What Happens With Guns & Self Defense When The Left Rules Unconstrained? Look To The UK

Britain is a country to watch very closely to see what awaits the U.S. Britain embraced socialism in the immediate aftermath of WWII. And while Britain has dispensed with much of socialism's economic policy, it is still firmly embracing far left social policy - some aspects of which are Britain's policies towards guns, self defense and criminal justice.

I pointed out below that Britain, a country where both the law abiding and the police are near wholly disarmed, is suffering from a rate of violent crime over five times that of the U.S. The British are left with no means of making themselves equal in force to potential criminals at the point of a crime, and as one British Police Inspector wrote the other day, the "thieves rule this country at night, not us." The left in Britain look askance at anyone who might try to defend themselves, and this is coupled with a far left leaning judiciary that is more protective of the criminal than the law abiding.

Britain still allows individuals to own shotguns for hunting purposes under very strictly controlled conditions. Self defense is not considered a legitimate reason. Thus, when, horror of horrors, a Brit with a shotgun uses it to defend the lives of himself or others, he becomes the criminal.

Case in point, Mr. Bill Edwards owns a farm in Yorkshire - one that has been repeatedly raided by thieves. He also owns a shotgun for hunting and pest control on his farm. Several months ago, he and his mother were out walking on the farm when they came upon a thief who was stealing various items. When they confronted the thief, he jumped in his van and accelerated towards them, putting them in fear for their lives. Edwards fired the shotgun at the thief to get him to turn away - which he did, unharmed. The Daily Mail explains the rest:

A farmer accused of attempted murder after catching an intruder red-handed spoke of his outrage last night after the thief walked free with a £100 fine.

Unemployed criminal David Taylor was captured when Bill Edwards confronted him on his isolated woodland property.

Mr Edwards, 21, fired his shotgun at a van driven by Taylor as the thief accelerated towards his mother, Louisa Smith, 50.

Taylor was caught after a high-speed chase but it was the farmer who endured a horrendous ordeal at the hands of police who arrested him on suspicion of attempted murder.

Last night Mr Edwards labelled the experience ‘four months of hell’ and attacked the ‘pathetic’ punishment handed out to the intruder.

The former public schoolboy said: ‘It’s completely changed my view of the police. They treated me like a criminal. The police have acted like bullies who have turned someone who was very supportive of their work into someone who wants nothing more to do with them. They can’t protect the public but don’t allow the public to protect themselves.’

Speaking about the sentence, he added: ‘It is hard to find words to describe how ridiculous the sentence is. I’m absolutely disgusted.

‘We have had four months of being treated like criminals only to see the real criminal let off with a measly fine which will be paid for by the taxpayer since he is on state benefits.’

Mr Edwards and his mother feared for their lives during the confrontation on their land on the outskirts of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, last August. . . .

Mr Edwards said his family has lost thousands of pounds through theft and damage caused in a number of raids on their land.

They caught Taylor and an accomplice loading stolen metal cables into the back of his Ford Transit after spotting that outbuildings had been tampered with. The thieves jumped into the van and drove it towards the pair as they desperately dialled 999 for help.

Mr Edwards fired his shotgun, which was loaded with lightweight rabbit shot, several times, hitting the van’s windscreen and bodywork. No one was hurt. Police eventually caught Taylor when Mr Edwards gave chase and gave a running commentary on his mobile phone. But the crook was only charged with metal theft.

Mr Edwards' shotgun was loaded with lightweight rabbit shot when he fired it at the van.

He was accused of attempted murder after firing his shotgun at a van driven by thief David Taylor as he and his mother feared for their lives.

Meanwhile Mr Edwards and his mother were arrested, held overnight in cells and left on bail for four months. Mrs Smith was arrested on suspicion of possessing a firearm with intent.

It is believed police have a recording of the 999 call in which the shots can be heard as Mrs Smith shouts: ‘He is trying to kill us, shoot his tyres.’

But even now the farmer has not had his shotgun and other weapons returned to him which he uses to control pests on his land and as a hobby. Scarborough magistrate Mike Dineen fined Taylor £100 and ordered him to pay £34.99 for damage caused to the farm gate and padlock when he rammed through it to escape.

Taylor left court grinning and sneered ‘lucky you’ at Mr Edwards after finding out the attempted murder allegation had been dropped. [emphasis added]

Moments earlier his solicitor Ian Brickman said the thief ‘is in many ways the victim in this’ and was left so ‘traumatised’ he cannot work. . . . [emphasis added]

If the left in the U.S. had their way, I have little doubt that we would resemble the U.K. today, both in gun control policy and self defense laws. The question to my mind is, when does something like this become so intolerable that the people revolt? When are judges and prosecuting attorneys going to be held liable for caring more about the welfare of the criminal than the law abiding.

At the core of the social compact between the people and its government is that the government will administer justice fairly so that the injured do not have to resort to vigilante justice. When the government systemically fails in their duty, when thieves rule the night and the criminals go unpunished, how long will it be before the law abiding have had enough, and take justice into their own hands as to the criminals, and aim violent retribution at Judges and prosecuting attorneys for their utter disdain of the law abiding.

At any rate, the UK is very much a cautionary tale for us as to the wages of left wing control and what that means for crime and self defense. I await the day when the law abiding among the UK revolt against this insanity, and the UK becomes an object lesson for the left of the bankruptcy and immorality of their ideology.

Related Posts:

- Guns, Equality, The UK - Where "The Thieves Rule This Country At Night," & An Insane NTY News Analysis - Boy Uses AR15 To Stop A Home Invasion

- Larry Correia's Brilliant Essay On Guns, Gun Control & Concealed Carry

- Thoughts On Gun Control From The Late Paul Harvey

- The Futility Of An Assault Weapons Ban As An Answer To Sandy Hook

- When Seconds Counted At Sandy Hook, Police Were Twenty Minutes Away

- St. Louis Police Chief Calls for Arming School Personnel

- John Fund essay on Mass Murders, Gun Control & Our Treatment of Mental Illness

- Luby Cafeteria Massacre, Testimony of Suzanna Hupp, Texas School District Authorizes Concealed Carry For Its Schools

- Reynolds On Gun Free Zones, The Left's Mistrust Of Armed Private Citizens, & Our Problematic Mental Health Laws

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The "Turbulent Priest" To Leave Office

The 104th Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, has announced that he will step down from the post in December. Williams has held the post of Archbishop of Canterbury for almost a decade. Whatever else he was in office, Williams was clearly one of a deeply misguided breed - a left wing Christian. He did nothing to protect and defend the Church, let alone further its interests. In my last post about him, I wrote:

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Cantebury, [is doing] to Christianity what Labour is doing to Britain. He is the man who prior to this day had praised Islam, damned America as an imperialist nation to a crowd of Muslims, blamed America for Muslim violence against Christians in the Middle East, refused to proselytize for Christianity among Muslims, and advocated implementing at least parts of Sharia law in Britain. The Archbishop's latest assault on the Christian faith has come in an apologia to Muslims for the violent history of Christianity and what seems an apology for one of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith - the Trinity. This from the Daily Mail:

Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.  Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.  His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.

But it risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system.

. . . The Archbishop's letter is a reply to feelers to Christians put out by Islamic leaders from 43 countries last autumn.  In it, Dr Williams said violence is incompatible with the beliefs of either faith and that, once that principle is accepted, both can work together against poverty and prejudice and to help the environment.  He also said the Christian belief in the Trinity - that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost at the same time - 'is difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims'.  Trinitarian doctrine conflicts with the Islamic view that there is just one all-powerful God. . . .

Read the entire article.

Rowan Williams has been a disgrace to his position and a disaster for Christianity in Britain. In addition to his unforgivable sins above, he has been fully in step with the secular left of Labour - a group virtually dedicated to removing Christianity and Christian influence from the public square in Britain. This deeply misguided man will not be missed when he steps down from office in December, 2012.

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Politicians & The Perspective Of Time

An e-mail was sent to me that is making the rounds in the UK. It applies equally as well on this side of the pond - and although the list of new taxes is different, it is no less applicable:

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

- A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

- A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

- A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

- A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

- A billion Pounds ago was only 13 hours and 12 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

* Stamp Duty
* Tobacco Tax
* Corporate Income Tax
* Income Tax
* Council Tax
* Unemployment Tax
* Fishing License Tax
* Petrol/Diesel Tax
* Inheritance Tax (tax on top of tax)
* Alcohol Tax
* V.A.T.
* Marriage License Tax
* Property Tax
* Service charge taxes
* Social Security Tax
* Vehicle License Registration Tax
* Vehicle Sales Tax
* Workers Compensation Tax

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...and our nation was one of the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt...

we had the largest middle class in the world... and Mum stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

Can you spell 'politicians?'

