Little Darlings

THIS is the unfortunate consequence when children are raised with neither morality nor discipline. Of course school bullies have always taken from weaker pupils, children will, after all, be children, but these figures illustrate an endemic problem which must be promptly tackled. Each successive generation will sink deeper into the depraved mire of criminality until a counterrevolution overturns the judicial leniency and permissive culture which are jointly fuelling this headlong descent into lawlessness and barbarity.

From China to East Africa: the Global Spread of Jihad

NEWS from China, if it is to be believed, provides further evidence of the truly global threat posed by militant Islam as its venomous tentacles slither silently (or not so silently...) across a border and into yet another country.
Meanwhile, as yet unverified reports have surfaced suggesting a number of wounded individuals carrying British passports have been captured by Ethiopian troops in southern Somalia. Apparently they were members of an 'international brigade' of jihadists, which also comprised extremists from Canada, Yemen, Pakistan and the Sudan, fighting to save the crumbling Islamic Courts Union, which had established control over much of the country since June 2006. As well as infantry it is also thought that British Somalis have donated some £600,000 in preceding months to support the beleaguered ICU.

Critics of the Ethiopian-US-TFG alliance argue that the toppled Islamist government brought relative stability to the stricken country with its ruthless implementation of Sharia. However, there remained the distinct likelihood that, despite the protestations of ICU's Imams to the contrary, if left to its own devices Somalia would have quickly degenerated into Afghanistan #2, providing a safehaven and staging point for militant Islamic groups. The instability such a transformation would bring to the region understandably compelled neighbouring Ethiopia, a relatively stable Christian country, to act decisively with the aid of Somali dissidents and, latterly, the US. Back in the UK the Islamists of Hizb ut-Tahrir are using the American air strikes in a cynical ploy to attract Somalis to their demented cause.

Muslim Sensibilities must not Determine Britain's Foreign Policy

A CLASSIFIED study commissioned by Metropolitan police into the financial cost of their anti-terrorism operations in the capital has been seen by reporters at The Daily Mail. The resulting article focused on one passage in particular. In response to the question 'What is new about the security situation?' report author Bob Whalley, formerly a senior civil servant at the Home Office, wrote that Islamist terror was being energised by the 'ongoing 'rallying cry' issues such as Palestine and Iraq which provide a ready claim for legitimacy, even for opportunistic threats or attacks.' The Daily Mail article used this comment as a foundation from which to launch an attack on the PM's military support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, which it clearly considers responsible for triggering the 7/7 atrocities. This hypothesis has found much credence in the UK, largely due to its espousal by much of our news media. But, as theories go, it is a fundamentally flawed one.
Undoubtedly our participation in OIF has further inflamed the feeling of resentment amongst a considerable portion of Britain's Muslim population towards their host nation (although there is not much Britain can do about the Israel-Palestine impasse), which is especially unsurprising given the unrelentingly negative coverage of the conflict and its aftermath by our mischievous left-wing news media. In this respect Anthony Blair and his cohorts are wrong to deny that the liberation of Iraq and, more specifically, the post-liberation period has deepened the hostility of a significant number British Muslims towards their government and the unfortunate dhimmi next door. Indeed, it is now a safe assumption that any subsequent British involvement in conflicts against Muslim countries, no matter how morally righteous that conflict might be, will invoke a similar domestic backlash. It is also true that the ongoing Islamist insurgency in Iraq has succeeded in effectively scuppering the opportunity provided by the removal of Saddam Hussein to establish a genuine liberal democracy, much to the detriment of the harassed Iraqi people. Whether Bush's recent promise of extra troops and new approach will make an impact remains to be seen.
However, with this 'no involvement=no threat' school of thought continuing to garner popular support throughout the UK, it must be remembered that the domestic terrorist threat existed before our participation in OIF and that countries who did not support the liberation have themselves since been targeted by jihadis. The French, for instance, have pointedly opposed America's prosecution of the War on Terror and were particularly critical of the decision to liberate Iraq. Did their absence from the ranks of the Coalition of the Willing erase them from the Islamist to-hit-list? Not if this is anything to go by.
Simply adopting a 'head in the sand' attitude towards foreign affairs will not protect us from further atrocities and, if anything, such displays of spinelessness will only embolden our opportunist foe. The bottom line is that we cannot have a dynamic and rational foreign policy if it is to be based upon what will and what will not upset the delicate sensibilities of our vocal Muslim population. (Although, having written that, with few exceptions, such sympathetic considerations already play a significant role in the formulation of our domestic policies.) And, whatever your attitude to the situation in Iraq or the War on Terror, Islamism poses a serious threat to every Western nation and every Western citizen regardless.

