U.S. and UK Must Hang Together in Face of Terror
The British government’s recent elevation of the terrorist threat level signifies an attack is highly likely. It is responding perhaps to events such as the failed al-Qaeda attempt to down an airliner over Detroit and the report that non-Arab women are being trained as suicide bombers. While their increased vigilance is sensible, the United Kingdom remains an inadvertent exporter of terrorism.
The United Kingdom has been wobbly in quashing radicals who inspire jihadists to take up arms against freedom-loving nations. The government continues to allow extremists a forum in the name of free speech. For example, cleric Yahya Ibrahim, who advocates violence against the West, is being allowed to enter the UK to speak at universities and mosques. Ibrahim is one of several hardliners allowed into the UK despite being banned from the U.S.
Instead, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders was denied entry because he produced a film criticizing Islam. To allow a man essentially branded a terrorist by the U.S. to speak at a university defies reason. Let’s not forget that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the al-Qaeda operative who attempted to detonate an airliner, was radicalized while attending University College London.
British politicians are chided for using the words “Islam” and “terrorism” in the same sentence, let alone going after those who inspire terrorists; in such an atmosphere it is not surprising that the UK has become the nexus for dangerous ideologies. This is the real reason an increased threat level is necessary. Until the British address the home front, the entire Western world is imperiled.
But there are some encouraging signs. Anjem Choudary, a London-born lawyer and leader of the organization Islam4UK, recently announced his intent to stage a protest against the “occupying and merciless British military” in the town of Wootton Bassett. The town has achieved fame because hundreds of people regularly line the streets to mourn passing caskets of British casualties flown into the nearby airbase.
Prime Minister Brown issued a statement saying he was “personally appalled” and Home Secretary Alan Johnson offered support to any local government effort to ban the protest. Johnson later announced that the group itself had been outlawed under a measure allowing the government to ban promoters of terrorism.
What ‘Special Relationship’ ??? One of the USURPER Obamanations firsts acts when he illegally occupied the White House was to send back a bust of Winston Churchill a gift from UK and the SYMBOL of what the Special Realatioship was before you voted for a POTUS. He also insulted the UK PM by giving him a pathetic gift of DVD’s which were , and I think DELIBERATELY as an added insult, coded not to play in UK. The Brits had given him a wooden writing accessory crafted from hundreds of years old wood from the sister ship of the Slave busting 18th Century Royal Navy warship. He gave the Queen an iPod with his OWN speeches on it, the NARCISSIST, and he and his awful wife Michelle manhandled her in Washington At a recent World leaders gathering in Washington the USURPER refused to have a ‘one on one’ meeting with the UK PM. So I say again what ‘Special Relationship’ are you talking about?
“No real threat from Nazis” is my favorite PJ quote.
Not sure Britain would be much help in the future. At some point in time the ticking time bomb of it’s restless Muslim population is going to subdue and subjugate them. They have no pride in their own country anymore, not enough to fight for it. I hope I am wrong.
What special relationship? Some State Department man said the other day that we were just another of the 196 countries the US deals with – no worse, no better.
I can live with that. Of course we should co-operate on things like anti-terrorism; but the British should stop kidding themselves – the USA is just another of the 196 countries WE have to deal with.
No more American wars. No more French wars.
Pragmatist is correct of course, and I as an American feel personally embarrassed every time these incidents are mentioned, even though I had nothing to do with it.
On the larger issue, until we as a nation stop playing the Politically Correct Tango with Muslims around the world, nothing will change for the better. They are in this global jihad until they are defeated, and we should be ready and willing to accommodate them aggressively until they ‘cry uncle’. Being nice just won’t cut it!
The Brits are tormented by the liberal lying media best personified by the BBC. This massive conspiracy bacically supports the continuing lies of global warming, the benefits of the EU, the benefits of runaway and uncontrolled immigration especially from radical muslim countries. I could go on but you get the picture that they are being dummed down every day by a lying media and lying bunch of liberal elites. The Brits also have lost their standard of living (getting worse every day) and their values being diluted every day by the PC mob. For God’s sake they are still arguing about Iraq!! Illegal war-well lets turn this country back over to Saddem Hussein–Oh yeah he’s dead and gone. What a pathetic country. Finally they like money and all those who have it because they don’t. Guess who has money? The ARAB/muslim world can bribe them into oblivion. I assure you that they have lost their country and Europe has lost their continent to radical islam. Shutting down free speech right and left. Look at the Netherlands where you will be prosecuted for criticizing these murderous terrorists. No the UK will not ride out the war on terror with the USA–they will surrender to it and we will need to save them again at some point in the future.I hate to see this happen because I have many dear British friends and they too see their country slipping away. I pray for them but praise the lord and pass the ammunition. It is time for a fight. But the BRits won’t wage it.
