What Are You Currently Reading? 2010

[Tukhachevskii]

Learned about the book from SWJ. The author contends:

1) Jihadism is but one phase of a worldwide insurgency that will bedevil us for decades and that is an expression of (#1) alienation of 3rd world immigrant communities within rich nations. A future phase, he says, may involve millions of destitute 3rd world refugees from global warming-induced inundation of their homelands, who will have found their way to western cities.

2) Thus, (#2) the most important theater of the conflict is within the western nations, not in some Middle Eastern or Central Asian land. Not least, he posits, because the "expeditionary approach" of taking the fight overseas is stillborn by the western nations' obsession with an exit strategy even before we charge through the entrance. So, he argues, as domestic politics forecloses a winning strategy overseas, we are left to focus on the domestic threat..which is the main one in any case.

3) He cites as a potential model a UK op involving LE cum the whole of gov't
approach in engaging the Islamic immigrant community.

Opinion: May provide some insight into a Weltanschauung prevalent in some European circles. ....Also, no problem for a retired guy like me, but if your time comes at a premium you might want to weigh the opportunity cost of reading....

Cheers,
Mike.

Great find. Heard about that from an old professor of mine from KCL (Mackinley teaches there IIRC) but I decided to avoid the whole "coin" cottage industry/fad for a while. Disagree on #1, but I've been talking about #2 & #3 for a while (almost got myself in a spot of bother whilst at Hamas occupied SOAS). #1 assumes certain groups of people want to be British; IMO that's not the case, if it was we wouldn't have the parallel societies that we do (which aren't just Muslim phenomena) given the amount of money that's been wasted (IMO) in community schemes (but then again that was the point of multiculturalism, wasn't it? Oh, what tangled webs we weave!). I find such assertions simplistic and condescending (why are we always the self-defined perpetrators in a narrative of victimhood which priveledges the Other in favour of the Self? The ghost of Edward Said me thinks-and his Leftist/Liberal supporters). As Hassan Butt said after the 7/7 attacks in London (2005);

When I was still a member of what is probably best terms the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideoloy, I remmeber 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 blaiming the government for our actions, those who pushed the "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence; Islamic theology.

Anyway, thanks for the synopsis, will definately search out a copy.