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London Telegraph – 8/16/2014
David Cameron: Isil poses a direct and deadly threat to Britain
The poisonous extremism on the march in Iraq and Syria affects us all - and we have no choice but to rise to the challenge, says the Prime Minister
OpEd by Prime Minister David Cameron
Stability. Security. The peace of mind that comes from being able to get a decent job and provide for your family, in a country that you feel has a good future ahead of it and that treats people fairly. In a nutshell, that is what people in Britain want – and what the Government I lead is dedicated to building.
Britain – our economy, our security, our future – must come first. After a deep and damaging recession, and our involvement in long and difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising that so many people say to me when seeing the tragedies unfolding on their television screens: “Yes, let’s help with aid, but let’s not get any more involved.”
I agree that we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy. But we need to recognise that the brighter future we long for requires a long-term plan for our security as well as for our economy. True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – to help bring about a more stable world. Today, when every nation is so immediately interconnected, we cannot turn a blind eye and assume that there will not be a cost for us if we do.
The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home. Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago. It is our concern here and now. Because if we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain. We already know that it has the murderous intent. Indeed, the first Isil-inspired terrorist acts on the continent of Europe have already taken place.
Our first priority has of course been to deal with the acute humanitarian crisis in Iraq. We should be proud of the role that our brave armed services and aid workers have played in the international effort. British citizens have risked their lives to get 80 tons of vital supplies to the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar. It is right that we use our aid programme to respond rapidly to a situation like this: Britain has given £13 million to support the aid effort. We also helped to plan a detailed international rescue operation and we remain ready and flexible to respond to the ongoing challenges in or around Dahuk, where more than 450,000 people have increased the population by 50 per cent.
But a humanitarian response alone is not enough. We also need a broader political, diplomatic and security response. For that, we must understand the true nature of the threat we face. We should be clear: this is not the “War on Terror”, nor is it a war of religions. It is a struggle for decency, tolerance and moderation in our modern world. It is a battle against a poisonous ideology that is condemned by all faiths and by all faith leaders, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim.
Of course there is conflict between Shias and Sunnis, but that is the wrong way to see what is really happening. What we are witnessing is actually a battle between Islam on the one hand and extremists who want to abuse Islam on the other. These extremists, often funded by fanatics living far away from the battlefields, pervert the Islamic faith as a way of justifying their warped and barbaric ideology – and they do so not just in Iraq and Syria but right across the world, from Boko Haram and al-Shabaab to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
So this threat cannot simply be removed by airstrikes alone. We need a tough, intelligent and patient long-term approach that can defeat the terrorist threat at source.
First, we need a firm security response, whether that is military action to go after the terrorists, international co-operation on intelligence and counter-terrorism or uncompromising action against terrorists at home. On Friday we agreed with our European partners that we will provide equipment directly to the Kurdish forces; we are now identifying what we might supply, from body armour to specialist counter-explosive equipment. We have also secured a United Nations Security Council resolution to disrupt the flows of finance to Isil, sanction those who are seeking to recruit for it and encourage countries to do all they can to prevent foreign fighters joining the extremist cause.
Here in Britain we have recently introduced stronger powers through our Immigration Act to deprive naturalised Britons of their citizenship if they are suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. We have taken down 28,000 pieces of terrorist-related material from the web, including 46 Isil-related videos. And I have also discussed the police response to this growing threat of extremism with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The position is clear. If people are walking around with Isil flags or trying to recruit people to their terrorist cause, they will be arrested and their materials will be seized. We are a tolerant people, but no tolerance should allow the room for this sort of poisonous extremism in our country.
Alongside a tough security response, there must also be an intelligent political response. We know that terrorist organisations thrive where there is political instability and weak or dysfunctional political institutions. So we must support the building blocks of democracy – the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the rights of minorities, free media and association and a proper place in society for the army. None of these things can be imposed by the West. Every country must make its own way. But we can and must play a valuable role in supporting them to do that.
Isil militants have exploited the absence of a unified and representative government in Baghdad. So we strongly welcome the opportunity of a new start with Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi. I spoke to him earlier this week and assured him that we will support any attempts to forge a genuinely inclusive government that can unite all Iraqi communities – Sunnis, Shias and Kurds – against the common enemy of Isil, which threatens the way of life of them all.
The international community will rally around this new government. But Iraq’s neighbours in the region are equally vital. So we must work with countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey against these extremist forces, and perhaps even with Iran, which could choose this moment to engage with the international community against this shared threat. I want Britain to play a leading role in this diplomatic effort. So we will be appointing a Special Representative to the Kurdistan Regional Government and using the Nato summit in Wales and the United Nations General Assembly in New York to help rally support across the international community.
