Peter Clarke, chief of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism unit and consequently Britain's de facto "anti-terrorism czar" (for some reason, we love "czars" in the US), warns that al Qa'ida, far from being beaten in the fields of Iraq, has survived “a prolonged multi-national assault” and is following “an inexorable trend towards more ambitious and more destructive attack planning.” More simply and poignantly put, “The only sensible assumption is that we shall be attacked again,” Clarke said Tuesday evening. He was presenting a lecture to the Policy Exchange, a British center-right private policy research group.
He also confirmed another fact with which we in the West had better come to terms: Pakistan's dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf has no control over his country and, far from being an "ally" in the (so-called) "war on terror," should be arrested and prosecuted following on George W. Bush's logic that "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
He also said around 100 suspected terrorists were awaiting trial in Britain — in addition to several trials currently in progress — and their cases would confirm a trend that has emerged since 2004 for young British Muslims to travel to Pakistan for training and to receive instructions before returning home to plot attacks.Perhaps if we weren't in Iraq, and if we weren't ignoring Afghanistan, and if we weren't buddying up to (yet again!!!) right-wing military dictators in countries that harbor terrorists, and funding Pakistani terror groups that kidnap and execute Iranians, we might actually be harassing al Qa'ida and damaging their ability to plan and execute future attacks.
But not in George W. Bush's America.
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