Shocked, Positively Shocked

This is perhaps a minor point, but I'm a little confused as to whether the shock was because of what the individual tried to do over Detroit, or because that individual had been a student at University College. The first, if that is what the statement was meant to convey, seems reasonable, as it is indeed in normal terms a shocking thing to want to kill hundreds of innocent people in an airliner, and to be presented with a direct connection between that act and one's own educational institution might indeed be a disturbing thing, as most students (muslim or not) don't in fact go on to become terrorists.

If it's the second, then it's a rather vacuous and unthought-out remark, implying that one had only arrived on the planet earth yesterday and was just discovering that suicidal Islamic militants who have studied in the West are joining Al Qaeda and targeting aviation.

"Tens of millions of dollars have been pouring in to Middle East studies and the study of Islam in America, and Muslim Student Organizations exist all over the place. No one has a right to be shocked by anything anymore."

I think Marty is suggesting that the shock manifested by the the provost of University College, London should be regarded as Captain Renault's shock when he found that gambling was going on in Rick's cafe, while scooping up his plentiful earnings at that establishment.

Another way of saying it is the famous maxim that if you choose to sleep with dogs you should not be surprised when you wake up with fleas.

Yes, that's what I thought too. It's easy to pick out the dumb statement of the week (after the Homeland Security Secretary has opened the gate), but I have some sympathy for for the president of a university: it might be rather difficult to say "Yes, I was expecting this! We reckon that around 0.003 of our student body goes on to try to blow up civilian airliners."

There's no automatic connection between studying engineering in London and trying to destroy a plane landing in Detroit, and presumably UCL has a relatively hands-off approach to student organizations, religious and others (they are adults). I believe that the security services are trying to get a solid handle on the radicalization of Muslim students in the UK, which they should, but a university president isn't a policeman, and indeed he shouldn't be.

What I want to know is, why are the Al Qaeda recruits always engineers or doctors -- never history or sociology or literature majors?

Is the Captain Renault analogy apt?

My impresssion is that the Provost's shock at a student from his University was the (failed) doer was genuine, albeit immensely foolish.

From the British blogger Mick Hartley about this matter of UCL, responsibility, and such like:

"So, according to Sutherland, UCL bears no responsibility, and any vetting of university societies, though now perhaps inevitable, is to be much regretted. Yet in the same article we get this little tale:

"A couple of years ago (when Abdulmutallab was around the place), UCL allowed the Islamic Society to put on a show of Islamic art. A friend of mine, an eminent scientist, strolled in to take a look. Was he a believer, asked an obviously Muslim student. No, replied my friend, he didn’t believe in any god, as it happened. “Then,” the young man confidently informed him, “we shall have to execute you.” He wasn’t joking; he was predicting. He wasn’t going to draw a scimitar that minute and lop off the godless one’s head, but he implied that at some future point such things would happen. My friend laughed it off after lodging a mild complaint. It could, of course, have been Abdulmutallab who made the threat."

It would be interesting to know how the "mild complaint" was dealt with. At the very least one would hope that such threats can no longer be laughed off.

[Sutherland presumably penned his piece with the Guardian in mind, where a brief anti-US slur to set the tone always goes down well:

"Abdulmutallab, president of the Islamic society at UCL, 2006-07, expected that, by now, he would be a fêted martyr in paradise. He can instead look forward to an advanced course in waterboarding, or whatever interrogation techniques are nowadays thought to be permissibly humane in the US."

But one Times commenter isn't having it:

"sorry to disappoint you but since he is being tried as a criminal instead of as an enemy combatant he is subject to the laws and constitution of the US, thus he has "lawyered up" and gone silence. He has been instructed to say nothing further to the police forces. this is how we now "fight" a war

now why don't you go and learn something about how the US prosecutes criminals instead of speaking off the top of your head]"

http://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/we-shall-have-to-execute-you...

