EDL are crowing over how many new members they have got since this circus began.

...Islamic fundamentalists Vs Christian fundamentalists

i feel that it is perfectly reasonable to allow the innocent dead from Afghanistan & Iraq to be named and the government to apologise for their murder.

Why do we know the names of every dead soldier but not a single name of the innocent killed?

Malatesta i'm sure would be turning in his grave right now had he the access to this level of analysis in his name.

Just a couple of questions.


1 Who said this specific protest demanded a conversion of the UK to wholesale islam?

The protest is to remember "...the true victims of the war" who are none other than the Afghani civilians. This is a statement I happen to agree with and even though I would personally never march beside a religious group, it is shameful to the left that we have never dared/thought/cared to protest against these people who do not receive an ounce of mention in this country whereas the few mercenaries of the British Army coming back dead are making headlines on a daily basis.


2 "The creator Jo Cleary is a supporter of British troops but Michael Parker, one of the admins, is an admirer of Nick Griffin and Stuart Toman, another admin, is a member of “If you live in England, speak English” group."

You do know that the creator is responsible for selecting the admins of the group right. Though even if you didn't it's probably in your credit that you're not aware of how facebook works.

There's not too much difference between non-political individuals who just 'support the troops' and political groups who 'support the troops'. The blind allegiance of these individuals/groups to another group based solely on the flag they salute is a recipe for continued and unopposed imperialist ventures by powerful nations such as the US/UK.


3. "if the UK is so bloody awful why stay?"

An indirect call for conformity or deportation if ever i've seen one

The fash-friendly BBC are up to their usual tricks in offering regular platforms to the British far right. Following on from Question Time, the BBC interviewed Tommy Robinson who is now back in the main EDL fold: -

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uiP1EiZy0

(note the EDL members who have posted extreme racist filth after this interview giving away their true intentions).

It's about time that the BBC were privatised.

And to think that so many BBC journalists and presenters are on Redwatch......

What's wrong with the British media all of a sudden?????? Are the EDL indeed part of a conspiracy, along with Islam4UK to ensure public support for worldwide militarism and the War On Terror and keeping British troops in Afganistan?

There should be a national boycott of the BBC for bigging-up the EDL and the BNP.

Talk sport also gave the EDL a platform on the same day

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t2HTUey9Fs

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auwSgNgZXX4

TalkSport have always been hard rightwing since they employed James Whale and they have often interviewed the BNP, but unlike the BBC, they are not part of the establishment state apparatus.

Just why the BBC would give airplay to a bunch of street fighting football hooligans to talk about current news issues is another matter. One has to assume the BBC were "given the nod".

Nottingham Arms Dump are anti-war and anti-army, so get your facts right please. there are loads of 'socialist libertarian' groups that oppose the wars and soldiers in general. Lots of us are anti-militarist, actually. For example, Nottingham Arms Dump, who recently protested successfully against gun makers heckler and koch, are planning an action against the british army's wars abroad, later this year planning a demo in nottingham at an army barracks, carrying a fifteen foot tank built by the hands of concerned residents and activists.
so to those that comment here that activists dont do any thing against war and troops, you're wrong.

www.nottsarmsdump.wordpress.com for more details.

sometimes. Every1 should support Elijah Smith on remand for 1 yr for non violently stopping EDO 's WMD systems getting to Isreal when IDF were deliberately targetting toddlers with snipers & bombs a year a ago, a true hero.
He is in prison near Brigthon check abc prisoner support & big him up, the government are afraid of putting him on trial, they seem to prefer the BNP more sometimes.

While the march in remembrance of the Afghani & Iraqi dead is honorable, don't be fooled by the benign topic Choudary and Islam4UK are trying to project. After all, if Stop the War or similar held the same march they might get some heckling from the far right, but that's it. The huge backlash against Choudary is more to do with his group, who are dedicated to implementing Sharia law and introducing a theocracy. Anyone remember the 'shariah is law, freedom go to hell' placards his group was holding when protesting Geert Wilders' visit? Both sides were as bad as each other. Plus Choudary pals around with Omar Bakri Muhammed, who delights in things like the bombings of 9/11 and 7/7 and promised more for the glory of Islam etc etc etc blah blah blah.

