Outrage D'Jour

Like I said below, I'd take David Davis (and, more to the point, his new friends) more seriously if they at least acknowledged that there is something seriously wrong with how we're fighting this war. Stuff like this, for example.

Freed Islamist hate preacher Abu Qatada was today starting his new life outside prison - in an MI5 safe house under 24-hour guard.

The cleric once described as 'Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe' was released on bail last night after a judge ruled there were no longer any grounds to detain him....

Qatada was convicted, in his absence, of plotting a series of bomb attack in Amman in 1998 and for his involvement with terrorists planning a series of explosions in the Jordanian capital on millennium night.

42

Maybe Douglas Adams was right - if the '42 days' debate can make politics interesting again, there's nothing this number can't do. Of course, in so far as David Davis' resignation was a principled sacrifice of career in defence of liberty, it looks like the Cameroonatics might be right about him being out of touch with modern politics.

Actually, Davis has thrown a spotlight onto two of the more obvious problems with the Ayatollah Khameron. In so far as Davis managed to seize the moment, even as Cameron thrashed round ineffectually, it did debunk the myth that Cameron is a political genius.

Equally, David Davis was able to radically change the terms of the debate in exactly the way Cameron has refused to do. Indeed, the defining feature of Cameroonacy is the belief that true leadership involves following the polls like a bloodhound. Davis has shown that it is possible to advance an ideological agenda without falling into the Sun, or whatever it is that scares Cameron so.

Still, for all that, I'd take all these people praising Davis' principled stand more seriously if some of them would be similarly glowing about Ann Widdicombe's stand. True, she didn't actually resign, but she did defy Tory whips to vote for legislation she believed was vital to the defence of the realm. If 'principles' are your thing, rather than, say, pushing a particular line, both deserve credit.

Similarly, just as it's possible to see the basic problem with Davis' position that 42 days is an outage while 28 days is fine - where's the border ? 32 days 35 ? 38.75 ? - even while accepting the validity of his wider point about the slow strangulation of freedom in Britain, Widdicombe position is a respectable one even if you disagree on the specifics.

Most of the political establishment - and all of the legal one - have utterly failed to rise to the challenge of war. Shouldn't party politics stop at the water's edge ? In so far as this country has never tried to wage war via the courts before, how relevant is precedent anyway ? Isn't national defence properly a parliamentary matter, not a judicial one ? For that matter, how does Davis' pro-freedom agenda mesh with unelected, and unelectable, philosopher kings on the bench pulling bogus rights out of thin air ?

These are all serious issues, but the left would rather ignore them. Why not ? Consider that ex-Labour leader Michael Foot brushed off claims that he worked with the KGB with a defence that boiled down to claiming that there was no sinister reason for him supporting a vicious, totalitarian regime - it was just a normal part of being a liberal.

Parody Goes Down In Flames

I've said it before, and doubtless I'll say it again: the one solid achievement of modern liberalism is to render the reductio ad absurdum obsolete. There are no scenarios too absurd for modern Britain.

Outrage D'Jour

Also via Peter B, further evidence that it's not lack of ID cards that's the problem. At least they weren't from anywhere suspicious!

Dhimmis Du Siècle

I've just had a message from a race of alien telepaths in the Pegasus galaxy - they've detected a sudden spike in emissions of dhimmitude from this planet.

This is it, the mother lode - a vein of dhimmitude so rich a single bucket-full would supply every campus in the UK for a decade. Get ready for a new world folks - this is it.

....

I want to come out with some snide comment, but it's not easy when your brain's giving you the blue screen of death.

Jihadis: Still Only The Second Worst Group Of Scum On Earth

The jihadis might be taking a pounding at the moment, but their allies are doing all it can to try and relieve the pressure.First, there's this:

A top military commander says in a sworn affidavit Canadian troops would have to quit fighting the Taliban if they could not hand prisoners over to Afghan authorities.

Listing a long series of possible embarrassments and defeats, Brigadier-General André Deschamps outlined what he says would be the dire consequences, including losing the war, should a Federal Court judge rule in favour of a request by human-rights groups to issue an injunction banning the transfer of detainees to Afghan prisons because of the risk of torture or abuse.

Hand prisoners taken in Afghanistan over to the Afghans ? Liberals won't hear of it. And so the position of the legal profession is now what it was in the Victorian era: you can't trust the wogs to behave like civilised men.

Of course, this is Canada. Even lawyers shape up when the threat becomes undeniable.

Well, maybe not:

This week the IDF distributed ribbons to its soldiers and officers for their service in the war with Hizbullah in 2006. The ribbons were a source of embarrassment. Soldiers and officers, who like the general public view the war as Israel's greatest military defeat, are loath to pin them on their uniforms.

While the soldiers and general public view the war as a failure, one sector of Israeli society sees the war as a great triumph. For Israel's legal establishment, the war was a great victory. It was a war in which its members asserted their dominance over Israel's political and military leadership.

In so far as the legal profession now openly boasts of its ability inhibit counter-terrorism, could the MSM at least stop presenting these people as disinterested commentators on civil liberty ?

Islamofascist Terrorists: Now Even Worse

Who'd have thunk that even murderous savages could go lower ? But they've managed it.

Personally, I loved this bit:

Uddin, who got his law qualifications in Bangladesh....

If only law really was a job the British 'just won't do'. Besides, importing thousands of lawyers might just be the only way to get the courts interested in actually upholding our immigration laws.

Then there's this:

We found Uddin working among a group of unsuspecting and honest lawyers at the Syed Shaheen firm in London's East End.

But wait... using their own loopy precedents, as developed when dealing with the Filth and the like, the mere existance of one nut must mean the rest of them are guilty as well. The honest lawyers (ahem!) should have challenged their colleague, right ? Clearly, there is a culture of corruption here. Compulsory retraining for everyone!

Joking apart, it's not as if there wasn't the odd hint:

He then bragged about his status: "I am a member of Lincoln's Inn, training for the bar. I want to be a barrister to help my people. I will be representing only Muslim brothers in court."...

He then closed his eyes and began loudly chanting verses from the Koran in a trance-like state—to the bemusement of other diners.

Dang! How were his coworkers to know he was up to something ? Like Fido said, I'm not seeing a lot of future for a white lawyer who adopted a 'Christians only' policy.

And there's plenty more. All of which leads to one conclusion: border security is seriously screwed. To return to a theme I raised before: if immigration control has broken down to such an extent that even a self-described terrorist, even a pretendey one, can get permenant residence, in what sense do we not have a de facto open borders policy ?