I think the “Special Relationship” thing has been over and done with for quite a while now. You can read the UK papers online, and if there is any fondness whatsoever for the USA it certainly is not apparent. It appears to me that the average Briton is reflexively anti-American, and that Tony Blair was totally out of step with his fellow countrymen on this matter. Remember the massive – and I mean MASSIVE – demonstrations in the UK and Europe on the eve of the invasion of Saddam’s Iraq? It was perfectly obvious that they were anti-American in nature and, I think, far more reflective of what the average Briton and the average west European think of the US. Do you imagine anyone in the UK or Europe is even slightly grateful to us for vast amounts of treasure we sacrificed on their behalf during the decades of the Cold War to keep them free? If you do, think again…
We need to wash our hands of NATO and say goodbye; no one over there is an “ally” of the US in any true sense of the word, and that includes the UK. The World War II generation is dead or in nursing homes. We have relatively little in common with the UK and Europe any more.
The illustration accompanying this article incorrectly displays the American flag. The Flag Manual (MCO P10520.3B for US Marines) clearly states, “When the national flag and another flag are displayed together from crossed staffs, as against a wall, the national flag will be on the right, i.e., the flag’s own right, or the left of an observer facing the wall, and its staff
will be in front of the staff of the other flag.”
In the illustration, the American flag is on the right of the observer, and its staff is behind the staff of the British flag.
Tommy Gunn at least the Brits that you seem to deride so much have not elected a BOGUS POTUS as you Americans have and you call us gullible LOL.
War on Terror is fake, just like the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty.. Have you ever noticed that once our government declares war on something it gets worse? War on Terror is really a war against Americans. They took away our rights but never closed up our borders.
What, like our nations hung together during the thirty years Britain endured IRA terror attacks many of which were funded from money raised in the USA by Teddy Kennedy?
britain. prime example of eurabia.
Seems like PJM is running scared of the M word and deletes any mention of Muslims or Mohammedans when it comes to the LYING BOGUS POTUS.
It can be PROVED and is CONFIRMED by Obama’s OWN book that he was a practicing MUSLIM when he lived in INDONESIA so why is PJM running scared and deletingf any mention of Muslim or Islam in connection with him?
England is toast culturally and particularly vis a vis radical islam, and that ‘special relationship’ seems mostly to give america cover to pursue foreign invasions while claiming it is international action.
And yes, pragmatist, I take no pleasure in admitting that we americans have precious little to brag about in these matters…
Or as Benjamin Franklin sagely opined “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. True then, true now.
Pragmatist:
You must be a brit. which is fine. I am not deriding the brits except for the fact that they have surrendered to their politically correct media which is no wonder. If the USA had the BBC only in our country, then we would all be left leaning liberal, pc, global warming, appeasement oriented, radical islam loving idiots. Tell me I am wrong if you want to but the fact is that the UK and Europe are on their way down the tubes.
It gives me no great joy to state the sordid conditon that the UK finds itself. But if you deny this, you are simply delusional.
Sorry!!
The English state has been around for over a thousand years and I don’t see why it should collapse now. One thing is for certain – things will not turn out as predicted. I really wish that commentators on my country would distinguish between most of us, and the Guardian Reading Classes. Most of us are not left leaning; appeasement orientated; nor do we love radical Islam. Or Islam at all. Most of us don’t believe in man-made warble gloaming either. On the other hand, most of us do believe that Americans are very fat.
The people here beating up Brits for “surrendering” their country to Muslims or PC media (that’s you PT BUll and tommy gunn), had better take a hard look at what’s happening here and then apologize. The outing of secret surveillance meansures, and incessant opposition to any war is a staple of US media. The segregation of facilities as demanded by muslim students has started at several campuses.
And if you don’t believe there is a special relationship, please remember that QE sang the US national anthem after 9-11 when snotty frenchemen were insisitng we learn what we had done to “make people angry” with us. All kinds of places barely restrained their glee, but I didn’t see that much in Britain except for a bunch of kooks just like the ones we have here that did the same thing.
There was one PM here asap after 9-11 and his name was Blair. There is one group of people in Afghanistan you can count on that aren’t Americans, and they are called the British.
