Another open thread to kick the week off…the sun is shining, the day is beautiful and the future’s bright….but there is absolutely no connection to Islam I should make clear.

‘Right Thinking Muslims’   What are they?  Who are they?  What do they think?

I don’t know,  but Nicky Campbell and all those BBC presenters who  use the phrase obviously do…perhaps it is similar to the ‘Right Thinking Tory’ who has dumped all his principles in favour of a ‘Good Press’ from the BBC.

I seem to know what a ‘Right Thinking Muslim’ isn’t….he isn’t someone who adheres to the teachings of the Qu’ran.

How do I know that?  I have been lectured for two days by the BBC, by politicians and by Muslim commentators and by the naive ….who all told me that the views expressed by the killers did not have any basis in Islam.

In 2006 John Humphrys admitted that:

‘The vast majority of terrorist attacks have been carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam.’

He went on to say that one in four Muslims in Britain, according to an NOP poll,  said the 7/7  attacks were justified by Britain’s support for the War in Iraq.

How times, and opinions change.

Cameron said this:

‘This was not just an attack on Britain and the British way of life, it was a betrayal of Islam and the Muslim communities. There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.’

The Qu’ran commands:

‘Fight for the sake of God those who fight against you, but do not attack them first.  God does not love aggressors.

Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the place from which they drove you.

Fight against them until idolatory is no more and God’s religion rules supreme.

Fighting is obligatory for you much though you dislike it.’

The Qu’ran demands that Muslims fight in defence of Islam and Islamic lands.

It is unequivocal, unmistakeable, immutable.

If non-Muslim armies are fighting in Muslim lands, killing Muslims, then Muslims not only are entitled to take up arms but are obliged to do so.

If David Cameron respects Islam then he must respect the Qu’ran and its revelations, all of them….it would be a charade to say he respects Islam but declare that the beliefs and values expressed in the Qu’ran are in some way a ‘perversion’….which is what he has in fact done.

However confidence in that line of thinking seems low as The Great and The Good want to keep the terrorists ideas and ideology out of sight and out of mind…..perhaps they  think it is in fact all too believable, all too attractive to impressionable young minds set on adventure and excitement all tied in with the romance of  Jihad, serving God as well as their ‘People’, battling the Corrupt Tyrants?

Baroness Warsi has expressed outrage that the Media have given airtime to extremists.

‘Baroness Warsi said: “We all have a responsibility, including the media, not to give airtime to extremist voices – idiots and nutters who speak for no one but themselves.’

Is that true?  Is it not better to have these ‘nutters and idiots’ on air, in a controled environment being questioned about their beliefs, being made to outline, explain and justify their claims….with the intention of disproving them and taking away any credibility they might have.

Is Warsi afraid that their claims might just be ‘right’ in an Islamic sense?

In 2006 John Humphrys had a famous encounter with Trevor Brooks, renamed Abu Izzadeen, but I’ll call him Trevor as Cameron, Pickles and Warsi have determined he isn’t a ‘proper Muslim’…or should that be a ‘Right Thinking Muslim’?

The BBC agonised over whether to allow him on air….Smelling The Coffee.…‘there was an editorial judgement to be made both about whether he should appear in the first place, and if so where in the programme….There is a powerful argument to be made that presenting the most extreme voices on air actually damages the process of integrating the Muslim community into the fight against terrorism. The BBC has a duty to balance voices, and to present a representative range of views from within communities.’

Trevor is a very persuasive and powerful speaker who doesn’t back down…he expressed views clearly and logically and outlined his beliefs and how they were defined by Islam.

John Humphrys struggled because he didn’t know enough about Islam, he didn’t know that Trevor was so confident because he was right…he was that ‘Right Thinking Muslim’….in an Islamic sense…though not perhaps in a Christian politician’s sense, the prism through which Cameron views Trevor and his ilk.

Ironically,  John Humphrys in the end resorted to shouting a metaphorical ‘Why don’t you go back home’ to young Trevor who had reduced him to an inarticulate, angry but well dressed and well paid putative EDL member.

As the Telegraph said:  ‘ It is difficult to deal with someone when there is no common ground on the basic principles of justice – as John Humphrys discovered.’

