English Democrat calls for Nuclear strike on Mecca

I have studied war and all of its incarnations since the age of eight when I first picked up the Ladybird book of "Soldiers" and

started asking questions of my grandfather.

War is undeniably one of the great evils that mankind has unleashed upon the world and sadly the one thing at which we as a species excel at. Aggression breads technology and at the very top of the tree are the nuclear weapons.

Many people argue that Nuclear weapons are necessary.

They have never been necessary.

The excuse of ending World War Two quickly is touted too quickly but the truth of the matter is everyone knew Japan could not physically hold out much longer and that conventional bombing methods would have sufficed. Indeed the RAF and USAAF had proved that over Europe where 25,000 people in three days in Dresden of saturation bombing in 1945 and Hamburg had suffered 42,600 killed in the firestorms of Operation Gomorrah in July 1943. With Germany defeated the bomber fleets were free to relocate to the Pacific.

At the turn of the 20th Century the greatest weapons were Artillery (and Dreadnoughts) by 1915 the horror weapon was poison gas, by the 1930s it was the Bomber especially if carrying gas and by 1945 it was the A-bomb. The only reason to use it in 1945 was to show the Russians that the West had them and was not afraid to use them should they be pushed as Churchill (succeeded by Atlee) and Truman knew that Stalin would not have hesitated to use them if he thought he had the upper hand.

In modern times though there is a small clique of states who have nuclear weapons all eyeing each other suspiciously... However who is the major threat?

A lose alliance of Islamic extremists who have no state and whose ability to use a nuclear device is, for the moment, limited to a dirty bomb for which the only defence is keen Military intelligence.

Should one of these devices go off in central London the effects would be ugly and a lot of people would be irradiated and killed with many dying from the effects for years afterwards.

English Democrat and former Kent Police Commissioner candidate (I think I heard he is running again in 2016) Steve Uncles has an answer to this... A retaliatory Nuclear strike on Mecca after ANY terrorist attack on the West.

Mr Uncles argues in his blog that the heart of Islam, within Saudi Arabia, will be full of Muslim pilgrims. He states:

Massive retaliation works on the same principles as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), with the important caveat that even a minor conventional attack on a nuclear state could conceivably result in all-out Nuclear retaliation.

and...

This threat to of massive retaliation of 1 million Muslims and the destruction of the most holy Muslim site in the world, if a further "civilised" life is taken on respective sovereign territory, may be the only answer to eliminate Islamic Terrorism.

My first response upon seeing this was... What... the... actual.... F**k?

My more reasoned approach is this;

First off the bat:

In 1914 the Sultan of Turkey decreed a Jihad against Britain and her Allies, for all Muslims to rise up against the West and come to the aid of Germany and her allies. Apart from a few scattered uprisings including some rumblings in Persia and in the Far East the majority was limited to just the Ottoman Empire.

In 2015 the same is true. Despite the call for a universal Jihad the number of Muslims fighting the West is, on the grand scale of things, a small number. Should the Holy shrines of Mecca be destroyed by the West then there will be a massive uprising of Muslims worldwide and who could blame them? Their Holy places destroyed in one blast would cause horrific hatred and rightly so.

As would the slaughter of a million innocents. How can anyone legitimise the murder, and it is murder, of all of these people? How many will be terrorists or support terrorists? These people will have come from around the world and may even be citizens of your state on a religious pilgrimage - how can you kill all these people?

If it happened we would be no better than the terrorists.

Thirdly is the prickly ball of Saudi Arabia. Yes there are sections of their society who probably funding terrorism but they are also pro-West and supply a vast swathe of the much needed crude Oil. Should anyone Nuke Saudi Arabia then that vital line is lost and the West is somewhat dependent on it at the moment. There is also the Saudi investment in the West and its business, their withdrawal could cause absolute chaos in the business world and financial markets.

The terrorists and their strategists know this and know any threat on Mecca is a paper tiger - it would cause more harm than good and is morally and ethically wrong. It is akin to General Amherst reported suggestion that blankets from Smallpox hospitals be distributed to the Ottawa indians to quell Pontiac's Rebellion.

What frightens me the most about all this though is that there will be many who agree with him.

EDL, Snoopers charter and reactions to the murder of Lee Rigby

Fire damage to Grimsby mosque (taken by Gerard Tubb)

The death of Drummer Lee Rigby on Wednesday was a great tragedy and my heart, and those of the nation goes out to his grieving family and the tragic loss of a partner, father and son. I cannot imagine the pain and grief that has rocked them and the void that cannot be filled.

The nation has greeted the news with shock and anger and in some cases violence.

Twenty five minutes after the news broke the Gillingham Mosque was broken into, property damaged and a copy of the Qur’an defiled by a local man who has now been held in the custody of Kent Police. There was also an 83 year old woman held after yelling racist abuse at Muslims leaving after prayer.

I’ve now read briefly through twitter, that the EDL are in Woolwich marking the spot where the murder occurred and there has been a spate of anti Muslim violence by members of the public.

Although understandable to a degree they cannot be condoned. It is unfair to punish innocent people for an act that they themselves are abhorred by. One picture that was doing the rounds was of a Klu Klux Klan meeting saying;

You cannot say that the views of terrorists are representative of Islam any more than you could say that the Ku Klux Klan’s were representative of Christianity.

The same can be said for the racists and petty criminals who come out of the woodwork at times like this capitalising on a horrific event like this with their politics and own vendettas. The EDL, as has been discussed elsewhere on this blog, are not the chivalric nationalistic order they’d like to think they are. There is a thin line between Nationalistic patriotism and racist xenophobia.

