| Are the British Next? By Antonio C. Abaya October 29, 2002 (This article was written and emailed to the Philippine Weekly Graphic 14 days before British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned his people on November 12 that they might soon be targeted by the al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden). According to bleeding heart liberals, the current conflict between states that are predominantly Christian on the one hand, and states and organizations that are predominantly Muslim on the other, is not a conflict between religions and the worldviews that they represent, but a clash between states �that happen to be predominantly Christian� on the one hand, and states and organizations �that happen to be predominantly Muslim� on the other. Well, good luck, but burying one�s head in the sand, for the sake of the liberal protest that �not all Muslims are terrorists� (which no one is disputing), can lead to asphyxiation and is, at any rate, not known to give anyone a clear overview of what is going on. At best, it can cause one to breathe in camel dung laced with camel piss. The Americans in particular and the world at large have come to grief over the bombing of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington DC by 19 airborne hijacker-terrorists who all �happen to be Muslims�, supported by a sophisticated ground logistics and finance crew who also all �happen to be Muslims.� More than 3,000 Americans and people of other nationalities were killed, according to the official count, which I dispute. (See my previous articles World Trade Center Revisited and More Cost-Effective than Pearl Harbor). Last month, some 100 Australians, together with scores from other countries, were blown to bits or burned to cinders in two car-bomb explosions that gutted several tourist night clubs in Bali, Indonesia and that were almost certainly set off by terrorists who all �happen to be Muslims.� And last week, it was the turn of the Russians (again, since they have had apartment buildings blown up, with hundreds dead, in previous terrorist attacks in Moscow) to bear the brunt of terrorist anger from militants who all �happen to be Muslims.� Some 800 Muscovites would have been killed if Russian commandos had not stormed the theater using an incapacitating gas that, however, killed 116 of the hostages. No one is claiming that all Muslims are terrorists, only that many of the terrorists in recent days, weeks, months and years all �happened to be Muslims,� and to claim that religion had nothing to do with these mega-incidents, is to miss the desert for the sand. Even that sniper who recently terrorized Washington DC with his unfailing but indiscriminate marksmanship, whom every armchair detective had decided was most likely a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant psychopath, turned out to be a Muslim, a black American convert to Islam, who sympathized with the bombing of the WTC and the Pentagon. The question to ask is not, when will the terrorists who �happen to be Muslims� strike again, but, who will be their next mega-targets? ***** The Americans were targeted because, in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and his followers, they had defiled sacred Islamic soil by stationing thousands of troops (including female soldiers in short shorts!) in Saudi Arabia (with the consent, it must be said, of the lecherous degenerates of the House of Saud), and because of their unconditional support for the state and government of Israel which has been persecuting and humiliating the Palestinians. The Australians were targeted because they played a major role in the separation of pre-dominantly Roman Catholic East Timor from Indonesia (someone who claims to be Osama has said as much in a recent press statement), an affront to Islamic extremists who are actively pursuing a pan-Islamic state that will include the territories of Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and the southern parts of Thailand and the Philippines. The Russians were targeted because of their brutal and often clumsy suppression of the independence movement in Chechnya. While this may sound like a totally secular reason, it must be kept in mind that hundreds of Chechens fought with the al-Qaeda against the Americans in Afghanistan and it must therefore be assumed that there is a strong religious undercurrent in the Chechen independence movement. So, who�s next? I do not mind being proven wrong, but the British may be in for it. It was the victorious British who captured Palestine from the Ottoman Empire in the last year of the First World War. It was the British who pledged in their Balfour Declaration of 1917 the creation of a Jewish �national home� in Palestine. True the British promised that the rights of non-Jews who lived there would not be violated. But in practical terms this was not observed as boatloads of Jewish refugees, mostly from central and eastern Europe, disembarked illegally in Palestine after the Second World War to fulfill the Zionist dream of Israel reborn, the coming home of the Jewish people centuries after they had been dispersed by the Romans in AD 70. Winston Churchill had once talked of settling the Jews on the huge island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa. But this clearly was unacceptable to the Jews, who had religious, familial, historical and cultural attachments to Judea or Palestine. So it was in effect the British who created the state of Israel, formalized in 1948 with a vote in the United Nations (where the Philippines cast the deciding vote). It is unlikely that terrorist organizations which �happen to be Muslim� have forgotten or forgiven this. ***** Despite their relatively small and tight little kingdom, the British are as vulnerable to spectacular terrorist attacks as the Americans with their wide open spaces. The London Underground, like the subway systems of other mega-cities, is totally indefensible against biological or poison gas attack. So is the Port of Southampton against a radiological or dirty-bomb device exploded in the hold of a freighter loaded with normal goods of commerce. If the terrorists plan a second Bali, they would probably focus on the Spanish islands of Majorca and Minorca where thousands of Brits go to soak in sunshine, especially during the winter months.. Additionally, Gatwick Airport in London is right in the middle of a tightly populated urban sprawl. A team of two or three terrorists, armed with a heat-seeking missile, can position themselves in the take-off pattern of the airport and can theoretically bring down a Boeing 747, fully loaded with passengers and fully gassed up for a transatlantic flight. Such a hit would cause catastrophic casualties on the ground as well. The recent arrest in Hong Kong of four Pakistanis who admitted to police that they were out to buy US-made hand-held, shoulder-fired Stinger missile launchers for the al-Qaeda (supplied by the CIA to Osama bin Laden�s mujahedin fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s) must have sent shivers up the spines of security strategists fully aware of the Gatwick scenario and trying to second-guess their adversaries. (As this update is being added, three North Africans of undisclosed nationalities have been charged with preparing a terrorist attack in London, and the British press is speculating that they were planning a poison gas attack on the Underground.) This war is not going to stop until the humiliation of the Palestinians by the Israelis is brought to an end and the US withdraws its troops from Saudi Arabia. Joining the US war against Iraq will not save the British from terrorist attack. It will make them even more a preferred target for it. