Jihadi John Was British Not Syrian

According to David Cameron and Hillary Benn, and the gaggle of warmongers and liberal interventionists that stand behind them, we have to bomb Syria, because the jihadists of Daesh there represent a threat to us. Really? A sober assessment would rather say that it is the tens of thousands of jihadists, like Jihadi John, who was born, brought up, and educated in Britain, and many others, from across Europe, who represent a threat to Syria! It is Syria that has a problem with western born, educated and based jihadists, going to cause death and destruction there that is the problem, not vice versa. Syria has a British jihadi problem, not Britain a Syrian jihadi problem. If bombing is the answer, then Cameron and Benn should be advocating targeted bombing by the RAF of London, Paris, Brussels and so on, which have been the breeding grounds for all these terrorists!

But, of course, if the question were put that way, Cameron, Benn, the warmongers and liberal interventionists, would run a million miles away from such a solution, just as they would if the logical conclusion of their arguments were implemented by others, or even consistently by themselves. If its perfectly fine to chase your enemy across borders, then Russia has a perfect right to bomb Turkey, which has been financing, arming, and giving safe haven to the terrorists, as well as buying their oil. Yet, Britain and NATO were quick to defend Turkey when it shot down a Russian jet for even getting close to the Turkish border. By contrast, Turkey has breached the border of Greece 1200 times in the last year alone!

Indeed, it would be fine for Russia, Syria or Iran to chase Daesh terrorists into Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other gulf states, where they are also given safe haven, trained, financed and armed. Or should Assad, and his Russian and Iranian backers themselves bomb London, and other British cities which are the breeding ground of the terrorists like Jihadi John, who have been swarming across to Turkey, often taking their families and young children with them, to provide the fighting forces of Daesh? Should Russia, bomb Saudi Arabia, and the other gulf states, which have provided the financing, and arming of the terrorists, and whose own vile ideology lies behind the spread of jihadism across the globe! It would seem to make more sense as a response, on the basis of the arguments that have been put forward by Cameron and Benn. More sense certainly than Britain's current policy of feting the vile reactionary leaders of those gulf states, supplying them with weapons to hand on to the terrorists, and offering to run their prisons for them, where they behead people simply for expressing an opinion!

If Britain really wants to deal with Daesh and jihadism in general, it needs to take the mote from its own eye. It needs to deal with the root of that jihadism, not the manifestation of it. That root is not in Syria, or other, previously largely secular societies, such as Libya or Iraq, it is in Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states. Its from there that the ideology has been spewed forth across the globe. Its from there that the funding and training has been provided, along with the latest weapons, themselves obtained from governments in Britain, the US and Western Europe. Indeed, part of the reason for that is that the US, in particular, has used these third parties to channel these funds, ideas, and weapons to the jihadists, so that they could act as mercenaries in its own cause, against the allies of its global strategic opponents.

Just as the US, used Pakistan to channel funds, fighters and weapons to Bin Laden in the 1980's, to fight the USSR in Afghanistan, so it is now doing the same thing, using the gulf states to channel all of this support to jihadists fighting Assad, and before that Gaddafi. It is doing the same thing, and Saudi Arabia is even acting openly itself in Yemen. It was the same with the way the US used Bin Laden to develop the Kosovan Liberation Army, in Albania. The US, as its Ambassador Nulands admitted, it has done the same thing effectively in Ukraine, and elsewhere.

The idiocy of conservative EU politicians, is that they cannot even see that in all of this, the US has also screwed them, just as much as they have attempted to screw Russia and its allies. It is the EU that has suffered from the instability on its Eastern and Southern borders, not the US. It is the EU that has suffered economic costs from the sanctions imposed on Russia, not the US. It is the EU that has millions of refugees streaming into its southern borders, as a result of the chaos caused in the Middle East, not the US.

The starting point to a solution is not to demand more military action, by yet more ineffective bombing, but for all external powers, including Russia to get out of the Middle East. Only the people of the region themselves can provide a solution to their problems, and only the people of the region themselves should provide a solution to their own problems. The involvement of Russia, the US, the EU in the Middle East, is not driven by some great moral crusade and humanitarianism, but purely by a desire for strategic advantage. It is not even driven by something as crude as oil – excuse the pun. A concern to be able to control and cut off your enemies oil supply, however, is important in an actual war, as was seen in WWII.

The starting point should not be inside Syria, but immediate political action to stop the flow of funds, weapons and fighters going into Syria. Part of that involves an ideological challenge to the continued importance of religion itself. We had the furore over the refusal of cinemas to show an advert by the Church of England last week, but the real issue here should be why we have free publicity for the Church on TV, with programmes like “Songs of Praise”, and all the other religious programmes that hide under the cover of morality. It is a question of why the Church has automatic seats in the House of Lords and so on. If we want to deal with religious fanaticism, its necessary to drain the religious swamp itself.

If Cameron and Been really wanted to deal with the problem of jihadism, and other forms of religious fanaticism and terrorism, like the attacks on abortion clinics and so on, they have more than enough work to do at home here, before they start picking on others, and dropping bombs on them, simply because its the easy thing to do, to be seen to have acted.