The Psychotic Jingoism of Islamism

THE following Islamist jingoism emanates, as raw sewage doth ooze from a cracked pipe, from the mouth of Dr Abdul Latif in a sermon delivered to around 100 acolytes somewhere in the deepest darkest Home Counties and recorded secretly in a disturbing Daily Mail expose:

'The British soldiers are the soldiers of Satan, the soldiers of evil, of evilness. And I pray to Allah openly and in English that they will not return back except when they are dead - all of them.'

Nice. He also regurgitates the old chestnut, earnestly trumpeted by Muslims the world over, that:

'We don't have Muslim terrorists... they do not exist. But anything that they [the Government] claim is Muslim terror, they do it themselves.'

Of course they do, Doctor. Fancy a lie down? How about a couple of Olanzapine? No, no, they weren't manufactured in Israel – they won't make your penis drop off. There you go; that's better…
If the government is even remotely serious about safeguarding its citizens from the sincere threat posed by Islamism then preachers like Dr Latif, who are in clear breach of 2006's Racial and Religious Hatred Act, should be bundled onto the next plane out of here or, even better, find themselves blindfolded and up against a wall, facing a firing line of those grim-faced 'soldiers of evil' that he prays 'will not return back except when they are dead…'. The Muslims will show the West no remorse in this conflict and, unless we do the same, we will not prevail against their stated intention to plunge the world into a new Dark Age.

The Failure of Electronic Tagging

MORE on the abject failure of another of New Labour's gimmicky and penny-pinching initiatives to release prisoners early here. This time the demented Home Detention Curfew scheme comes in for a scorching. Hint: if you want the majority of criminals to reform lock them up, take away privileges such as television sets, and make them do hard labour. It really is that simple.

More Flagrant Incompetence from the Home Office

THIS article does not require any commentary.
Update: Obviously the above revelations soon got much, much worse. It occurred to VPL that the Home Office might be attempting to set some new and virtually unassailable record in terms of the utter incompetence with which a government department can be 'run' (or not run, as the case may be). Certainly they will take some beating. While this is conjecture, one thing is definite: only a statist government of New Labour's dubious calibre could foul things up this badly.

The Eradication of Christianity Continues

THIS time in the VPL's own backyard, so to speak. Trust dippy-hippy Totnes. That there is nobody to be offended by such a lurid display of Christian piety at the Town Council's monthly pow wows indicates that this step was taken for purely ideological reasons. What was it Soviet People's Commissar of Enlightenment Anatoliy Vasilievich Lunacharsky said of organised religion? Oh yes:

'Religion is like a nail: if you hit the nail on the head, you only drive it deeper. ...Here one needs pliers. The religion must be grabbed, squeezed from below: you do not beat it, but pull it out, pull it with its roots.'

Looks like the teachings of the old Red ideologue haven't been completely discarded, unlike those of Jesus Christ. In the grand scheme of things stories of minor attacks on Christianity like this may seem rather inconsequential, but as the famous Chinese proverb goes: 'The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.' In the preceding forty years there have been many such stone-removers whose individual contribution may seem slight, but whose overall impact has been devastating. Christianity remains our last bulwark against the alarming spread of Islam and the excesses of the permissive culture and, as such, its precipitous decline must be reversed.

Seditious Craziness from Islamist Down Under

THE notorious Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly has been making more bizarre statements. You may assume from his comments that Sheikh Hilaly is some wildly gesticulating, frothing loon on the far-out fringes of Australian Islamic society; an outcast of the wider Muslim community. Afraid not. He may well be a fruit-loop, but he certainly isn't a pariah: indeed, Sheikh Hilaly is Imam of Lakemba Mosque in Sydney, Australia's largest such building, and the leading spokesman for many of the country's 282,000 Muslim inhabitants. If this chap's considered representative, one dreads to contemplate what the radicals might be like.

The NHS Dilemma

MELANIE Philips lays into Patricia Hewitt and NHS cutbacks in this fiery piece.

