Terror plots in Britain

An Iraqi physician and a Palestinian doctor working at British hospitals were identified Monday among those held in the weekend’s failed car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.

In fact, as many as five doctors — one in Australia — may have been involved. And new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday the group behind this weekend’s attacks is “associated with al-Qaida.”

Authorities identified Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the Glasgow hospital, as one of the men arrested at the airport. Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha, arrested late Saturday on a highway in central England, is also a physician — of Palestinian descent, carrying a Jordanian passport.

In Amman, Jordan, Asha’s father, Jamil, denied his 26-year-old son had any terrorist leanings. “My son is a moderate Muslim and carried out his religious duties, but he never embraced fanaticism,” Jamil Asha told The Associated Press.

The terrorists clearly mean to be taken seriously. They should be careful what they wish for.

In Britain as here in the United States, we cherish our tradition of the presumption of innocence. To date, such crimes are followed by widespread reminders that we must be careful not to blame (let alone arrest or punish) every Arab or every Muslim. That remains true. No one is talking about rounding up or expelling every member of any given race, faith or ethnicity.

But the self-flagellating argument that, “Oh, dear, we ourselves must be at fault for perpetuating a world order that oppresses these poor unfortunates” is now thoroughly out of steam.

“This case could be the final proof that an idea those involved in these type of attacks are all young, angry and poorly educated is a mistake,” said Paul Cornish, a former British army officer and director of defense studies at London’s Chatham House think tank.

Former U.S intelligence officer Bob Ayers, now a security analyst based in London, says wealth or intelligence matters little to people committed to extremism.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that educated men are as involved as poor youngsters,” Mr. Ayers tells The Associated Press. “They all subscribe to the same radical ideology, that’s the only criteria they need to fill.”

Europe has welcomed a large Muslim minority into its midst.

The Iraqis and Pakistanis and Palestinian Arabs in Europe and Great Britain did not arrive there as slaves in the holds of cargo ships — they emigrated of their own free will.

The Arab lands have been free of European (and even Turkish) colonial domination for 60 — in many cases for 85 — years. If they wished to set aside their old ethnic and denominational strife and hatreds, they have had generations to build healthy, tolerant, pluralistic modern states — and plenty of oil revenue to fund the changeover.

They have failed, and it’s time we responded appropriately to their bizarre attempts to blame their problems on Mickey Mouse, Britney Spears, Col. Sanders’ fried chicken, and, of course, “the Jews.”

Those who do so are pathetic and absurd. Coming from lands with rudimentary standards of health and sanitation and minimal opportunities for educational and economic advancement, they have found in the West enormously greater freedom and the rapid advancement and prosperity that brings.

And how do many of these Muslim and Middle-Eastern immigrants, granted equal citizenship and equal opportunity, now repay those European peoples for welcoming them with open arms?

“Let us be clear: terrorists are criminals, whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religious backgrounds,” said British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. “Terrorists attack the values that are shared by all law-abiding citizens. It is through our unity that the terrorists will eventually be defeated.”

If Dr. Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Asha was involved in these attempted murders — a “hate crime” if ever there as one, since the plan was to murder complete strangers for no reason but to terrorize all Britons — and if, as his father says, Asha appeared to be “a moderate Muslim (who) never embraced fanaticism,” what does that say about the religion at the root of all this attempted carnage?

It’s time again for the real Islamic moderates to speak up in no uncertain terms.