Noga, I think part of the problem is the current media tendency to ask everyone down to the family cat for their opinion on something, even if that something is a world away from their area of competence. I don't quite know what the president of University College London is meant to say, other than be shocked, unless he isn't shocked, which might open an interesting area for discussion. But back in the real world, he's likely to be, as basman notes, genuinely shocked. If he says the sensible thing, "no comment," he's likely to be fried for that too. The question of supervision of student organizations is a knotty one, as part of that whole deal is self-direction and autonomy -- they aren't kids any more.

London. I've been out of the TNR loop the last couple of weeks, being overseas (first trip to Europe in 10 years). My week or so in the UK was a lot of fun: I watched the Xmas crowds in the shops and the pubs and the restaurants, people having drinks after work, young people chatting each other up, good TV drama on the box, and so on. Same in France and Ireland, really.

I was wondering, do I just not see this other world in which radical muslims are gradually taking over and we're one step away from Sharia Law? Or is there some exaggeration going on? I would note that I was on Delta 9, London-Atlanta, on Dec 23 and not NW 253, Amsterdam-Detroit, on Dec 25 but I am aware of how that was rather too close for comfort. But still.

Incidentally, my question at the end of my previous post wasn't quite meant as a joke. It is indeed very noticeable that the humanties, in a general sense, are not the favored majors of these students. I wonder if our system here, where in most regular colleges and universities a selection of courses in history, literature, and social sciences is required for everyone for graduation, would be a good idea (the British and similar systems always assume that high school has taken care of that and allow much narrower concentrations for a primary degree). We have a context of "well-roundedness" here that might make it difficult for a student whose sole obessions are religion and engineering to just ignore everything else.

"I watched the Xmas crowds in the shops and the pubs and the restaurants, people having drinks after work, young people chatting each other up, good TV drama on the box, and so on. Same in France and Ireland, really.

I was wondering, do I just not see this other world in which radical muslims are gradually taking over and we're one step away from Sharia Law?"

If you were to visit Beirut you would encounter pretty much the same kinds of sights (minus, perhaps the good TV drama). You wouldn't have a clue that just a couple of blocks away there is a Hizzballa stronghold scheming to impose sharia etc etc.

If you were to visit Ramallah during the Gaza operation, you would be hard pressed to discern that there is even a war going on in some part of Palestine. Doubly so in Tel Aviv.

If a threat were as easily visible and discernible as you seem to expect it to be, wouldn't it no longer be a threat? A visible lion is a safe lion, that's what I was told when I went on safari in Kruger Park. Do you disbelieve any information we are exposed to in investigative reports, such as Undercover mosque?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Mosque

When you say something like this:

"The question of supervision of student organizations is a knotty one, as part of that whole deal is self-direction and autonomy -- they aren't kids any more."

what I hear is a figurative shrug; there is not much that can be done about it under the present circumstances because of the principles of democracy, then let's just say it is a "knotty" issue and put it in the freezer until such time as it is no longer knotty, for one reason or another.

Noga, if Irony were to visit Ramallah during the Gaza operation, he'd have to go through several layers of Israeli security, so yeah, he might suspect something was going on--if not a war, then certainly a battleground of some kind.

A "figurative shrug?" I can't speak for Irony, but I can speak for someone like myself who lives in a democracy, went to a US college, and would hate to see my classmates civil rights suddenly shrivel. And by the way, if our CIA had done its job, we wouldn't be having a discussion about civil rights. The key is not to shut down the exchange of ideas but to improve our intelligence. Because thought control can be a terrible thing.

It's not meant to be a figurative shrug (although if you hear that, I guess it can be interpreted that way) so much as a response to glib and contentless propositions that one should "do" something about, say, Islamist extremist comments in Muslim student journals or on websites. It's the devil in the detail that's the problem: e.g. should supervision be even-handed, for example (so the Tibetan students can't call for the armed overthrow of Chinese rule) or should it pick only the Muslims? Should it ban the journal/organization, so they move off campus and don't even submit reports then? Should only specific content be policed -- and if so, who draws the line?

