Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Haroon Rashid Aswat

What was the number one casualty of the London bombings (besides the wellbeing of the British people)? The British policy of allowing radical Islamist groups to operate and raise funds out of London, provided that Britain was not itself subject to terrorist attacks. That deal of appeasement, with its rather cynical 'beggar your neighbor' attitude of British officials who didn't care if terrorism for other places was planned and funded out of London, is now permanently dead. The websites have been closed, the crazy Imams will be rounded up and deported, and the Islamist organizations will be forced to close. Who was most angry about this British policy, and complained about it vociferously? Israel.

John Loftus co-wrote the excellent book called "The Secret War Against the Jews". When I say 'excellent', I mean it is full of very intriguing facts. On the other hand, the central thesis, that Israel is entitled to do whatever the hell it wants because it is fighting a war against vicious anti-Semites in positions of highest power all over the world who are working in concert to destroy it and the Jewish people, is not only nonsense, but the most pernicious nonsense possible. So you have to take what Loftus says with a huge grain of salt. He is now claiming, in an interview with Fox News (suspicious already!), that the supposed ringleader of the London bombs, Haroon Rashid Aswat, was working for MI6, who protected him from American arrest (for what it is worth, the role of Haroon Rashid Aswat is now being downplayed by the British police). Loftus expressly ties (or here; and see here for a broader analysis) this intelligence relationship to the British policy of tolerance of Islamist radical groups. While Loftus seems to often have good information, I would be very careful about this. Tying the bombings to MI6 and to British policies of appeasement fits the Israeli line, and may just be a way of deflecting attention from the one country which benefited from the end of the appeasement.