Passing the ammunition

Humphrys was hung by his own petard  and his own anti-war feelings…and of course Andrew Gilligan’s desire for a scoop.  Their claims about the creation of the Iraq War Dossier leant ample justification to any Muslim that wanted it to claim this war was illegal, immoral and was clearly against Muslims…therefore he would be justified in defending those Muslims attacked by ‘The West’.

Politicians have never of course been entirely trusted, along with journalists, but Andrew Gilligan in ‘The Reunion…The Hutton Inquiry’, boasted that the result of his work was that the relationship, the trust, between politicians and the Public had been destroyed…and, rather pleased with himself and his interview, he said that he had played his part in that.

Yes, he did…his false reports meant that the whole tone of the war and subsequent counter insurgency was set against a backdrop of distrust and disillusion from the public which restrained the politicians and the Army from putting in the necessary resources to carry on the fight effectively with minimal casualties and in the fastest possible time.

The second effect was to spur on the Jihadis, to justify their beliefs, endorsing their claims…the ripples from that interview still resonate today as we have just seen on the streets of Woolwich.

You could say this is chickens coming home to roost….the BBC et al have been attacking the ‘War on terror’ since it’s inception and have denounced it as illegal, Iraq being justified by a ‘Dodgy Dossier’ sexed up by war mongering politicians….they have given every justification for Muslims to believe that the war is wrong, illegal and immoral…a war against Islam…and that they should do something about that.

The BBC et al have attacked the West for its involvement in the Middle East, its support for the Dictators, its creation of Israel, Guantanamo Bay, rendition, arresting too many Muslim ‘suspects’.

The BBC et al have long supported the ‘Muslim grievance industry’ repeatedly supporting clams of discrimination, poverty, Islamophobia and mistreatment.

The BBC et al have fed the beast that is now going to consume them.  Us.

The BBC et al have passed them the ammuniton and now some Muslims are out to praise the Lord.

 But no one wants to admit that, no one wants to take responsibility for having to act.

Sit tight and wait it out

Why does Cameron and Co make such claims about Islam?  They have a cunning plan…sit tight and hope it all blows over.

‘Government is likely to discover that the principles of the criminal law and the requirements of national security run straight into each other. If so, it will not be the first time that ministers have been reminded that the criminal law is not designed to deal with terrorists who want to replace democracy with Sharia law.’

They had three choices…surrender to the demands and change foreign policy…they obviously can’t do that.

or…to admit these acts , if not the method, are done in the name of Islam,  are truly sanctioned by the Qu’ran….but then what?  How do they deal with that..tear down the Mosques, burn  every Qu’ran, deport every Muslim?  Not going to happen.

or…the last…and only…choice…do nothing.  Accept the hits, accept that they are going to get terrorist strikes and mass civilian deaths perhaps but carry on regardless whilst turning a blind eye to the causes in the belief that any cure might be worse than the illness.

The BBC’s own rules

It is unfortunate for them that the BBC hasn’t read the script…it is still feeding into the narrative that ‘foreign policy’ must be changed before peace reigns once more…and thereby underpinning the jihadist recruiter’s efforts.

Only yesterday we had supposedly moderate Muslims, one after the other, filling the airwaves with their assurances that this wasn’t in the name of Islam…but they then say…what drives radicalisation is foreign policy….er….in Muslim lands, which upsets Muslims here..because the Qu’ran demands they protect the, em,  Ummah against attack. 

If the BBC are going to bury the truth about Islam, along with the government, then they need to do all they can to combat the narrative about foreign policy, they cannot allow that to continue to catch hold  of the imaginations of a whole new batch of devout recruits for the Jihad..

The weekend beckons and so time for a brand new fresh and shiny OPEN thread! And guess what, this hasn’t cost £98m…..

Jim Nocknees accusing Cameron of being out of touch: (08:13)

‘You know that there are  a lot of your MPs and activists and so on, party members, who tramp the streets in your interests and say listen, same sex marriage was not in the manifesto, we didn’t know what was coming along, he’s just charging on surrounded by a metropolitan clique who don’t know what we think.’