Finally, while being tough and intelligent, we must also be patient and resolute. We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology, which I believe we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime. We face in Isil a new threat that is single-minded, determined and unflinching in pursuit of its objectives. Already it controls not just thousands of minds, but thousands of square miles of territory, sweeping aside much of the boundary between Iraq and Syria to carve out its so-called caliphate. It makes no secret of its expansionist aims. Even today it has the ancient city of Aleppo firmly within its sights. And it boasts of its designs on Jordan and Lebanon, and right up to the Turkish border. If it succeeds, we would be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a Nato member.
This is a clear danger to Europe and to our security. It is a daunting challenge. But it is not an invincible one, as long as we are now ready and able to summon up the political will to defend our own values and way of life with the same determination, courage and tenacity as we have faced danger before in our history. That is how much is at stake here: we have no choice but to rise to the challenge.
British PM OpEd + British Press Reaction
Reaction in The London Guardian
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The Guardian – 8/17/2014
David Cameron must get over his Syria humiliation and act on Iraq
Losing last year’s vote on military intervention cast a long shadow over government policy, but the situation in the Middle East requires action
By Chris Huhne
David Cameron’s latest comments on Iraq and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) terrorism bear all the hallmarks of a raging debate within the governing parties. He says the Isis threat means that “we need a firm security response, whether that is military action to go after the terrorists, international cooperation on intelligence and counter-terrorism, or uncompromising action against terrorists at home”. That may be what he wants, but it is not what the government has been delivering.
Britain has so far done little except tip food parcels out of military transport; the last week has been notable for dither and delay. There have been no British air strikes to support US disruption of the attacks on the Yazidis. Such is the shadow of the government’s parliamentary defeat on the Syrian intervention almost exactly a year ago.
The case on Syria was clear: Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons to attack the dissidents contrary to international treaty. However, the vote was botched. MPs were called back from holiday grumbling that they could have waited another few days. The whips had no time to talk through the issues. Labour played hard-to-get, putting forward its own motion and ultimately refusing to back the government. The prime minister went down to a humiliating defeat. There were 30 Tory rebels and nine Liberal Democrats.
There is nothing more embarrassing than leading your troops over the top, only to discover that they stayed behind in the trench. Given that Cameron had been militantly urging President Obama to intervene, his embarrassment was complete: it was not merely a domestic inability to deliver, weakening the prime minister’s authority, but also a diplomatic disaster. In the wake of such a political car crash, following suddenly looks more attractive than leadership.
The prime minister represents both of the strands that former Labour MP David Marquand identified in the Tory tribe: the Whig imperialists who believe in muscular intervention in good international causes; and the Tory nationalists who want nothing if it does not serve narrowly defined British interests. To keep both on board, Cameron knows he has to travel slowly and build his coalition.
It is a debate that has raged throughout Tory history, most famously pitting Winston Churchill against Neville Chamberlain on appeasement. The most significant aspect of Cameron’s comments yesterday was his keenness to anticipate the Tory nationalist criticism of the past Syrian intervention.
Cameron argues that the Isis ambition for an Islamist caliphate, far from being a far-off conflict between people of whom we know little, represents a direct threat to British interests. This is the argument we heard about Afghanistan and Yemen, and there is some truth in it. Terrorist groups can strengthen and train under the protection of a sovereign state, as happened under Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, or in an area without effective state power, as in the Afghan Hindu Kush. And they will train young Britons.
In Iraq today, however, the urgency is humanitarian. We have a responsibility to protect people threatened by genocide, whether in Rwanda, Bosnia – or Iraq. That duty must be tempered by the capacity to act, and care for the consequences, but it is as much a part of our United Nations commitments as the universal declaration on human rights. It is not a counter-argument to say that we do not punish or correct other breaches of international law. Being incapable of always doing good is not a case against doing good where you can.
The Kurdish Yazidis are only the latest vulnerable minority to need protection. I vehemently opposed the Iraqi war in 2003 because the evidence for weapons of mass destruction was not there, and the UN weapons inspectors wanted more time to test the CIA and MI6 claims. But we do not need intelligence briefings to see what is going on in Iraq. The reporting of brave journalists provides photographic proof on every kitchen table.
This is crisis management, and it would be better if the world’s crises could be settled by an international body rather than relying on the United States and a “coalition of the willing”. But the UN has no strike force and no air power. It has no battalions save in peace-keeping missions when the shooting stops. Better Washington’s policeman, however occasionally self-serving, than no policeman at all. Better still a coalition of nations that underlines the international legalities. Even better, regional powers joining to meet their responsibilities. The United States alone still carries too much baggage.
