Once again...

[sethorly]

I'm pretty sure that the unofficial position is to try to kill them before they leave Syria. My best understanding is that a country can't just say, "You're returning from Syria so you're a jihadi so you're going to prison," as that would require evidence, which is almost impossible to get. They'd just say they were a medic or something like that.

As we ought to all know by now, the link between Boko Haram, Jahbat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Europe's homegrown terrorists is that they are all part of the sub-group of Islam known as Salafism. Islam has 2 big groups who like to kill each other, Shia and Sunni. Sunnis are split into many many different groups, one of which is Salafism. Incidentally, the Taliban are Deobandi, not Salafist, and would probably just melt back into the hills peacefully if left alone (but we shouldn't do that as they grow poppies so they need incinerating). Furthermore, Israel is fighting Shia terrorists, not Sunni terrorists (ISIS, part of Salafism and therefore Sunni, apologised recently to Israel for attacking an Israeli position by mistake).

So, what is Salafism, for everyone needs to know that or we will never get rid of these explosive events and the next time could be your child? Salafis follow the 5 pillars of Islam, but then their most important creed is "al wara wal bara", which basically translates as "hate who Allah hates, and he hates everyone who isn't a Salafi". That's why the biggest victims of terror are Muslims, because Salafis want to kill all the other sub-groups including other Sunnis. So to be clear, you have a group of Muslims, 15% of the worldwide Muslim population (the figure is anus-tighteningly scary), who believe it is their religious duty to hate. And of course they want to Islamise the entire world, through the minor jihad of violence if necessary. Not all Salafis are violent, but neither were all Nazis violent - hopefully you can see how the creed central to their beliefs bends someone to violence through hated.

The 600 odd Muslims who went to fight for ISIS and who have returned to the UK, and the (at the very least - it's probably far greater now) 3,000 other Muslims on MI5's watchlist are just the violent tip of the significantly growing Salafi iceberg crashing into the UK and Europe through migration and significantly increased reproduction. Salafism is spread through the internet but also through mosques financed by those who spread Salafism - Saudi Arabia. And here we have a problem, because Trump just kissed their arses in return for a 500bn arms deal. So we can't go after the country spreading this menace, this cancer within Islam, because we'd ruin all our nice arms trade deals. And to speculate, I think Russia and the US (and UK) are quite happy to keep certain Middle Eastern conflicts going so that Muslims cull Muslims (Russia supports Shias, West supports Sunnis) and so that both power blocks can profit from arms sales.

To defeat this terrorism we need to be clear about what we are fighting (the religiously inspired violent Salafis and the Salafi ideology). Gradually I think we're getting there, as increasingly people are beginning to realise (probably with horror) that there is indeed a link between Islam and violence and terror.

Robert Fisk from the Independent knows all this, as does Maajid Nawaz of the UK (Muslim) organisation Quilliam that seeks to fight Islamic extremism.

One other point I'd make - you saw those Muslims with the banner promoting peace near the ITV journalist reporting on Manchester, and the young muslimas holding candles and hands across Tower Bridge after that attack, and you see these fb reports of Muslims gathering to protest terrorism - they are either Shia muslims (who of course would protest against the Sunni Salafist terrorists as they're fighting against each other in Syria and all over the Middle East), or Ahmadiyya Muslims (who are hated by every other Muslim, and whose version of Islam is banned on penalty of death in Pakistan - the Glasgow shopkeeper who wished his customers Happy Easter and got stabbed to death for it was Ahmadiyya).

So, those who say this is nothing to do with Islam are wrong. And those who say it is all Muslims that are the problem are wrong. It may be that those who say Islam is to blame are correct, but for reasons I won't go into now.

Thank you Americans for your thoughts, they are meaningful regardless of what people say about words being useless. Westerners need to stick together and fight for our hard-won (and, fuck it, superior) culture.