My comment about London was more atmosphere than anything, and I take your point about Beirut and other cities. However, my underlying thought was perhaps -- if I follow it where it seemed to be pointing -- that London has been around a long time and seen much. I was struck by its hugeness and energy and hedonism and it occurred to me that those were very difficult things to wipe out with some imported religious extremism that wasn't around 30 years ago and belongs to a tiny minority in any case. Again, I don't underestimate the more creeping danger of the sacrifice of secular values to placate a loud complaining group, but one can underestimate the resilience too.

"if Irony were to visit Ramallah during the Gaza operation, he'd have to go through several layers of Israeli security, so yeah, he might suspect something was going on--if not a war, then certainly a battleground of some kind."

Molly, how long has it been since you visited Ramallah? Other than one checkpoint intended to keep Israeli citizens from entering Ramallah (and nowdays just Israeli Jews -- Israeli Arabs can now visit freely), the security is actually Palestinian; many non-Israeli's visit there now days. Furthermore the economy there is booming these days. Jenin is becoming something of a Palestinian cultural center and another tourist destination.

don't believe everything you hear on NPR & BBC.

שבוע טוב -- Shavua Tov,

Hershel Ginsburg

Efrata / Jerusalem

"...and it occurred to me that those were very difficult things to wipe out with some imported religious extremism that wasn't around 30 years ago and belongs to a tiny minority in any case.."

I was watching a documentary about pre-war Germany the other day. When you see the way Berlin looked and behaved in those days, the energy, the hedonism, the masses of Germans going about their business, it would not occur to you that 'those were very difficult things to wipe out with some ... extremism that wasn't around 30 years ago and belongs to a tiny minority in any case..'

Yes, I'm fully cognizant of the essential differences between the two scenarios, but the general indifference, the nonchalance, are quite the same.

All you need to do is look at how Jews in Europe are living, what kinds of threats they are exposed to, behind what kind of fences they have to secure their children in schools, in order to have an inkling that your atmosphere is just that - lots of air.

Frankly I don't quite see the justice in this atmosphere, that a tiny minority of the population should hunker down in fear of being too visible and identifiable while another much larger and louder minority, with at least 350 million outside supporters who are in possession of most of the world's oil, gets to strut about in total freedom to preach hatred and murder.

I think perhaps thinking persons who really care about justice and fraternity should begin to poke at these issues with greater energy. However, it seems to me that what we get is a lot of talk about how "knotty" the issues are and some red herrings in the form of your example ("glib and contentless propositions that one should "do" something about, say, Islamist extremist comments in Muslim student journals or on websites"). The vituperative comments are only the symptom of the disease, as you must be aware; weeding them out will only lead to a more subversive and dangerous continuation of the same type of thinking.

Hey ginzy, in case you missed it, I left you a comment here:

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/umar-farouk-abdulmutallab-did-not-make...

Noga, I don't think a discussion on the detail of what to do about extremist commentaries in student publications is a red herring. If it were, why would the broader question not be one too? If people keep pointing the finger at the UCL president and calling for "something" to be "done," at some stage the boring detail will need some attention. I stand by the questions I raised above, until someone provides a decent answer rather than evading them to the benefit of, yes, glib demands that always leave the knotty problems to someone else. And no, they mostly don't unknot themselves.

On the Berlin comparison -- I'm not sure about that. Nazism emerged from a combination of strains of ethnic nationalist and anti-democratic thinking that rode to power on postwar paranoia and economic uncertainty. Its antisemitism was not imported but drawn from the fabric of German and Austrian history. I agree that there is a strong thread of British antisemitism but, significantly, there is also a rooted dislike of ideological extremism and inflammatory rhetoric -- there's a bit more to the atmosphere of tolerance than air, I'd say.