Militant islam is as repellant as the Westboro Baptist Church or neo-zionism. It's not a choice of having to protest on the side of Griffin or the side of Choudary. When both sides are wrong, stand up for whats right and be an individual.

"And if the UK is so bloody awful why stay? "

Does that mean I should also leave? or should I stay and try to make a difference?

What a load of liberal wank.

Completely agree with 'No Gods, No Masters'. Islam4UK have rightly been denounced by all, and criticism of them is fair game - most vocalised by those whom we usually do not share the same views with such as the right-wing press and apologists for imperialist adventures abroad. Some lame commentary b4 from others - the left have not place defending right-wing islamic fascists even if the issue they draw attention to (Afghani victims) is legitimate. We reject the Islamic-chauvinist sectarianism of Anjem Choudary (while of course at the same time, the EDL do nothing to advance any argument that they stand for ‘the English people’ by depicting all Muslims as extremists, only exposing their own racism).

in response to 'T', who said:
"There's not too much difference between non-political individuals who just 'support the troops' and political groups who 'support the troops'. The blind allegiance of these individuals/groups to another group based solely on the flag they salute is a recipe for continued and unopposed imperialist ventures by powerful nations such as the US/UK."
>>> This is abit of a simplistic analysis. Those that stand to honour the war dead are mainly there to respect their selfless acts for what is perceived to be the task of elimiating the source of terrorism abroad for our collective benefit; they are not primarly standing there paying their respects because of blind allegiance to the flag - though I'm sure all who stand there wholeheartedly do have allegiance to that flag. It is a recognition that Britain stands for something linked back to a defence of a sense of collective liberty which the 'nation' fought for against the threat if Nazi invasion in the 40s. This political-correctedness against standing up for the idea of the 'nation' tends towards another form of ideological fanaticism - that anything that is considered being 'nationalistic' is imperialist. This is why those who argue for a Palestinian state are considered by those to be not worthy of support in the anarchist scene to the point of inertia - it is a classic example of the shortfall of anarchist thinking that shrinks active participation on issues of importance such as these which must be viewed in a post-colonial context (resulting from past-imperialism infact) to struggles at the individual level - shrinking from raising any kind of broad articulation or activity which takes a political stance representing interests at a wider level - dare I say it a 'national level'. For instance, the need for a broad articulation of the movement of Israel back to pre-1967 borders as a first step, for instance.

It states at www.islam4uk.com that Islam4UK is "a platform for the global front Al-Muhajiroun", so who are Al-Muhajiroun?

Nafeez Ahmed addressed this question in his written evidence before the Parliamentary 'Prevent' Inquiry,  http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-written-evidence-before.html and, in-a-nut-shell, he implies that they are having their strings pulled by western "intelligence" agencies, the sections that mention Al-Muhajiroun:

20. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is only one Islamist extremist organisation that has been implicated in the fomentation of terrorist plots in Britain - al-Muhajiroun. Founded by Syrian cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed in 1996, the group has undergone several changes of name (al-Ghurrabah, the Saved Sect, al-Sabiqoon al-Awwaluun) to avoid the effects of government proscription - but has never been proscribed under its original name. Although Bakri was banned from returning to Britain after he travelled to Lebanon a month after the 7/7 attacks, in June this year al-Muhajiroun was officially re-launched under its founding name in the UK by Bakri's deputy, Anjem Choudary.

21. Every major Islamist terrorist plot in the UK, including 7/7, the fertiliser bomb plot, the liquid bomb plot, and so on, have been linked to al-Muhajiroun. Both Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer (the lead 7/7 bombers) had been al-Muhajiroun members, as had others convicted in relation to different plots. Al-Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri had advanced warning of the London bombings in the preceding year, and six months before the attacks had called his followers to embark on jihad on British soil.[22]

22. Officially, British authorities deny al-Muhajiroun's involvement in planning, organizing or carrying out terrorist attacks in the UK. The response from Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke to questions on Panorama about al-Muhajiroun's involvement in 7/7 was that the group "did not feature in the significant part at all."[23] However, al-Muhajiroun's primary function is neither logistical nor operational, but consists of providing a radicalizing social network that employs ideological techniques to indoctrinate and motivate recruits, as well as providing access and connections abroad through which recruits may receive opportunity to undergo terrorist training with groups associated with al-Qaeda.[24] Thus, a study by the Centre for Social Cohesion finds that 15 per cent of convicted terrorists in the UK were either members of al-Muhajiroun or knew members of the network. In the last decade, "one in seven Islamist-related convictions" have been linked to al-Muhajiroun.[25]

