The British government’s decision to join the US-led airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq will have repercussions at home, and Prime Minister David Cameron knows it, writes blogger Abdullah Noorrudeen.
As the case was being built for partaking in airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, and propaganda was being pumped, there was a concerted effort to blame ideology for the threat to security of Britain. That ideology was in essence Islam or “Islamism”, which is so loosely defined by the PREVENT strategy that criminalises legitimate Islamic beliefs.
The entirety of the PREVENT strategy is focussed on dismantling Islam as a causal factor towards terrorism, whilst foreign policy grievances are downplayed and conveniently ignored. In fact it is a signifier of something wrong with an individual if he challenges official government narratives (there must be a lot wrong with me then). Indeed the existence of Quilliam, its lifeline is the failed counter terrorism strategy (CONTEST 2) and discriminatory PREVENT policy. As Haras Rafiq pointing to his pay check more than anything and linking ISIS to “Islamist” extremism stated,
“When our Prime Minister says that his Government is going to redouble the efforts to stop youngsters being radicalised – the redoubling of zero still equals zero.”
He explicitly cites the PREVENT strategy and cements the discredited neocon-devised conveyor-belt to terrorism theory:
“the last review of Prevent in 2011 the Department for Communities and Local Government was tasked with publishing the strategy on how they would help stop British Muslims being radicalised ie: the challenging of ideas and counter narrative dealing with non-violent extremists before they quickly become violent”
There is a lot wrong with the above paragraph but then there is a lot wrong with the guy who said it too so we’ll leave it for now.
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Theresa May recently chimed in too, saying:
“We must confront and defeat the extremist ideology that sanctions and encourages terrorist activity. Propagandists who encourage or approve terrorism are prosecuted.”
So says the neocon propagandist.
The anti-Muslim neocon Boris Johnson, before he realised his “Muslim extraction”, also disgustingly said,
“You can’t claim to be draining the swamp in the Middle East when the mosquitoes are breeding quite happily in Yorkshire… That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem.”
This, in an anti-Muslim article discussing the “blowback” of the 2003 Iraq war.
David Cameron firmly believes the same rubbish pumped by the Quilliam Foundation:
“The root cause of this threat to our security is quite clear. It is a poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism that is condemned by all faiths and faith leaders.”
Leading up to the Votes
Leading up to the votes, incidents occurred to fire the MPs and the public into manufacturing a pro-war public opinion. We had the mass terror arrests and raids in London including Anjem Choudhry who has been left to his devices only to be conveniently arrested at a critical point in time (voting for war) and then released on bail the day the voting on the motion for strikes in Syria was passed. Abdullah al Andalusi has already eloquently discussed this on his website and is definitely worth a read.
The other was the neocon blusters which came thick and fast hyping up the media and instilling fear in the public of a threat that never was. One such report was the blusters from the dangerous neoconservative Boris Johnson. Evoking the emotions of the 7/7 bombing to further massage the case for war, Boris said,
“I would ask all Londoners to continue to do as they always do and remain vigilant, report anything suspicious to the authorities.”
This despite the report acknowledging “there has been no specific threat made against London or intelligence to suggest an attack has been planned”,
The report also stated that his warning came as David Cameron “warned today that Isis had declared war on Britain and the West as he set out the case for air strikes”.
What does this mean? This is a direct acknowledgement by neocon Messrs Cameron and Johnson that Britain’s foreign has direct consequences for the security of Britain. It is an overwhelming factor which has been consistently deflected over the past decade by the British government as they try to instead engineer a “happy-clappy” Islam compliant to draconian domestic policies and hawkish foreign policies – which often involve supporting groups which most likely will be proscribed as “terrorist” in the future.
I’ve said it before (here and here for example) and I’ll say it again: neoconservatism is the greatest threat to Britain, her security and the liberties of her peoples. It must be rooted out.
@CoolnessOfHind
