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How Do We Stop the Suicide Bombers?

(Telegraph-UK) Niall Ferguson - Until ten days ago, London Underground bomber Shehzad Tanweer might have been mistaken for an example of successful racial integration. He now looks like the proof that no amount of economic, educational, and recreational opportunity can prevent the son of a Muslim immigrant from being converted into a religious fanatic and a terrorist. The problem today is not immigration per se; it is the fact that a pernicious ideology has been allowed to infiltrate Europe's immigrant communities. And that has happened because we have blindly allowed our country to be a haven for fanatics. "If al-Qaeda indeed carried out this act, it is a great victory for it," declared Dr. Hani al-Siba'i to al Jazeera the day after the London bombings. "It rubbed the noses of the world's eight most powerful countries in the mud." He went on to say that it was legitimate for al-Qaeda to target civilians because "the term 'civilians' does not exist in Islamic religious law in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar al-Harb [the domain of war, meaning territory ruled by non-Muslims] or not." Dr. al-Siba'i is the Director of the al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies - in London. The writer is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University.
2005-07-19 00:00:00
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