TELEGRAPH BLOGS – ED WEST: London was the global headquarters of Islamic terrorism in the years before and after 9/11. This fact wasn’t exactly a closely guarded secret, but the WikiLeaks Guantánamo Bay files shed interesting new light on the American perspective. (I especially like the detail that the US government suspected the BBC of being a “possible propaganda media network” for al-Qaeda after a BBC phone number was found on a terrorist. What do they mean “possible”? Have they not listened to Radio 4?)
London became the world terrorist hub partly because the country had a long tradition of shielding dissenters of all stripes; because it had a very unintrusive state compared to its European neighbours (no ID cards); and because of Britain’s historic links with many Arab countries. But there was another reason, and this is central to the reason why Europe has an Islamist problem and the United States doesn’t – the welfare state. Welfare is intimately linked to the failure of western European countries to integrate their Muslim populations, and explains why Britain has such a problem with Islamism.
Look at the two figures named by US intelligence as responsible for recruiting dozens of terrorists, Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza. Qatada, a Jordanian preacher and advisor to shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the 9/11 plotter, was expelled from Kuwait for supporting the Iraqi invasion, then claimed asylum in Britain on the grounds of religious persecution. We granted it, naturally. Come in! Read on and comment » | Ed West | Tuesday, April 26, 2011