Sorry, but as long as those with their paws on the levers of power inside the Beltway are deformed souls, reprobates, scalawags and similar ilk, Great Britain had better look at modifying what WW1 Prime Minister David Lloyd-George was contemplating with Canadian Prime Minister Borden. More of a reliance with the Anglo-sphere, and the US in a decidedly junior position.
This amalgam would be one of three under the rubric of “The Alliance of Democracies”.
A country as drenched in anti-Semitism and Arabophile/Islamophile sentiment as Britain simply cannot be counted on as a trusted ally in the War on Terror.
If there was once a special relationship between the USA and Britain, it is gone and never to be revived. Thatcher/Reagan was the last gasp of it.
Americans have to accept that.
Australia as an ally, yes. Britain? — well, it will be under Sharia law maybe 15 years after France is.
Well I am of British blood by birth, breeding and reading, and I say we should retake the Islands for ourselves.
Yet again Tommy Gunn I have to point out to you that as a member of the Nation which elected a totally BOGUS, LYING,document HIDING, extreme left wing, Islamophile, America deriding and America destroying POTUS your attempts to decry the Brits makes you look a fool. Oh yes Europe and the UK are in a bad state but at least our Politicians bad as they are are GENUINE people not CONSTRUCTS.
For a good idea of why Britain is in the shape it’s in, look up a guy named Andrew Neather. Is there any doubt that there are libiots here who want to acheive the same ends, given how hard ‘progressives’ try to emulate Europe?
Michael in England, You no doubt have heard of him (at least I hope so) and you should be calling to have him shot for treason. And despite the current poor state of affairs between our countries, we, as well as AUstralia, Canada, France, E. Europe, we all need each other to expunge the most malevolent force in history from our shores. I surely hope you can get the job done, for your sake as well as the sake of my kids, who will either be repaying Laffayette again or fighting here.(And p.s. I’m by no means fat!)
Pragmatist @14, I especially loved his claim that he attended a “secular” madrassa! It’s disgusting how the MSM so utterly failed in even attepmting to do it’s job w/ this bum!
Blackwell @19, I do agree w/ you. But I also agree w/ Tommy Gunn, Europe is in a suicidal death-spiral. I can only hope Michael isn’t alone!
Oh, and once again, excercise your 2d Amendment Rights and prepare.
To Nolan:
I have heard of Andrew Neather and his report. All about a fiendish plot to stuff us with foreigners to change our cultural shape. Personally, I don’t believe they are clever enough to think of that, let alone carry it out.
My step daughter reads the Guardian. She told me that everyone in the world should have the right to live where they choose to. Arguments about killing the goose that laid the golden egg got nowhere. She knew what the truth was. She isn’t evil – just stupid. And there are a lot of stupid people around. Including commentators here who think that a comment that all Brits have bad teeth is a useful contribution.
I have just read Max Hastings’ book about Churchill during the 2nd world war. Relationships between our two countries are much as they have always been – its just the plonkers at the top that change.
I cannot believe anyone opposes a special relationship with the Brits. Aside from being reliable people with a knack for emerging on the right side in two world wars, they are better drinkers and drivers than other europeans, despite their annoying habit of driving on the left. They don’t sneer at at americans in some totally ludicrous and useless foreign language like the french, they drink beer and have better hygiene than all of europe. Their SAS is not to be underestimated, and I like their old buildings better than french ones. Their Queen seems to like americans and was far too polite to make an issue of that horrifying ipod gift (we better come up with a much better gift next time).
True, some of their meals are suspect, but I’d rather eat where I am welcome than in places with better food where I am not. This is a silly debate and it annoys those of us in both places that never dreamed the “special relationship” was in trouble to begin with.
Please excuse me whilst I puke. The matter of a ‘special’ relationship is to be contested!
Whatever degree of ‘specialness’ which might have existed, evaporated LONG ago when we —THE YANKEES— told those British idiots to SHOVE OFF!
So then, please take all that pretentious association and pack it in!
Americans are ARMED, and Brits are NOT!
Americans defend themselves with REAL ARMS. Brits BEG to not be PHYSICALLY offended but don’t have the means to prevent that.
Americans have a BILL OF RIGHTS which says: SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
What do the Brits have?
Right.
End of story.
What century is this?
“So then, please take all that pretentious association and pack it in!”
Well said Highlander; I’m with you! No American wars; no French wars.