Good job we’ve got the BBC then… in touch with popular feeling…on immigration, Europe, welfare, the economy, Islam.

Just as well really…I wouldn’t want to be spending £145 a year to fund an organisation that undermines all the values and beliefs I hold, that denigrates and belittles me, that ignores my concerns or treats them with disdain, that has been ‘captured’ by a metropolitan clique that doesn’t know what I think….and wouldn’t care if it did know.

In January the BBC were boasting how much money they estimated they generated for the economy…but one stand out phrase is this from the Telegraph:

‘It concludes that value-for-money has improved overall at the BBC, even though total spending has risen by more than £100 million in the last year.’

I think you’re probably ahead of me already.

Just where did that £100 million go?  Down which black hole?

The Telegraph today tells us:

BBC suspends technology boss over ‘wasted’ £100m

The BBC has scrapped a £100m technology project and suspended the executive in charge after Director General Tony Hall admitted it had “wasted a huge amount of licence fee payers’ money”.

John Linwood, the BBC’s £287,000-a-year chief technology officer, has been suspended on full pay while the review is conducted. He chaired the Digital Media Initiative steering group.

A fair wage….you’ve got to pay top whack to get the best as Mark Thompson always assured us….and Linwood did have a staff of 1,200 people in his department.

Margaret Hodge was enjoying herself enormously laying into the BBC about this on 5Live (  13:09)…will the BBC now reciprocate and tackle Stemcor?

What was the problem?  The DMI project (Digital Media Initiative) was supposed to allow programmes to be made at any location by allowing access online to information, film or sound stored in remote BBC archives.  It didn’t work. And so far £100 million had been spent on the project….the BBC has decided to cut their losses and can the project.

Hodge nailed one big problem…the BBC has decentralised, moving much of its work to Salford…but its archives are elsewhere…presumably London….for Salford not to have access to that material is a real problem says Hodge if you want to make programmes.

It was the BBC ‘gold plating’ a project….canny BBC Scotland bought an off the shelf system which works…so was the BBC as a whole trying to be over ambitious?

What was really shocking, she said, was this project was ‘all or nothing’…and the BBC has nothing to show for it,  absolutely nothing, no benefit at all for that £100 million.

Wonder how much ‘Youtube’ cost to set up and run.

‘The far right is here. In our midst. And we see it not. Or worse still, we care not.’

Colonel Mike Dewar told us today on Nicky Campbell’s show that we tiptoe around the causes of radicalisation..we need a counter narrative, an alternative approach…he said the murder of Lee Rigby was a ‘stark warning’ that we needed to start countering the rhetoric and propaganda that radicalises these people….ie that foriegn policy is targeting Muslims.

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones later said something similar saying the task we face is changing the mindset…but we need the help of Muslims to do that.

Judging by the Muslim commentators that the BBC adopts that is going to be an uphill struggle as they all fervently believe in the ‘barbaric foreign policy’ narrative and forcefully promote that when they can.

We are told that acts such as the brutal murder of Lee Rigby are ‘retaliation’ for British foreign policy…Muslims, and Ken Livingstone, are on the BBC day in day out repeating that mantra…the BBC says nothing at best, at worst it agrees in some shape or form….Victoria Derbyshire today saying that the war in Iraq was meant to protect us from terror…and now look…and that violence is worse in Iraq….we did that she implies…well, no we didn’t….Muslims did that…the very same Muslims that walk around our streets attacking and killing a soldier.

Does the BBC not understand the irony of that, the paradox?…..Two British Muslims kill a soldier because of the violence in Iraq…the violence being perpetrated by these Muslim’s fellow travellers who work to the same ideology and agenda as they do.

Such an approach legitimises these terrorist acts….the BBC might not agree with them…but it ‘understands’…the War was ‘illegal’ and thousands of innocent Muslims suffered as a consequence….therefore…..more radicalisation and violence….not the way we at the BBC would protest but we understand your anger.

Here’s another puzzle…. 

The now infamous Jake Wallis Simons has another post on his blog:

The far-Right EDL is using Twitter and Facebook to exploit the Woolwich terrorist attack

So the EDL are taking over the world by using Twitter and Facebook?  Dangerous stuff! 

