Britannia Radio

Former MI5 Chief: Compromise With Al-Qaeda

From the desk of A. Millar on Mon, 2011-09-05 08:51

In 2007, MI5 chief Jonathan Evans reported that his agency estimated there to be at least 2,000 terror suspects in Britain — up 400 on the previous year. It would be foolish to blame Evans, who had taken over the position only in April. And it would be unfair to lay the blame for the rise of Islamic extremism on the MI5. It is the “elite” culture of political correctness and cultural relativism that has made tackling Islamist terrorism and its ideology so difficult.

We know by now that much of the UK Government, and much of the media, has habitually, even pathologically, turned a blind eye to extremism, and has even worked with ideological extremists. In some cases this was occurring prior to 9/11. Still, no matter how used to political correctness we may be, therecent comments by former MI5 chief Baroness Manningham-Buller must come as something as a surprise.

In the first of her BBC Reith lectures on the theme of “Securing Freedom,” the former MI5 chief says she believes the 9/11 attacks was “a crime, not an act of war.” In her role as leader of Britain’s military intelligence agency she had, she says, always found the phrase, “War on Terror,” to be “unhelpful.”

Military and intelligence responses can only take the process so far, and negotiations are inevitable, she believes. Baroness Manningham-Buller asserts, ”you have to reach a political settlement” with terrorist organizations. She believes negotiations to be some way off, but hopes that there are people “in the American intelligence world and in our own, [who] are thinking exactly[...] who to talk to, how to talk to them and what we might discuss.”

The mind boggles. Al-Qaeda, and other fanatical Islamist terrorist groups and networks have expressed interest in using weapons of mass destruction against Western nation states, including nuclear and biological weapons. Followers of al-Qaeda in the West make it quite clear that they intend to establish a worldwide Caliphate, with all people subject to the sharia. Exactly what can we compromise on?

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller headed MI5 for five years, until 2007.