The British are facing an old foe, internal terroristic threats. After years of trying to thwart the IRA, the United Kingdom now finds itself under attack from disenfranchised and extremely aggravated muslims. Unlike the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the attacks against the United Kingdom over the last couple years seem to have been carried out largely by people coming from the inside of their country as opposed to foreigners temporarily infiltrating their borders.
The United Kingdom has a significant amount of police experience in investigating these attacks, but the sheer volume of the plots involved seems to be taxing MI5. The attacks are inspired essentially by copy cat extremists, but over time they will be inspired by their own success and they will become more sophisticated.
The United Kingdom is faced with the challenge of trying to stop the threats before they happen, treating the symptoms. But they also need to find a way to treat the cause of the problem. They have millions of people that are unemployed or underemployed that do not believe in Democracy and want to instate Islamic law in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom is being slowly attacked by a surge of Muslim fundamentalists looking to remove the government. This is a marked shift. In many ways this is a half step beyond terrorism. They are not just trying to make a statement or strike fear or strike back against opression real or perceived. They are looking to take power.
The US and the UK have launched a War in the Middle East pitting Democracy against Fascism. That war has been hijacked by sleeping fundamentalists who have defended the territory with Muslim fundamentalism. Now Muslim fundamentalists around the world are witnessing the power that a religious assault can have on a democracy.
Democracies and Theocracies can not coexist. There is no room for a democracy when a god of any stripe rules that democracy. This is why the founders of the United States sought to separate church and state. They had seen that a king, annointed by a god, took freedom away from mankind. They established freedom and a bill of rights. They also new that the democracy would perish if handed or ceded over to a god puppet.
Muslim fanatics are attacking democracies at their weekest point, their susceptibility to be hijacked by religion. President Bush has fought back pitting his religion against the Muslim religion. This has fueled more converts to the fundamentalist cause and has destablized many more regions. They would have likely destabilized anyway after the Iraq war.
The problem with Bush's approach is that even if he succeeds and fights off the Muslim religion with the Christian relgion, democracy will still fail as it will have been seized by religion anyway. It is extremely difficult for any country or army to fight off against a religion. It can only lead ultimately to genocide if the religion is to be stopped.
When religions fight against religions, genocide is sometimes avoided, because new converts can sometimes be won within the ranks of the opposing forces.
Ultimately its a nasty paradox. Genocide on one hand as an ultimate result or Genocide on the other hand on the other and Theocratic rule on either side too.
Its bad news all the way around, unless more moderate people can be mobilized to actively participate. Currently the majority of the world is not involved in this war. They are merely sitting on the sidelines not choosing sides. They are going about their jobs as teachers, and doctors and students and business people and real estate brokers and construction workers.
They are letting other people fight the war and choose its direction. This is almost certain to result in a final solution that all of these people will not like.
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