighbour’.  Douglas Carswell and I have never even met and are certainly not on ‘first name terms’. I have no idea where ‘Dear Douglas’ lives but I’m quite sure it isn’t in my neighbourhood.  I have also had a Ukip doorstep canvasser call on me and among the junk phone calls I had yesterday (1^st October) was a lady urging me to put a cross against Carswell’s name on the 9^th.

Of the other contestants, I have received election leaflets from the Labour, Conservative and Lib’Dem candidates plus a phone call on behalf of the Labour candidate.  And that’s it.  Ukip, it seems, has unlimited funds and lots of eager volunteer supporters.  The others haven’t.

 Ukip’s policies embody everything that I most dislike in politics.  I don’t like their attitude towards Europe, towards global climate change, towards ‘green’ issues generally and towards taxation.  The situation in the UK today, with a great many people (including myself) having lost faith in any of the traditional political parties, is uncomfortably like that in Germany in the late 1920s early ‘30s.  They sought a politician who distrusted politics and offered an alternative path.  They found such a politician in Adolf Hitler.  We’re in danger of finding one in Nigel Farage.

I have a postal vote and have already used it.  For the first time in my life I voted for the Conservative candidate - not because I want him as an MP, but because he offers the best chance of keeping Ukip defector Douglas Carswell, out!

           

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Week 26 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

Middle East Maelstrom

          A recent email from a regular blog reader sums up the current situation relating to Islam and its neighbours in the Middle East, a considerable part of central Africa and the Indian sub-continent:

Well, I said the militant Islam thing was going to come to a head, and almost immediately the Pakistan Taliban come very close to capturing Karachi main airport, and ISIS are getting close to taking Baghdad. And still the Nigerian school girls haven't been returned.  The day surely cannot be far away when they succeed in overthrowing the government of a major country, or carve out a completely new country by annexing bits of other countries.  Would have been better to have left Saddam Hussain in Iraq, but I see Tony Blair is very sensitive to that obvious criticism and has tried to pre-empt it. Likewise, it is crystal clear the west should have given no support to those trying to overthrow Assad. These dictators may be bad and use their powers arbitrarily and brutally, but an ultra orthodox religious regime is ten times worse because it so deeply affects the lives of ordinary people; especially women, who make up 50% of the population and gays who make up 7%, and anyone else of a different religion, or of a more moderate version of Islam.

I couldn’t have put it better or more succinctly myself – though he’s missed out the second batch of schoolgirls who have been abducted by jihadist militants in Nigeria, or the massacres that have recently taken place there.  Nor did he mention the atrocities that have taken place after ISIS victories.  Perhaps, as a former POW, I am particularly affected by tv images of Iraqi soldiers being cold-bloodedly shot en masse by these ‘religious zealots’ after capture. In North Africa in 1941/’42 we on one side and the Germans and Italians on the other tried to kill each other – but we did all adhere to ‘the rules of war’.  Many years later, when my family and I were on holiday in Austria, we encountered a German family remarkably similar to ourselves.  We discovered that the father, like me, had been taken prisoner in Tobruk in 1942 – I, by Rommel in June, and he by ‘Monty’ in November!  Because, all those years ago, both sides had adhered to those rules, we had both survived to look each-other in the face and shake hands as friends.

I was fascinated by Tony Blair’ attempts to suggest that the current conflict has nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq into which he and George Bush lured us.   It is, so he says, the clear result of our failure to intervene in the Syrian Civil War. On which side does he think we should have intervened?  It is possible that, early in the conflict, many of the rebels did seek a more democratic Syria.  It has for some time though been clear that the current rebellion is led and dominated by Islamist zealots of the same breed as those who perpetrated 9/11, were responsible for the subsequent bomb outrages in London, who kidnapped those Nigerian teenagers, and who are now fighting their murderous way through Iraq.  Does Tony Blair really suggest that we should have helped them overthrow Hassad?

When David Cameron expresses concern about British radicalised Muslims returning from Syria to the UK after learning the terrorist arts he doesn’t, for one moment, imagine that they’ll have learned those arts from President Hassad’s supporters. Their teachers will have been those anti-Hassad activists that we have been supporting but, according to Tony Blair, not supporting strongly enough!

I suppose that one good thing that can be said to have come out of the present crisis is a more friendly relationship with Iran.  I heard a Conservative MP in the House of Commons warning the government that this might damage relations between ourselves and our present Middle East allies.  Could he possibly have been referring to such ‘allies’ as Saudi Arabia and Qatar?  These countries, to which we blithely sell arms, are the source of the jihadists bloodthirsty inspiration.  They are the patrons and supporters of Sunni Muslims as Iran is the inspiration, patron and supporter of the Shia.   I have little doubt that these wonderful Middle East allies of ours have been supplying the Syrian rebels with arms (probably some that we have sold them!) and funds to keep them going.  I wouldn’t wish to live either in Saudi Arabia or Iran but, if I were compelled to make a choice, I would certainly settle for Iran, as being the less restrictive and the lesser offender against what I (and I think, Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband) regard as inalienable human rights.  But, of course, human rights are all very well - but business is business! And the manufacture and sale of the weapons of war (the instruments of death) is very big business indeed.

