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Fuzzy Thinking Exposed

I can’t imagine there will be a shortage of journalists and commenters trotting out the ‘it’s all about Iraq’ line long after after the London and Glasgow bombs have ceased to dominate the headlines.

However such a lazy linkage of the two phenomena reveals more about the groupthink that passes for contemporary left-liberal discourse than sheds light on what’s actually driving the putative nailbombers and self-immolators.

Hassan Butt, who used to be a seeker after the Caliphate but has now renounced extremist Islamism is surely better qualified to pronounce on the subject than a whole drawing room full of Islingtonians. Here’s what he says about the mens rea of the modern jihadi:

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the ‘Blair’s bombs’ line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Marcus’ piece here

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