So much for the "unsophisticated terrorist" meme

As I write this post, the TV news reports that police bomb squads in Scotland have blown up a suspicious car.

In yesterday’s podcast Siggy and I were asking what unsophisticated terrorists?, since an often-repeated meme has been that “we need not worry since the terrorists are unsophisticated”, bumblers.

I heard this argument when people discussed the plot to blow up NY airports, the Fort Dix six, and now with the three (possibly four) car bombs in the UK.

Here we are, at war with the world’s most depraved beasts, and their attempts at killing us are dismissed because they are “unsophisticated”.

As many as five of the eight people in police custody in the fast-moving investigation are either doctors or doctors in training (including the much-touted NHS, to which they all were connected), and they are part of an international plot that spans years. Two of the doctors are in Australia legally, where they passed all the security checks.

These are well-educated, well-travelled, well-connected people who have had every opportunity the best of Western societies can offer.

Today Dr Sanity explains DOCTORS, SADISTS, AND THE BEASTS OF RADICAL ISLAM. I would add another motivation to the ones she lists: the desire to play god. If you, as a believer of a death cult, relish the power over life and death, what more amenable to your mentality than bringing the infidels to the fate they deserve? What better than sending the faithful to their reward?

It all boils down to one thing: a war for supremacy.

Any of us who have been lulling ourselves to sleep by sucking our thumbs and holding on to the “unsophisticated terrorist” security blanky should, by now, wake up to the fact that brute force is deadly, no matter its level of sophistication.

Update
A friend emailed this: Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in connection with the terrorism crisis.

The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on terror” is to be dropped.

The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more “consensual” tone than existed under Tony Blair

I’d prefer to call it the war against Caliphate Islam, but Caliophate Islamists aren’t consensual at all.