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Immigrants, Demagoguery & Expanding The Left Wing Base

Note the similarities of the left, on both sides of the pond.

In Britain, a Labour supporter mentions to Gordon Brown she is concerned about immigration to Britain - and she has every right to be. Labour - and the EU - have thrown open the borders of Britain. The demographics are completely and completely changed because of it, government services are being overwhelmed, crime has skyrocketed and the very nature of Britain is being changed because of it all. As I pointed out here, the decision to allow this level of immigration was a conscious, though unannounced, decision of Labour made after determining that it would substantially increase their voter base. At any rate, the 66 yr. old Labour supporter went on to say "the issue of immigration was not being discussed properly for reasons of political correctness. 'You can't say anything about immigrants.'" PM Minister Brown was pleasant enough, but then in his car, with a microphone still taping, called the woman a bigot for apparently even broaching the topic.

In the U.S., Obama and the entire left are hyperventilating over a carefully crafted Arizona law directing Arizona law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants. The bill does not allow for racial profiling, but directs police to check immigration status should they have otherwise lawful contact - i.e., stop for a traffic violation, etc. Obama demagogued the issue at a Town Hall the other day. Victor Davis Hanson sums up the left wing response:

Racist! Nativist! Profiler! Xenophobe!

Write or say anything about illegal immigration, and one should expect to be called all of that and more—even if a strong supporter of legal immigration. Illegal alien becomes undocumented worker. Anti-immigrant replaces anti-illegal-immigration. “Comprehensive” is a euphemism for amnesty. Triangulation abounds. A fiery op-ed grandstands and deplores the Arizona law, but offers no guidance about illegal immigration — and blames the employer for doing something that the ethnic lobby in fact welcomes. . .

The common threads between Britain and the U.S. are that leftists on both sides of the pond see immigration as a means to attack the existing political system and increase their own political power. Further, both are quite willing to demagogue the issue and label opponents as bigots in order to prevent debate or discussion on the topic. Both are despicable.

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Smoke Over Georgia

Russia has ostensibly ordered a halt to further military operations in Georgia, though it is not clear what they are demanding and what the long term repercussions of this action will be.
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CNN is reporting that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a halt to the Russian advance into Georgia and has supposedly agreed to remove its military from Georgia. It is unclear why they have made this decision, but in addition, they are apparently no longer demanding the resignation of the Georgian government. The CNN article also states:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said: "I wanted to make very clear that the United States stands for the territorial integrity of Georgia, for the sovereignty of Georgia; that we support its democratically elected government and people, and are reviewing options for humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Georgia. But the most important thing right now is that these military operations need to stop."

U.S. officials also told CNN it was considering flying aid from bases in Germany to Georgia. There was also consideration being given to sending U.S. Navy ships into the Black Sea to conduct humanitarian relief missions.

It sounds as if something went wrong in the Russian calculations, but it will likely be weeks before the smoke clears on this one. I doubt that any of the above were of direct consequence, but again, who knows what is going on beneath the surface. U.S. plans above would have put U.S. warships in direct proximity to Russian ships now conducting a blockage of Georgia, thus upping the ante.

Fox is reporting that, depite the cease fire, there are still some attacks ongoing.

Dr Helen Szamuely at EU Referendum is a Russian speaker whose area of expertise extends to the former Soviet bloc nations. She has several posts at EU Referendum and the BrugesGroup blog on this situation. Her most post on the topic is given to trying to work through why the cease fire now and how this situation will play out in the coming weeks:

The news is that Russia has ceased its military action. Or has announced that she has done so, though there are still reports of fighting. It is not quite clear what that means, since before doing so, its forces penetrated far into Georgian territory. What will they demand in return for taking them out and, indeed, will they take them out?

The whole subject of South Ossetian independence has disappeared into a memory hole. Yesterday I took part in a discussion on the BBC Russian Service, together with Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation and a Russian political analyst and former member of the Duma (whose name I managed not to catch, which is really annoying but had something to do with me having to adjust my earphones).

The latter very calmly informed us all that there was no question of going back to status quo ante because only Russian troops (I don’t think he bothered with the words peacekeepers or peacemakers) could guarantee the two break-away republics’ security and they were staying. Under no circumstances would international peacekeepers be allowed in.

Nor did he argue when I made the point that this was not about South Ossetian independence. Of course, not. Only those who are wilfully blind can say so.

Indeed, the gentleman in question remained very calm and full of certainty throughout the discussion, losing his temper only when I started enumerating the various ways in which the West can respond without any military intervention. “And who are you going to buy gas from,” he asked me angrily. “Lots of people,” replied I airily. “Who are you going to sell it to if we don’t buy it? There are no pipelines to China.” This did not make him very happy.

While we are on the subject of what the West can do to prevent attacks on other countries (the idea that Russia will do no such thing now that it has taught Georgia a lesson can be believed only by people who also think that stars are God’s daisy chains), here is a posting on a blog that has recently come my way, which makes me look like a real ninny.

What we could not find out was Russia’s endgame. What is it they want? We still don’t know, though according to the BBC Russian Service website [it’s in Russian but I think there is a way of having the article translated] some experts are saying that Russia has achieved her aims. Others are more cautious and suggesting we should wait and see.

On the whole, waiting and seeing sounds like an excellent idea. Not least we should hear what it is Mr Putin or his teddy bear, Mr Medvedev are going to demand. Simply asserting that they have punished the aggressor and reasserted the security of the civilian population (something that Mr Putin cares about desperately) as well as of the peacemakers is not the end. There will be more demands.

Meanwhile President Saakashvili has announced to around 50,000 people in Tbilisi that Georgia is leaving the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russia’s post-Soviet attempt to control the break-away republics.

While the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline appears not to have been damaged (apart from the fire caused by an explosion in Turkey a few days before the hostilities in Georgia began) BP has prudently closed it down for the duration. When they will reopen it might well depend on the separate battle that is being waged for the control of the joint Anglo-Russian consortium TNK-BP.

We can but speculate why Russia has decided to end hostilities for the time being, while there is still fighting in Abkhazia. It may be that they do feel that they have taught Georgia a lesson and, in any case, they are in a good position to resume the teaching of that lesson if the Georgians refuse to kiss the rod.

It may be that the Georgian forces fought back with greater vigour than the Russians had expected and there was a sudden worry (which we have speculated on before) of another quagmire like Chechnya. It may be that the angry conversation between President Bush and former President, now Prime Minister, Putin included certain very specific threats possibly to do with ships in the Mediterranean.

As opposed to that last point Russia may well have reassured herself that the West will do nothing if she proceeds to reconquer the old Soviet colonies as Putin has always threatened to do and there is no need to do anything else for the moment. . . .

Read the entire post.

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The Wages Of Green

We are paying dearly for the green agenda. We are paying for it with out of control energy prices that set new records seemingly daily. And we are paying for it as part of the insane biofuel agenda. As to the latter, according to the Guardian, an unreleased World Bank report cites biofuels as being the cause of a 75% increase in world food prices.
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This from the Guardian:

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

. . . The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.

. . . Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".

. . . [P]roduction of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.

. . . [T]he report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.

. . . "It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."

Read the article.

The rush to biofuels taking agricultural land out of food production has been one a huge boon for select special interests and an utter disaster for the world. Yet with all of the accumulating information and with the price of staples seeming to rise daily, nothing is being done to stop the madness.

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A Grasp of History

Brits At Their Best posts today on how little the British seem to understand their own history. One firm conclusion to which I have come, after a lifetime of studying history, is that the single most beneficial and positive force of the past millenium was Britain. If one looks at the most democratic, free and prosperous nations on this earth, they virtually all arise out of the British empire. The U.S. Bill of Rights is precious little more than a rote cataloguing of the rights of free Englishmen in 1776. And the last major Supreme Court decision turned on a legal theory, habeas corpus, that was one of those rights, originating out of the Magna Carta in 1215 A.D. Over the course of history, countless millions of people on every continent have taken up arms to defend these ideals gifted to the world by Britain.