I’m sure that the NSDAP considered themselves patriotic and full of love of the Fatherland and Fuhrer but they were also racists xenophobes making Germany for the Germans – eerily echoed in making England English. It makes me nervous to think that people have not learnt from history, especially the most abhorrent period of modern history.

I hope that others do not judge the EDL, BNP or individuals are representative of the British people. After all, the majority of people were, like me, horrified by what happened and blame the individuals responsible rather than a demographic and religious community.

There are indeed questions that need to be asked, mainly as part of the Police and Intelligence forces investigations into radicalisation and the source and other groups need to wait for their findings. Indeed I would urge the EDL to crawl back under the rock they came from and stop encouraging violence and hatred against Muslims. Whatever they feel their input is in reality it isn’t helping the situation.

Within Government too, there is a sudden tack right from Conservatives who still back the "Snoopers charter" and Labour. Mr Miliband was quoted today on the BBC News website, as saying;

If he [the PM] wants a communications bill, we'll help him get it through.

There is a thin line between national security and police state too...

It has been acknowledged that such a charter would not necessarily have stopped the attack in Woolwich it might stop future attacks. However is this worth the rest of us having our personal freedoms curtailed?

Why should the state be able to look at my internet history, or know who I have been facebooking? It is of no one's business but my own if I am sending emails to either fellow Libdems, my family, my ex girlfriend or the King of Denmark until I've committed a crime.

Emma Carr of bigbrother watch hits the nail on the head for me with;

It is remarkable for politicians to be jumping to legislation to monitor the entire country when all the evidence to date shows this horrific attack would not have been prevented by the communications data bill.

The draft bill also prohibited the authorities from looking at the content of messages and surely we should expect people under the kind of surveillance possible in this case to be having their messages read?

Indeed the monitoring of emails only works if you know for a fact that one of the individuals is an extremist other wise how would you prove that an email sent from one person to another Might contain plans for an attack? Would it not be simple for coded emails to be sent so that only the sender and recipient would know what was the true nature of the message?

We wouldn't want our telephones to be tapped without a warrant and we would want our letters examined so why is an online message ok?

I do agree with cutting back on the Radicalisation of people in universities etc... Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of a Liberal society and human rights but with any freedom it must be curtailed if it is having a negative impact on other people's freedom - as in the case of racism or sexism.

This is something that can be restricted as preaching to kill or harm those who do not believe the same as you or are different is in fact incitement to violence or even to incite a hate crime and it has no place in any modern society.

In fact I agree with Nick Clegg's comments on Friday when he stated:

A religion of peace was being distorted, turned upside down and inside out, perverted in the cause of an abhorrent and violent set of intentions.

Terrorism has no religion because there is no religious conviction that can justify the kind of arbitrary, savage random violence that we saw on the streets of Woolwich.

We have a choice to either allow that powerful corrosive feeling of fear to seep into every second and minute and hour of our lives or we can make a choice that we're not going to change our behaviour.

To give in, to tack right and towards snoopers charters and ultra nationalism is to get rid of the very ideal that the terrorists abhor the most - freedom, our liberty to live and act freely. So, yes to curtailing hatred and those who preach it no matter which side of the void they sit, and no to curtailing the freedoms of innocent people on the off chance.

Letter from the leader; Coming together and response to the attack in Woolwich

This was a week that put things in perspective. I know I speak for all Liberal Democrats when I say that our thoughts are with the family and friends of Drummer Lee Rigby – the British soldier attacked and killed in Woolwich on Wednesday. And I’ve made it clear, on the party’s behalf, that we are immensely grateful to our police, security services and armed forces, who do an extraordinarily important job.

That last few days have reminded me, and probably many of you, of a simple but important truth: when your values are under attack, you have to hold on to them even more firmly than before. 

Yesterday, at the request of some friends in the Muslim community, I convened a meeting, in London, of representatives from different faiths, community organisations and secular groups. Before the speeches I held a private discussion with a smaller group, and I wish I could have broadcast it across the nation. Just days after a brutal act of terror, men and women from across the faiths and political parties, gathered around the table, each calling for the same thing: unity. It would have made you immensely proud.

And there have been other victories for our values this week. Getting the Equal Marriage Bill through the House of Commons was no mean feat and it’s something all Liberal Democrats should feel good about. Britain is now one step closer to being a country where all forms of love – gay or straight – are celebrated equally, and that wouldn’t have happened without our party.

The Coalition was also able to confirm that hundreds of Afghan interpreters who served bravely alongside British forces will have the chance to settle in the UK.  Paddy’s been heavily involved with this campaign for a while. At one point, it was suggested that Afghan interpreters might not be granted this right, but clearly that was something I – we – couldn’t accept. Don’t forget, it was under pressure from the Liberal Democrats that the previous Labour government extended the right to reside here to Iraqi interpreters. When someone has risked their life to help our servicemen and women, it seems so obvious to me that we owe them a debt.

So it’s been a difficult week, but it’s also been a week which has reminded us who we are. This is an open, diverse and generous nation, where, in our toughest moments, we come together. That’s something no act of hate or violence will change.   

thoughts are with the family and friends of Drummer Lee Rigby – the British soldier attacked and killed in Woolwich on Wednesday. And I’ve made it clear, on the party’s behalf, that we are immensely grateful to our police, security services and armed forces, who do an extraordinarily important job.