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the November 25, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Are the British Next?� THE BRITISH have had it. They�ve lost their empire. Tis time the real enemy gets it: Saudi Arabia and the backward Wahhabis. Ross Tipon, Baguio City. [email protected] November 18, 2002 MY REPLY. I thought you were cheering the Americans and the British to bomb the Iraqis, while I was arguing all this time that the regime that needed changing was in Riyadh, not in Baghdad? At any rate, the British may have lost their empire but not their lust for Iraqi oil, which they used to control, from 1917 to 1958. ��������������������������� MAYBE YES, maybe no. If �yes�, it is not because of what the Brits did in Palestine, but because of their swallowing the American line, hook, line and sinker. �No�, because the British, as colonists, were not as rapacious as the Americans were, Isn�t there a line that says when the Brits colonize, they give the colonials good education, a function (sic), democratic institution, world-class infrastructure and educational system; when the Americans colonized, they created corrupt dictators, make the colonials forever indebted to them, a government system subservient to them, an economy stupidly designed to make the colonials forever hooked to every (sic) made in the U.S.of A��.. Joe. [email protected]. November 18, 2002 MY REPLY. You�ve been reading too much communist and anti-American propaganda. How many �corrupt dictators� did the Americans create here, from 1898 to the present? I can count only one. And you are idealizing the British too much. They may have created roaring successes in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, but India is only a moderate success. And they left disasters of varying magnitude in such countries as Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Iraq, Belize, etc including some corrupt dictators who can rival Marcos. For better or for worse, the Americans in the Philippines were the only colonial power who set up a public school system that sought to give education to the entire indigenous population, compared to the selective education that the British, the French, the Dutch, etc reserved only for the children of the elite who collaborated with them. That is the reason why, when the Americans restored Philippine independence in 1946, we had a high literacy rate of 67%, compared to 15% in the British� Straits Settlements and Malaya (which became Singapore and Malaysia) and only 9% in the Dutch East Indies (which became Indonesia). By 1946, there were already thousands of Filipino university graduates from all social classes; in Indonesia, they would not have filled up one bus. That the Filipinos squandered this rich inheritance is the fault of the Filipinos, not the Americans. When Filipino troops fought the Japanese side by side with the Americans for five long months before finally surrendering in May 1942 (compared to the swift collapse and even actual hostility of their own colonials in Hong Kong, Malaya and the Straits Settlements, who saw the Japanese as liberators), Winston Churchill was moved to remark that �the American colonial system is superior to ours.� Or words to that effect. ����������������������������� YOU PREDICTED �This war is not going to stop until the humiliation of the Palestinians by the Israelis is brought to an end and the US withdraws its troops from Saudi Arabia. Joining the US war against Iraq will not save the British from terrorist attack. It will make them even more a preferred target for it�..� Showing weakness will definitely NOT stop terrorism. Precisely the opposite will occur. And the USA and Britain will always be targets of terrorists, who will always have some grievance dredged up to serve as an excuse for their acts���..� Marc de Piolenc, Iligan City. [email protected]. November 18, 2002 MY REPLY. Even terrorists are rational beings, even if they are merciless. They are motivated by a reason or reasons, even though we may not agree with those reasons. Even before 9/11, Osama bin Laden had urged his followers to kill Americans, including women and children. Why? Because a) in his view, the Americans have defiled sacred Islamic soil by posting thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia, and b) because of the US� unquestioning support for the state and government of Israel, which is persecuting and humiliating the Palestinians. If those two reasons had not existed prior to 9/11, there would have been no 9/11. As things stand, those two reasons have not only remained unchanged, they have been compounded by the (justifiable) American response in Afghanistan and, now, by the (unjustifiable) US war on Iraq and the increased persecution of the Palestinians. From 1099 to 1192, hundreds of thousands of Christian Europeans � led by their kings, princes, dukes and knights � descended on the Holy Land to drive away the heathen Saracens who had occupied land sacred to Christianity, but failed, in the process killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims, including women and children. In 2001-02, Muslims under Osama bin Laden are trying to drive away the Christian infidels, descendants of the Crusaders, from land (Saudi Arabia) they consider sacred to Islam. So far, they have failed, but in the process they have killed thousands of Christians, including women and children. Historically speaking, the shoe is just on the other foot.. ����������������������������� WOW! YOU were able to predict using pure logic. That�s almost as great as your unmasking JPE�s dagdag-bawas by statistical analysis. Awesome! Vic de Jesus, Manila. [email protected] November 19, 2002 MY REPLY. Thank you for the Wow! For those who are too young to remember, in the aftermath of the 1995 senatorial elections, I detailed in my column in the Philippine Star my comparative analysis of the official Comelec returns and the incomplete returns tabulated by Namfrel. I came to the conclusion that there was massive cheating in at least 16 provinces, with Candidate Juan Ponce Enrile benefiting significantly from fraud in eight provinces, Candidate Ramon Mitra in four, and other candidates in other provinces. My statistical findings were confirmed later in the official protest lodged by losing Candidate Aquilino Pimentel with the electoral tribunal, with documentary evidence gathered by his staff. Of course, this being the Philippines, the protest dragged on for years, without any resolution, until the six-year senate term being contested expired, making the protest moot and academic. Such is Philippine �liberal democracy.� OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |