The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 85: 30 September 2005

Contents

Realism - Pape On Hughes

Repression - Walter Wolfgang

Threat Levels

Repression - Detainee Despair

REALISM - PAPE ON HUGHES

President Bush has appointed one of his closest (former) associates, Karen Hughes, to a key position in the State Department: Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. She's been off on a tour of the Middle East trying to make people feel more favourably towards US foreign policy.

Some people don't think she's doing a very good job.

That includes Robert Pape, a US academic who has just published a study of suicide terrorism - Dying to Win - and who is quoted today in the Guardian by Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, in an article entitled 'Bin Laden's little helper':

' "It is stunning to the extent Hughes is helping bin Laden," says Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who has conducted extensive research into the motives of suicide terrorists and is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. "If you set out to help bin Laden," he says, "you could not have done it better than Hughes." '

'Pape's research debunks the view that suicide terrorism is the natural byproduct of Islamic fundamentalism or some "Islamo-fascist" ideological strain, independent of certain highly specific circumstances.'

' "Of the key conditions that lead to suicide terrorism in particular, there first must be the presence of foreign combat forces on the territory that the terrorists prize. The second condition is a religious difference between the combat forces and the local community. The religious difference matters in that it enables terrorist leaders to paint foreign forces as being driven by religious goals.'

' "If you read Osama's speeches, they begin with descriptions of the US occupation of the Arabian peninsula driven by our religious goals and that it is our religious purpose that must be confronted. That argument is incredibly powerful, not only to religious Muslims but also secular Muslims. Everything Hughes says makes their case." '

'Reading Osama's speeches' is a good way to understand where al-Qaeda is coming from, and why 9/11 happened and why 7/7 happened.

It just so happens that when you read these speeches, you discover that the problem is not Western licentiousness or Western liberty, it is Western foreign policies which result, directly or indirectly, in the mass suffering of Muslims. As has been pointed out by Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA bin Laden unit (1996-1999).

Back in January 2005, Mr Scheuer said we must understand that 'the motivation for the people fighting us has to do with our policies:

'we're not going to talk these people out of what they're up to... it's a mistake to think the Muslims don't understand our policy... it would make a difference if there was some kind of change in our policy toward Israel... we need a shot of democracy inside the United States... If... the decision is to keep those policies kind of as they are - well, I think that might be a mistake. But... at least the country would be going into the war against Islamic militancy with its eyes open, knowing that those policies, more than anything else, motivate our enemy. We would go into it with our eyes open. We'd be expecting a very long war, and a very bloody and costly war.'

We haven't had the shot of democracy, either in the US or the UK, or the honesty that could enable democracy to function - either from the media or from the political system.

REPRESSION - WALTER WOLFGANG

The dominant image of this Labour Party Conference is likely to be the ejection of long-time Labour Party member, and CND activist, Walter Wolfgang, from the conference after heckling Jack Straw. His own version is that he spontaneously shouted 'Rubbish', when the Foreign Secretary made some injudicious remarks about Iraq. Others report that he said 'that's a lie' or words to that effect.

The incident has garnered enormous coverage in today's newspapers, as it is seen as encapsulating some truth about New Labour. Polly Toynbee has some perceptive comments:

'The symbolism was too good to be true. No screenwriter could have devised so apt an image as the rough handling of an 82-year-old party member out of the Labour conference for shouting "That's a lie!" Some New Labour enthusiasts have scoffed at such a triviality getting front page display, but they deliberately ignore its graphic significance. This old man perfectly embodied a weak and depleted party that was not even allowed to debate the war it has been dragged into.'

A few commentators made the more serious point, which is not that Walter Wolfgang was ejected for heckling, but that when he tried to return, he was detained briefly under anti-terrorism laws.

The inestimable Robert Shrimsley, diarist for the Financial Times, points out that this was not an over-reaction. Mr Wolfgang might have been 'a suicide heckler':

'while everyone is feeling sorry for this obvious fanatic, we should remember that Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, has warned there may be hundreds, possibly thousands of home-grown barrackers, schooled in the madrassas of Tunbridge Wells and Richmond upon Thames.'

'Indeed the entire incident surely requires Charles Clarke, the home secretary, to fast track legislation creating new offences of incitement to heckle and the glorification of heckling.'

There's been plenty of that in today's papers, and quite right too.

THREAT LEVELS

Before passing on to more serious matters, yesterday's Shrimsley column also touched on matters relevant to the Media Review. The piece revolved around the appointment of Sir Richard Mottram to the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), the apex of British intelligence. He will also be the Prime Minister's security and intelligence coordinator.

Sir Richard is best-known for his outburst during the Jo Moore affair in September 2001.

On 9/11, Jo Moore, an adviser to Stephen Byers, the Transport Secretary, sent out an email telling officials that it was 'a very good day' to 'get out anything we want to bury' - because the news would be dominated by the tragedy in New York. The scandal caused by this email engulfed the Transport Department.

Sir Richard, the permanent secretary or top civil servant at the department, is reported to have said, at the height of the crisis:

"We're all fucked. I'm fucked. You're fucked. The whole department's fucked. It's been the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely fucked." (Guardian)

Reflecting on Sir Richard's appointment to lead the JIC, and the fact that the JIC helps to determine the 'threat level' faced by the Government and wider society, Shrimsley's Notebook suggests that perhaps the threat level descriptions might change under Sir Robert:

'After his fabulous expletive-laden outburst when working for Stephen Byers at a previous ministry, perhaps Sir Richard will replace classifications like "severe general" or "substantial" with - in ascending order of threat - "you're fucked", "I'm fucked", and (the nightmare scenario) "it's the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely fucked." '

REPRESSION - DETAINEE DESPAIR

The men who have been detained again - not in Belmarsh now, but in Full Sutton, Long Lartin and Broadmoor - are reportedly in despair. One man has tried to commit suicide:

'The detainee known as G, held in Long Lartin prison, tried to hang himself last week after hearing that those who had been acquitted in the ricin trial had also been detained. His lawyer, Gareth Peirce, said he tried to take his life because he felt there was "no hope" for him.'

'The wife of another prisoner, H, said she feared for her husband's sanity. "I don't think he will survive this mentally even though he is an intelligent and stoical person," she said yesterday.'

'The prisoner H said: "What's the worst that could happen? That I could be killed? I am being killed now only they are doing it very slowly. It couldn't be worse than this psychological torture. In Algeria, it would be physical but I would die quickly." '

'Ms Peirce said: "The one thing that is unarguable is that these men are terrified for their lives in Algeria." '

'She said the defendants in the ricin trial had been cleared. "The case against them is repetition of the evidence that was disbelieved by the jury. It's effectively a second prosecution but this time there is no jury." '

'The only additional evidence against the men was based on evidence extracted in Algeria under torture. "It is the clearest evidence that torture evidence is embraced by the home secretary here," she said. "Torture is no longer taboo." '

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