Has he nothing to say about the myriad of extremist or radical Muslims filling the Television studios, the radio broadcastsa nd the pages of newspapers and magazines?

The BBC has given plenty of airtime to MPACUK spokesperson Asghar Bukhari who appeared on BBC NEWS 24 tonight at 9:30PM speaking about the Woolwich attack….MPACUK being well known as a radical group.

Bukhari previously stated that ‘Britain is a scary place for Muslims.’

This is what MPACUK’s Facebook page says about Muslims who apologise for acts of terror:

This is the sad state of affairs we Muslims are in.

All day yesterday I hear Muslims apologising and condemning this act as if it was the most abhorrent act ever committed on British soil, and “we are sorry because yes it is our fault that a man reacted to tyrannical oppression”

Yet these same Muslims don’t even bat an eye lid when these same soldiers kill our kids in our people’s homeland.

They are only cowards worried about their own reputation and image. “Oh no brother this is really bad for ‘the dawah’, we must publicly condemn these acts, Islam means peace”

Traitors!

But here Bukhari is on the BBC spinning a different line:

Woolwich attack: Muslim groups ‘not tackling’ radicalisation

Presumably Muslim groups are not tackling extremism because they don’t want to be labelled ‘‘traitors‘ by his website.

Just what is it that is radicalising all these young Muslims then?  Could it be something like this on the frontpage of MPACUK’s blog?:

The Obligation of Jihad

“Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) hath Allah promised good. But those who strive and fight hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,”

Quran Chapter 4: The Women, verse 95.

Those who do not observe Jihad are indeed committing a grave sin because there is much harm that emanates into society when it is abandoned. Those that neglect Jihad will be disobeying something God has commanded us all to partake in; they have not aided in protecting the Religion of God, they have not defended the Book of God, its messages and His law, they have not helped the Ummah against the enemy who wants to destroy them.

If any of us find our hearts at this stage; as a matter of urgency we must change for not only are we exposing ourselves to humiliation and harm in this life, but also in the Hereafter; for the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “He who dies without having fought in the way of Allah or without having felt it to be his duty, will die having a trait of hypocrisy”

So pretty clear where they’re coming from…you’d have thought…the BBC like MPACUK though..regular guests on their programmes.

As is Mohammed Ansar who appeared on Nicky Campbells’ show today and is known by BBC Watch…….

BBC R4 guest promotes Qaradawi as a source of “nuanced understanding”

and by Harry’s Place.

You can find him on Twitter where after the Killing of Lee Rigby he started his act:

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 18h The Woolwich Killing and my call for peace, unity and tolerance. http://youtu.be/N7YoqvU816s

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 1h I discuss with @NickyAACampbell on @bbc5live earlier today on how we need a calm and measured response to #Woolwich:

However the love and tolerance , and the calm and measured response, doesn’t extend very far….

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 21 May The next Tory-UKIP shiny toy to ratchet-up the right, far right and paranoid swivel-eyed xenophobes: aka their base.

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 20 May @yorkierosie Just fear not enough to avert the bastard Tory-UKIP-EDL love child in 2015. Complacency here, a cardinal sin.

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 20 May With the far right openly recruiting for UKIP, everyone should be fearing the Tory-UKIP-EDL bastard love child in 2015. #WakeUp

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 19h The political climate has fomented xenophobia and hysteria about Muslims. It has made the tinder dry. All evil needs is one spark.

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 21h The powder is dry. That this should become a spark is not an inevitability, however too many believe this is an attack by #Islam. It is not.

He loves his conspiracy theories:

A. Smith ‏@360CNN 22 May #Falseflag attacks blamed on Egypt by Israel exposed as Israeli/USA sponsored mercenarys trained to fight in Syria http://is.gd/OBEvsR  Retweeted by Mohammed Ansar

Except that was completely untrue, no mention of Israel or US in original story…..

Sinai: Foreign Militiamen Trained to Join Fight in Syria

The US is a favourite topic for denouncement:

Mohammed Ansar ‏@MoAnsar 21 May Oliver Stone series. Tonight covers how British and US intelligence services destroyed mosques in Iran whilst fomenting civil insurrection.

