July 20, 2005

London Blasts Hasten Crackdown on Terrorists

It wasn’t 9/11 that killed 3,000 innocent U.S. citizens; or the terrorist murders of 160 school children in Beslan, Russia; or the Madrid, Spain, train bombings that snuffed the lives of 191 commuters; or the 1,934 coalition soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting Islamic terrorists.

Nonetheless, the four horrendous blasts on the London public transit system Thursday reminds us that the war against terrorism rages on.

As this is written, 52 Londoners have been wantonly murdered. The toll is rising as severely wounded victims expire. The carnage would have been worse if suspected other bombs had exploded as rigged.

The attack was meant to disrupt the “G8” economic conference in Scotland. It met to deal with global warming and to funnel aid to African nations suffering from famine, disease and poverty.

The object of terrorism is political control of robber-baron fiefdoms where serfs toil in fear to provide an opulent lifestyle for a few thugs. This system has been around since people gave up hunting and foraging to grow grain requiring permanent settlements.

Quaintly we call it civilization.

Who is most responsible for today’s terrorism is moot. Religion is the focus. Clerics are cohorts – and when the clergy deals itself in, reason flies out the window.

Modern terrorism began with the division of Palestine. Who first owned this piece of real estate is historically moot. Reality is that Muslims, Jews and Christians now occupy it and don’t trust each other very much.

Democratic nations labor to tolerate all faiths and ethnic origins – anathema to robber-barons and religious fanatics. Hence, war open and covert.

It is interesting that France – enamored of its culture – solved its problems with terrorism by suspending some of its democratic notions and by booting out Muslims.

Aaron Mannes, author of “Profiles in Terror,” points out that in 1986 the Paris subway system was rocked by a series of bombings. These were tied to Iran and Hezbollah and changed French policy towards Iran and the Iran-Iraq War.

Because French security was caught off guard by the bombings, says Mannes, major changes were instituted to curb the excesses of Islamists. Troublemakers -- and excess Muslims originally imported for menial labor -- were simply deported.

Consequently the terrorist shifted operations to London. Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna wrote in his 2002 book “Inside al Qaeda” that London was “Al Qaeda’s spiritual hub in the Western World.”

The Advice and Reform Committee, founded by bin Laden in 1994 is based in London. The assassins of leading anti-Taliban Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud were linked to London’s Islamic Observation Center.

France’s leading anti-terrorism judge – Jean-Louis Bruguiere – warned in a BBC interview a month ago that the Al Qaeda threat in Britain was growing.

“We have a lot of legal means you in the United Kingdom don’t have,” said Bruguiere. “These allow us to control and possibly prevent terrorist activities – with such things as compulsory ID cards, admissibility of wiretap evidence and restriction of travel between countries.”

Mannes says Judge Bruguiere is an “investigating magistrate” that has no equivalent in American and British systems. He is a member of the judiciary with some police powers.

There is consideration in the United States to issue national identification cards, sanction searches without court permission, deport aliens, strengthen the Patriot Act and restrict travel between Mexico and Canada.

These are drastic measures, but the war on terrorists must be won – and it will. But at what price? Ay, there’s the rub.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at linwms@lindseywilliams.org