Britain's Longest-Serving Constable Criticises Modern Policing

MICK Mountain, 60, who in April will be Britain's longest-serving officer, makes some interesting observations concerning modern policing:

'There are many more laws dealing with diversity and equality, which have been triggered by the compensation culture. When it gets to the point where councils cannot even put up Christmas trees, it seems ridiculous. I do not believe we are going in the right direction. It means we do not have enough police on the streets where we need them. Community support officers are no replacement - they are not proper police officers and do not have the same powers of arrest.
'Criminals are more likely to attack officers these days because they do not have the fear of being punished. They are also more likely to turn violent during less serious crimes such as burglaries. I have been left with a bloody nose and punched in the face. You get less respect wearing the uniform whereas in the old days, it was a deterrent. Now criminals simply laugh because they know nothing will happen to them. With not enough room in prison they know they are going to get away with a fine or community service rather than being sent to jail. It is all wrong. Society is not getting the policing it deserves.'

MI5 were Oblivious to Imminent 7/7 Massacre

THIS does not exactly inspire confidence. Readers of Melanie Phillips' Londonistan will know the indifference with which the British security service viewed Islamism as a terrorist threat, even after the helpful jolt provided by 9/11. The waking-up process obviously accelerated after the London atrocities and it is of course a credit to MI5 that they were able to halt the execution of the transatlantic aircraft plot of August 2006. Still, uncomfortable questions regarding the abject failure of our intelligence agencies to detect the 7/7 attack remain and with this admission it seems an independent inquiry into their utter ignorance to this looming threat would be timely.

Too little, too Late

AS ethnic Britons become increasingly disillusioned with the multicultural experiment, this kind of noisy declaration from the CRE, although accurate, seems little more than a hollow gesture of conciliation after the damage has already been done. It is as if the hand that moments ago was helping to hamstring you is now genially patting your shoulder, its owner empathising with your predicament. For decades British culture and values have been consistently trivialised and disparaged by subversive groups such as the CRE; fatally weakened to the point that they are now in clear danger of being deposed entirely by a stronger and more vigorous contender (three guesses). There can be no restitution, except by bloody struggle, after such a wholesale deracination.

Army Muslim Recruitment Drive Mysteriously Fails

NOBODY could have been particularly surprised to read the following statement (from The Daily Telegraph):

'The Army is facing fresh claims of a recruitment crisis after the failure of a high-profile campaign to get Muslims to join up. Only a handful of the 200,000-strong Islamic community in the Midlands have joined the Army since the first recruitment drive aimed specifically at Muslims last year, it emerged... It is thought that many did not want to join up because they
opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are just 330 Muslims in the entire Armed Forces.'

It will be recalled that in July 2006 Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi of the Royal Signals, a Briton of Pakistani ethnicity, was killed fighting Islamists in Afghanistan. Within hours of the news reaching the UK a website run by those pleasant chaps in Al Ghurabaa' had, in a distasteful stab at irony, denounced brave L/Cpl Hashmi as a 'home-grown terrorist'. Muslims in his hometown of Bordesley Green, Birmingham, also expressed their displeasure at L/Cpl Hashmi's career choice:

'I don't see how any Muslim can be in the British army, not with all the shit that's happening in Muslim countries. It doesn't make sense. It's not right. There's no space for Muslims in the army.'

This intolerance is not just reserved for those who dare to enlist in our Armed Forces either. In December last year a Muslim community worker in Waltham Forest, North-East London, spoke of his attempts to persuade his coreligionists to liaise with the local constabulary in the fight against Islamist violence. He was consequently branded an 'enemy' by his fellows for his efforts. The unnamed man complained: 'I am, at times, seen as the enemy and have to defend myself against criticism when I talk about both loyalty within our community and the loyalty we should show to the wider state' (full story). With the threat of social ostracism from their community, and even of wider familial liability, were they to join up, is it any wonder so few Muslims do? To be simultaneously patriotic and Muslim is, it would seem, an impossibility. Unless your patriotism is to the ummah, that is.

The Undoubted Benefits of Multiculturalism

THIS sad story would seem to support the belief that, encouraged by unforgivable government cowardice, arranged/forced marriages and the physical abuse of women that is often associated with them are now as British as fish and chips. This is exactly the sort of uncivilised and misogynistic custom that we must not allow to take root in Britain, let alone ever be enshrined in law. An unsettling report on the prevalence and controversy of forced marriages across Europe can be read here.