23. Al-Muhajiroun exploits grievances not only about perceived discrimination in Britain, but especially about British foreign policy in Muslim-majority countries. A joint Foreign Office and Home Office report in April 2004 concluded that among the factors attracting young Muslims to extremism is "a perception of 'double standards' in British foreign policy, where democracy is preached but oppression of the 'Ummah' (the one nation of believers) is practised or tolerated e.g. in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya; a consequent sense of helplessness over the situation of Muslims generally; the lack of any real opportunities to vent frustration."[26] This frustration is galvanized to inculcate an 'Us' and 'Them' mentality in which violence against 'Their' (Western) civilians is justified by misappropriation of Islamic language and symbolism as a response to 'Their' killings of 'Our' (Muslim) civilians abroad.[27]

24. Intelligence Co-optation of Islamist Extremists

Here, the role of British and American intelligence policy in directly and indirectly facilitating the activities of Islamist extremist networks becomes significant. According to senior government and intelligence officials, at the time of al-Muhajiroun's founding in 1996, the network was mobilized by MI6 to send British Muslims to Kosovo - coinciding with British and American military assistance to the Kosovan Albanians.[28] This continued prior actions in the former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1994, whereby British and American military-intelligence services facilitated the influx of mujahideen fighters. Dutch intelligence files show that the Pentagon airlifted many al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters directly from Afghanistan and elsewhere into Bosnia.[29]

25. According to Graham Fuller, former Deputy Director of the CIA's National Council on Intelligence, the selective sponsorship of al-Qaeda terrorist groups after the Cold War continued in the Balkans and Central Asia to intensify the rollback of Russian and Chinese power: "The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvellously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia."[30] This strategy has been documented based on intelligence sources, as well as official documents and testimony, in several academic studies.[31] It is also corroborated by other intelligence officials. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who has testified before US Congressional and Senate Committees about pre-9/11 classified intelligence documents she translated, confirms that US intelligence services maintained a "very intimate relationship" with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban "all the way up to September 11," to secure geopolitical influence in Central Asia.[32]

26. Even after 9/11, elements of this relationship were not discontinued. Concurrently, reliable reports indicate that the Bush administration in around 2003 began encouraging Saudi government financing of al-Qaeda-affiliated extremist Salafi groups across the Middle East and Central Asia (particularly in Iraq, Lebanon, and Pakistan) to counter Iranian Shi'ite influence. A Presidential Finding signed by President Bush in early 2008 confirms that the CIA has backed this programme with at least $300 million.[33] In Lebanon, for instance, extremist Salafi groups co-opted by the ruling Hariri faction have been financed by US-Saudi largess as a counterweight to the Shi'ite group Hizbullah. The Lebanese Daily Star reported that the United States had earmarked $60 million to reinforce Interior Ministry forces and Sunni organisations identified as "jihadists."[34] Ironically, a key figure benefiting from this policy is al-Muhajiroun leader Omar Bakri Mohammed, currently residing in Beirut, who has reportedly received material support from Lebanese Salafi networks which he now vocally promotes. In one recent interview, he proclaims, "Today, angry Lebanese Sunnis ask me to organize their jihad against the Shi'ites... Al-Qaeda in Lebanon... are the only ones who can defeat Hezbollah."[35] He is currently being investigated by Lebanese security forces who accuse him of training al-Qaeda forces in Lebanon.[36]

27. Bakri appears to have benefited indirectly from US-Saudi intelligence sponsorship of extremist groups, with potentially deleterious consequences for US and British national security. This disturbing prospect is made all the more worrying given that his extremist network, al-Muhajiroun, continues to operate with impunity in the UK, openly inciting to violence, yet ignored by law-enforcement authorities. Bakri himself still addresses his British followers through video link and internet broadcasts.[37]

28. Violent Radicalization: a Positive-Feedback System

Overall, these factors alone constitute necessary conditions for violent radicalization, but their cumulative interaction creates a mutually-reinforcing positive-feedback system, acting in totality as a sufficient condition and causal basis for a minority of British Muslims to experience violent radicalization:

29. Social structural inequalities and institutional discrimination have generated a groundswell of social alienation, civic exclusion, and political impotence that fuels psychological instability and vulnerability to identity crises in many Muslim communities, including those which are more upwardly mobile.

