Today's Round Up

This will be my last post until next Monday/Tuesday (barring my coming across something very interesting this evening). In the meantime if anyone wants to leave any interesting links or make some comments, please feel free and I'll get back to you ASAP when I return.

First up, an astonishing piece from Julie Burchill- astonishing because I'm utterly amazed she'd be so politically incorrect.

Still, there was something a little creepy about the way in which certain people went on about the diversity of the dead. For one thing, it showed a willingness to believe the best of the bombers: that if only they had known that they had murdered delegates of all creeds and colours, they wouldn’t have done it.

Bullshit. This sort of Islamofascist hates multiculturalism. Just you try building a church in Saudi Arabia! They won’t even let our troops out there celebrate St Valentine’s Day. And as for any idea of the races being equal . . . it is the Muslim world that keeps slavery alive, and Muslim governments, as in Sudan, that see nothing whatsoever wrong with ethnic cleansing. Recently a Muslim columnist wrote sorrowfully of how in her culture a Muslim girl marrying a black man was the greatest shame that could fall upon a family. So much for equality under Islam.

Next up- and suggested by Stef- is an interview with Robert Pape about his book on the timely topic of suicide bombers. I must confess to only have had a quick glance through it so far. The main thrust of his argument seems to be that the strategic aim of the suicide bomber is to repel invaders (be they American or Israeli) and thus he paints the "Islamic" in Islamic Terrorism as being of minimal importance. For him, the strategic goal of the attack outweighs the motives behind the individuals who choose to strap explosives to themselves. Read on for more on this very topic later in this post. Pape does not appear to see the gap between "we must kick out the invaders" and "I will become a martyr by killing myself in the process". Why not a campaign of remote/timer detonated bombs instead?

Speaking of suicide bombers, Murdoc points out the "kill some civilians and use their dead bodies to try to kill other civilians" trick. The same tactic I'd feared might have been used in the London attacks.

From the Sunday Times- The lipstick lesbian daring to confront radical imams. The title says it all really.

The web of intigue around 7/7 terrorist Mohammed Sidique Khan becomes more tangled. It's beginning to look more and more that MI5 made a vast mistake in their assessment of him. Not only did he go on to take part in 7/7 but he appears to have numerous terrorist ties.


Again from The Times, an article about the availability online of "The Explosive Belt for Martyrdom Operations".

An interview with a Palestinian suicide bomber who survived his "martyrdom operation" after his bomb failed to go off. The pertinent point of the article is that despite the strategic purpose of the suicide bomber (see the Robert Pape interview), the actual motivation for the bomber themselves can be found here-

“It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.”

“We were floating, swimming, in the feeling that we were about to enter eternity. We had no doubts. We made an oath on the Koran, in the presence of Allah — a pledge not to waver. This jihad pledge is called bayt al-ridwan, after the garden in Paradise that is reserved for the prophets and the martyrs. I know that there are other ways to do jihad. But this one is sweet — the sweetest. All martyrdom operations, if done for Allah’s sake, hurt less than a gnat’s bite!