Brussels follow-up

What do you make of what is happening in Brussels and Paris? 

Terrorists, acting in the name of the religion of peace exploded two bombs at the airport and another one on an underground train and killed more than 30 people and injured, many very seriously, more than 270 souls.

Since these callous attacks, Belgium’s police and intelligence services have finally sprung to life.

A long held belief was that the Belgian authorities turned a blind eye to radical Islamists and in return these terrorists didn’t ‘misbehave’ in Belgium.  That ‘compact’ has been well and truly broken. 

Brussels, or Jihadi Central, as it has sometimes been called, has come to realise that when you keep a poisonous snake, you must keep it properly caged, otherwise it will attack its hosts. Or you must remove the cause of the venomous nature.

You can’t blame the snake – that’s its nature.  It’s all it knows.  It’s what it is taught, day in and day out.  It starts at it’s mother’s breast, carries on through a schooling that is  dominated by a warped and murderous  religion and then is fed daily by local communities who are constantly told, by their liberal hosts that they are entitled and special and don’t need to assimilate into their host society;-

·      that it’s okay to mistreat women – because that’s your culture

·      that it’s okay to practice ritual slaughter – because that’s your religion

·      that it’s okay to mutilate women - because they are inferior

·      that it’s okay to ignore host country law – because you have Shariah law

·      that it’s okay to impose your Shariah law on non-believers -  because their dress or following entirely legal activities, such as drinking alcohol or eating pork, offends you.

Finally, Brussels authorities are now starting to make arrests.  In the course of the last few days we have learned that many of these terrorists were ‘known’ to the authorities.  One of the bombers was deported by Turkey, who advised the Belgians that he was a dangerous militant, and yet received no punishment or surveillance upon his return to Belgium.  Another is on the USA’s terror watch list but is allowed to roam free in Brussels.

Some of this Belgian activity is spilling over into France.  Arrests have been made their, seemingly made on the basis of information that they have received from the Belgians.  This does though, call into question all of those platitudes that were mouthed after the Paris attacks in November 2015.  It also calls into question all of the prattling we hear about close cooperation between the intelligence services of European Union members.  The EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told the BBC ‘the ‘deep state’ resists and we must change this attitude.  I know it is not easy to start thinking more European, but it is a must’.   This despite the assertions by Rob Wainwright, head of Europol, that British membership of the EU was so critical to Britain’s security!

A former director of America’s CIA has said that ‘the European Union, in some ways gets in the way of security services’.  He went on to say that that the EU was ‘not a natural contributor to national security’.

Speaking of Americans, can President Obama ever become any more crass? People are killed – people including Americans – and Obama then spares a minute or two, to criticise the killers, using his trademark absence of mentioning the religion of the killers.  Then it is straight on to a baseball game, sitting alongside the totalitarian Castro and indeed, indulging in a ‘Mexican wave’ and generally enjoying himself.  Then, just in case he hadn’t offended enough, he heads off to Argentina and goes for a tango photo-op. 

American Presidents are always concerned about their ‘legacy’.  For me, the photographs of Obama doing a Mexican wave or dancing a tango will rank alongside other completely inappropriate ‘photo-ops’ to serve as his legacy – that and the racial and social division that he has promoted in America and the abandonment of America’s leading global role.

I hope that the openness we have seen and heard, in recent days continues.  That we will continue to learn of the failings of these security services.  This openness is the only way that they will learn and improve.

It is not just the security services that need to learn, though.  European societies need to learn the fundamental lesson that multi-culturalism doesn’t work.  Migrants must assimilate into their host societies.  These host societies cannot tolerate parallel communities to exist alongside their native born citizens.  They cannot allow alternative legal systems to operate – there can only be one body of law and that must be the national one.

Have a Blessed Easter and celebrate the Risen Christ