This is ridiculous - how much further backwards does the government have to bend to not offend Muslims over suspected links to terrorism. Why does the government have to say ANYTHING on this topic and not just get on with the job of policing the country and keeping it safe from the bomb-wearing nutjobs out there?
Yes, it’s sad that many people have come to perceive modern terrorism as some perpetrated only by Muslims but in the UK, with about 80 years of experience of terrorism from the Irish, this is certainly not the only view held.
What you are forgetting is that there are still vestiges of democracy in the UK. The great majority of the population want out of Iraq. They are getting that wish as quickly as Gordon can reasonably untangle himself from the axis of evil (Blair-Bush) and we will be out of there before your next elections and before our next elections.
And in future it will be more difficult to go to war without the agreement of the legislature (including the new Upper House which is not under government control).
I see a more stable future now for us. No One-Man wars.
But has there really been a tendency in the past for Labour talking about ‘Islamic terrorism’? If we now hear them talking about ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremists’, won’t they pretty much be doing what they have been doing previously? As far as I can see, Brown was just reiterating this to colleagues, and the Express turned it into a bit of Labour-bashing.
It will help relations with our largely peaceable Islamic community if the words terorist and Islamic are not spouted together by government ministers.
Why is your Islamic community unable to deal with the mention of Islamic terrorism? Was there a similar drive to avoid discussing Irish terrorism during the IRA’s bloodier periods, or is this a new phenomena of nomenclature?
Partly it’s lessons which have been learnt from the treatment of Irish people at that time, yes. And it’s also a pragmatic view of the situation, where some muslims are alienated. To risk exacerbating that over a linguistic quibble seems silly and potentially dangerous.
Bring the troops home and all will be forgiven…. So if a British comedy team does a spoof on the life of Mohammed the largely peaceable Islamic community will laugh with you? If that’s not the full Monty of wishful thinking I don’t know what is.
The reality of Iraq is Muslim on Muslim violence. The “religion of peace” has been warring with itself for centuries and will continue to do so unless something changes. The change will not come from a unified religious government because the country consists of separate religions and cultures. This was the direct result of British and French colonialism after WWI. The only thing that will change this is some form of democracy where everybody has a voice. Britain’s support of the war is a chance to fix a problem whose origins are a page in British history.