Pragmatists:
You are preaching to the choir on how bad Obama is. I do get it. On the other hand to say that Brits elect great leaders is pretty rich too. Look at Gordan Brown. My god he is pathetic. Look at Cameron as a conservative!! He would be an Obama bag carrier. Look at the Blonde Tool now Mayor of London. Who does he think is cool? None other than Obama. You are in the minority if you don’t like Obama and you are a Brit. Most Brits think he is the second coming!! (who now will be going in 2012!!
Sorry!! (why do I keep saying this?)
I cringe whenever I hear people talking of any relationship – when we were threatened with terror more deadly than 911 (3,600 eventually killed) Americans laughed and sent the secessionists more money.
you guys are talking past one another, the US is going the way of the UK, hello who is the POTUS? Obama the dhimmi supreme. The US media is increasingly sinking into Islamophilia and the US so-called national security and ‘War on Terror’ or whatever gibberish they are calling it now is a PC joke. Most Americans, just like Brits, don’t have a clue about Islam and that explains a lot. You are both continuing to sink into the mire of PC madness.
I have posted a few times on this topic so i am sorry at being repetitive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_IRA_arms_importation
The campaign of terror, waged against British and Irish citizens
for more than 30 years, was bankrolled by donations from the USA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_IRA_arms_importation
In those 30 years we had to fight U.S for extradition of wanted terrorists to face charges here, despite our repeated requests.
Both federal and local US courts refused extradition by judging even escaped convicted terrorists as freedom fighters commiting political crimes.
On chap even had a corner of a street in NewYork named after him.
The U.S. administration decided not to approve applications for the sale of guns and equipment to the Royal Ulster Constabulary
British politicians feared there would be serious repercussions, given that pro-IRA Irish-American groups were supplying paramilitaries with weapons and money.
The campaign to stop American arms going to the RUC was headed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill.
The Irish-American said it was an ‘intolerable double standard’ for the U.S
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Papers-released-on-RUC-weapons.5952732.jp
The U.S gave visa’s to known I.R.A members to fund raise against our governments wishes.
Resulting in this,
http://www.reason.com/news/show/30003.html
Gerry Adams was given the keys to New York by Rudy Giuliani.
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/giuliani-gave-award-to-terror-chief
Bars in Boston had drinks called ‘kill a brit’ and ‘carbomb’(The I.R.A invented the road side bomb that is killing our soldiers and yours).Money for ‘the cause’.Killing Irish and British civilians.
Weapons sent included semtex and surface to air missiles,we didn’t intercept them all.
These were used to bomb places like Harrods on Christmas Eve.
Shopping centres the day before mothers day killing children shopping for their gifts and card’s.
On remembrance sunday they blew up a church service killing old soldiers with their medals on.
The IRA nearly killed Prime Minister Thatcher and her cabinet with a bomb in 1984, and it assassinated prominent British politicians and members of the royal family.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/12/newsid_2531000/2531583.stm
Rep. Peter King–for years, the congressman was alinged with “one of the most violent terrorist groups in recent European history”–the IRA
The politician once called the IRA “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland,” he was banned from the BBC by British censors for his pro-IRA views, and he refused to denounce the IRA when one of its mortar bombs killed nine Northern Irish police officers. But Mr. King is now one of America’s most outspoken foes of terrorism.
He forged links with leaders of the IRA and Sinn Fein in Ireland, and in America he hooked up with Irish Northern Aid, known as Noraid, a New York based group that the American, British, and Irish governments often accused of funneling guns and money to the IRA.
He spoke regularly at Noraid protests and became close to the group’s publicity director, the Bronx lawyer Martin Galvin, a figure reviled by the British.
Much of the conventional weaponry and a great deal of the money necessary for IRA violence came from Irish-American sympathizers. Mr. King’s advocacy of the IRA’s cause encouraged that flow and earned him the deep-seated hostility of the British and Irish governments
During his visits to Ireland, Mr. King would often stay with well-known leaders of the IRA, and he socialized in IRA drinking haunts.
At one of such clubs, the Felons, membership was limited to IRA veterans who had served time in jail.
Mr. King would almost certainly have been red-flagged by British intelligence as a result, but the experience gave him plenty of material for the three novels he subsequently wrote featuring the
I.R.A.
So excuse us as we laugh at the title of ‘U.S/U.K must hang together in face of terror’
Maybe we should add’only if Americans die’
Amanda makes the point that Britain “remains an inadvertant exporter of terrorism,” and this is wrong. The Brits choose to protect jihadists in their midst. It is hardly inadvertant.
We can attend to England without intending to be like it, and watch old England die while we do something about the jihadists and other Muslims in our midst.
But will we?