And he loves those who love the anti-American rebels:

George Galloway ‏@georgegalloway 19 May Long live memory of Ho Chi Minh born this day 1890. Great leader of heroic Vietnam, victorious over French &American imperialism. Presente  retweeted by Mohammed Ansar

Whilst Ansar is horrified at criticism of Muslims and ‘conspiracy theories’ about the dangers of Islam he isn’t slow in laying similar charges against UKIP…claiming they are ‘Far Right’ and on the march:

The self destruction of the Liberal Democrats is the opening salvo in a dangerous power play that leaves the door open to the return of the far right to the mainstream of British politics.

No, its not sensationalist. And that is something of a sincere admission from me, as someone in the past who has been not short of a sensationalist claim. There is a reason we need to call for cool heads and calm, rational thinking at this time. Simply, it is quite possibly one of the gravest matters our generation will have to face.　

There are significant questions for both UKIP and Farage. As the Lib Dem’s wither on the vine and Labour searches for its soul, UKIP continues to drag Tory policy (not unwillingly) to the right.

The last time this many key governments in Europe were on the right (or as it now turns out, having a significant far right component) it was a period of history when we were also seeing the rise of pre-holocaust Nazi anti-Semitism.　

The far right is here. In our midst. And we see it not. Or worse still, we care not.

God only knows what horrors a UKIP-Tory coalition might usher in after 2015

I wonder just what it is exactly that the BBC see in Ansar that makes him such a popular interviewee for them?

Wonder what the BBC would make of Ansar if he said:

‘Islam is here. In our midst. And we see it not. Or worse still, we care not.’

 Mr Thompson said: ‘Without question, “I complain in the strongest possible terms”, is different from, “I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write”. This definitely raises the stakes.’

Teddy Bear in the comments points out this grovelling response from the BBC after a few complaints….just like the one they issued for broadcasting ‘Jerry Springer The Opera’ after 10’s of thousands of complaints…

BBC political editor Nick Robinson’s extraordinary apology after backlash against ‘Muslim appearance’ comment about Woolwich killers

The BBC have been under pressure all day from Muslim ‘leaders’ and spokesmen or other commentators demanding to know why the word ‘terrorism’ is being used…they don’t want it to be terrorism because that has political connotations which must stem from some sort of ideology…..no idea which one….and no one wants the finger of blame being pointed.

Here 5Live’s Tony Livesey  (17 mins 46 secs)talking to Labour’s Yvette Cooper does a ‘Mardell‘….in a comment that must have raised a few listener’s eyebrows when they heard it:

‘Is there a danger here by labelling it an act of terrorism in some ways that there is some kind of a perverse legitimisation of what seems to be a random act of butchery?’

Mardell of course having said:

‘Still, searching for patterns and for answers is part of what it is to be human. I loathe cliche, but perhaps, for once, this is a “senseless tragedy”, devoid of deeper meaning.’

Think about Livesey’s comment….what does that say about BBC journalism?

It tells you that whatever the truth, if the truth is uncomfortable, the BBC will change its reporting to suit…as Robinson is now trying to backtrack on his.

If the word ‘terrorism’ upsets people or ‘legitimises’ someone’s cause…well don’t use it says the BBC…don’t report the truth, lie….the Israelis know all about that.

The second point is that Livesey proposes that this is a senseless ‘random act of butchery’….no, it’s not…it was planned and executed to provoke a specific political response to fit in with the killers’ religious ideology.

To suggest otherwise is to downplay its significance and meaning….and if you do that you will not be able to respond to it in a way that effectively deals with future events like this…because you will not recognise the cause of this act of violence.

In various interviews through the day we had several Muslims ‘leaders’ complain about the use of the word ‘terrorism’.

The first I heard was on Nicky Campbell’s show when he had Mohammed Ansar on…more of which later.

5Live tells us…’People are worried and tensions are high – so, what can we do to calm things down? How do we make sure we ‘keep on lid’ on what happened?’

Perhaps if the BBC didn’t support the terrorist narrative…that being ‘it’s Britain’s foreign policy’that causes the radicalisation’…the terrorists wouldn’t keep being legitimised and given credibility.

