Senior police officers have drawn up a radical strategy to stop British Muslims turning to violence which will see every area of the country mapped for its potential to produce extremists and supporters for al-Qaida. The 40-page document, marked restricted, was approved by a top-level police counter-terrorism committee on Monday, and is expected to be formally adopted within weeks.
The Association of Chief Police Officers hopes it will help to stop al-Qaida's ideas gaining hold in primary schools, colleges, the internet and prisons. Other initiatives in the strategy include:
· guidance to parents on how to stop children searching for extremist websites
· an anti-extremism agenda to be included in "all state-maintained educational establishments from primary schooling through to universities" by 2008/9
· intervening to stop convicted al-Qaida terrorists and supporters from spreading extremist ideology in prison.
That last point never should have been allowed to become a problem.
You send someone to prison as punishment for being a terrorist, and to prevent that person's participation in future terrorist acts -- but you can't control that person's recruitment of others while there??
Acpo's plans have been prompted by a realisation that new recruits are being attracted to violent extremism despite scores of convictions, arrests and the disruption of plots. The country's most senior counter-terrorism officials believe the level of threat has remained severe and sustained since the July 2005 attacks on London killed 52 people.
They aren't deterred by the fact that they die during terrorist attacks -- why should a stint in a British prison deter them?
More effort and new approaches will be made "to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism and violent extremism", the document says.
Though the document does not mention the Iraq war, it accepts that foreign policy can trigger a sense of grievance that can lead to violence. It urges officers across England and Wales to "effectively address grievances", and says: "This objective is not for the police alone. Some grievances will be international in dimension."
It includes a stark assessment about how far police have to go in building trust with Muslim communities. "Research last year revealed that the police service would be very low on the list of agencies that the Muslim community would turn to if they had concerns about a member of their community who embraced violent extremism ... the police service has a long way to go in building a relationship of trust around these issues..."
"the police service would be very low on the list of agencies that the Muslim community would turn to if they had concerns about a member of their community who embraced violent extremism"
But the police somehow seem to feel that they can turn to the Muslim community to solve the terrorist problem.
It cites the example of drug use, saying that in the 1980s people would not tell the police about those close to them who were using illegal substances. Now that reticence has lessened through intensive work by officers.
The new strategy will be rooted in "neighbourhood profiling". "This will allow us to connect with all groups and to understand what is normal and what is unusual," it says. "We need to continually improve our knowledge about communities and how they function both in a social and religious context."
You can profile a neighborhood, but not a person.
A senior source with knowledge of the discussions leading up to the writing of the document said mapping was important: "You have to assess where the need is greatest. Just relying on the census data for the number of Muslims in an area is not detailed or sophisticated enough."
If they go down this path, they will correlate this to certain elements in the Muslim community -- certain "holy men" at some of the mosques, people who travel to certain countries -- and then the problems will crop up: irrefutable evidence of Pakistani and Saudi government involvement in training jihadis and spreading hatred, respectively.
They need to take this all the way to the endzone for a touchdown, but the politicians will chicken out when they see where it's going.
The plan also calls for guidance for parents about how to manage the use of the web by their children. "The internet is a potential area where a tendency towards violent extremism can be exploited ... Parents and carers have a need for advice on how to control access for their children and to understand what defines the legal/potentially illegal divide."
The document says there is a "pressing need to develop the growing relationships between the police and the education sector at every level with regard to preventing violent extremism".
With more terrorists and supporters being jailed, the document says those convicted must also be stopped from indoctrinating other inmates.
"those convicted must also be stopped from indoctrinating other inmates"
Long overdue....
The senior source added that the plans were a radical change for the police: "It's a recognition that it is a major and important new area of work and the police should see it as a mainstream area of work."
What is funny is the implicit but unspeakable understanding that the problem with terrorism is somehow connected to Islam -- right down to the link, which is "uksecurity.islam".
Maybe the Brits should check with the Turks and see if they have any ideas.
5 comments:
What dumbfounds me is the lack of insight into the mindset of Islam on the part of our - presumably - brightest Intelligence and police top brass. They seem to have no grasp of the nature of theocracy, in which politics are always the handmaiden of faith and fanatical irrationalism rules.
If they imagine they are dealing with a few rotten apples in an otherwise benign barrel, they really have lost the plot.
Their naivety is frightening, and I don't believe for a moment that this 'strategy' is going to work. A much tougher attitude to the whole problem of Islamic preaching and teaching in Britain is urgently required.
The problem is twofold. First, there is no political will to do anything significant. Second, too many of the people have been seeped in this lefty-liberal ideology, and now think the UK is the problem.
The dishonesty amongs politicians in HMG is a big part of the first problem, and very much plays reinforces the second problem.
We should always be careful to distinguish between conscious dishonesty and stupidity. Yes - there are some knowingly dishonest UK politicians, but most of them are just historically ignorant and politically naive, and since 9/11 have been pursuing the wrong strategy [in the wake of Bush/Blair] because no alternative occurs to them. And most of them still believe the nonsensical 'multiculti' doctrine [which isn't 'liberal', by the way].
Two other factors are fear of the consequences, in terms of possible violence, if they confront the Muslim community more forcefully, and the Labour Party's need for Muslim votes if they are to hold on to several key constituencies.
Also, they really don't grasp the implications of Islamic aspirations towards theocratic government for a free society. I repeat my constant mantra: political Islam, as distinct from Islam as a personal faith, is incompatible with democracy. And there is no such thing as 'non-political' Islam.
That is our European dilemma.
You're too easy on these politicians. Naturally, they want you to think they're stupid, because there's no law against stupidity and incompetence, so that's what they will plead when caught. But, they've got their deals cut -- deals for money, deals for votes, deals for everything except the country and people they are supposed to be serving.
If you have solid information on these deals, I look forward to your post naming names!
Post a Comment