Britain's history is a history of which the British should feel intensely proud. Yet it is a history of which few in Britain of today seem to grasp. And because of that, they are on the precipice of jettisoning it.
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Brits At Their Best has an exceptional post, "An almost unfathomable ignorance of history," whose central points I could not agree with more. Indeed, as I have written before, in the post Change & The Cessation Of British History, the tragedy of the new millenium may well turn out to be the cessation of the British ideals and all it has brought to the world. Marxist theory that fully animates the British left has distored and demonized British history within Britain in itself. This in turn has allowed the left to jettison traditional anglo-saxon ideals and values and, in what can only be called a coup, the Labour government to transfer Britain's sovereignty to the anti-democratic and anti-capitalist EU. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. Here is a bit of the exceptional post at Brits At Their Best:

. . . In his book Empire, Niall Ferguson points out that the British brought interesting and valuable gifts to their empire, including -

The English language
Property rights
Scottish and English banking practices
Common law
Team sports
The limited or 'night watchman' state (and low rates of taxation)
Representative assemblies and
The idea of liberty.

Ferguson quickly adds -

I do not mean to claim that all British imperialists were liberals - far from it. But what is very striking about the history of the Empire is that whenever the British were behaving despotically, there was almost always a liberal critique of that behaviour from within British society. Indeed, so powerful and consistent was this tendency to judge Britain's imperial conduct by the yardstick of liberty that it gave the British Empire something of a self-liquidating character . .[and that] sets it apart from its continental European rivals. . .

Quite a few people around the world continue to appreciate these British gifts.

Despite losing an empire and living on ration cards for years, the British people pulled themselves together and with hard work, global trade and the ideas of a limited state, common law and liberty created the fourth-largest economy in the world with safety nets for the poor and indisposed. They made London the financial capital of the world.

India, relying on those same gifts and the ingenuity of her people, is becoming an enormous economic success.

Today the British political class is scurrying to Brussels to give away our independence, common law, limited 'night watchman' state, representative assembly, a considerable fraction of our personal income and London's prosperity in order to trade with an empire that has high trade tariffs, and is dominated by countries whose previous empires were always despotic and which have today created an undemocratic suprastate. The political class expects us to believe that if we don't submit to the European empire we won't have anyone to trade with. . . .

Read the entire post. There is an old expression, 'he who does not know history is doomed to repeat it.' That refers to repeating mistakes. The current scenario playing out in Britain is a variant, and involves dispensing with all that was good and right. He who does not know their history is doomed to throw it away. As goes Britain, so goes the largest historical repository of classical Western values, and so goes America's most important historical ally.

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Talking With Iran (Updated)

General Petraeus had scheduled a briefing for Monday to make public the scale of Iran's proxy war against Iraq's central government and U.S. forces. That briefing was put aside at the request of the Maliki government who, after viewing the facts of the proposed brief, has sent a delegation to Iran in what amounts to a last chance effort to cause Iran to cease and desist without the necessity of force.

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Iran finds itself in a unique position. Its standard playbook for increasing its influence in a region through a combination of terrorism, money, and the building of local militias loyal to Iran, a playbook that worked so well in several places, chief among them Gaza and Lebanon, is running into a roadblock in Iraq. Part of the roadblock is, of course, the presence of a U.S. Army in Iraq, but the largest part at the moment is an Iraqi central government that, though still far from full strength, is rapidly gaining in respect and popularity in Iraq. Iran has spent years now attempting to Lebanize Iraq. But when Maliki attacked Basra and started political and military paths to end militia influence in Iraq, that marked a turning point. Iran will not succeed if events keep to their current path, with the only remaining question being whether force will be used to make Iran end its proxy war.

This from Reuters today:

A delegation from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling bloc has gone to Iran to press Tehran to stop backing Shi'ite militiamen, a senior member of parliament from the bloc said on Thursday.

"The UIA has decided to send a delegation to press the Iranian government to stop financing and supporting the armed groups," said Sami al-Askari, referring to the United Iraqi Alliance, which includes the main Shi'ite parties supporting Maliki. "They left yesterday for Iran."

Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, another senior UIA member of parliament, said the delegation was sent after the "serious deterioration that has recently taken place in security in Iraq".

"The delegation will ask the government of Iran to continue to support the government of Maliki and continue to support stability in Iraq," he said, although he would not confirm that it would raise the issue of Iranian support for militias.

U.S. officials have long accused Iran of supplying rockets, advanced roadside bombs and training to Shi'ite fighters in Iraq. Iran has denied supporting militias, which profess loyalty to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has said it wants good ties with Shi'ite Iran. Maliki launched a crackdown against Sadr's militia in late March that met fierce resistance from well-armed fighters, and he says he is determined to disarm them.

Major-General Qassim Moussawi, Iraqi spokesman for security in Baghdad, said at a news conference this week that Iraq had seized Iranian-made missiles and heavy weapons in the last four weeks in the capital.

U.S. officials say they have collected proof of Iranian weapons that have arrived recently in Iraq, but were holding off making a public display of their evidence so that Iraqis could make their case to Iran first.

"The Iraqis wish to first show what they have to the Iranian government before they show the world," an official travelling with U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.

"First and foremost, it's an attempt to say: 'Hey, listen: we know what you are up to. This is not helpful. Cut it out!'"

On Wednesday the Iraqi Defence Ministry said it had put on display weapons, including rocket launchers, seized from Shi'ite militia fighters in the southern city of Basra.

"Some of the weapons were manufactured in 2008, which means they are being smuggled in without difficulty," the statement quoted Lieutenant-General Mohan al-Furaiji, commander of Iraqi forces in southern Iraq, . . .

Read the entire article.

Update: The meeting with the Mullahs occured over the weekend. This from the Washington Post:

. . . Haider al-Adari, a Shiite legislator from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and a member of the delegation, said in an telephone interview from Iran that the trip was "very successful" because Iran agreed to cooperate on putting an end to weapons smuggling and the training of militant groups. But he said Iran did not admit to playing a role in fomenting the violence.

"They have denied everything," Adari said Saturday. "But we clearly expressed our concern to them."

Read the enitre article.

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Those Fickle Europeans

They can never make up their minds . . .







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This from Der Spiegel:

A few weeks' bad press, and China's attempts to portray itself in a positive light before the Beijing Summer Olympics have all but turned to dust. The full impact of the crackdown on Tibetan protestors and the subsequent protests against the Olympic torch relay has now been made apparent in a new poll of European opinion.

China has now overtaken the United States as the greatest perceived threat to global stability in the eyes of Europeans, according to the opinion poll commissioned by the Financial Times. . . .

Read the entire article. I personally am affronted by this and blame it on a lame duck presidency. It cannot be allowed to stand. The next thing you know, they will be saying something equally ludicrous, such as that a nuclear armed Iran is actually more of a threat to Europe than the impearialist American dogs. Bah. A pox on their house.

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Which Country's Approach Towards Terrorists Is More Productive, the US or UK

The US and UK have seperate approaches towards prosecution of terrorists. In the U.S., we allow for prosecutors to plea bargain, allowing lighter sentences in return for intelligence and testimony. In the UK, there is no such a flexibility, and a terrorist charged with a crime that carries a lifetime prison sentence must be prosecuted towards that sentence. The UK approach is more principled, but its lack of flexibility is problematic.

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This from the Daily Mail:

The war on terror is being hindered by restrictive British law which has created a "dark hole of intelligence", the director of the FBI has claimed.

Robert Mueller, America's top counter-terrorist official, said in an exclusive interview that he sometimes felt "frustration" at MI5 and Scotland Yard's inability to obtain critical information from suspects.

He blamed Britain's banning of plea-bargaining – which, in America, means suspects can receive much lighter sentences in return for revealing everything they know about other members of their cell and their international links.

"If you talk to our British counterparts, it's clear that people questioned about the training camps and the individuals who run the training camps have not been co-operating," said Mr Mueller, 63.

"The information they must have would bear directly on the threat situation in the UK and the situation in Pakistan, which right now is the key to thwarting successful attacks.

"All of us would like a clearer view of what's happening in Pakistan and so that's a frustration."

Mr Mueller, made FBI chief a week before the 9/11 attacks, spoke after talking about counter-terrorism in London last week to an audience including MI5 chief Jonathan Evans and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

His comments are a clear attempt to influence debate in Britain, where the Government is trying to extend the period that terrorist suspects can be held without charge from 28 to 42 days.

But plea-bargaining would mean that would be unnecessary, said Mr Mueller, adding that he had "no problem" with the US limit of two days before a terror suspect had to be charged.