That could also be the beginning of a longer solution. Europe’s luck is that borders no longer matter. The Middle East’s tragedy is that they still do.
The Frisians, the continental language group closest to English, live across Germany and the Netherlands, but who cares? They are allowed to speak their language. They can travel and worship freely. They have civil rights. The EU is a modern and civilised way of making sense of the diversity left behind by dynastic states.
The Middle East’s borders were largely drawn by the same negotiators at the same Paris Peace Conference in 1919, dismembering not just the Hapsburg but also the Ottoman empire, both traditionally happy to tolerate a minority patchwork settling throughout their lands. The 30 million Kurds were one of the biggest ethnic groups not to win their own state.
It took Europe another world war and the Holocaust to drive its competing nationalisms to accept the need for the supranational European Union. Even in the Middle East diversity does not need to be glued together by dictatorship. There is another option, as Lebanon showed before its destabilisation by the Palestine Liberation Organisation: you can have a functioning state that wins loyalty from different ethnic groups because of its tolerance and effectiveness.
Iraq has been unlucky. With Nouri al-Maliki gone, there is at least a chance to win back Sunni and Kurdish support for the Iraqi government. The new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, is consensual not confrontational.
Imagination will be needed to make Iraq work. You would not bet your last penny on success, but it is the best chance Iraq – and perhaps the wider Middle East too – has. Cameron was thrown from his horse over Syria, but he now has to get back on and ride.
The Guardian – 8/17/2014
David Cameron must get over his Syria humiliation and act on Iraq
Losing last year’s vote on military intervention cast a long shadow over government policy, but the situation in the Middle East requires action
By Chris Huhne
David Cameron’s latest comments on Iraq and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) terrorism bear all the hallmarks of a raging debate within the governing parties. He says the Isis threat means that “we need a firm security response, whether that is military action to go after the terrorists, international cooperation on intelligence and counter-terrorism, or uncompromising action against terrorists at home”. That may be what he wants, but it is not what the government has been delivering.
Britain has so far done little except tip food parcels out of military transport; the last week has been notable for dither and delay. There have been no British air strikes to support US disruption of the attacks on the Yazidis. Such is the shadow of the government’s parliamentary defeat on the Syrian intervention almost exactly a year ago.
The case on Syria was clear: Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons to attack the dissidents contrary to international treaty. However, the vote was botched. MPs were called back from holiday grumbling that they could have waited another few days. The whips had no time to talk through the issues. Labour played hard-to-get, putting forward its own motion and ultimately refusing to back the government. The prime minister went down to a humiliating defeat. There were 30 Tory rebels and nine Liberal Democrats.
There is nothing more embarrassing than leading your troops over the top, only to discover that they stayed behind in the trench. Given that Cameron had been militantly urging President Obama to intervene, his embarrassment was complete: it was not merely a domestic inability to deliver, weakening the prime minister’s authority, but also a diplomatic disaster. In the wake of such a political car crash, following suddenly looks more attractive than leadership.
The prime minister represents both of the strands that former Labour MP David Marquand identified in the Tory tribe: the Whig imperialists who believe in muscular intervention in good international causes; and the Tory nationalists who want nothing if it does not serve narrowly defined British interests. To keep both on board, Cameron knows he has to travel slowly and build his coalition.
It is a debate that has raged throughout Tory history, most famously pitting Winston Churchill against Neville Chamberlain on appeasement. The most significant aspect of Cameron’s comments yesterday was his keenness to anticipate the Tory nationalist criticism of the past Syrian intervention.
Cameron argues that the Isis ambition for an Islamist caliphate, far from being a far-off conflict between people of whom we know little, represents a direct threat to British interests. This is the argument we heard about Afghanistan and Yemen, and there is some truth in it. Terrorist groups can strengthen and train under the protection of a sovereign state, as happened under Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, or in an area without effective state power, as in the Afghan Hindu Kush. And they will train young Britons.
In Iraq today, however, the urgency is humanitarian. We have a responsibility to protect people threatened by genocide, whether in Rwanda, Bosnia – or Iraq. That duty must be tempered by the capacity to act, and care for the consequences, but it is as much a part of our United Nations commitments as the universal declaration on human rights. It is not a counter-argument to say that we do not punish or correct other breaches of international law. Being incapable of always doing good is not a case against doing good where you can.
The Kurdish Yazidis are only the latest vulnerable minority to need protection. I vehemently opposed the Iraqi war in 2003 because the evidence for weapons of mass destruction was not there, and the UN weapons inspectors wanted more time to test the CIA and MI6 claims. But we do not need intelligence briefings to see what is going on in Iraq. The reporting of brave journalists provides photographic proof on every kitchen table.
