Read this story and get a little worried. The British authorities deserve huge levels of praise for foiling this plot. But here’s the worrying and significant part:
Those arrested were all born and brought up in Britain. Security sources played down suggestions of any direct link between the arrested men and al-Qaida. Sources referred to groups of young radicalised Muslims who were “difficult to label” but viciously anti-western. Security sources suggested that the motive of the alleged planned attacks was anti-western but not dictated by anyone in the al-Qaida hierarchy.
The small towns they lived in in southern, suburban and rural England are exactly where I grew up, which sends a shudder down my spine. Evil has come to the Shire! What this amounts to, I think, is theological, ideological terrorism that requires no state sponsor as such and no actual network like al Qaeda. And this is surely the trend. It certainly looks as if Madrid was a similarly loosely-connected operation. I’m not saying it means we should ignore state sponsors, like Iran. Au contraire. But I am saying that a policy that focuses entirely on state sponsors is going to miss an important part of the problem.
CONCEDING A POINT: Here’s where some war critics surely have a point. Fighting back aggressively can and will increase the numbers of alienated young men across the globe eager to kill in the name of anti-Western Islamism. The answer, of course, is not to give in or appease. (There were plenty of such alienated men around to do serious damage before we responded adequately.) But it is to fight back boldly with the military, create a democratic space in the Muslim Midle East, and work to foil terror quietly, subtly and powerfully behind the scenes. It’s war, democratization and law enforcement. And Joe Nye is right (stopped clocks sometimes are). Soft power and hard power need not be self-canceling. They can aid each other. The strongest argument for Kerry is that we have already gained as much as we can for the time being with hard power and war; he won’t pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan; he won’t be able to duck a serious response to another terror attack; but he might help ease some of the hatred of the United States that this president has – undeservedly, in my view, but still undeniably – ratcheted to unseen levels. The strongest argument against him is that he will not take the war seriously enough to allow law enforcement to play its vital but complementary part, and would prematurely pull out of Iraq. I’m waiting to hear more from him and his advisers. Yeah: don’t rush me. It’s March. Is this a rationalization for considering Kerry? Or a reason? I blog. You decide.
The Dish 