How I can be so relaxed about Bin Laden's death? It's easy...

Notes and Queries

I'm in between journeys and cumbered about with much business of one kind or another. So I can't reply as fully as I'd like, but here are a few general thoughts on comments and responses to recent postings.

On the Bin Laden question, I am asked how I can be so relaxed about his death if he was not directly responsible for the 11th September massacres. Mainly because I have no doubt that he was directly responsible for several earlier, if lesser, attacks.

I am also asked if my speculation flies in the face of the 9/11 commission report. Does it? I would be glad if anyone could quote from that report the passages which directly link Osama Bin Laden to the attacks in the USA on that date, which do not rely on Bin Laden's own boasting of his responsibility.

I am happy to concede that he had *some* involvement. What seems to me to be suspect is the 'Al Qaeda' explanation, that this was a generalised attack on the 'West' by 'Al Qaeda' because 'they hate our way of life'.

My point is that both 'Al Qaeda' and the 'West' are concepts too vague to be much use (any expert will tell you that 'Al Qaeda' is at most a franchise or an ideology, rather than a close-knit organisation with a command structure. It simply cannot be compared to the Provisional IRA, ETA, the Red Army Faction or other previous terror groups, which most definitely did – and in some cases still do – have such structures). Also, the contention that this was in some way an attack on our way of life' is in my view both false and gravely misleading. If this is so, then we are condemned to war forever, since there will always be billions of people who can be assumed to be motivated to war and terror by the fact that the 'west' is not Islamic.

I happen to think this is untrue.

I think that most Muslims are entirely uninterested in such a war. I also think that many Muslims quite rightly and reasonably disapprove of our debauched and decadent way of life, as do I, and I do not think that a temporary superiority in wealth and weapons entitles us to feel superior to them.

The fundamental emptiness of neo-conservatism (and its ability to appeal to Marxist leftists such as Nick Cohen and my brother) comes from its complete absence of a real counter to the claims and ideas of Islam. This is because it has rejected Christianity, the only coherent answer we in fact possess to Islam. As Rudyard Kipling once wrote in 'Recessional', 'Reeking tube' and 'iron shard' will not alone protect us.

My point is that specific actions happen at specific times for specific reasons. Like it or not, terrorists are rational beings, hateful not because of their irrationality – but because of their merciless ruthlessness.

Terrorism works. Look at Northern Ireland. Look at the transformation of Yasser Arafat from despised fringe figure to garlanded statesman, showered with money and status by the 'West' which began by denouncing him. Look, as some will rightly point out, at Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.

My points, about the UN Durban conference just before the outrage, about the actual words of one of the principal murderers, about the major retreats and policy changes made by the U.S. after the outrage, about the unbridled joy over the outrage concentrated in the Middle East itself, seem to me to be persuasive.

Those, such as Mr 'Crosland', who dispute this, need to explain an alternative *specific* rationale, not huff and puff with general doubts.

I am also asked what is so significant about the switch of U.S. policy, to support for a Palestinian State.

Those who ask this maintain that support for such a state, which could co-exist with Israel, is not a blow to Israel.

This is, in my view, seriously naïve. The reason why Israel itself (and many in the U.S. policy establishment before 11th September 2001) so fiercely opposed this move, the reason why the Clinton White House actually disavowed a statement in its support by the President's own wife, is that the idea that such  Palestinian State could co-exist with Israel is not, er, universally shared. (Look, for example, at Gaza, from which Israel has withdrawn. Do its people go about their business seeking the best available lives? No, they do not. They continue to wage war against the state which has granted them the independence they said was their aim, at great cost to themselves).

Those who take the pessimistic view argue that such a state (this goal is a fairly recent invention as an aim of the 'Palestinian' cause, itself invented only after the successive military defeats of direct Arab attacks on Israel) is not an aim in itself. It is instead intended to be temporary, as a stage upon the way to the true objective, namely the removal of the Jewish state (one governed by Jews and – crucially – with its immigration controlled by Jews) from the Middle East.

There is plenty of evidence that this is the case, which I have gone into before and will no doubt have to go into again. But not now. Look at the index.

My case that, to imagine that it doesn't matter which side the USA takes in this controversy is to miss the point, spectacularly. This, plus the rapprochement with the UN, was a gigantic policy switch which needs to be explained by something.

Now, it is never a good idea for a President whose country has just been attacked to look weak. And this is never more important than when he is actually *being* weak. So this is a perfectly good explanation for the flailing, futile attack on Afghanistan and even (though I agree that fear of 'losing' Saudi Arabia may have played a part) the later attack upon Iraq.

Personally I have little doubt that George W.Bush would have made still more concessions to Arafat, had it not been for the brutally cynical diplomacy of Ariel Sharon, who cunningly managed to identify Israel with the wounded USA. There is also the perennial problem, that practical, real concessions to the 'Palestinian' cause are not really what is wanted in the Arab Muslim world. What is wanted is a steady move towards the de-recognition, destabilisation and de-legitimisation of Israel, ending with the Jewish state enduring a South African style political and economic isolation (this – in my view false - parallel between Israel and Apartheid South Africa is repeatedly made by influential people), followed by the concession of the 'right of return' of Arab refuges which will spell the end of it.

You may want this outcome or you may not (personally I do not, as I sometimes say but I don't wish to argue about that here again and haven't time to do so now). But the point here is that I just think it silly to pretend that 11th September wasn't about Israel, the preoccupation of the Arab and Muslim world, or that it didn't move the world many steps closer to that point.

As to who was actually directly responsible for plotting these cruel murders, I have no idea. Quite possibly Bin Laden's Afghan outfit played some part, though quite how one learns to hijack and fly a plane in Kandahar or a 'terror training camp' I don't know. As I sometimes point out, the use of air piracy (hijacking) as a political weapon was originated, developed and perfected by the 'Palestinian' movement, going back to Leila Khaled and Dawson's Field. It seems worth asking. But as soon as we believe the single bogeyman theory, we stop thinking…

And I think we should start thinking again.

For the ten millionth time, I have explained why I will not support UKIP and the index provides the answer (though the key phrases 'Robert Kilroy Silk', 'behind the fridge', 'Nigel Farage' and 'cannabis decriminalisation' may help).

People did not, as one contributor says, vote against AV because the Tories told them to. The huge majority against this silly scheme included many who would never have voted Tory. My point was and remains that, freed from the party mind-set, people voted intelligently in their own interest. But as long as elections are conducted on this Rangers versus Celtic, or Spurs versus Chelsea basis, people will stop thinking as soon as they go into the general election polling booths. Hence the need to get rid of the existing parties, especially the Tories, urged here ad infinitum.

A reader doubts the story of the 26-stone woman. It was told to me in good faith by an articulate well-informed firefighter who knew of it directly. If the reader believes it to be untrue, perhaps he can tell me what, in the recruitment regulations of those fire services which have most lowered their standards, would prevent it?

My suspicion is that a) in many services nothing would prevent it and b) that the person's sex would make it difficult for recruiters pursuing quotas to reject her. I expect something of this kind will happen before long, if it has not already done so.

And then people will say 'Political correctness gone mad' and as 'how did we get here?' We got here by not believing how bad things are, and by not being prepared to fight back against it.

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