War on terror | Pandaemonium

JASON BURKE ON ISLAMIC MILITANCY

August 23, 2011 by Kenan Malik

British journalist Jason Burke, one of the more perceptive writers on the issues of Islam, Islamism and the war on terror, has chosen five books on Islamic militancy for The Browser. And among the five is From Fatwa to Jihad. A snippet from his interview:

Categories: War on terror • Tags: british asians, british politics, From Fatwa to Jihad, identity politics, islamism, jason burke, jihadism, kenan malik's books, muslims, rushdie affair, terrorism, war on terror

THE TRAGIC IRONIES OF BREIVIK’S TERROR

July 30, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Three weeks ago London marked the sixth anniversary of the 7/7 tube bombings. Now Oslo will have its own heart-wrenching day of remembrance every year. Even for those who lived through 7/7 – not to mention countless other bombings, from IRA to neo-Nazi, that London has witnessed in the past few decades – there was still something viscerally shocking about Anders Breivik’s murderous rampage through Oslo and Utoya, the mindlessness of the massacre combined with its cold-eyed homicidal brutality. It […]

Categories: Multiculturalism, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, anders breivik, anti-terror laws, christianity, diversity, far right, identity politics, immigration, islamism, jihadism, liberties, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, terrorism, war on terror

MULTICULTURALISM AND THE ROAD TO 7/7

July 7, 2011 by Kenan Malik

This is my debut op-ed essay for the New York Times, a reflection on 7/7, multiculturalism and Islamism, which was published today under the title ‘Assimilation’s Failure, Terrorism’s Rise’. The NYT version is (very) slightly shorter than this. Six years ago today, on July 7, 2005, Islamic suicide bombers attacked London’s transit system. They blew up three subway trains and a bus, leaving 52 people dead and a nation groping for answers. In one sense the meaning of 7/7 is as clear to […]

Categories: Britain, Multiculturalism, War on terror • Tags: 7/7, british politics, immigration, islamism, mcb, multiculturalism, muslims, racism, terrorism

INVASION OF PRIVACY WE SHOULD TRULY WORRY ABOUT

May 16, 2011 by Kenan Malik

Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, a seminal account of the CIA, extraordinary rendition and torture, has an interview in the New Yorker with Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency who is about to be tried for violating the Espionage Act by leaking to a journalist secret documents about America’s covert surveillance of its own citizens. Drake, as Mayer puts it, is effectively being charged with being ‘an enemy of the state’. But it’s a state […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, War on terror • Tags: anti-terror laws, cia, jane mayer, liberties, privacy, usa, war on terror

TORTURE WORKS? SO OPPOSE IT.

May 6, 2011 by Kenan Malik

There is a growing debate about whether the use of torture played a critical role in allowing America to obtain information about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. Stories in the New York Times, Time, Haaretz, AP and elsewhere have suggested that it may have. And this in turn has emboldened those who see the use of what is euphemistically called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ as an essential tool in the war against terror. According to the AP report: The revelation that intelligence gleaned […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, War on terror • Tags: ethics, jane mayer, liberties, osama bin laden, torture, usa, war on terror

BIN LADEN, THE WAR ON TERROR AND THE ARAB SPRING

May 2, 2011 by Kenan Malik

For much of this morning, as the media pored over the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, BBC newscasters seemed intent on asking one question to any US official they happened to be interviewing. ‘Are you not disturbed’, they wanted to know, ‘by the jubilation shown by the American public at bin Laden’s death?’ How else, one might wonder, did they expect Americans to respond to the death of the man who engineered the wanton slaughter of 9/11, and whom […]

Categories: War on terror • Tags: al-qaeda, arab spring, islamism, jihadism, liberties, muslims, osama bin laden, war on terror

‘HE WAS NOT SQUEAMISH, BY THE WAY’

January 30, 2011 by Kenan Malik

New Yorker’s Jane Mayer on Egypt’s new vice president Omar Suleiman: He was the CIA’s point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program in which the CIA snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances… Edward S. Walker, Jr., a former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, described Suleiman as ‘very bright, very realistic’, adding that he was cognizant that there was a downside to ‘some of the negative things […]

Categories: War on terror • Tags: cia, egypt, jane mayer, rendition, torture, usa, war on terror