Now we, with the Americans as our ‘senior partners’, are considering intervention to halt the progress of ISIS and prevent the downfall of the present Iraqi government.  We’re not going to put troops on the ground, but we’ll possibly bomb ISIS troop concentrations and so on.  Unmanned ‘drones’ may be used to ‘take out’ some of the ISIS commanders and political leaders.   Inevitably, in doing so innocent civilians – men, women and children will be killed and maimed.  Whatever might be the conclusion of the current fighting it will certainly result with Middle Eastern Muslims – Sunni and Shia alike – uniting in their hatred of the western infidels who inflicted even more death and destruction on their benighted countries. History demonstrates that foreign intervention in civil conflicts always makes them bloodier and more protracted

Twenty-five years ago Christians were a tolerated minority in many Muslim majority countries though not, of course, in Saudi Arabia. In Iraq and Syria in particular there were thriving and long-established Christian Communities.  They set an example of tolerance in an increasingly intolerant world. Today, Christians have been a target of extremists in both those countries.  Christian lives are in daily danger throughout the Middle East and those who can get out have done so.  Our Christian faith is in danger of becoming extinct in the very area of the world in which it was born.

That is the true and lasting legacy of the policies of George W. Bush junior and Tony Blair.  I wonder if they’re proud of it?

Spoiling for a fight?

I have just been listening to an interview with the Secretary-General of NATO about Iraq and the state of the world generally. Perhaps we need reminding that NATO was created during the Cold War specifically to deal with the perceived military threat from the Soviet Union.  The United Kingdom is a member and, unlike our membership of the European Union, joining NATO was taken on quite arbitrarily by the government without any referendum or consultation with the British people.  It is now concerning itself with matters far beyond its original purpose.

The Afghan war for example, is now coming to a less-than-victorious end, after a decade long struggle.  It was a war in which, theoretically at least, NATO was attempting to combat jihadist terrorism at its source.  This was considered to be in Afghanistan, where Al Qaida was protected by the fundamentalist Taliban Government.  All that has happened is that Al Qaida has moved its bases elsewhere, what has been portrayed as ‘western aggression’ has gained recruits for the terrorists, and the Taliban remain undefeated. Meanwhile the conflict has cost the UK and, of course, the USA hundreds of lives and millions of pounds and dollars.  The best place to combat terrorism is in the western countries in which acts of terrorism are threatened or are taking place.  The only role that NATO should take is ensuring the dissemination of intelligence about terrorist groups, and experience of foiling their activities – a field in which, if official sources are to be believed, the UK has been very successful.

That however is not the way Anders Rasmussen. NATO’s Secretary General sees it.   In his Radio interview  he gave the impression of a man spoiling for a fight.  ISIS aggression against Iraq, he averred, was a threat to all of us – it was imperative that firm action be taken against them.  Fortunately for us all, American President Barak Obama (without whose OK, NATO certainly won’t act!) is a great deal more cautious.  He has reinforced the defence of the US Embassy in Baghdad and is sending 300 ‘advisers’ to help organise defence against ISIS but not to get directly involved in conflict.  He doesn’t rule out air strikes against carefully selected targets, but they are not to be taken for granted.  He does not want ‘mission creep’ dragging the USA deeper and deeper into the conflict. 

Mr Rasmussen hasn’t forgotten the Ukraine.  There’s Russia’s virtually bloodless ‘annexation’ of the Crimea, to the satisfaction of the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants! There’s the ‘provocation’ of military exercises near Ukraine’s borders, and Mr Rasmussen is sure that Russia is encouraging the armed separatists in Eastern Ukraine. I’d have thought that much more provocative were NATO’s naval exercises in the Baltic and Black Sea and the reinforcement of NATO troops in Poland and the Baltic states.  As for encouraging the armed separatists, we do know that they have asked Russia to send troops over the border to assist them – and that Russia has declined.  Russia has had more experience than any other country at opposing jihadist terrorism. They were fighting it in Afghanistan when we and the Americans were supporting the fathers and grandfathers of today's Taliban fighters. Instead of thinking up more and stronger sanctions – which affect us as much as they do them – we should be co-operating with them in combating this world-wide scourge.  Goodness knows, we were happy enough to co-operate with a much less amiable Russia to defeat Hitler and the Nazis.  But, of course, neither Mr Rasmussen nor any of the world’s statesmen are old enough to remember that!