30. This is reinforced by Islamophobic media reporting, which in turn has fuelled social polarisation between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Britain, contributing to Muslim vulnerability to separate self-identification through negative reflected appraisal, and increasing the ability of extremists to operate among both communities.

31. Foreign policy grievances exacerbate this condition and provide a focal point and critical catalyst for a sense of generic victimization that potentially undermines attachment to British national identity.

32. While the preceding items highlight 'push' factors, the key 'pull' factor comes in the form of Islamist extremist ideology, in the form of organisations which exploit all these circumstances of exclusion, navigating the groundswell of potential discontent to identify vulnerable individuals for recruitment into various forms of ideological indoctrination as a means to resolve their identity crises. The only group in the UK which has been linked directly and indirectly to actual terrorist activity is al-Muhajiroun, and it is this network in particular that should be recognised as providing a radicalizing social network opening material prospects for individuals to participate in terrorist activities that threaten public safety, at home and abroad.

33. The radicalizing activities of such groups in turn serve to feedback into the previous processes of social and civic exclusion, negative perceptions of Muslims, and so on, processes which become further intensified in the aftermath of terrorist attacks or plots by associated individuals.

34. However, the impunity with which al-Muhajiroun networks continue to operate in Britain is not simply a question of lax law-enforcement with regard to their members who continue to incite to violence, but also of deeper intelligence issues suggesting a need for far greater oversight over Britain's foreign intelligence policies, which may have undermined domestic security. Those intelligence issues concern the selective financial sponsorship of Islamist extremist groups for short-sighted geostrategic reasons by Britain and her allies, such as the US and Saudi Arabia.

...

42. Finally, parliamentary oversight over the conduct of the British intelligence services is deeply inadequate. Far greater scrutiny of intelligence policy - particularly the influence of US strategic intelligence planning on British policy - is required to ensure a cessation of activities that have, and potentially continue to, foster Islamist extremist networks abroad that may undermine domestic security. This should include an independent public inquiry into the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Similarly, the trajectory of law-enforcement toward 'widening the net,' which increasingly criminalises and alienates the very communities that need to be empowered, should be reversed so as to focus specifically on charging and prosecuting individuals at large linked to networks (namely, al-Muhajiroun) with documented links to terrorist activity in the UK, and who have a track record of inciting to violence.

Footnotes:

[22] See Ahmed, Inside the Crevice, op. cit.; and Ahmed, The London Bombings, op. cit.

[23] Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Inside the Crevice: Islamist terror networks and the 7/7 intelligence failure (London: Institute for Policy Research & Development, September 2007)

[24] Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Ahmed, The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006)

[25] CSC Press Briefing, "One in Seven UK Terror-related Convictions Linked to Islamist Group Now Threatening to Relaunch" (London: Centre for Social Cohesion, 1 June 2009)

[26] John Gieve (ed.), Draft Report on Young Muslims and Extremism (London: Home Office and Foreign & Commonwealth Office, April 2004) Restricted Document leaked to the British press, available here

[27] See Choudhury, op. cit. and Change Institute Report for the European Commission, Studies into violent radicalisation: the beliefs, ideologies and narratives (London: The Change Institute, February 2008) pp. 29, 133-137. Also see Ahmed, "Engaging the enemy within: Their legitimate concerns turn into a psychology of victimization", Independent on Sunday (13 August 2006)

[28] This has been confirmed for instance by John Loftus, former US Justice Department official; as well as by Gen. Pervez Musharraf in his memoirs. See Ahmed, The London Bombings, op. cit.

[29] See Ahmed, op. cit.

[30] Richard Labeviere, Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam (New York: Algora, 2000).

[31] See for example Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of the American Empire (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008); Professor Jeremy Keenan, The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2009). For a shorter analysis see Ahmed, "Terrorism and Western Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations After the Cold War", in Paul Zarembka (ed.), Research in Political Economy (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2006, Vol. 23).