Under the American plea-bargaining system, suspects are bound by a rigid contract, so that if it later emerges that they have not given up all their relevant knowledge, their deal is void.

Mr Mueller said that although leads opened up by plea-bargains in America had proven vital in preventing attacks and obtaining convictions in Britain, terrorists arrested and convicted in the UK were keeping invaluable secrets to themselves in their prison cells. . . .

Mr Mueller said he expected "a majority" of terrorist suspects in America to co-operate, making plea-bargaining one of his most useful weapons.

He added that the mere knowledge that such deals could be done tended to disrupt cells' ability to function because members were more reluctant to trust each other.

Read the entire article.

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Sadr Calls For Attacks On U.S. Troops & Endorses A Theocracy

Moqtada al Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Militia movement in Iraq, has given an interview on al Jazeera that aired Friday, March 28 and in which he called for his followers to attack U.S. and coallition soldiers. This certainly sounds like the end to the ceasefire, at least in so far as U.S. forces are concerned. And Sadr states that he shares the same ideology as Iran's theocratic rulers.


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Sadr has given an interview justifying the continued existence of his Mahdi milia as an armed organization on the presence of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and called upon his followers to attack the U.S. This certainly sounds like the end of any cease-fire, at least as far as we are concerned. Sadr says that expects the U.S. will be "vanquished as it was in Vietnam."

And if there was ever any doubt that Sadr wants to see theocratic rule in Iraq, his interview should dispel it. He states that he shares the same ideology as Iran's theocratic ruler, the Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei. This from a MEMRI translation of the interview aired on al Jazeera March 28, 2008:

Muqtada Al-Sadr: . . . It is the duty of the Al-Sadr movement and of the Iraqi people to strive to gradually liberate Iraq. The liberation of Iraq does not mean only bearing arms. There is also cultural liberation, social liberation, military liberation, and so on. The assault against Islam is not only military. It is both cultural and military, and it requires, at any given period, diversification of the resistance. But the liberation of Iraq remains a national duty, and a primary goal of the Al-Sadr movement. . . .

"It is true that Saddam was occupying Iraq with his dictatorship and his reckless policies, which were hundreds of miles removed from reason - policies that were, in fact, devoid of any reason. However, the military intervention of the occupying forces of all nationalities does not constitute liberation. The proof is that we did not get rid of Saddam or the Ba'thists. They are still around and still have a negative influence in Iraq.

"The second thing is that the American influence on the Iraqis is even more negative than that of the former Ba'th Party. The Iraqi people still suffers as it did in the days of the Saddam - there are no services, there is a lack of security, and we still suffer from all the things we suffered from in the past. Therefore, this was occupation, not liberation. I call it occupation. I have said in recent years: Gone is the 'little Satan,' and in came the 'Great Satan.'"

Interviewer: "After five years of war, do you still believe that Iraq is occupied?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Bush used to say that his picture would hang in all the Iraqi homes. No, sir. His picture is now trampled underfoot by the Iraqis."

Interviewer: "But is Iraq still occupied by the American forces?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Yes, it is, and American popularity is dropping daily - why daily? It is dropping by the minute." . . .

Interviewer: "Do you consider acts of resistance to be legitimate when directed against these forces, which you call 'occupying forces?'"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "No one can deny [the right] to conduct resistance. No human mind would deny it. Resistance is the legitimate right of all peoples. Resistance automatically appears wherever there is occupation. Allah willing, the U.S. will be vanquished, just like it was in Vietnam."

Interviewer: "Do you support any armed resistance against these forces, which you label 'occupiers?'"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "This is the reasonable right..."

Interviewer: "Do you support it? Do you support armed resistance against the forces you call 'occupiers?'"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Against the occupiers - yes, but not against others."

Interviewer: "Since you claim that Iraq is now occupied, and that the occupiers are the Americans, do you support conducting acts of armed resistance, in order to liberate Iraq from the occupying American forces, as you call them?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "On condition that these acts do not harm the Iraqi people."

Interviewer: "I will get to that. We will talk later about your general political position. Do you openly support these acts?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Yes, I do."

Interviewer: What do you mean when you say 'on condition that they do not harm the Iraqi people?'"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "For example, that the battles should not be waged within the city. This is just one example of how to avoid harming the Iraqi people. The targets should be hit accurately, so that others will not be harmed. The people who conduct resistance know these things better than me."

Interviewer: "What we abroad understood was that you disbanded the Al-Mahdi Army, because you had lost control over it."

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "The Al-Mahdi Army is under control, or at least most of it. They are obedient, loyal, and faithful. They are even capable of gradually liberating Iraq, Allah willing, along with some other resistance forces." . . .

"This will be the army of the Reformer [the Mahdi], Allah willing. At the end of time, the Mahdi will appear, and if by that time, we are still around, and if we are capable mentally, physically, militarily, and in terms of faith, we will all be his soldiers, Allah willing. Hence, the Al-Mahdi Army is a matter of faith, and it cannot be disbanded."

Interviewer: "What is the strategic goal of the Al-Mahdi Army?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "At present, it is to liberate Iraq, and to defend the Iraqi people in times of crisis, and at the moment Iraq is in a crisis - it is occupied - and should be liberated."

Interviewer: "So you state clearly that the goal of the Al-Mahdi Army is..."

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "To defend Iraq. I never have and never will deny this."

Interviewer: "So you continue with this?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Of course, and if I’m not around - if I am killed, if I die, retire, or whatever - the goal of the Al-Mahdi Army will remain the liberation of Iraq."

Interviewer: "Let me say that this comment might sound peculiar to many..."

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "It will sound peculiar only to the Americans." . . .

"There are plans to divide Iraq - to divide what has already been divided, if I may say so. The Al-Sadr movement must oppose this, and strive to maintain the unity of the Iraqi land and people under any circumstances. Another important goal is to make society religious, rather than secular. People keep talking about an 'Islamic government' and so on. What is more important is to make society, not just the government, Islamic. An Islamic government without an Islamic society cannot..."

Interviewer: "You mentioned your opposition to the division of Iraq. What exactly did you mean? Did you mean the partitioning of Iraq into independent countries, or do you consider federalism and decentralization to be part of this division? People talk about a district in the south, another in the north, the center, the west... What do you mean?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "If federalism does not entail the division of Iraq, it is fine. The important thing is that the occupation is an obstacle to federalism. There can be no federalism as long as there is occupation. As long as there is occupation in Iraq, federalism will constitute the partitioning of the country, even if it is centralized."

Interviewer: "You say this unequivocally?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Yes. If there was no occupation, my answer would be different. Then there would be room for discussion." . . .

Interviewer: "Do you fear there will be more sectarian violence in Iraq in the near future? I am not talking about the resistance, but about internal violence."

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "Sectarian violence? It’s possible, because the Americans are in Iraq, and they are constantly touching on this sensitive spot - Shiites against Sunnis, Kurds against Arabs... They are always... I have seen this on TV or somewhere... The Americans are responsible even for the car bombs. . . .

"The Al-Sadr movement is Islamic even more than it is Iraqi. An attack against any Islamic country or people will mean that the Al-Sadr movement will become an interested party."

Interviewer: "In what way?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "It will defend Islam however necessary. It will do whatever it can at the time. If any Islamic or Arab country is attacked, the Al-Sadr movement will be an interested party." . . .

Interviewer: "How do you view Iran’s role in Iraq, and what are your relations with the Iranian leadership?"

Muqtada Al-Sadr: "First of all, I don’t do anything in secret. It is all out in the open. I try to maintain good relations with everybody. With regard to the Iranians and the Iranian Republic... In a previous meeting with Khamenei, during a pilgrimage, I told him that we share the same ideology, but that politically and militarily, I would not be an extension of Iran, and that there were negative things that Iran was doing in Iraq. I mentioned to him a few things that Iran needs to rectify with regard to Iraq. Iran committed mistakes that it should not have made."

Read the entire transcript and watch the video.

Sadr is dangerous. We made a tremendous tactical error by not dealing with him in 2004, as there is little doubt that there will be a day of reckoning. Even with support for Sadr waning substantially in Iraq, he is being propped up by Iran to use in their own game of chess for influence in Iraq - whatever the cost in blood.

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Sadr Criticizes Iran, the ISCI Meets Iran, & Maliki Continues The Offensive

To call Iraqi politics byzantine is an oversimplification. Maliki's Iraqi government appears the clear winner at this point, as Sadr has backed down in Basra and elsewhere in Iraq. This matter is far from over as Maliki continues to demand that the militias in Basra hand over their weapons and appears ready to force the issue. And now Sadr has lashed out at Iranian intervention in Iraq.

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PM Maliki welcomed the unilateral ceasefire called by Sadr (see here) and there is some indication that he is considering or has agreed to calls for at least a partial amnesty of Mahdi Army members currently being held by the government. Nonetheless, Maliki is moving more forces into Basra and fully intends to disarm the militias in Basra to the extent possible. Further, members of the rival Shia party, ISCI, met with the head of Iran's Qods force to ask them to stop supplying Sadr's Mahdi militia. This from Bill Rogio at the Long War Journal:

One day after Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, called for his fighters to abandon combat, the fighting in Basrah has come to a near-halt and the Iraqi security forces are patrolling the streets. While Sadr spokesman said the Iraqi government agreed to Sadr's terms for the ceasefire, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has said the security forces will continue operations in Basrah in the south. Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army took heavy casualties in Basrah, Nasiriyah, Babil, and Baghdad over the weekend, despite Sadr's call for the end of fighting.

Maliki was clear that operations would continue in the South. "The armed groups who refuse al Sadr's announcement and the pardon we offered will be targets, especially those in possession of heavy weapons," Maliki said, referring to the 10 day amnesty period for militias to turn in heavy and medium weapons. "Security operations in Basra will continue to stop all the terrorist and criminal activities along with the organized gangs targeting people."

The Iraqi military said it was moving in more forces into the south after admitting it was surprised by the level of resistance encountered in Basrah. "Fresh military reinforcements were sent to Basra to start clearing a number of Basra districts of wanted criminals and gunmen taking up arms," said Brigadier General Abdel Aziz al Ubaidi, the operations chief for the Ministry of Defense. "Preparations for fresh operations have been made to conduct raids and clearance operations in Basra... the military operations would continue to restore security in Basra."

The reasons behind Sadr's call for a cessation in fighting remain unknown, but reports indicate the Mahdi Army was having a difficult time sustaining its operations and has taken heavy casualties. "Whatever gains [the Mahdi Army] has made in the field [in Basrah], they were running short of ammunition, food, and water," an anonymous US military officer serving in South told The Long War Journal. "In short [the Mahdi Army] had no ability to sustain the effort.

TIME's sources in Basrah paint a similar picture. "There has been a large-scale retreat of the Mahdi Army in the oil-rich Iraqi port city because of low morale and because ammunition is low due to the closure of the Iranian border," the magazine reported.

McClatchy Newspapers indicated a member of the Maliki's Dawa party and the leader of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, traveled to Qom, Iran to lobby Qods Forces officers to get Sadr to halt the fighting. The trip "had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq." The two men met with Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Qods Force, the foreign special operations branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Mahdi Army has also taken high casualties since the fighting began on March 25. According to an unofficial tally of the open source reporting from the US and Iraqi media and Multinational Forces Iraq, 571 Mahdi Army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered over the course of seven days of fighting. . . .

Read the entire article, there is much more.

The LWJ does not mention the Iranian response to the ISCI meeting, but it must have been positive as it appears that Sadr has now publicly denounced Iran. This from Meir Javedanfar at Pajamas Media:

Feeling the heat of the recent offensive against his forces around Iraq, Muqtada Al Sadr, who has long been suspected of receiving support from the Iranian government, decided to publicly condemn the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

His verbal attack was an unprecedented turn of events for the young Shiite, who for the last year has been traveling to Iran on several occasions to complete his theological studies in order to become an Ayatollah himself. Western security sources have long suspected that these trips have also been used in order to receive financial assistance from Iran, and to coordinate the Mahdi army’s military and political strategy with the leadership in Tehran.

There are important reasons behind his offensive against Khameini.

Primarily, Al Sadr is furious at the fact that members of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), have joined the Iraqi army’s offensive against his forces in important areas such as Baghdad and Basra.

ISCI, which is led by Ayatollah Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has the support of middle and upper class Shiites in Iraq, while Al Sadr’s Mahdi army has the backing of poor Shiites. Al Sadr is not only upset because ISCI has decided to turn its guns against fellow Shiites, but also at the fact that ISCI has been the recipient of a larger amount of aid from Tehran than his organization. This may lead Al Sadr to believe that ISCI has embarked on this adventure, with Tehran’s blessing. This belief would explain why, during his controversial interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday night, Al Sadr condemned what he called “Iranian intervention in Iraq’s security and politics.”

Presumably, his hope is that by condemning and distancing himself Tehran, he could get more local grass root support inside Iraq; something which he could use later on in order to stage a political and military comeback.

While its too early to declare victory and celebrate, nevertheless, Al Sadr’s recent move can be considered as an achievement for the US, in its ongoing struggle with Tehran over influence in Iraq.

Until now, Tehran has been masterfully controlling both Al Sadr and ISCI allies as a tool to increase its influence. Whether or not Washington sanctioned Maliki’s recent operations against the Mahdi army; the rift created between Iraq’s two major Shiite organizations is making Iran’s Iraqi adventure more cumbersome at least in the immediate future.

. . . For now, Washington and Al Maliki’s government must use the recent military setbacks for Al Sadr as an opportunity to reach out to poor Iraqis who form the basis of Al Sadr’s support. Unless economic assistance is provided to improve their lives, and security, Tehran could step in. . . .

It would not be the first time that Tehran has supported two opposing sides in a conflict, and it would not be the last either.

Read the entire article. The more the situation in Iraq clarifies, the murkier it becomes. That said, this appears mostly positive from the U.S. standpoint.

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The Jihadi Drumbeat

Wretchard, writing at the Belmont Club, discusses in his post today on suicide bombers what we must do to ameliorate and defeat the jihadi ideology. I concur with his points, though I believe we can and should take a far more proactive role in fighting jihadism in the war of ideas.

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Wretchard, in his post today on "the suicide mind," discusses several of the major themes I have been repeatedly raising in this blog. As to the need to defeat jihadism on the battlefield, Wretchard adds to the discussion with evidence of a Harvard study that shows the correlation between talk of withdraw in America and a spike of violence in Iraq.

When Nasserism and secular socialism were discredited by the Arab world's defeat at the hands of Israel it opened the way to a resurgence of the kind of Islamic fundamentalism that has produced the suicide bomber. While the military defeat of the Jihad may have no direct effect on Islamic doctrine, it will probably encourage ideological substitution and adaptation away from it, in the same way that explosive vests replaced the VBIED. In other words, military setbacks for the Jihad have the effect of undermining people's faith in it. That undermining might be the most important result of all. A study by Radha Iyengar and Johnathan Monten at Harvard demonstrated the correlation between faith in victory and the ferocity of attacks in Iraq. The authors found that:

Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an "emboldenment" effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent. The results suggest that insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal. . . .

Read the post here. As I have said repeatedly on this blog, such as here, in order to defeat the jihadist philosophy, it is absolutely necessary for us to defeat the jihadists on the battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan. To be seen as giving up in Iraq would be putting the "holy" back in "holy war." It would be providing jihadists with a victory stolen from the jaws of certain defeat on their battlefield of choice. To do so would be seen as a victory delivered by the hand of Allah himself. As Bernard Lewis pointed out even before the change in fortunes in Iraq, the consequences of allowing the jihadists to portray themselves as victorious over the U.S. in Iraq would be dire and long-lasting. The flip side to that coin, as Wretchard points out, is that a defeat at the hands of the U.S. will go far to delegitimizing the triumphalist jihadi philosophy.

The second, and indeed, larger issue is in the war of ideas. As Wretchard notes:

The source of the enemy's strength is, if not the Koran, a particular interpretation of it. But if the primary force generation tool of the Islamic radicalism are the ideas taught in Mosques and madrassas how can they be successfully countered? In particular, what would a Cultural or Religious Surge look like? One obvious front is in the media. The Harvard study shows how life-saving public discourse literally is.

But any Cultural Surge needs foot-soldiers to wage it and this case the reinforcement cannot come primarily from the military. But if not them, then who will wage the polemical war against religious nihilism? Gen Petraeus knew where to get the brigades for his kinetic reinforcement. Where do we find those who will argue against bombing pet markets? Where do we get the soldiers of religious belief and ideas?