This is crisis management, and it would be better if the world’s crises could be settled by an international body rather than relying on the United States and a “coalition of the willing”. But the UN has no strike force and no air power. It has no battalions save in peace-keeping missions when the shooting stops. Better Washington’s policeman, however occasionally self-serving, than no policeman at all. Better still a coalition of nations that underlines the international legalities. Even better, regional powers joining to meet their responsibilities. The United States alone still carries too much baggage.
That could also be the beginning of a longer solution. Europe’s luck is that borders no longer matter. The Middle East’s tragedy is that they still do.
The Frisians, the continental language group closest to English, live across Germany and the Netherlands, but who cares? They are allowed to speak their language. They can travel and worship freely. They have civil rights. The EU is a modern and civilised way of making sense of the diversity left behind by dynastic states.
The Middle East’s borders were largely drawn by the same negotiators at the same Paris Peace Conference in 1919, dismembering not just the Hapsburg but also the Ottoman empire, both traditionally happy to tolerate a minority patchwork settling throughout their lands. The 30 million Kurds were one of the biggest ethnic groups not to win their own state.
It took Europe another world war and the Holocaust to drive its competing nationalisms to accept the need for the supranational European Union. Even in the Middle East diversity does not need to be glued together by dictatorship. There is another option, as Lebanon showed before its destabilisation by the Palestine Liberation Organisation: you can have a functioning state that wins loyalty from different ethnic groups because of its tolerance and effectiveness.
Iraq has been unlucky. With Nouri al-Maliki gone, there is at least a chance to win back Sunni and Kurdish support for the Iraqi government. The new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, is consensual not confrontational.
Imagination will be needed to make Iraq work. You would not bet your last penny on success, but it is the best chance Iraq – and perhaps the wider Middle East too – has. Cameron was thrown from his horse over Syria, but he now has to get back on and ride.
Reaction in The London Daily Mail
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London Daily Mail – 8/17/2014
We will need more than just airstrikes in Iraq: Prime Minister vows not to be deterred from military action by Tony Blair's disastrous war against Saddam Hussein
1. Cameron warns that creation of extremist state is a problem for Britain
2. Calls for political, diplomatic and security-based response to threat
3. Said conflict today should not be defined by previous war in Iraq
By Simon Walters For The Mail On Sunday and Mark Nicol for the Mail On Sunday
David Cameron last night held out the prospect of Britain backing wider military action in Iraq after vowing that he would not be deterred by Tony Blair’s disastrous war against Saddam Hussein.
Air strikes and food drops to help refugees being attacked by Islamic State (IS) fanatics were not enough, said the Prime Minister. Failure to take tougher measures would increase the risk of more Islamist terror attacks in Britain.
Calling for ‘tough, intelligent and patient’ measures to combat the ‘long-term threat to the UK’, Mr Cameron said: ‘The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home.
‘Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war ten years ago. It is our concern here and now. If we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain.’
Humanitarian aid was vital, but not a sufficient response to cope with any long-term threat posed by IS, he said.
‘We need a broader political, diplomatic and security response. This threat cannot be removed by air strikes alone. We need a tough, intelligent and patient long-term approach that can defeat the terrorist threat at source.’
Mr Cameron raised fears that the struggle against the terrorists would last ‘the rest of my political lifetime’.
He was speaking as RAF Tornado jets returned to RAF Akrotiri in western Cyprus after carrying out vital ‘recon’ sorties over Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.
No 10 officials denied Mr Cameron was paving the way for British military action in Iraq – which he has repeatedly ruled out.
But diplomatic observers seized on his reference to the 2003 Iraq War, seen by most as a catastrophe for Iraq and Britain, as well as for Mr Blair personally.
Government insiders said Mr Cameron’s comments were meant to signal that he refused to accept the Iraq War was the cause of the current crisis – or that Britain had no right to be involved in attempts to tackle it.
He is ready to back calls for more military hardware to be given to the Kurds. Previously, Britain was prepared only to transport weapons on behalf of other EU nations.
But now Mr Cameron is willing to supply them directly to Kurdish forces fighting IS jihadists in Iraq – a move that risks drawing Britain back into the conflict.
According to military sources, British military training teams may also be needed. While the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are noted for their courage, they are seen as tactically inept.
Last night, the Bishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend Nicholas Baines, accused the Prime Minister of failing to develop ‘a coherent or comprehensive approach to Islamic extremism as it is developing across the globe’.