British antisemitism, especially on the Rabid left, provides a fertile ground for Islamist extremism in which to flourish, a warm, moist kind of atmosphere in which the hatred of Jews is blamed on other Jews. It provides a defensive shield in the shape of righteous ideology for these religious crazies. History, you must know, never repeats itself in recognizable shape. Where there is an accommodating atmosphere for Jew hatred, there will be murder and persecution. The signs are all there but you refuse to see them. How long, how many years, do you think, before the Holocaust can no longer be taught in British schools for fear of offending Muslims? It is already happening, all over Europe. This is just one manifestation.

You expect me to provide a solution as to how to counter Islamist extremism? And if I cannot provide such a solution then I should not talk about it, complain about academic hospitality to Islamic extremism? Do you mean that universities are off bounds when it comes to being scrutinized as to what is being fomented, with their tacit assistance, in their midst? Do you mean that these organizations where radicalization is taking place and known to be taking place, should be allowed to use academic facilities and resources for their activities?

Here is one idea I have: How about defining what radicalization is? As which point does legitimate political activism cross the line into radicalization? Do you think you and I could ever agree on such a line?

It wasn't so much a personally directed demand -- I don't suppose either of us are experts in counterinsurgency -- as a comment that the people making demands, e.g. that the universities police their student organizations/publications, are often uninterested in the details and difficulties and more interested in polemical point-scoring.

Universities are singularly ill-equipped to engage in such work (unless the student activity clearly threatens the institution itself) because most places in the West try not to supervise their students beyond the academic structures and whatever is basic and sensible for campus living, student organization, and the like. Criminal activity is not included under "campus activism," however, and there are, in the UK, laws against incitement to racial hatred. It's the job of the authorities and not the university president to enforce them.

I agree that there is a line beyond which open calls to violence, declarations of racial or religious or gender hatred, and similar are valid customers for observation, control, banning -- whatever. I don't think we would have much problem agreeing on that line. I think where we disagree is in the detail of enacting such a rule. I believe it would be very difficult. Again, it's worth noting that there is a Prevention of Terrorism Act in the UK that was passed to deal with the IRA and specifically laid out to include calls to violent action even if that person didn't take part themselves.

It was deployed to some degree against supporters of the IRA and Sinn Fein in the 1970s and 1980s but curiously seems to have fallen into disuse. A few of us recall how it distinctly wasn't used against those who called openly for Salman Rushdie's murder.

Ginzy, from Wikipedia:

"The Israeli border guards frown upon visitors who choose to enter any city in the West Bank, unless done for pilgramages (which won't work as an excuse for visitors to Ramallah, as there are no nearby religious sites of much significance). Therefore, it is advisable for travelers to not mention planned visits to West Bank cities if Israeli officials ask about their travel itinerary."

"[A]t times the Israeli military enters the city, and there is sometimes trouble. This usually only happens in the dead of night, and they disappear before anyone realizes that they were there. However, the Israeli military occasionally enters Ramallah bluntly, and in large numbers. If this should happen while you are staying in Ramallah, do what the majority of Palestinians do, and stay inside, under cover. STAY OUT OF THE STREETS, and away from any soldiers or military vehicles. Do not assume that just because you are a foreign national that you are safe from being targeted."

Ginzy, I seriously doubt that the residents of Ramallah feel quite as free as those in London. Furthermore, getting out of Ramallahto to go to another area of the West Bank, if you're Palestinian doesn't sound so easy. Granted, there are fewer checkpoints than were previously, but it's still not quite catching the train from London for a weekend trip.

Well, ironyroad, I hope we are not in a "counterinsurgency" phase just yet. That's a somewhat hysterical characterization, wouldn't you say? But perhaps universities should assemble all the great minds that populate their ranks in order to figure out a set of principles which will prevent their students, or some of them, from ever reaching that stage. I don't think it will be good for academia to outsource the handling of this entire issue to the state's security apparatus.

