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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 5-Jul-07
Britain shocked by terrorist bombing plot by doctors in National Health Service

Web Log - July, 2007

Britain shocked by terrorist bombing plot by doctors in National Health Service

Britain reduced its terrorist threat level from 'critical' to 'severe' on Wednesday, for the first time since last weekend's attempted triple car bombings in London and Glasgow.

The level had been raised to 'critical' on Saturday, indicating that further terrorist attacks were thought to be imminent.

It remained at the 'critical' level for several days, longer than some people thought prudent, since it meant that policemen throughout Britain would be working very long hours, getting very little sleep.

The reduction of the threat level back to 'severe,' where it's been since last August, means that a new attack is considered likely, but not imminent.

The terrorists made the calls to the cell phones that were to trigger each London car bomb, but the bombs failed to ignite. Then, on Saturday, they attempted to explode an incendiary bomb as a suiciding bombing in Glasgow, and that failed as well. If it weren't for the terrorists' bumbling, the bombs would have killed dozens or hundreds of people.

The terrorist doctors

Gifted surgeon Mohammed Jamil Abdelqadar Asha, allegedly masterminded the terrorist bombings <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: news.com.au)</font>

Gifted surgeon Mohammed Jamil Abdelqadar Asha, allegedly masterminded the terrorist bombings (Source: news.com.au)

But what has Britons REALLY freaked out is that the terrorist cell was a ring of foreign-born doctors in the National Health Service (NHS).

The alleged ringleader is a "gifted" surgeon, Mohammed Jamil Abdelqadar Asha, 26 years old, born in Jordan. Three doctors and two trainees are among the seven people being held for questioning in the UK.

Another doctor, Mohammed Haneef, an Indian, was detained in Brisbane, Australia, as he was about to board a plane with a one-way ticket to Malaysia.

This is causing a great deal of consternation in Britain, where 22,000 doctors in the NHS are foreign trained, or 40% of the total. The health industry was aghast at the development. "The news that members of a caring profession may be involved in these atrocities was even more appalling," said Dr. Hamish Meldrum, the new chairman of the British Medical Association in a statement.

It's thought that hospitals and the "medical fraternity" have provided a convenient network, allowing a terrorist leader to recruit other sympathetic professionals to his cause.

The generational connection

There's an article in Thursday's Wall Street Journal that attempts to answer the question of whether poverty is the "root cause" of suicide bombings. Based on research by Professor Alan B. Krueger, the article concludes that poverty has nothing to do with it.

Well duh, I could have told you that. Suicide bombings are explained by generational factors, as I described in a series of articles following the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings. This was summarized in last December's article on the MI5 chief's speech, saying that the U.K. population contains thousands of Islamic terrorists and sympathizers.

We're seeing that suicide bombers only come from societies that have entered generational Crisis periods, and not before. This indicates that when a society enters a generational Crisis period, the society becomes fundamentally changed, so that the creation of suicide bombers becomes possible. (And as I showed in my analysis on Iraqi Sunnis turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq, there are virtually NO Iraqi suicide bombers, since Iraq is in a generational Awakening era; they all have to be imported from Jordan or Saudi Arabia.)

Further findings, obtained by combining Generational Dynamics research with Robert Pape's study of suicide bombers, published in the book Dying to Win, we find that suicide bombers justify their terrorist acts as "altruistic suicide." Pape found that suicide bombers most likely come from countries occupied by another country, and his research shows that they come overwhelming from countries that have passed through a generational crisis era without having a crisis war. In these countries, the parents have accepted the occupation, albeit bitterly and reluctantly. But their impatient children take it upon themselves to free their parents' generation from this occupation by this unique form of altruistic suicide.

This generational explanation is supported by theory and is supported by the facts. But as I've said before, pundits, experts and journalists have a mental block that prevents them from grasping even the simplest generational connection, even when it's so obvious that it practically bashes them over the head with baseball bat. Their mental capabilities are limited to the subjects of poverty and class, and anything outside of those boundaries is as foreign to them as Sanskrit.