London Daily Mail – 8/17/2014
We will need more than just airstrikes in Iraq: Prime Minister vows not to be deterred from military action by Tony Blair's disastrous war against Saddam Hussein
1. Cameron warns that creation of extremist state is a problem for Britain
2. Calls for political, diplomatic and security-based response to threat
3. Said conflict today should not be defined by previous war in Iraq
By Simon Walters For The Mail On Sunday and Mark Nicol for the Mail On Sunday
David Cameron last night held out the prospect of Britain backing wider military action in Iraq after vowing that he would not be deterred by Tony Blair’s disastrous war against Saddam Hussein.
Air strikes and food drops to help refugees being attacked by Islamic State (IS) fanatics were not enough, said the Prime Minister. Failure to take tougher measures would increase the risk of more Islamist terror attacks in Britain.
Calling for ‘tough, intelligent and patient’ measures to combat the ‘long-term threat to the UK’, Mr Cameron said: ‘The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home.
‘Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war ten years ago. It is our concern here and now. If we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain.’
Humanitarian aid was vital, but not a sufficient response to cope with any long-term threat posed by IS, he said.
‘We need a broader political, diplomatic and security response. This threat cannot be removed by air strikes alone. We need a tough, intelligent and patient long-term approach that can defeat the terrorist threat at source.’
Mr Cameron raised fears that the struggle against the terrorists would last ‘the rest of my political lifetime’.
He was speaking as RAF Tornado jets returned to RAF Akrotiri in western Cyprus after carrying out vital ‘recon’ sorties over Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.
No 10 officials denied Mr Cameron was paving the way for British military action in Iraq – which he has repeatedly ruled out.
But diplomatic observers seized on his reference to the 2003 Iraq War, seen by most as a catastrophe for Iraq and Britain, as well as for Mr Blair personally.
Government insiders said Mr Cameron’s comments were meant to signal that he refused to accept the Iraq War was the cause of the current crisis – or that Britain had no right to be involved in attempts to tackle it.
He is ready to back calls for more military hardware to be given to the Kurds. Previously, Britain was prepared only to transport weapons on behalf of other EU nations.
But now Mr Cameron is willing to supply them directly to Kurdish forces fighting IS jihadists in Iraq – a move that risks drawing Britain back into the conflict.
According to military sources, British military training teams may also be needed. While the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are noted for their courage, they are seen as tactically inept.
Last night, the Bishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend Nicholas Baines, accused the Prime Minister of failing to develop ‘a coherent or comprehensive approach to Islamic extremism as it is developing across the globe’.
Reaction in The London Telegraph Itself
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London Telegraph – 8/18/2014
Our generational struggle against a poisonous ideology
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron warns of terrorist caliphate on the shores of the Mediterranean if Islamic State succeeds
By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent
The West is embroiled in a generational struggle against a poisonous brand of Islamic extremism that will bring terror to the streets of Britain unless urgent action is taken to defeat it, David Cameron warns today.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister says the world cannot turn a blind eye to the creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq.
Warning that Islamic State fighters already control thousands of square miles of territory, Mr Cameron says that if these “warped and barbaric” extremists are not dealt with now, they will create a “terrorist state” on the shores of the Mediterranean.
He warns that Britain will have to use its “military prowess” to help defeat “this exceptionally dangerous” movement, or else terrorists with “murderous intent” will target people in Britain.
The Prime Minister says he fears the struggle will last “the rest of my political lifetime”.
“The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home. Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago. It is our concern here and now,” he says.
“Because if we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain. We already know that it has the murderous intent.”
In his article, Mr Cameron says Britain and the West need a firm security response to the crisis in Iraq and that fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) cannot simply be removed by air strikes alone.
He says this must involve military action to go after the terrorists themselves, but also stresses that the Government must take uncompromising action against extremists in Britain trying to recruit fighters for jihad abroad. The Prime Minister discloses that the Government has already taken down 28,000 pieces of terrorist related material from the web, including 46 Isil videos.
He says he has also discussed the issue with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and pledges that anyone caught trying to recruit people in Britain – or anyone flying the black flag of Islamic State, as happened in east London earlier this month – will be arrested.
“The position is clear. If people are walking around with Isil flags or trying to recruit people to their terrorist cause they will be arrested and their materials will be seized,” he says.
“We are a tolerant people, but no tolerance should allow the room for this sort of poisonous extremism in our country.”
Last night, the Bishop of Leeds released a letter he had sent to Mr Cameron describing British policy on Islamic extremism as not “coherent or comprehensive”.
