Give up your freedoms - or change tack

Saad al-Fagih wrote in Guardian Unlimited No one will be more pleased than Osama bin Laden with the new measures announced by Tony Blair. He will be even more pleased should the prime minister succeed in turning his plans into legislation. There are two reasons for Bin Laden's satisfaction at what doubtless looks to him like a historic victory.

Saad al-Fagih - that sounds like a good Anglo Saxon name. NOT!!! You would not possibly be trying to fool us, would you?

First, he will believe he has succeeded in forcing Britain to abandon a number of hard-earned achievements in the fields of justice and liberty - achievements that took centuries of struggle and evolution to accomplish. Bin Laden will rejoice because he has forced society into forsaking these values. This, he believes, will leave the west open to eventual defeat at the hands of Muslims.

Whereas if they don't approve them, it will leave Britain open immediately to continued attacks by Muslims, and if they never do anything to protect themselves, then to the eventual defeat at the hands of Muslims, and the establishment of a Muslim State with its capital in Londonistan.

Both moderate and jihadist Islamist activists have long recognised the values of justice and liberty within western societies as the foundation of western dominance in the past few centuries. A dictum attributed to Ibn Taymiya, a renowned Muslim scholar born seven centuries ago, states that God will lend victory to a just nation even if it is infidel and bring defeat to the unjust even if it they are Muslim. When the west loses its values of justice, it will be defeated in the long run.

But look at the second part of that dictum: blowing themselves up, and killing innocents is certainly not a just act

The second reason for Bin Laden's satisfaction is that his strategy is based on absolute polarisation. The world is to be split into two opposing camps: a bloc of Muslims with no infidels in their midst and one of infidels with no Muslims in their midst.

I dont recall Bin Laden saying that. As I recall he wanted westerners out of Islamic lands (because he wanted to take over Saudia Arabia, and he felt a Western Presence was supporting the Saudi Royal Family, but I dont recall him saying anything about Muslims leaving Infidel land.

The measures advocated by Blair and the accompanying atmosphere of racial hatred might cause many Muslims living in "infidel" western nations to leave for good.

Tell them not to let the door hit them on the rear as they leave.

The harsher the measures adopted by Britain and other western societies, the nearer we will get to fulfilling Bin Laden's strategic aim. It is perhaps not surprising that Bin Laden was able to manipulate the cowboy element in the American political structures to his advantage, turning them into his own PR outfit, which influenced huge numbers of Muslims to become supporters of his group.

Something I don't think happened. The large number of jihadists coming out of Saudia Arabia are because of the madrassas that the Saudi Royal Family financed to persuade the Islamists to leave them alone.

What is surprising is that European, in particular British, political establishments should take up the American methods, enabling Bin Laden to score similar successes on the European front. One of the wonders of the confrontation with al-Qaida is that the British decision-making institutions are running, cogs and wheels, in tandem with those of the Americans, feeding on sensationalism and appeasement of prejudice. The British political establishment is abandoning its traditional reliance on careful thinking, sound knowledge of current factors and a determination not to endanger historical commitments.

What comes out of the south end of a north facing bull?