News of the terrorist attack on London’s Parliament spread quickly around the world. For the first few hours the coverage covered the dead and wounded and provided few details. The British authorities have not yet identified the attacker but the #London attack will have consequences even in the White House.
Terrorism
The justification for President #Donald Trump’s executive orders banning Moslem immigration from seven “at risk” countries in the Middle East was to avoid the risk of terrorists hiding amongst the refugees fleeing the fighting in their home countries.
This fear of terrorism was part of the motivations for the legal challenges to the orders as no citizens from the seven countries had ever been involved in terrorist attacks in the United States. Indeed, the countries from which the 9/11 attackers came were excluded from the orders.
With the orders now before the courts the news of the London attacks may well provide ammunition for those fighting the Oval Office’s appeals to raise the bans on the orders placed by a number of courts around the country. In all likelihood these appeals will eventually reach the Supreme Court for its final judgment.
London attack
On Wednesday afternoon a lone terrorist attacked London’s Houses of Parliament. The attack was considered inevitable after the attacks in France and Germany; therefore the protective services around the buildings were well prepared.
Sadly the authorities were unable to neutralize the assailant before he killed and injured a number of people. The final toll of the victims was of four dead plus the attacker and more than forty injured, many seriously. The victims were of a range of nationalities.
While the British police have not yet named the attacker initial news reports named a 45 year old British born Jamaican convert to Islam as the assailant.
This news was denied by the authorities as the man named was actually in prison for terrorist related crimes.
Lessons
The delay by the British authorities in identifying the gunman should be an example to be followed around the world. The hasty identification of a suspect by an English television station which then was spread by the international press only added to the confusion that follows such an incident.
But the London attack may well provide other food for thought in Washington.
As we all learnt in the previous attacks in France and Germany, lone attackers are virtually impossible to identify and stop and harder still when they are born in the country. The targeting of whole groups of migrants, refugees does absolutely nothing to prevent such attacks occurring. Nor does blaming Islam as a whole.
In fact, targeting these groups simply plays the game of the fanatics such as ISIS who have deliberately raise the cry for their followers to attack the “enemies of Islam” in their countries.
The problem of terrorism is not in who comes into a country but amongst those born in these countries and in order to combat radicalization we must understand why those born and raised in Western countries, including non Moslems, are being recruited by the fanatics.
These are the enemies that must be rooted out and this can only happen with the assistance of the vast majority of Moslems who are moderate. They are the real channel to combat terrorism and up till now the White House has done virtually nothing to include them in its plans to combat the fanatics.
As we await details from London after the seven overnight arrests only one thing is certain, ostracizing Moslems is not an answer to terrorism.