One is tempted to say one may potentially find them in universities, divinity schools and in the media of the West. But the reality is that is but faint hope. Not until these institutions reform themselves to fight against the suicide bomber; a reform process that must be largely internal, can the intellectual warriors be generated in sufficient numbers. To a large extent winning the ideological fight against radical Islam means waging the war against the forces which have crippled the intellectual life of the West.

This is a topic that I have blogged on at some length. Although I completely agree with Wretchard on the need for the "Cultural Surge," I do not believe that we can wait around silently hoping for internal reform within the institutional pillars of the Islamic community in the West. These institutions are being flooded with Saudi petrodollars precisely to insure that they remain immune from such reform. There needs to be an external impetus that our government should be providing within constitutional grounds. Simply put, step one in the war of ideas is to engage with it. For example, see:

What You Do Not Know (About Salafi Islam) Could Kill You

Tawfiq Hamid’s autobiographical account – The Civilized World Ought To Recognize The Immense Danger Salafi Islam Poses.

Counter-Jihad: Zhudi Jasser At The NRO

Islam and Defunding the UN

Worse than not engaging is the tack taken in Britain, making it government policy to pretend that the ideological problem with Islam does not exist: Orwell’s Britian Is Toast

Step two then is engage those who would work a change in their religion. Our government needs stop dealing with CAIR and the MAS, as the British government needs to cut off its reliance on the MCB, as discussed in a post here. We should be doing what we can within our constitutional boundaries to support people such as Zuhdi Jasser, Tawfiq Hamid and organizations such as the Center for Islamic Pluralism.

Suffice it to say, I agree with all of Wretchard’s points. My only point of contention is that, in the war of ideas, we must start proactively engaging.

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More On The Mad Archbishop's Call for Introducing Sharia Law In The UK

I blogged on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan William's call for officially recognizing aspects of Sharia law in Britain. In the wake of that, there have been calls by many for the resignation of the Archbishop. The BBC, on the other hand, asked whether this reaction is "Islamophobia?" There have also been several good articles out as to Sharia law and why it has no place whatsoever in the West - even though, it has apparently been reconized as a means of dispute resolution in Texas and Minnesotta.






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If one questions how deeply the socialist multicultural mindset has poisoned Britain, one need only look to the BBC, which, on the evening the news broke about the Archbishop's call for Sharia law in the UK, ran their "Newsnight Programme" on the issue of "Has the reaction to the Archbishop's Sharia law comments been Islamophobic?" To question anything about another culture is racism in the socialist world of identity politics and multiculturalism.

This article from the Daily Times covers most of the issues that have arisen in the wake of the Archbishop's call:

The Archbishop of Canterbury was facing demands to quit last night as the row over sharia law intensified.

Leading bishops publicly contradicted Dr Rowan Williams's call for Islamic law to be brought into the British legal system.

With the Church of England plunged into crisis, senior figures were said to be discussing the archbishop's future.

. . . Officials at Lambeth Palace told the BBC Dr Williams was in a "state of shock" and "completely overwhelmed" by the scale of the row.

It was said that he could not believe the fury of the reaction. The most damaging attack came from the Pakistan-born Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali.

He said it would be "simply impossible" to bring sharia law into British law "without fundamentally affecting its integrity".

Sharia "would be in tension with the English legal tradition on questions like monogamy, provisions for divorce, the rights of women, custody of children, laws of inheritance and of evidence.

"This is not to mention the relation of freedom of belief and of expression to provisions for blasphemy and apostasy

. . . Politicians joined the chorus of condemnation, with Downing Street saying British law should be based on British values. Tory and LibDem leaders also voiced strong criticism.

Even prominent Muslims were rounding on Dr Williams. Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, said: "I haven't experienced any clamour or fervent desire for sharia law in this country.

"If there are people who prefer sharia law there are always countries where they could go and live."

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, rejected the idea that British law forces Muslims to choose between their religion and their society.

He said: "This will alienate people from other communities because they will think it is what Muslims want - and it is not."

The Muslim Council of Britain came to Dr Williams's aid, however, describing his comments in a lecture to lawyers and a BBC interview as "thoughtful".

But Oxford University Islamic scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan admitted: "These kinds of statements just feed the fears of fellow citizens. I really think we, as Muslims, need to come up with something that we abide by the common law and within these latitudes there are possibilities for us to be faithful to Islamic principles."

. . . Liberal and feminist critics have been appalled by the thought of sharia law while evangelical opponents believe Dr Williams has failed to defend Christianity.

. . . He was more blunt in a circular to clergy in his diocese, saying he had yet to be convinced of the feasibility of incorporating any non-Christian religious law into the English legal system. . . .

Read the article.There are several major points in the above article worthy of further highlighting. One, Sharia law is substantively different from the laws and customs of the West, as Bishop Nazir-Ali noted. You can find a good explanation of Sharia law here. It should be noted that Sharia law is fundamentally different even on issues of family law, where, for example, the male is favored, polygamy and paedophilia is allowed, and a woman's testimony carries less weight than a man's.

Further, as one commentor in the Telegraph noted, just because we allow some religious courts to function, does not mean that Sharia courts should be afforded the same rights:

. . . Archbishop Williams looks, in a similar spirit, at the realm of law. He sees law as deriving ultimately from religious, not rationalist, principles. He notes how orthodox Judaism has its own Beth Din courts which do not quarrel with the secular law. His own Church of England, too, has its courts, he pointed out. Because we have an Established Church, their decisions have the force of secular law. They settle things like the rights of parochial church councils. Few people see them as instruments of clerical oppression.

So, says the archbishop, we in Britain clearly do not have "a monopolistic understanding of jurisdiction". Why not extend this plurality to Muslims? Why not allow sharia in some areas, such as marriage disputes?

Many people, surely, would want to follow the broad arguments of president and archbishop, but then stop before they do. Most people with any understanding of European culture will disagree with the militant secularists such as Richard Dawkins, who want any trace of Christianity expunged from our institutions and public life.

In the British context, many non-believers would recognise that, for instance, the state funding of Church schools has done much more good than harm. It would be crazy to cut the schools off now, in the abstract interests of neutrality.

And yes, most of us, believers or not, surely agree that one must permit Muslims to worship freely, and encourage all their genuine charitable and educational activities.

Yet there is a dreadful sense of unreality about the assertion, made both by Mr Sarkozy and by Dr Williams, that whatever applies to Christianity and to Judaism in the West can be applied, just like that, to Islam.

As a post-Vatican II Catholic myself, I share the ecumenical beliefs of most modern Christians. One of these is that Islam, being one of the three "Abrahamic" religions, has a great deal in common with Christianity, and that these common roots should be cultivated. It contains truth, and wisdom, and has built civilisations.

But it is also blindingly obvious that the current state of Islam is quite different from that of Christianity. Western societies are hosts to large numbers of Muslims, who quarrel fiercely among themselves and include extreme, sometimes violent minorities. Goodness knows, the history of Christianity is scarred with such things, but at the moment, in the West, Christian violence is not a big problem. Muslim violence is. If we incorporated sharia in our legal system, whom would we accept as its authentic interpreters?

In his lecture, Archbishop Williams tiptoes round the question, in sharia, of apostasy. He says it is unacceptable that people are punished for leaving the Muslim faith. But he cannot bring himself to say, which he knows to be true, that all the Muslim schools of law agree that the punishment for abandoning the Muslim religion is death. Some people, even in this country, live in hiding because they fear this.

"Sharia," says Dr Williams, "is not intrinsically to do with any demand for Muslim domination over non-Muslims." Actually, under sharia, Jews and Christians have only what is called "dhimmi" status, a sort of protected, but second-class citizenship.

But in a way, he is right. Sharia does not "demand" domination; it assumes it. The law of Islam is radically different from the law of Judaism, which is the law of a minority that accepts the authority of the majority, non-Jewish state. Islam, like Christianity, is a religion of conversion. Its sharia, unlike the teachings of Christianity, is a programme of law to be turned into a political reality, if possible everywhere.

Poor, dear Dr Williams mutters into his beard about a "market element" of taking a bit of sharia, and a bit of this and a bit of that, as if these things were herbs to spice our multicultural soup. People who want sharia do not see it like that. For them, it must be the only dish on the table.

And if I were French, even though I would agree with President Sarkozy's rejection of doctrinaire secularism, I would not accept that building lots more mosques is the same as building more churches. More than these leaders wish to admit, this is a zero-sum game.