These pieces of news are somewhat relevant to the discussion:

"Commentators are reacting harshly to news of an attack on famous Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose work ignited the 2005 Muhammed cartoon uproar. Mr. Westergaard is safe, having fled with his grandchild to a panic room and called the police, who arrived and wounded the young Somali suspect, now charged with attempted murder. Both the attempt and the online response to it, however, show that even five years later, the cartoon incident continues to spark strong emotions.

* Will It Ever End? "It's amazing," comments James Joyner, editor of the Atlantic Council, at Outside the Beltway, "that this man has to live like this five years after drawing some cartoons. Then again, Salman Rushdie has been under death threat for more than twenty years for writing a book."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Condemning-the-Atta...

____________

"British-based Islamist radicals are targeting Army soldiers - especially snipers - returning from fighting in southern Afghanistan, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6923829/Al-Q...

_____________

"People in Wootton Bassett, the town famous for honouring dead British soldiers returning from Afghanistan, reacted defiantly on Saturday to news that a controversial Islamic group is to march through its streets. Islam4UK – which calls itself a "platform" for extremist movement al-Muhajiroun – plans to parade through the Wiltshire town in the coming weeks. The group's website says the event is being held "not in memory of the occupying and merciless British military" but of the Muslims its says have been "murdered in the name of democracy and freedom". Leader Anjem Choudary said the protest, involving 500 people, would be peaceful one, with "symbolic coffins" being carried to honour Muslim victims of the conflict. He said he also planned to write to the parents of dead UK soldiers with his version of "the reality of what they died for".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6923700/Outr...

More:

"The security police blew up a suspected bomb factory in Malmö New Year's Eve. Two men were arrested. According to the charges, the bomb was to be used for an attack against Copenhagen Airport.

The raid was conducted before midnight Wednesday. The police got tips that bombs were being prepared in an apartment on Smedjekullsgatan in Malmö.

Säpo, the Swedish Security police, raided the address.

Two stateless Palestinian men were found in the apartment, both in their 20s-30s. One was known to the police and was linked to the apartment"

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2010/01/malmo-airport-bomb-plot-foiled...

On a somewhat related theme, a propos ginzy's excellent posts on Israeli airport security on a previous Spine thread,

http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/story.html?id=cabb60bd-5287...

Sorry -- yes, indeed, I also think we're not yet at the counterinsurgency stage! I meant counterterrorism.

Incidentally, I had a conversation with someone yesterday who raised the intriguing issue of why Abdulmutallab didn't detonate the bomb in the aircraft lavatory, when he was hidden from view and could take time (which he did take, as far as we know).

She suggested that it's possible he was torn between going ahead and abandoning the plan -- his fanaticism may not have had quite the absolute hold on him that AQ thought it had. There is also something a little curious about the clumsy incompetence of the actual attempt a few minutes later.

It definitely distinguishes him from Major Hasan, who was clearly fanatically determined and without any (potential) self-doubt. I don't know what the practical meaning of such considerations might be, except that personal interviews before boarding an airliner could reveal what is bothering someone.

"...the intriguing issue of why Abdulmutallab didn't detonate the bomb in the aircraft lavatory, when he was hidden from view and could take time (which he did take, as far as we know)."'

Well, I discussed a similar puzzling matter yesterday too, when I wondered why AQ would instruct someone to buy a one-way ticket, in cash, and without luggage, all three markers of something not quite ordinary and bound to attract attention (except in Amsterdam, where an American Visa seems to neutralize any kind of critical thinking). I mean, wouldn't they know by now that they should avoid any exception to the way an average traveler would go about boarding a plan?