A World Transformed…how…by the power of UKIP?….or through the love of Jesus?

Is religion political? 

Ask Justin Welby:

The church continues to have the power to transform society, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today in his inauguration ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral.

‘For more than a thousand years this country has to one degree or another sought to recognise that Jesus is the Son of God; by the ordering of its society, by its laws, by its sense of community.…..Slaves were freed, Factory Acts passed, and the NHS and social care established through Christ-liberated courage. The present challenges of environment and economy, of human development and global poverty, can only be faced with extraordinary courage.

The society ……was healthy because it was based on obedience to God, both in public care and private love.

Today we may properly differ on the degrees of state and private responsibility in a healthy society. But if we sever our roots in Christ we abandon the stability which enables good decision making.

Internationally, churches run refugee camps, mediate civil wars, organise elections, set up hospitals. All of it happens because of heeding the call to go to Jesus through the storms and across the waves.

Let us provoke each other to heed the call of Christ, to be clear in our declaration of Christ, committed in prayer to Christ, and we will see a world transformed.’

I guess not.  The BBC, Cameron and all those commentators are right…the ending of slavery, social provision and welfare, worker’s rights, schooling, health services and Bishops in the House of Lords….all those political acts had nothing to do with religion.

Never mind the Reformation, and Cromwell’s Taliban Puritans (abridged)….

‘Puritans were dissatisfied and bent on the destroying of the dregs of Popery. They were a group of literate and often highly articulate people acting like a fifth column to undermine and radically change the Church of England through sympathisers and activists in parliament. Some aimed to reform by peaceful means others wanted to turn England to their religion completely and join their co-religionists in Europe. Up and down the country they took over parishes and imposed a new belief…that they were the chosen ones and everyone else was excluded and was damned. Where the godly would get a foothold in a parish they would often tear it apart. They disrupted peaceful communities with their preaching and efforts to discipline those they regarded as godless resulting in bitter divisions and denouncements of sinners.’

No, nothing political there.  No religiously inspired violence there…. however the Crusades of course were different…they were a terrible Christian assault on peaceable Muslims…and Muslims are still suffering the consequences of that appalling foreign policy all those centuries ago!

In BBC Two’s new three-part documentary series, The Crusades, Dr Thomas Asbridge of the University of London asks his viewers to make that same leap of imagination – to understand a world in which faith was so important that in 1095, Pope Urban II was able to convince anything up to 100,000 people to forsake their family lives and homes and answer his call to reclaim Jerusalem, even though the holy city had fallen to the Muslims centuries earlier. So alien is the devotion – the fanaticism – that was displayed that Asbridge has to spend almost a third of the opening episode easing us into the medieval mindset, making us understand how the Pope’s promise of salvation could outweigh any worldly good or blessing.

Yet even though Asbridge resists the temptation to make pat comparisons with the modern world, the themes raised by the series are utterly current. Today, the terms “crusade” and “crusader” are shorthand for the post-9/11 clash of civilisations, invoked first by President Bush in the wake of the attacks, and then by his enemies.

I think this little tale exposes the BBC mindset pretty well…get the EDL whatever the cost.

In the Telegraph Jake Wallis Simons, also a BBC correspondent, denounces the commemorative Facebook page, RIP Woolwich Soldier, for the murdered soldier, Lee Rigby, as a covert piece of EDL propaganda….

Over a million people may have accidentally ‘liked’ a covert EDL Facebook page

Clearly he has been getting a bit of flak for his self-righteous intervention….

Jake Wallis Simons ‏@JakeWSimons 4h

Hello everybody. There have been a lot of angry people on here today who seem to have misunderstood my blog post,…

This is what the page itself says:

About

A British Soldier Lee Rigby, was been murdered as he walked a street in London, In a ‘suspected’ terror attack, RIP to a hero!

We have absolutely no affiliation with any political party or movements.

And in a response to Wallis Simons:

This man believes believes that the 1.1 million people who have liked this page to say R.I.P are now EDL supporters. I have been told by him I should prove that I am not by giving him my personal details. This page is not about me, It is about the poor hero who lost his life yesterday.