The Palestinian connection

Suicide bombers are in the young generation with an ethnic background in a country undergoing occupation.

In the case of the London subway bombers, the perpetrators had backgrounds in Pakistan and were bitter about the Kashmir region, disputed between Pakistan and India. They were England-born citizens, but had developed a generational "Hero - Prophet" relationship with radical clerics in Pakistan.

Last weekend's failed bombing attempts were perpetrated by foreign-born doctors with a Palestinian connection.

Here's a summary of suspects:

The alleged ringleader, Mohammed Jamil Abdelqadar Asha, was said to be filled with hate against the West over Palestine. He and his wife, Marwah, were Palestinians who lived and were educated in Jordan before moving to the UK. They blamed the UK and America for the Israeli occupation of Palestine. A relative was quoted as say, "Marwah was increasingly scathing of UK foreign policy. She said it was at the heart of the problems of the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Bilal Abdullah was an Iraqi who had been part of the Sunni insurgency that worked with the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There is evidence that al-Zarqawi set up the entire bombing plan, prior to his own death on June 7, 2006, from an American air strike. His friends claim that he wanted revenge against British and American troops because one of his best friends had been killed by Shias.
(Abdullah was in the car that was to become a failed suicide attack in Glasgow last Saturday. As I mentioned above, there were almost no Iraqi suicide bombers in Iraq; al-Zarqawi had to import them from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The fact that Abdullah was an Iraqi may be the reason that the suicide attack failed.)

Other detainees were from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and India. News reports provide no details of their political attitudes.

Before last weekend, I heard a pundit on TV make an interesting claim: That al-Qaeda isn't interested in perpetrating another terrorist attack in the U.S., unless it can be as spectacular as the 9/11 attack.

That may or may not be true of Osama bin Laden's closest al-Qaeda group, but al-Qaeda today goes well beyond bin Laden. It's become a "brand name" for a collection of loosely connected terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda in Iraq, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa). It's also linked to other terrorist organizations, including the Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, and terror groups in Europe.

So, whether the pundit was right or not about bin Laden's original group, the network of al-Qaeda terrorist groups certainly doesn't feel so inhibited. Nothing illustrates this so clearly as the variety of connections: bin Laden was bitter about the American presence in Saudi Arabia, the London subway bombers were bitter about Indian control of parts of Kashmir, and last weekend's perpetrators were bitter about the Israeli "occupation" of Palestine.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is part of a continuing process of "identity group" formation. Al-Qaeda is gaining in strength, with groups stretching from southeast Asia to the Mideast to the Mahgreb and from there up to Spain and France.

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 9-Feb-2006

W. Europe 1 Arab Israeli 3

Russia Caucasus 2 Kashmir 2

China 2 North Korea 2

Financial 3 Bird flu 3

Key: 1=green 1=Low risk 2=yellow 2=Med 3=red 3=High 4=black 4=Active

However, as I've said before, I do not expect al-Qaeda to be one of major belligerents in the coming Clash of Civilizations world war, even assuming that al-Qaeda meets its objective of gaining control of some nation. That war will be fought between big powerful adversaries -- a new "axis" most likely consisting of China, Pakistan, North Korea and their allies, versus America, India, Russia and the UK and their allies.

The world is becoming increasingly fragile, in that the right kind of spark in any of several dangerous regions could trigger a regional war that would spiral into a world war, thanks to interlocking defense treaties. Al-Qaeda would probably not be a major belligerent in that war, but might well provide the spark that would spiral into the war.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this spark could occur next week, next month, next year, or thereafter, but with al-Qaeda growing in power, and the world becoming increasingly fragile, it's going to happen sooner rather than later. (5-Jul-07) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 5-Jul-07 Britain shocked by terrorist bombing plot by doctors in National Health Service

The terrorist doctors

The generational connection

The Palestinian connection

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 5-Jul-07
Britain shocked by terrorist bombing plot by doctors in National Health Service