The conclusion was that what we are dealing with is a not too clever type of thinking and planning, awkward and low-tech. I wouldn't make any assumption as attributing sophisticated scepticism to the would-be bomber. It is most likely that the simple solution of going into the bathroom never occurred to him. Maybe he didn't expect any problem in detonating his underwear. Wouldn't it have been the first time he tried it?

irony, "...Incidentally, I had a conversation with someone yesterday who raised the intriguing issue of why Abdulmutallab didn't detonate the bomb in the aircraft lavatory, when he was hidden from view and could take time (which he did take, as far as we know).

She suggested that it's possible he was torn between going ahead and abandoning the plan -- his fanaticism may not have had quite the absolute hold on him that AQ thought it had. There is also something a little curious about the clumsy incompetence of the actual attempt a few minutes later...

I'd like to think it was because he had last minute qualms about mass murder, but perhaps the allure of promised 72 virgins in Paradise wasn't so compelling, given his planned means of getting there involved blowing up his underwear...

should have been a closed quote after "about the clumsy incompetence of the actual attempt a few minutes later..." Irony bears no responsibility for my attempt at black humor.

It's true that while some AQ operations are stunningly successful and create massive carnage (9/11, Madrid, London) others border on comic-opera incompetence (the SUV getting jammed in the doors at Glasgow airport comes to mind). This may say something about a slow degrading of planning and training for new recruits.

But something else might be an issue worth considering: Nigeria. A large, violent, and corrupt country but one that is not Arab and has many other religious groups than Muslims. And it occurred to me that even among Muslims the fanatical jihad-thinking and capacity for suicide may not be at all as deeply rooted as in some Arab societies.

Arabs also tend to be quite unapologetically racist toward Africans, and I'm sure that persists in AQ ranks. I wonder if we're looking at something here that was like a test -- they were willing to sacrifice this guy but not to invest too much in him. And for Abdulmutallab's part, he may have had some . . . well, skepticism is hardly the word, but perhaps some self-doubt that he was doing the right thing. Again, it's almost as if he wanted to both set off the explosive and somehow be discovered and stopped.

irony, "...others border on comic-opera incompetence (the SUV getting jammed in the doors at Glasgow airport comes to mind). This may say something about a slow degrading of planning and training for new recruits.''

I understand that it wasn't a case of the van getting "stuck in the doors" but rather that the security bollards did their job.

Ah bollards!

Yes, b, your correction is well taken. But what I recall from the incident is the way in which the perpetrators appeared not to have checked out the entrance area earlier and were taken by surprise when they hit the bollards, as if they had never seen anything like that before. That was more my point.

irony, You're right - it's indeed lucky that they were so remiss. That they were defeated by the security bollards is even more interesting, given the collective IQ of the two would-be murderers seems to have been considerably less than the sum of the parts: one of them was a medical doctor, the other, a PhD candidate in fluid dynamics.

I drafted an "Al Qaeda Training Memo" at the time, for another discussion board, that garnered a laugh or two.

Noga,
Thank you for reposting my post. In the blogosphere, duplication is the sincerest form of flattery.

Molly,
When it comes to Israel, especially outside of the pure factual (in the narrowest sense of the term) take Wikipedia with a grain of salt; make that a lump. There is actually an ongoing battle of writers &hackers surrounding Wikipedia entries. In addition, the situation on the ground can and does change rapidly depending on various dependings and the Wikipedia entry could also be out of date.

That said, I am not saying that life in Ramallah is comparable to London (I don't think life anywhere in Israel is comparable to London, for the better and for the worse). However more than a "few" checkpoints have come down in the past year -- I believe the number is +/-100. The P.A. economy is growing at rate of 7-8%; car sales are up in the P.A. because it is far easier now to move from point A to point B which makes car ownership more attractive. Perhaps the most telling statement came from Abu Mazen himself in his infamous interview with the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl where Abu Mazen stated that he is in no rush to strike a deal with Israel as "life is good" for the Palestinians in the current circumstances. BTW, I think that comment by Abu Mazen was something of a wakeup call for Diehl.

hg

Why didn't the undies bomber blow himself up in the bathroom? I believe he was seated near the wall of the fuselage in the wing area. I suspect that by detonating the bomb there he had better odds of blowing a hole in the plane in a more critical area, especially near the control lines to the wing & engine, which would make it even more difficult for the pilots to retain / regain control of the aircraft only 10 minutes before landing when the plane is flying at a much lower elevation.

hg

That's a good point ginzy -- I was assuming that the lavatory at issue was at the side of the plane but it might have been toward the center of the fuselage. Curiously, however, despite all the preparation (?) that had been going on in the loo for 20 mins, he still managed to seriously fumble the key action.