I am surprised that Dr Williams did not, apparently, consider a rather important moment in the history of his own faith. When Jesus was tried, the Roman civil power could find no fault with him. But because it was under such pressure from the religious authorities of Judaea, who said that Jesus was a blasphemer, it handed him over to them.

So Pontius Pilate, you could argue, let Dr Williams's "market element" into the rule of law, with fatal results. Jesus was crucified.

Read the entire article. And it cannot be emphasized enough that all evidence is that the majority of Muslims in Britain want nothing to do with Sharia law.

That said, the truth is that the Labour has allowed Muslim Courts to assert dominance and, indeed, tolerates "Sharia" courts that solve not only family law issues, but also, in some cases, criminal matters:

The extent to which sharia law already operates in Britain was the subject of concern yesterday after it emerged that at least 10 Islamic "courts" are sitting across the country.

The existence of the courts, in towns and cities including London and Birmingham, heightened anxiety following the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks that the introduction of some elements of Islamic law was "unavoidable".

The majority of cases heard in the courts involve divorce or financial disputes, but one reported case involved a gang of Somali youths who were allowed to go free after paying compensation to a teenager they had stabbed.

Extremists were said to have used the spread of sharia courts to justify calls for Islamic law to be adopted "wholesale" for Muslims living in Britain.

Anjem Choudary, a solicitor and former senior figure in the banned organisation Al-Muhajiroun, said: "Some element of family law or social and economic law will not work. It has to be adopted wholesale. It will not happen tomorrow but it is inevitable because sharia is superior and better for mankind."

Despite grave warnings from lawyers about the dangers of a dual legal system, criminal cases are already being dealt with by some of the unofficial courts.

In 2006 an Islamic Council sitting in Woolwich, south-east London, heard the case of the Somali gang, who had been accused of stabbing another Somali teenager and were reportedly arrested by the police.

Aydarus Yusuf, a youth worker, told Radio 4's Law in Action programme that the suspects were released on bail after the victim's family said the matter would be dealt with by the Islamic community. "All their uncles and fathers were there," said Mr Yusuf.

"So they all put something towards that and apologised for the wrongdoing." The Metropolitan Police said it was unaware of the case, but admitted that officers sometimes did not proceed with assault cases if the victim decided not to press charges.

Mr Yusuf told the programme that he felt more bound by sharia law than by the laws of his adopted country.

"Us Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law,'' he said. "It's not sharia, it's not religious, it's just a cultural thing.''

. . . The first sharia court in the UK started in Birmingham in 1982, and others have followed in London, Rotherham and Dewsbury, West Yorks.

Although their rulings are not recognised by English law, participants often agree to abide by the court's decision in the same way that Jewish civil disputes are often settled in their own court, the Beth Din.

. . . Omar Bakri Mohammed, the former leader of Al-Muhajiroun, who is banned from entering the UK, said: "If sharia law were introduced it would have all kinds of benefits. It would get rid of drinking, night clubs, casual sex, homosexuality, prostitution, gambling and usury."

David Pannick QC, a leading human rights barrister, said that if criminal law and marriages were dealt with by sharia courts "it would lead to the breakdown of society, if some groups could just ignore laws that applied to others".

Read the entire article. My own belief is that the Sharia courts, even operating unofficially on matters of family law, should be declared illegal and Britain should enforce its status as the sole authority to grant marriage or divorce. I base this on the degree of coercion of women in the Muslim community and how it all plays into honor violence. You can read the very recent report on that issue here.

I also blogged yesterday that we are seeing some allowance in our own courts in Texas and Minnesotta for the application of Sharia law iarbitration agreements. The way our legal system works, you can decide in advance which law shall govern your contractual obligations. The courts will enforce those obligations under the chosen law so long as it does not contravene public policy - i.e., fair and equal treatment of women, etc. I have not seen the cases in which it has been applied in America, but I have confidence that they involve discreet matters and would, in no case, approach the degree and dimension of allowing Sharia courts to function as a legal body under their own laws, such as the Archbishop suggested. Further, I would hope our courts refuse to enforce even discrete agreements when it involves people of different sexes, given the misogony and coercion systemic in Islam.

See another update here that includes discussion of a court case in the UK asking to rule on the legality of forced marriages.

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An Arab View of Iran, the U.S. and the NIE

The cartoon to the right, from a Saudi newspaper, sums up the Arab reaction to the NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It shows President Bush reading a report on the Iranian nuclear program upside down.

And below is an opinion column from DarAlHayat, England's arabic newspaper, giving an Arab perspective on Iran and the ramifications of the NIE. Its a fascinating read that discusses the Arab concerns - in light of the recently released NIE - with the ever more aggressive acts of Iran in pursuit of its regional aspirations. It is interesting to note that the author sees the NIE as amounting to an internal coup in the US government:

After the surprise issuing of the National Intelligence Estimate, which found that Tehran halted its secret nuclear program in 2003, one must ask: What has happened between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran? Is it the beginning of a big deal between the two countries to divide up influence in Iraq and use the new relationship to contain the Arabs when needed? Is it an internal coup d'état against US President George W Bush, to halt his march toward war? After all, it was expected that such a blow would have been directed at the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Or was the NIE just business as usual, as part of the truce between the US and Iran and as part of the historical relationship between Persians and Jews, such that no war will take place between these two powers under any circumstances?

These are likely possibilities, and the events of the coming weeks and months might even raise the level of the commotion, whether as part of the strategy or as one of its consequences. But it has become clear, and logical, that the military option is no longer on the US president's table, as long as Iran doesn't make a serious mistake against US forces in Iraq. It's become clear that the American "establishment" has taken an implicit decision to coexist with the Iranian regime and has halted attempts to topple it, in return for a price whose details will be revealed later. On the surface, this price is Iraq, and what is taking place there. Realistically, the Iraq war has made Iran the partner of Israel in terms of regional superiority; the NIE report by 16 US intelligence agencies cements Iranian superiority and lifts the specter of war and the burden of sanctions from the minds of the clerics in Tehran.

In any case, withdrawing or neutralizing the military option is something that chills the heart of many people, not only Americans and Europeans, but also Arabs, especially since Arab states are paying the costs of US wars in the region, in terms of stability or money. However, cementing Iran's superiority in "victories" led by the Iranian president could be reflected in Iran's regional aspirations, which have the air of hegemony, unless the big deal involves Iran's halting its intervention in Palestine and Lebanon, stopping its financial and weapons support to Hamas and Hizbulah, working with Arab Gulf states as partners, and leaving behind issues such as "exporting the revolution" and the qualitative aspect of Iranian rule. In any case, Arab leaders must think deeply about the meaning of what has happened, when the US decided to reveal the NIE instead of keeping it secret. American leaders both inside and outside the administration should think long and hard about the gap in US credibility and the cementing of the country's reputation of leaving behind friends under the astonishment of deception and abandonment, even with the impression (even if a passing one) that the NIE has perhaps officially put the administration in the category of lame duck, since it has removed the available options. Merely containing information to the effect that Iran has given up its nuclear military program and is not active today on this front might make it nearly impossible for Bush to direct a military strike against Iran. This estimate has perhaps destroyed every step by the administration to prepare the US public for such a war.

The administration has made efforts over the last few weeks and months to shed light on the Iranian role against US forces in Iraq, without focusing on the nuclear aspect, which indicates that it was expecting the conclusion of the NIE. Or perhaps the administration consoled to friends and allies that the operational preparations for a military strike against the infrastructure of the Iranian regime had entered the stand-by phase, while awaiting the US president's decision to go ahead. The US informed its allies, at the highest levels, that the aircraft carriers in the Gulf were not there for a picnic; this would also give the International Atomic Energy Agency, headed by Dr. Mohammed El-Baradei, an opportunity to make the final diplomatic effort and use of sanctions to convince Iran to abandon its rejection of suspending uranium enrichment, which was a unanimous wish expressed by the members of the United Nations Security Council.

Some believe that the strategy of the war option remains in place, and that the "nuclear" aspect has been separated on purpose from the justifications for military action because of the link in people's minds between weapons of mass destruction and the inability to find them after the invasion of Iraq. Justifications for military action have been based on a reaction to the actions of the Iranian regime in Iraq, which kill US personnel; Iran's efforts to wreck the peace process that was launched in Annapolis, via the Hamas movement; and Iran's determination to turn Lebanon into an Iranian base via Hizbullah. This is possible.

