British Army Colonel warns of Islamist infiltration into armed forces - while the ADF is hell-bent on encouraging them
Wednesday, 02 August 2017
The sentencing of the Royal Marine-turned-terrorist Ciaran Maxwell exposes a key challenge facing the armed forces and police.
How did Maxwell get through the net? All recruits to the forces are subject to basic security vetting but it is far from foolproof. In the years before the Good Friday agreement vetting of recruits from Northern Ireland was much stricter, yet some extremists from both sides got in.
After the agreement, in the era of equal opportunities at any price, obsessive political correctness and a determination to increase recruitment among Northern Irish Catholics, vetting parameters and monitoring procedures changed. This made Maxwell’s entry and service in the Royal Marines far easier.
There is no doubt that the threat from dissidents will rise significantly in the coming years, partly in reaction to the increased influence of the DUP, so the potential for future infiltration remains. But that is the least of our problems. The understandable drive by the armed forces and police to recruit more Muslims, and a less understandable concern for ticking the politically correct box over operational effectiveness, combine into an unprecedented danger.
Most Muslims who join the armed forces and police undoubtedly do so for good patriotic reasons. But Islamic State is determined to infiltrate the forces and police, and has produced a manual that includes instructions on doing so.
The jihadists’ strategy of infiltration goes back years and despite the authorities rejecting hundreds on security grounds it is inconceivable that some have not succeeded in joining and are now “sleepers”, awaiting orders to strike.
We have seen the dangers of the enemy within. In Afghanistan 152 coalition troops were killed in 99 “green on blue” attacks when trusted Afghan police and soldiers turned their guns on their comrades.
Armed forces members have access to sensitive intelligence, secure locations, members of the royal family, high-ranking officers and politicians, aircraft, tanks and nuclear submarines. Those with such potentially devastating opportunities have increased security vetting but what security vetting can be sure to detect an individual who is radicalised while serving, or pressurised to act by extremists who perhaps threaten his family?
The problem is exacerbated by a culture of political thought control under which soldiers and police officers are frightened to report suspicious behaviour for fear of being branded racist.
Colonel Richard Kemp is a former head of the international terrorism team at the Cabinet Office
ENDS
We'd do well to listen to Colonel Kemp.
We have an appalling record of sucking up to the wrong people.
What an insult to those Australians killed in the name of Islamic Jihad when the ADF celebrates the memorisation and recitation of the inspiration for Jihad, the Quran, including these verses.
Here's a small selection of some of the ADF's unwise moves.
We've published a range of material produced by the Royal Australian Navy's celebrity Muslim Mona Shindy - along with questions we'd raised about whether she should be charged for her misconduct. We brought you the background to her appointment during the Gillard years and compared her treatment with the charges and punishment meted out to soldiers involved in Facebook posts about Muslims.
A couple of days later we published details of the RAN's decision to allow serving RAN sailors to attend the Saudi Arabian Koran memorising competition - at Saudi Government expense, as well as the RAN's decision to fund Mona Shindy's Master's degree in politics.
We published the ADF's guide to religion which tells us that Muslims follow the idea that the prophet Mohammed's life was perfect. It's still all there, including the 6 year old wife, 9 year old sex partner and hundreds of beheaded prisoners.
We uncovered the ADF-linked Muslim website that tells followers we are at war with Islam because democracy and Islam cannot coexist.
Here are former Chief of Army David Morrison's apologetic views about Muslim acts of terror.
Here's our reader's FOI application for details of the approvals which allowed Mona Shindy to publish her Islamist anti-Australian rot.
And here's the announcement that the ADF had appointed a pro-Hizb ut-Tahrir Muslim cleric as a chaplain - a spiritual advisor to Australian troops if you don't mind.
Unbelievable isn't it?
The Australian Defence Force - at war with Islamists in the Middle East - appoints an Imam who was a signatory to the two communiques below.
Here's the Imam as co-author of this letter condemning Australia and supporting the terrorist organisation Hizb ut-Tahir:
Muslim Community Rejects Abbott Government’s Demonisation and Condemns Moves to Silence Legitimate Critique
Joint Statement: Muslim Community Rejects Abbott Government’s Demonisation and Condemns Moves to Silence Legitimate Critique
This joint Muslim community statement expresses our position with respect to the Abbott Government’s ongoing demonisation of Muslims in Australia, their organisations, their leaders and their values. We – the undersigned Sheikhs, advocates, community leaders, community organisations and student bodies of the Muslim community – make the following points in this regard:
1) We reject the Abbott Government’s predictable use of Muslim affairs and the ‘terror threat’ to attempt to stabilise a fragile leadership and advance its own political agendas.
2) We deplore and denounce the continued public targeting of Muslims through abominable ‘anti-terror’ laws. The laws passed in late 2014 have been used to justify opportunistic raids on Muslim homes, have created media and community hysteria where in the majority of cases no crime was committed, and have created distressing and harmful backlash towards Muslims, especially women and children.
3) We unequivocally reject Prime Minister Abbott’s and his party members’ use of language that portrays Muslims and the Muslim community as a security threat. This narrative threatens social cohesion as it invites suspicion and ill feeling from members of the broader community. The presence of Muslims in Australia as productive contributors to society is not the exception; it is rather the rule.
4) We deplore the undefined and politically expedient use of the words ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’ to criminalise legitimate political discourse and critique of the Government’s policies by members of the Muslim community.
5) We strongly oppose Prime Minster Abbott’s politically convenient threats to ‘tackle’ and ‘crack down’ on Islamic groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir who disavow and have never supported terrorist acts, and whose only ‘crime’ has been to criticise the Abbott Government’s stance towards Muslims domestically and abroad, as they are well within their rights to do. We also oppose the bullying of Sheikh Dr Ibrahim Abu Muhammad by Mr Abbott for his criticism of Mr Abbott’s attempts to silence individuals’ and organisations’ legitimate criticisms of his policies.
6) We affirm our commitment to robust political and ideological debate and discourse for the betterment of humanity at large. The Abbott Government’s attempts to undermine this brings into question his Government’s commitment to its very own purported values and liberal freedoms.
7) We affirm our concern about peace and security for all. We refuse, however to be lectured on peace-building and harmony by a Government that plays divisive politics, uses fear to elicit uncertainty in the general public, undertakes the oppression of asylum seekers and incarceration of children in detention centres, treats its indigenous population tokenistically, and pledges its explicit support to dictators such as Egypt’s El-Sisi, who continues to brutalise legitimate political opposition to his tyranny.
8) We call on all fair minded Australians, including politicians, journalists, academics, bloggers and others concerned about Australia’s social justice, to continue to scrutinise the Abbott Government’s scare tactics, fear-mongering and political machinations. They do not bode well for societal harmony and only increase the alienation felt and experienced by Australia’s Muslim community. It is time the Abbott Government stopped diverting the attention of the Australian public away from its disastrous domestic and foreign policies by playing the ‘Muslim’ and ‘national security’ card.
19 February 2015
Here's the Imam in his role with the Islamic National Imam's Council condemning us for going to war against Islamic State in Iraq
Following the same logic we should have put Tojo or Goebbels on our World War Two advisory committee.
More strength to you arm Colonel Kemp.