Incidentally, the Airbus 330 seating map (Northwestern) shows that of four units in coach, two are at the side of the plane. There is another bathroom forward of coach, also at the side.

"What Abdulmutallab’s parents must be wondering is what happened to the college’s duty of care towards their son. Did no tutor talk to him about his life outside engineering? Did it concern no one that this lonely boy had taken to wearing Islamic dress? Wasn’t anyone worried about the radicalism of the “War on Terror Week” Abdulmutallab organised as president? Did anyone know he had asked a “hate-preacher” to address the society? Or did UCL think their job was simply to teach the boy engineering in exchange for his father’s large cheques? "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6917777/Briti...

As one respondent commented succinctly on RDE's article:

Or did UCL think their job was simply to teach the boy engineering in exchange for his father’s large cheques?

Yes, in fact, that is their job... If you wish to hire a babysitter or spirit guide for your child please contact me and for a reasonable rate I will complete the task that you are unable to do yourself.

If the university's goal is only, and nothing but, "teach[ing] the boy engineering in exchange for his father’s large cheques", why is the university involved in organizations of students, by offering them facilities, subsidies, writing materials and media?

If a university is nothing but a place in which to acquire a vocation, why would a campus be allowed to become the arena from which boycotting movements flourish imperturbably or which allocates "prayer rooms"?

If I were Abdulmutallab's mother, I would demand to know how come I sent my boy to study engineering and within a year he became a suicide bomber. What kind of education is that?

You answer is too knee-jerkish, ironyroad, to count for a thoughtful response to the very serious questions brought up in the article.

I take it you are not at all bothered by this:

"And all this denial has continued, despite a steady stream of evidence about the university background of notorious jihadists like Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the murderer of Daniel Pearl (London School of Economics), the London bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan (Leeds Metropolitan), Kafeel Ahmed (Cambridge), who blew himself up at Glasgow Airport, and Omar Rehman (Westminster) now serving 15 years for conspiracy to blow up several UK and US targets. There are close to 100,000 Muslim students in the UK, and extremists are swimming among them. In the work of radicalisation, the agents of the controversial Hizb ut-Tahrir – which works to set up a global caliphate – infest the campuses of Britain unchecked.

The truth is that a mixture of greed, knee-jerk Left-wingery, anti-Semitism and pusillanimity have combined to make our universities breeding grounds for Islamism. "

You will forgive me for assuming that you are not at all bothered by any of it, and that since the issue of the relationship between academic freedom and extremist ideologies is too "knotty", well, then, let's just not think about it, eh? And those who do worry about it, let's just mock them as if they are paranoiacs living in some ga-ga land, right?

As I said here a couple of times of before, people who are not in the first line of fire, so to speak, are always equipped with such great tolerance for all types of intolerances. Someone like you actually believes that they see more clearly than someone like me.

Well, the job of a University is to educate its students, meaning classes and progress toward a degree. Student organizations are, in general, minor add-ons that are supported because they normally enhance the students' experiences, at least for the minority of students that bother with them. I don't know about the UK, but in the US universities allow student organizations to largely govern themselves -- as Irony pointed out, the students are adults (legally, and in theory), and are treated as such.

Noga1, it is not the business of a university to snoop on students' MySpace pages, or bug the dorms to listen for possible subversive activities, nor to monitor every student to make sure they are not lonely and susceptible to wild and crazy ideas. A university is not a surrogate parent. I find your claim that it is somehow is UCL's fault that this guy turned to radicalism to be overwrought at best.

