AddThis

Share |
Showing posts with label RUSI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RUSI. Show all posts

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

RUSI Report on Somalia


One quarter of foreign fighters in Somalia - some 50 - are according to the BBC said to be 'British' (i.e. they hold UK passports; in reality they will be ethnic Somalis or Muslims of other non-indigenous ethnic stock). The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warns that this number is set to increase as those convicted for Islamist terror-related offences in recent years are released in the near future. This fact serves to underscore the predominantly negative impact of the settlement of Somalis in Britain in cities such as Sheffield and Bristol. How many of these violent Islamists will return to Britain and participate in plots to undermine our peace and security? These potential 'lone wolves' constitute a real extremist threat to our country, not the phantom 'far right' as the BBC would have you believe. 

Nonetheless, the RUSI report dutifully contained, to the delight of the BBC, an obligatory politically correct counterfactual statement complaining that the Government's anti-radicalisation strategy "only pays lip service to the threat from extreme far-right terrorism". Moreover, the BBC notes that "The committee cited the growth of far-right groups with links to similar organisations in Europe" as evidence of this 'threat'. As I wrote yesterday, such statements are unadulterated malicious fiction: there is no 'far-right terrorism'. The reality is that the forces of the so-called 'far right' currently embody the only emergent ideology which clearly opposes globalisation and the powerful economic elites that favour and further this anti-democratic process. Why are we who oppose transnational debt slavery 'extremists'? We wish harm to no-one. It is not nationalists who have pushed for wars against Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but globalists and our so-called 'moderate' Westminster politicians who figure amongst their number. Nationalists desire peace and national security, not war. 

Given that our Government and Civil Service are such fervent advocates of globalisation, it is no wonder that they and their think tanks seek to deploy every technique of black propaganda at their disposal to undermine the reputations of nationalists and patriots, invoking the canard of 'far-right violence' and 'terrorism'. The statement of a Home Office spokesman that "National security is the first duty of any government" thus has a very hollow ring, for there are no greater threats to our national wellbeing and survival than our very own globalist politicians and policy mandarins within the senior Civil Service. RUSI constitutes part of this official propagandist apparatus, but there are certain to be people within the Institute who are acutely aware of the reality that they are obliged to blot out with their pro-globalist spin.

Abu Qatada will surely look upon this situation, as well as the absurdities of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights, with some satisfaction.

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

Who should determine the Future of Libya?

This evening, the panellists on Radio 4's 'The Moral Maze' debated the pros and cons and rights and wrongs of potential military intervention in Libya. Much of the debate thus centred upon a cluster of issues connected to state sovereignty, international law, Just War Theory and human rights. Ultimately, it was a debate that revolved around the central question of 'who should determine the future of Libya?'

For me, there can only be one answer to this question: the Libyan people themselves. Libyan sovereignty is under contention, with Gaddafi attempting to retain the state as his personal domain, whilst a popular uprising seeks to wrest control from him in the name of the Libyan people. Clearly, for a democratic nationalist the right to determine the future lies with the latter, not with a despot and his clique. What is equally clear however is that it is up to the Libyan people to determine that outcome and to establish their own post-Gaddafi government; it is not the business of the UN, NATO, the Gulf Co-operation Council, members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference or any other nation individually or in league with others to determine the future governance of Libya. Those who seek to overthrow the Gaddafi order have made it quite clear that they do not want foreign intervention, and any contravention of this request constitutes a violation of national sovereignty and democratic right.
The clamour for foreign intervention against Gaddafi is growing, emanating from a number of governments and those who advocate the deeply flawed approach that goes by the name of ‘humanitarian interventionism’. Unfortunately, the British government is foremost amongst those advocating military intervention, and David Cameron has made clear that all military options are under consideration including the deployment of ground troops. My primary objection to such an approach has already been made: any such action would constitute an intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation-state, but there are many more good reasons not to intervene:
  • Firstly, there is no British national security interest at stake in Libya.  
  • Secondly, any intervention by the UK, NATO or any other Western state or coalition thereof would be used by Gaddafi to rally Libyans to his cause by pointing to this as evidence of a ‘Western imperialist’ plot to depose him and subjugate Libya to their interests.  
  • Thirdly, the argument that we should intervene upon so-called ‘humanitarian grounds’ is spurious, for if such grounds are to be used as justification to wage war on regimes around the globe, might not equal or better cases be made for war against North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Burma or China?  
  • Fourthly, Western intervention in another Muslim majority state would recruit even more zealots to the international jihadist movement.  
  • Fifthly, once Gaddafi was toppled, what objectives would any intervening power or coalition possess with a view to the reconstitution of the Libyan political order? Might it not prove to be as intractable and violent a quagmire as Iraq or Afghanistan? Where are the clear strategic objectives? There appear to be none. 
  • Sixthly, military intervention always involves ‘collateral damage’. Given this, even Libyans who might conceivably call upon outside powers to intervene, could subsequently come to hate and resent them.  
  • Seventhly, we are bankrupt and our armed forces have just been slashed and are militarily overstretched.
The case for the UK's potentially disastrous intervention in Libya appears to be driven by a fundamental lack of clear-headed strategic thinking regarding our national security. The Conservative Party, the FCO and RUSI all appear to have been infected by the globalist bacillus and its affiliated virus of 'humanitarian interventionism'. Our national security priorities should above all be national. We should thus focus upon securing our borders, eradicating pirates (yes, the pirates themselves, for without pirates there can be no piracy) and maintaining a suitable deterrent to ensure that we are never attacked by another state. Withdrawal from NATO should also be a top priority. We have no right to interfere in the affairs of other states, just as they have no right to interfere in our sovereign affairs. Libya for the Libyans, and Britain for the Britons. Show me someone who objects to that, and I’ll show you an anti-democrat.