The Right Rev Nicholas Baines, who claimed to have the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, said that he remained “very concerned about the government’s response to several issues” and poses questions to the Prime Minster about his policy towards Iraq and Syria. In the letter, published on his blog, the bishop writes of his “serious concern that we do not seem to have a coherent or comprehensive approach” towards groups such as the Islamic State, Boko Haram in Nigeria and other extremist groups.
A Lambeth Palace source told The Sunday Telegraph that while the Archbishop of Canterbury “supports the bishop posing these questions,” he also acknowledged the “major difficulties” faced by the Government in tackling extremism and called on people to pray for the government.
In his article, the Prime Minister lays bare his alarm at how the crisis in Iraq threatens European security, Mr Cameron says the first Isil-inspired terrorist acts on the continent of Europe have already taken place.
“We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology which I believe we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime,” he says. “We face in Isil a new threat that is single-minded, determined and unflinching in pursuit of its objectives.
“Already it controls not just thousands of minds, but thousands of square miles of territory, sweeping aside much of the boundary between Iraq and Syria to carve out its so-called caliphate. It makes no secret of its expansionist aims.
“Even today it has the ancient city of Aleppo firmly within its sights. And it boasts of its designs on Jordan and Lebanon, and right up to the Turkish border. If it succeeded we would be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a Nato member.”
Mr Cameron made his comments as the Ministry of Defence disclosed that Britain had deployed a spy plane as part of humanitarian efforts in Iraq. The MoD confirmed that the intelligence-gathering Rivet Joint aircraft had carried out several flights over areas in the north of country which have been targeted by advancing Islamist extremists.
It emerged last week that Britain was considering joining France and several eastern European countries and arming Kurdish forces in Iraq to help them fight Islamic State militants. In his article, Mr Cameron discloses that he is considering sending body armour and specialist counter-explosive equipment to the Kurds.
Britain will also appoint a British representative to the region who will be based in the country and be able to have daily face-to-face contact with the people there, the Prime Minister says.
He adds that Britain will also use next month’s Nato summit in Wales and press for more action in the United Nations to “help rally support across the international community” for the Kurdish people, who have been fighting the Islamic State extremists in northern Iraq. The move to supply arms directly will inevitably be seen as a further risk that Britain will be drawn more into the conflict.
But Mr Cameron rules out deploying troops to Iraq, making clear that the crisis is not “a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago”. However, while he says this is not the “War on Terror” or a religious war, it is a struggle for “decency” and ‘tolerance” and Britain’s future prosperity.
“I agree that we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy, but we need to recognise that the brighter future we long for requires a long term plan for our security as well as one for our economy,” he says.
“True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – in helping to achieve a more stable world. In today’s world, so immediately interconnected as it is, we cannot turn a blind eye and assume that there will not be a cost for us if we do.”
Mr Cameron adds: “This is a clear danger to Europe and to our security. It is a daunting challenge.
“But it is not an invincible one, as long as we are now ready and able to summon up the political will to defend our own values and way of life with the same determination, courage and tenacity as we have faced danger before in our history. That is how much is at stake here: we have no choice but to rise to the challenge.”
Mr Cameron also discloses that Britain is looking at leading talks with Iran to control the destabilising threat of Islamic State fighters in the region. He says Britain has to “work with countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey and perhaps even with Iran” against this “shared threat”. “I want Britain to play a leading role in this diplomatic effort,” he says.
The crisis in Iraq was highlighted by reports on Saturday that up to 80 Yazidis were killed by Islamic State fighters in the biggest massacre of the Iraqi minority in the jihadists’ brutal campaign.
Kurdish and Yazidi sources reported that dozens of people in the village of Kocho, located about 15 miles from Sinjar city, had been summarily executed by jihadists after they refused to “convert to Islam”.
Hoshyar Zebari, a senior Iraqi official who said he had spoken to witnesses from the scene, said that the jihadists had “committed a massacre”.
In his article, Mr Cameron admits that he is sympathetic with people who are wary about Britain becoming more involved in the country.
He says: “After a deep and damaging recession, and our involvement in long and difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising that so many people say to me when seeing the tragedies unfolding on their television screens, ‘Yes, let’s help with aid, but let’s not get any more involved.’
“I agree that we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy. But we need to recognise that the brighter future we long for requires a long-term plan for our security as well as for our economy. True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – to help bring about a more stable world.
“Today, when every nation is so immediately interconnected, we cannot turn a blind eye and assume that there will not be a cost for us if we do.”
A fresh consignment of British aid was flown to Iraqis fleeing the advance of the extremists amid reports of another massacre of religious minorities late last week.
The US said its drones had destroyed two armoured vehicles reported by Kurdish leaders as being used by Islamic State forces to attack civilians near Sinjar.
Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution designed to choke off the terrorists’ funding and recruitment. It also imposed sanctions including a travel ban and an asset freeze on six prominent extremists and warned that action could be taken against anyone held responsible for aiding the cause.
Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Britain’s UN ambassador, said the resolution represented a “comprehensive rejection” of Islamic State.
But he said it was only a first step and urged the international community to be “resolved, active and creative in considering what further measures should be taken to tackle this terrorist scourge”.
Nadhim Zahawi, a Conservative MP who was visiting northern Iraq late last week, said that Islamic State fighters had been caught carrying a season ticket for Liverpool Football Club and a gym card from Ealing.
He said that local forces estimated that between “500 and 750 fighters have joined the Islamic caliphate from the United Kingdom”.
Rory Stewart MP, the Tory chairman of the defence select committee who was also in Iraq, said Islamic State was now a “significant threat”.
He added: “We have been complacent. This has been developing a long time. In some ways these people have been in Mosul for two and a half years and we worked up to it about two and a half months ago.
“We ignored them when they were developing in eastern Syria, we ignored them when they took Fallujah in January.
“This is a huge and growing problem and some of those people are very, very clear in every interview they give that they want to come back and do jihad elsewhere.”
London Telegraph – 8/18/2014
Our generational struggle against a poisonous ideology
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron warns of terrorist caliphate on the shores of the Mediterranean if Islamic State succeeds
By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent
The West is embroiled in a generational struggle against a poisonous brand of Islamic extremism that will bring terror to the streets of Britain unless urgent action is taken to defeat it, David Cameron warns today.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister says the world cannot turn a blind eye to the creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq.
Warning that Islamic State fighters already control thousands of square miles of territory, Mr Cameron says that if these “warped and barbaric” extremists are not dealt with now, they will create a “terrorist state” on the shores of the Mediterranean.
He warns that Britain will have to use its “military prowess” to help defeat “this exceptionally dangerous” movement, or else terrorists with “murderous intent” will target people in Britain.
The Prime Minister says he fears the struggle will last “the rest of my political lifetime”.
“The creation of an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and extending into Syria is not a problem miles away from home. Nor is it a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago. It is our concern here and now,” he says.
“Because if we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain. We already know that it has the murderous intent.”
In his article, Mr Cameron says Britain and the West need a firm security response to the crisis in Iraq and that fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) cannot simply be removed by air strikes alone.
He says this must involve military action to go after the terrorists themselves, but also stresses that the Government must take uncompromising action against extremists in Britain trying to recruit fighters for jihad abroad. The Prime Minister discloses that the Government has already taken down 28,000 pieces of terrorist related material from the web, including 46 Isil videos.
He says he has also discussed the issue with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and pledges that anyone caught trying to recruit people in Britain – or anyone flying the black flag of Islamic State, as happened in east London earlier this month – will be arrested.
“The position is clear. If people are walking around with Isil flags or trying to recruit people to their terrorist cause they will be arrested and their materials will be seized,” he says.
“We are a tolerant people, but no tolerance should allow the room for this sort of poisonous extremism in our country.”
Last night, the Bishop of Leeds released a letter he had sent to Mr Cameron describing British policy on Islamic extremism as not “coherent or comprehensive”.
The Right Rev Nicholas Baines, who claimed to have the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, said that he remained “very concerned about the government’s response to several issues” and poses questions to the Prime Minster about his policy towards Iraq and Syria. In the letter, published on his blog, the bishop writes of his “serious concern that we do not seem to have a coherent or comprehensive approach” towards groups such as the Islamic State, Boko Haram in Nigeria and other extremist groups.
A Lambeth Palace source told The Sunday Telegraph that while the Archbishop of Canterbury “supports the bishop posing these questions,” he also acknowledged the “major difficulties” faced by the Government in tackling extremism and called on people to pray for the government.
In his article, the Prime Minister lays bare his alarm at how the crisis in Iraq threatens European security, Mr Cameron says the first Isil-inspired terrorist acts on the continent of Europe have already taken place.
“We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology which I believe we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime,” he says. “We face in Isil a new threat that is single-minded, determined and unflinching in pursuit of its objectives.
“Already it controls not just thousands of minds, but thousands of square miles of territory, sweeping aside much of the boundary between Iraq and Syria to carve out its so-called caliphate. It makes no secret of its expansionist aims.
“Even today it has the ancient city of Aleppo firmly within its sights. And it boasts of its designs on Jordan and Lebanon, and right up to the Turkish border. If it succeeded we would be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a Nato member.”