[32] Sibel Edmonds interviewed on Mike Malloy Radio Show (31 July 2009). Transcript available here

[33] For sources see Ahmed, Inside the Crevice, op. cit., Appendix. Also see Brian Ross (The Blotter), "Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran", ABC News (22 March 2007) ; Seymour Hersh, "The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" New Yorker (5 March 2007)

[34] Daily Star (20 April 2007)

[35] See for example Gary C. Gambhill, "Salafi-jihadism in Lebanon", Mideast Monitor (January-March 2008, Vol. 3, No. 1); Bakri cited in Olivier Guitta, "Al-Qaida's Opportunistic Strategy: Part 3", Middle East Times (18 August 2008)

[36] Richard Edwards, "Omar Bakri sought in Lebanon for training al-Qaeda terrorists", Telegraph (3 January 2009)

[37] Ishtiaq Hussain, "Preacher Omar Bakri 'Is a Danger'", Sky News (13 December 2008)

 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmcomloc/memo/previoex/uc19a02.htm

I suspect that the situation is worse that Nafeez Ahmed feels confident to state and that Islam4UK *and* the EDL have both been set up and are being run by western "intelligence" agencies to control extremism and more importantly to provide justification for the "war on terror" and the "clash of civilizations" which are clearly bogus justifications for Imperial Resource Wars.

I hadn't heard the term Panarchy before, so here is a link to Wikipedia:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy

Basically it seems to mean either One World Government or else a system whereby people in the same geographic area can choose to be governed in different ways simultaneously. Not sure exactly how that would work though. Maybe like the countries that have special laws that apply Sharia laws only to Muslims? What if your government said property was theft and you squatted some land "belonging" to another person whose government said it wasn't?

panarchist: "This political-correctedness against standing up for the idea of the 'nation' tends towards another form of ideological fanaticism - that anything that is considered being 'nationalistic' is imperialist."

Anarchists are opposed to nation states, so it's not surprising they are opposed to nationalism!

"This is why those who argue for a Palestinian state are considered by those to be not worthy of support in the anarchist scene to the point of inertia"

There are many anarchists fighting against the repression in Palestine. They just do it from the point of view of supporting an oppressed group, not from the point of view of supporting a Palestine state. Remember power corrupts, so a Palestinian state could easily become the next Israel 20 years down the line if it somehow gained the power.

It back on again

It is unfortunate that the ultra-reactionary Islam4UK should be the first people to propose a demo in Wooton Bassett to draw attention to the Afghanis killed by the British Army. The Stop the War Coalition have opportunistically avoided targeting the British Army but have put forward the line that they are a grand bunch of lads being misused. Thus the field has been clear for the Government and media to wage a massive propaganda campaign representing British soldiers as "heroes" defending their homeland from attack by Afghanistan. While the opinion polls suggest that the majority of people in Britain want British forces withdrawn from Afghanistan it seems that their motive is concern about injuries and deaths suffered by British soldiers and not a concern for the thousands of Afghanis these invaders are killing.

It is high time to start campaigning in Britain:

* To tell the soldiers that this war is wrong and that they should not fight it.

* To tell people just what British Armed Forces in Afghanistan are doing, e.g. destroying villages and crops, calling in indiscriminate air strikes.

It should be made clear that the British State and its NATO allies are the invaders and that the Afghani people, especially the Taliban who dare to resist them, are their victims. There should be demonstrations at military parades and actions at military establishments.

A start could be made by militant picketing at the opening of the court martial of Corporal Joe Glenton, one of the few serving soldiers to refuse to fight, on 29th. January.

Anyone up for it?

"There's not too much difference between non-political individuals who just 'support the troops' and political groups who 'support the troops'. The blind allegiance of these individuals/groups to another group based solely on the flag they salute is a recipe for continued and unopposed imperialist ventures by powerful nations such as the US/UK."

I reject this. Even though I am anti-militarist and anarchist, I grew up in a military family. And while my family members still enlisted in the armed forces know how I feel about their involvement, I support them in the fact that I'm angry at the way the government sends them on stupid missions and wars, and because of outsourcing, a lot of their supplies (from food to toiletries to equipment) are now distributed via. private contracts who see some troops having to pay out of their own pocket to fix their jeeps in the field. The wars are fucking stupid, but as a government if you're going to send troops to some far-off place you at least make sure theyre not endangered through friendly fire or shoddy defensive equipment.