Maybe Abdulmutallab's mother could have thought twice before sending her boy off to boarding school in Togo, too.

That wasn't my comment, Noga, it was a comment in the thread attached to Dudley Edwards's article. But it did raise -- glibly, if you will -- a genuine point.

Regarding being in the "firing line," as you put it, I've already noted that the closeness of London-Atlanta on 23rd and Amsterdam-Detroit on 25th is quite close enough for comfort, thank you very much, and I'm reminded occasionally of a friend of mine who has a more ominous memory: of almost booking a seat on one of the 9/11 flights out of Logan, but deciding after a little thought that it was too early in the morning and opting for a later plane.

I don't dismiss RDE's entire piece at all, or your endorsement of her analysis, but I return to some basic questions -- again, questions, not dismissal -- about just how, and to what end, one institutes this more active supervisory role in a university (and in the case of UCL a big school in a very big city, not a small college in bucolic surroundings).

It's all very well to call for X and Y, but if you're not the person or office applying X and Y in the real world, you don't have to think about the difficulties. Maybe UCL should not allow a Muslim Student Association to invite radical demagogues to campus, but I remain to be convinced that the university authorities would have prevented Abdulmutallab's morbid transformation taking place anyway.

"That wasn't my comment,"

Yes, I know ironyroad, but you did quote it and seemed to endorse it wholeheartedly, as there was no qualifier attached: "As one respondent commented succinctly on RDE's article".

And as for your "but I return to some basic questions -- again, questions, not dismissal -- about just how, and to what end, one institutes this more active supervisory role in a university" .

To what end? To prevent the infiltration of academic institutions, presumably places of learning and opening of minds, with activities which promote anti-learning and closing of minds.

The "how" is indeed a knotty question so I guess we'll just overlook the necessity to protect the people targeted by such activities, trusting to good luck.

Here is something I read on some message board, which corresponds rather crudely to what I perceive to be the instructive inertia in your argument:

"I am more and more impatient with the government's hysteria about security on planes. Flying even with hijackers or suicide bombers aboard is still saver than driving."

It's not inertia and neither do I suggest trusting only to good luck (although good luck is, well, good too). I am in favor of trying and trying again with approaches and methods that will remove or neutralize the threat of aviation (and other kinds of) terrorism. What I am not in favor of is an ostensibly objective but at base ideologically inflected campaign to find people to blame for a terrorist attack who had nothing to do with it.

To be blunt: I am really curious about how banning the Muslim Student Association's holding of particular meetings on campus (which would presumably have led to them renting a hall two streets away) would have prevented Abdulmutallab turning toward Islamist extremism and violence. Universities can do some things well, and others not so well, and some things not at all.

Fact: there are laws in place in the UK (check wikipedia on the 2006 Terrorism Act, for example) to prosecute and sanction calls to engage in political or religious violence. Is the president of UCL responsible for enforcing them? The evidence suggests that the police and MI5 are well informed as to the activities of extremist imams and the like on UK territory.

Ruth Dudley Edwards's remark about UCL "fostering" a suicide bomber is hyperbolic. It fostered an engineer. You can certainly make the argument -- and it's a compelling one -- that MSAs should be observed and supervised, that students should be counseled on the dangers of extremism if they appear to be coming under undesirable influence, that exclusive prayer rooms should not be permitted. All I am saying is that there may be unforeseen consequences and difficulties and one can fall into the trap of thinking that radical islamists can be defeated by a shift in campus regulations.

The remark about driving is technically correct but of course extremely silly, as most deaths in car accidents are not a result of intentional homicide.

"What I am not in favor of is an ostensibly objective but at base ideologically inflected campaign to find people to blame for a terrorist attack who had nothing to do with it."

What is the meaning of this? What ideology?