"Londonistan" threatens US?

While the rightie cable news stations in the States have been having another go at Fisking the British news media, it seems the more refined sections of the US press have found another target in Britain for opprobrium: its people . . . well, those people of Middle East extraction at any rate. In today's Guardian ("Newspapers warn of threat to America from 'Londonistan'"), Gary Younge relays numerous stories in the US press pointing specifically to Britain as a source of a major threat to the USA. He notes:

Over the past three days, articles on front pages of newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal, describe the UK as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism that threatens global security.

In articles with headlines such as "For decades London thrived as a busy crossroads for terror" (New York Times) and "Continent's Issues include Geography and Open borders: Bombers travel freely, police cannot" (Wall Street Journal), the American press argue that London is a global hub for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorist cells.

Younge notes of all the pieces: "Although the identities and nationalities of those who committed the terrorist attacks are not yet known, the pieces hinge on the assumption that they are British citizens who have been in the country for a considerable amount of time." By extension, a clear threat is presented to America from Islamic extremists who carry British passports and who can therefore enter the US visa-free, circumventing strict visa controls for many Arabs with Middle East passports.

Younge points out that the pieces mostly draw on US-based terrorist "experts," who "argue that the government's reluctance to enforce stricter surveillance and anti-terror legislation for fear of upsetting Muslims has left the UK and the rest of Europe more vulnerable to terrorism." For example:

"London is easily the most jihadist hub in western Europe," Roger Cressy, a former White House counterterrorism official, told the Los Angeles Times. "London has been an indoctrination and recruiting centre for many years," Michael Radu, a terrorism expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, told the Philadelphia Tribune.

In the Wall Street Journal, the former head of the State Department's counter-terrorism centre, Larry Johnson, said Britain had been too squeamish about respecting Muslims' rights.

Perhaps if these pieces had queried more experts based in Britain - whose authorities have, after all, been combatting domestic terrorism for more than 30 years - they might have gained a more nuanced perspective. But no, it's easier for the press to frame the issue as those soft Europeans not knocking heads together hard enough, and thus create a new threat for Americans to be scared of - and in the news media world, Americans can never have enough things in their lives to be scared of, it seems. (The US media, btw, have a long tradition of doing this sort of thing, having in recent years hammered Canada and numerous European nations for being "soft on terrorism." It's much easier and safer than criticizing, say, their own government's supremely incompetent record on the issue.)

Younge saves the saddest example of this borderline-racist frame to the last: he quotes from Peter Bergen ("Our Ally, Our Problem"), a fellow of the New America Foundation, who had a rather shocking op-ed piece (which I read with some dismay - here's the original piece) in last Sunday's NY Times. He describes British Muslims as posing "one of the greatest terrorist threats to the United States". Bergen then "questions whether America's safety is compromised by allowing Britons to come to the US without a visa, given 'the reality that Islamic militant groups in Britain ... represent a growing threat to the United States that will continue for many years to come.' So entrenched is the British capital as an outpost of the Muslim diaspora, that London is now commonly referred to as 'Londonistan' - a word used several times in different papers."

As it becomes clear that as the "war on terrorism" allows the US to detain pretty much anyone it wants indefinitely, including even its own citizens (see here for the latest example) perhaps US journalists should look to their own back yard first. Or perhaps this country has to face up to the fact that it can't build ideological or physical walls between "us" and "them" - placing even its closest ally into the "them" camp - because ultimately there is no difference between "us" and "them."