Nothing can be completely ruled out during the current phase of developments. It was very interesting to see the US administration take the decision to publicly reveal the NIE and it is truly interesting to see the US intelligence community's excessive finding that Iran is innocent of currently working on nuclear weapons, while the IAEA is saying: wait a minute, such a decisive conclusion isn't necessary. Of course, El-Baradei feels that the NIE backs what he has always said about his institution's lack of evidence that Iran has embarked upon a secret nuclear military program. However, the NIE weakens the IAEA's own hand: there is a focus on the same conclusion that Tehran abandoned its secret program in 2003, which could weaken international determination to strengthen sanctions, if Iran does not live up to its commitments before the IAEA and offer complete cooperation. In other words, the celebration of seeing the IAEA's opinion triumph and its defeat of the attacks against it, along with the exclusion of the military option and the strengthening of sanctions, means that the IAEA will pay the price, since it will be alone and without international momentum behind it as it negotiates with Iran in Vienna, far away from the Security Council. Thus, it might be in the interest of the IAEA to not push hard toward removing the Iranian nuclear issue from the Security Council and not engineer the dismantling of the Security Council's resolution that demands the suspension of uranium enrichment as a prior condition for the handful of temptations offered by the five permanent Security Council members and Germany to Iran, which include dialogue. If it's true that Iran frozen or halted its secret nuclear program in 2003, we must remember that this date coincides with the countdown to, and implementation of, the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The politically-savvy Tehran perhaps concluded that it might be faced with military action and thus halted its program. But there is another interesting theory.

All of the indications at the time pointed to the pro-Iraq war group - from neoconservatives to those advocating the unleashing of what they called the "Shiite force" - all worked on the basis that the enemy were only Sunnis, who produced terrorism and the 11 September 2001 attack on the US. The basic idea for these people was Iraq, and its president, Saddam Hussein, constituted the "ideal" cover to justify a strike at the country, on the pretext of WMD. They said that the oil-rich Arab lands were inhabited by Arab Shiites, and that the best way to create an oil belt (a "Petrolistan") is to produce chaos in these areas. Then, it would be able to create a Shiite extension of influence in the Arab Gulf for Iran, and via the special Syrian-Israeli relationship, one could link to Israel via Syria and Lebanon. This line of thinking - supported by measures for dividing Iraq on the pretext of liberating it - was probably behind the Iranian leadership's decision to freeze nuclear military activity, and could prove to be correct if military pressure (via the war in Iraq) and the diplomatic efforts (via sanctions) are what prompted the leadership to take this decision.

If history proves that the real reasons for the Iraq war involved a desire to divide the country, since such a move would serve the interests of both Israel and Iran in the minds of war advocates, then the real reason for halting Iran's secret nuclear military program in 2003 was wisdom. It was useless, as long as the US was waging war against the biggest Arab enemy of Iran and Israel; the Saddam Hussein regime had a nuclear capability that could fight back against these capabilities and the dividing of Iraq, with both Arab financing and assistance. It was very intriguing that the US president said, during his news conference following the release of the NIE, that there had been an understanding with the ruling Iranian establishment in Tehran. This was done away with by the election of Ahmadinejad as president.

In this column I have often said that Ahmadinejad's election was a pleasant surprise for the neoconservatives, who had a close relationship with people promoting a Shiite force to gain revenge for the domination by Sunni Arabs. I mentioned that Ahmadinejad was a wheel in the spokes of this plan, since he spoke about Israel in an unacceptable way that did away, temporarily, with the neoconservatives' plans to contain and whittle down the Arabs and take away areas of oil resources as dictated by the clerics in Iran, such as the ambitious and wealthy Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Ali Khameini. These two were behaving with patience and skill as they played the country's strategic cards, despite the "obstacle" represented by a person named Ahmadinejad. They played the strategic card and acted with strategic wisdom by abandoning, temporarily, Iran's nuclear aspirations.

What these men can deliver in a big deal - if such a thing has truly taken place - is a strategic partnership with the US and Israel in containing the Arabs. They offer considerable influence in controlling things in Iraq, provided that Iraq is "Iranian." Iraq is the big prize for Iran: an Iraq free of nuclear weapons-making capacity and cowed, unable to be independent… and Iraq subject to Iranian influence, representing a launching-point for influence in the Gulf state, in the name of Shiite leadership, even though it is in fact Persian influence to exercise hegemony over the Arabs. What will the United States gain in return for this, from recognizing Iran as the de facto force to offering a status of superiority par excellence to the clergymen and Islamic revolutionaries? This is the big question, which is difficult to answer definitively speaking right now.

Logic requires us to consider the natural elements of such a deal, in terms of the US administration's insistence on seeing the Iranian leadership abandon Hamas and Hizbullah. Giving up Hamas is relatively easy compared to the other group. Despite the grandstanding against the Palestinian Authority and exploitation of the Palestinians' sufferings under occupation, the Palestinian issue is not a vital matter for Iran. It is a bargaining chip and not an Iranian responsibility, for sectarian and ideological reasons. Thus, Iran can abandon it.

The matter is different when we talk about Hizbullah in Lebanon. Iran has a vital, strategic and tactical relationship with the party. This doesn't mean that the mullahs in Iran consider the leader of Hizbullah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a priority ahead of the strategic relationship with the US. But it does mean that Hizbullah and Lebanon are subject to give and take as part of the formulas of relationships among the US, Iran and Israel, passing through Syria.

The wheel in the spokes of this relationship is the International Court to try the perpetrators of political assassinations in Lebanon. One of the most important Syrian demands is to freeze or prevent the formation of this court, for very obvious reasons. Damascus' insistence on abolishing this court is testimony to its likely involvement in these terrorist crimes, according to the Security Council's definition of them. Neither Israel, the US nor France (with which relations have deteriorated in the era of its new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, from a favored standing of the first order to an element of deal-making, of the second order) will be able to give guarantees to Damascus regarding the elimination of the court. The court is now out of the hands of these individuals and bargains and deals won't be able to contain the investigation and its conclusions, or stop the court.

Therefore, we should ask how - if a big deal has been struck between the US and Iran - the role of Syria in Lebanon and the International Court for those who planned and carried out political assassinations is being dealt with. Some are quick to say that the Americans "sold out" Lebanon and the court. But this is a bit hasty and excessive and jumps over several items, such as Bush himself and his view of public positions and personal commitments regarding Lebanon. Perhaps the man has knuckled under to pressure from the ruling American "establishment" and bowed his head, avoiding and withdrawing from his commitments to Lebanon. There is no proof as to whether this is what actually happened, while a development in the Iranian nuclear issue might lead to his speaking out loudly to say to Tehran and Damascus: Enough. Keep your hands off Lebanon.

Because this phase is one of confusion and drift, and searching for what is happening behind the sudden and hidden decisions, it is necessary to wait until events have played themselves out. These include movement by the leaders of some Arab states in surprising directions and visits. One example is the sudden visit by King Abdullah II of Jordan to Syria and the later visits by high-ranking Jordanian officials. Another is the precedent of Ahmadinejad's attendance at the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Doha. It's not clear if a policy of "splitting off" countries is behind these movements, i.e. separating Syria from Iran, or vice versa.

In other words, it's still not clear if the truce between the US and Iran has launched similar moves by Arab countries toward Iran and Israel, to start a qualitatively new chapter in the entire Middle East. The smell of deals is getting stronger and the timing is intriguing, especially in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon - three issues that distinguish regional and international relations. The preparations are underway to create a US military base in Iraq, by virtue of the understanding and agreement governing bilateral US-Iraqi ties, and this requires an understanding with Iran, according to the analysts. Thus, the history of "failure" in the Iraq war has perhaps led to the intelligence agencies working to regain their dignity and reputation, which suffered in the justifications and pretexts for the Iraq war. Thus, we are talking about the future of these common interests, as represented in the need by the US and Iran to avoid a war and work instead on arranging the division of influence in Iraq and using a new strategic partnership for influence of another kind in the Middle East.

All of this could be overturned by surprises. Just as Ahmadinejad appeared on the scene to upset the arrangements that had been made by the US and Iranian governments, as Bush confirmed in his statements this week, a surprise might try the patience of the man in the White House and see the lame duck "kick," in a bid to regain the momentum. But today, the US president appears to be the victim of an internal coup against him and it's not clear whether the establishment has carried this out in order to rein him in, or whether he was convinced of the step for deeper and wider reasons, which remain secret.

Read the entire article here.

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