Decius wrote:

I really hope this study was flawed. There needs to be more. The actual POV of that community needs to be directly discussed. I would like to see surveys like this done in the US as well.

I seriously doubt if the survey is flawed and Anthony King is very highly respected in this country. Many British Muslims are extremely radical. The situation is not unlike Catholics in Northern Ireland being nationalist without supporting the violence of the IRA. The percentage of IRA members at any one time was a very small percentage of the population but don't forget it doesn't take many people to form an Active Service Unit after all the 9/11 attacks were conducted by 19 people, the London bombs by 4.
Muslims in this country have grown up in, what is to them, a rascist culture and for many the British government's support for the war in Iraq was the final straw. Their political home for a generation has been the Labour party. They feel politically disenfranchised by the political mainstream (note the rise of Respect, an anti war political party and with predominantly Muslim support but it is marginal as a political party and acts more as a within the system pressure relief valve).
The article expresses the view that many in the Muslim community feel that anybody brought to trial wouldn't receive a fair trial. The question arises whether this is systematic of a failure of the British system to assimilate the community or perhaps in view of what happened to the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6, who were falsely convicted under not entirely dissimilar circumstances, a not unreasonable point of view. Or even perhaps both positions are in fact accurate.
The bombings in London didn't surprise me in the least merely the timing, I expected it during the elections. Although many Muslims are I believe just as radical as the survey suggests they are not yet as organised as the IRA nor did they appear, until recently, to have the military know how. Whether the know how is home grown or imported is obviously a key question for the police and the security services.
With the bombs that didn't go off forensics will have a field day and if they can catch the bombmaker then maybe they can stop this Active Service Unit in its tracks. Let's hope because I genuinely expect like the war between British forces and the IRA a long campaigne.

adam wrote:
The article expresses the view that many in the Muslim community feel that anybody brought to trial wouldn't receive a fair trial. The question arises whether this is systematic of a failure of the British system to assimilate the community or perhaps in view of what happened to the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6, who were falsely convicted under not entirely dissimilar circumstances, a not unreasonable point of view. Or even perhaps both positions are in fact accurate.

I'm posting this back out to my MemeStream because I think its an incredibly good point that is easily forgotten.

There has been a lot of discussion in the past few years about due process for people suspected of terrorism. The point of view that some people seem to have is that nearly everyone accused of being a terrorist likely is a terrorist. You tend to give the police and the military the benefit of the doubt. They have no interest in sweeping up innocent people. The attitude is that due process helps the terrorists avoid punishment for their crimes.

The string of false convictions referenced above didn't occur in a third world country a long time ago. They occured in England in the 1970s. An innocent individual was gunned down in the street by police in England on Friday. The fact is that you are going to have innocent people get swept up in your anti-terror actions. It is unavoidable, because people whose job is prosecution tend to make presumptions of guilt that are not supported by the evidence, or perhaps even reasonable (like assuming that its unusual to see someone wearing a coat when its 62 degrees fahrenheit.) When your job is to see guilt you are going to see it even when its not there.

If you do not have a process for determining whether or not people ought to have been swept up, or if your process is seriously flawed as it was in England in the 70s, you will punish innocent people. If this is a systemic problem, you create a situation where no one trusts your judgement anymore, even if you improve your process. This tends to live with you for a long time.

Muslims who might have information which is useful to the authorities are unlikely to provide it if they are unsure of its meaning and they don't want to see innocent people get nailed by a system that cannot distinguish them.

To put it another way, people in the hood don't talk to the cops, and occaisonally they become so alienated that you get riots.

Alienating communities of people frustrates your ability to prosecute when you need it the most. One person cannot hide in a community unless the community wants to hide him. You want these people to trust you. If they don't trust you, they won't help you, and you won't get the intelligence you need.