Mr Cameron made his comments as the Ministry of Defence disclosed that Britain had deployed a spy plane as part of humanitarian efforts in Iraq. The MoD confirmed that the intelligence-gathering Rivet Joint aircraft had carried out several flights over areas in the north of country which have been targeted by advancing Islamist extremists.
It emerged last week that Britain was considering joining France and several eastern European countries and arming Kurdish forces in Iraq to help them fight Islamic State militants. In his article, Mr Cameron discloses that he is considering sending body armour and specialist counter-explosive equipment to the Kurds.
Britain will also appoint a British representative to the region who will be based in the country and be able to have daily face-to-face contact with the people there, the Prime Minister says.
He adds that Britain will also use next month’s Nato summit in Wales and press for more action in the United Nations to “help rally support across the international community” for the Kurdish people, who have been fighting the Islamic State extremists in northern Iraq. The move to supply arms directly will inevitably be seen as a further risk that Britain will be drawn more into the conflict.
But Mr Cameron rules out deploying troops to Iraq, making clear that the crisis is not “a problem that should be defined by a war 10 years ago”. However, while he says this is not the “War on Terror” or a religious war, it is a struggle for “decency” and ‘tolerance” and Britain’s future prosperity.
“I agree that we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy, but we need to recognise that the brighter future we long for requires a long term plan for our security as well as one for our economy,” he says.
“True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – in helping to achieve a more stable world. In today’s world, so immediately interconnected as it is, we cannot turn a blind eye and assume that there will not be a cost for us if we do.”
Mr Cameron adds: “This is a clear danger to Europe and to our security. It is a daunting challenge.
“But it is not an invincible one, as long as we are now ready and able to summon up the political will to defend our own values and way of life with the same determination, courage and tenacity as we have faced danger before in our history. That is how much is at stake here: we have no choice but to rise to the challenge.”
Mr Cameron also discloses that Britain is looking at leading talks with Iran to control the destabilising threat of Islamic State fighters in the region. He says Britain has to “work with countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey and perhaps even with Iran” against this “shared threat”. “I want Britain to play a leading role in this diplomatic effort,” he says.
The crisis in Iraq was highlighted by reports on Saturday that up to 80 Yazidis were killed by Islamic State fighters in the biggest massacre of the Iraqi minority in the jihadists’ brutal campaign.
Kurdish and Yazidi sources reported that dozens of people in the village of Kocho, located about 15 miles from Sinjar city, had been summarily executed by jihadists after they refused to “convert to Islam”.
Hoshyar Zebari, a senior Iraqi official who said he had spoken to witnesses from the scene, said that the jihadists had “committed a massacre”.
In his article, Mr Cameron admits that he is sympathetic with people who are wary about Britain becoming more involved in the country.
He says: “After a deep and damaging recession, and our involvement in long and difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising that so many people say to me when seeing the tragedies unfolding on their television screens, ‘Yes, let’s help with aid, but let’s not get any more involved.’
“I agree that we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy. But we need to recognise that the brighter future we long for requires a long-term plan for our security as well as for our economy. True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – to help bring about a more stable world.
“Today, when every nation is so immediately interconnected, we cannot turn a blind eye and assume that there will not be a cost for us if we do.”
A fresh consignment of British aid was flown to Iraqis fleeing the advance of the extremists amid reports of another massacre of religious minorities late last week.
The US said its drones had destroyed two armoured vehicles reported by Kurdish leaders as being used by Islamic State forces to attack civilians near Sinjar.
Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution designed to choke off the terrorists’ funding and recruitment. It also imposed sanctions including a travel ban and an asset freeze on six prominent extremists and warned that action could be taken against anyone held responsible for aiding the cause.
Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Britain’s UN ambassador, said the resolution represented a “comprehensive rejection” of Islamic State.
But he said it was only a first step and urged the international community to be “resolved, active and creative in considering what further measures should be taken to tackle this terrorist scourge”.
Nadhim Zahawi, a Conservative MP who was visiting northern Iraq late last week, said that Islamic State fighters had been caught carrying a season ticket for Liverpool Football Club and a gym card from Ealing.
He said that local forces estimated that between “500 and 750 fighters have joined the Islamic caliphate from the United Kingdom”.
Rory Stewart MP, the Tory chairman of the defence select committee who was also in Iraq, said Islamic State was now a “significant threat”.
He added: “We have been complacent. This has been developing a long time. In some ways these people have been in Mosul for two and a half years and we worked up to it about two and a half months ago.
“We ignored them when they were developing in eastern Syria, we ignored them when they took Fallujah in January.
“This is a huge and growing problem and some of those people are very, very clear in every interview they give that they want to come back and do jihad elsewhere.”
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