New School Politics

California Senator Dianne Feinstein recently sponsored an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill which would close down the Defense Department’s detention center in Guantanamo Bay and prohibit the practice of rendition, in which prisoners are shipped to states whose interrogation techniques are more, well, direct. The effect of the Feinstein Amendment would be to integrate jihadist detainees into the federal prison system where they would receive further legal protections. Presumably, the good folks at the American Bar Association would rush to the defense of these misunderstood individuals and put up a spirited legal defense in the name of the rule of law.

What in fact the Feinstein Amendment shows is that a significant portion of the American legislative community is dangerously ignorant to even the most fundamental aspects of counter-insurgency warfare. If the Feinstein Amendment passes—which, fortunately, it likely will not—al Qaeda and other jihadist groups would be irreparably strengthened in what would be a cataclysmic abdication of all semblance of rational policy.

Reasonable minds can differ on subjects such as Guantanamo Bay and the legal status of jihadist detainees. The legal community, while misguided, can be patriotic while insisting that greater access to legal resources be provided to detainees. What is not patriotic, nor rational, is granting al Qaeda unhindered access to the ideal recruitment demographic on a permanent basis. The unwavering lesson of every insurgency in history is that prison is the ideal recruitment ground for insurgent factions. Prisoners are necessarily in constant communication with each other, and all it takes is one radical to evangelize the message of radicalism amongst a population which is already at odds with the government.

Simply put, there is no better recruiting ground than prison. Every insurgency—from the IRA famously training and conducting exercises behind British prison bars in full defiance of powerless guards, to the terrible school of French Indo-China, to the FLN radicalizing common Algerian criminals against the French, has directly utilized the unparalleled access that prison provides to convert and radicalize its target demographic. If you put members of terrorist cells in standard prisons, they will recruit more followers. There’s no gray area here: either we want to contribute further to the propagation of jihadist ideology or we wish to isolate the Islamist prophets of doom from the general population—especially the segments which would most receptive to these ideas.

The genius of Guantanamo Bay is that it segregates insurgents from the rest of prison population. Individuals in Guantanamo (with the few inevitable exceptions) are already radicalized and consequently no harm is done in detaining them. However, the minute that radical population is mixed with common inmates, the jihadists will have scored a tremendous victory on a scale far greater than September 11^th ever was. If one purposely set out to loose a counter-insurgency, the absolute first thing one would do would be to provide guerrillas the human resources that are the sinews of any insurgency. Senator Feinstein, has, unwittingly, proposed this very thing.

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Roughly two weeks ago, British officials discovered two parked cars filled with explosives in the heart of London. The devises were set to be trigged by cell phone and were placed in high traffic areas inside London’s nightclub district. The next day, a jeep filled with explosives was driven into Glasgow Airport. So far, British officials have arrested five foreigners in connection to the attacks.

And so Gordon Brown faces his first great crisis after only two days in as Prime Minister. Two years ago, Tony Blair acted with steadfast resolve and moral clarity when his country was rocked by jihadist terrorism. Today, Gordon Brown must set the stage for how his government—and indeed the United Kingdom as a whole—will react to the forces of jihad in the post-Blair era.

Mr. Brown faces quite a challenge. The Muslim population of the UK is amongst the most radical in the world. According to the left-leaning Guardian periodical, Muslims in the UK are the most anti-western in Europe, and a full ¾ of the Islamic population of Great Britain blames jihadist activity on western disrespect of Islam.

Britain’s liberal immigration laws have allowed radical clerics to preach the doctrines of jihad in London mosques and now the country finds itself swamped with a radicalized population where it is easy to walk into any movie store in Islamic communities and purchase propaganda DVDs from al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups.

Under the leadership of Tony Blair, the United Kingdom was a steadfast ally against radical Islam despite its internal crisis. The attempted bombings of two weeks ago are clearly a test to challenge the fortitude of Mr. Brown. Gordon Brown is a capable minister and a decent man—but he must meet the challenge presented to him head on and wage war with the forces that have attempted time and again to destroy everything that his society is predicated upon.

The response of the Brown government will be a clear indicator of how the UK will act years into the future. The British people will either retain their stubborn pride and finish the fight or they will slink silently back into the darkness. So far, the Brown government has refused overhaul the UK’s disastrous immigration policies or take similar bold and necessary action to protect British society.  If Mr. Brown continues to treat the bombings as merely a routine police matter—rounding up the usual suspects and detaining suspected collaborators—the UK will be missing a critical opportunity to reverse the tide of jihad and instead sentence what is in many ways the epicenter of Western Civilization to further suffering.   This is Gordon Brown’s moment. How he chooses to respond is up to him, but he would do well to remember the words of Ronald Reagan:

“During the dark days of the Second World War, when this island was incandescent with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about Britain’s adversaries, ‘What kind of people do they think we are?’ Well, Britain’s adversaries found out what extraordinary people the British are. But all the democracies paid a terrible price for allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare not make that mistake again. So, let us ask ourselves, ‘What kind of people do we think we are?’ And let us answer, “Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.”

Admin’s note: Chas is NSP’s newest writer. Here is a short introduction.

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