Political correctness is to blame for terrorist payout, says Leo McKinstry – Express.co.uk

In the madhouse built by our ruling elite, supported by progressive cheerleaders, we are literally paying our enemies to wage their brutal war against our civilisation.

That is the only conclusion to draw from the outrageous case of Jamal al-Harith, sometimes known as Abu Zakariya al-Britani, a Muslim convert and Islamic State fighter from Britain who was reported this week to have blown himself up in a suicide attack on an Iraqi army base near Mosul.

Al-Harith, previously known as Ronnie Fiddler before his conversion to Islam, was not just a terrorist but also the recipient of a reported 1million from the British taxpayer.

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This vast sum was handed to him by our supine politicians as so-called compensation for alleged mistreatment while he was held in the US detention camp of Guantanamo Bay, having been arrested in 2001 by US forces as a suspected Taliban sympathiser.

The Islamists do not respect us for our self-abasement

Leo McKinstry

Predictably he denied the charge, claiming that he had merely been backpacking in Pakistan, the worldrenowned tourist destination.

More eager to trumpet its liberal virtue than to fight extremism the Labour government lobbied hard for his release, which soon took place in 2004.

When he was freed, along with several other Guantanamo detainees from Britain, the home secretary David Blunkett grandly declared that no one who is returned will be a threat to the security of the British people.

That empty boast now lies flattened by al-Hariths Mosul car bomb. But in this depressing saga our political leaders were as disdainful of the public purse as they were of national security.

For al-Harith was just one of several winners from the compensation racket. Altogether 16 people from Britain received handouts after spells in Guantanamo, with the total sum estimated to be 20million.

Yesterday the press carried pictures of al-Harith grinning widely and he had every reason for his self-satisfaction.

He had scooped the jackpot in the government-sponsored jihadi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

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In a morally self-confident society, terrorists and traitors are punished. But our sick system means that people such as him are lavishly rewarded.

Hatred of our values is the cue for riches. Yet the Islamists do not respect us for our self-abasement. They despise our gullibility dressed up as compassion and our cowardice masquerading as tolerance.

There is a revealing contrast between the official generosity towards former Guantanamo detainees and the more miserly approach towards our veterans wounded in the fight against militant Islam.

Such heroes include inspirational paratrooper Ben Parkinson, who suffered devastating injuries to his legs and head while serving in Afghanistan in 2006 but received barely half the compensation that was dished out to al-Harith.

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Lenin famously described his Western supporters as useful idiots and that term certainly applies to the enablers of this fiasco.

A large part of the guilt belongs to Tony Blairs Labour government, which liked to blather about its belief in the war on terror but failed so pathetically to support the Americans over Guantanamo, which has been a vital facility in that fight.

Labours eagerness to side with al-Harith belonged to the same doctrinaire, anti-British mindset that opened the floodgates on immigration, imposed cultural diversity and introduced the misnamed human rights regime.

But Blair and his ministers were also backed by a host of other elements. One was the gang of lawyers posing as the champions of freedom in order to milk the taxpayer.

Another was the civil rights lobby led by the sanctimonious Shami Chakrabarti of the pressure group Liberty, who built a public career out of shrieking against anti-terrorist crackdowns before she became one of Jeremy Corbyns acolytes.

Typically, when al-Harith was released in 2004, she said she was delighted, even though the American authorities had said, with full justification as it turns out, that he was a known Al Qaeda operative who represented a threat to the USA, its interests and its allies.

Just as offensive were the brigade of Muslim organisations such as the notorious Cage, which continually undermined attempts to tackle extremism by wailing about Islamophobia.

It is absurd that this cynical, destructive brigade should have been allowed such influence. The voice that should really count in the fight against our enemies is that of the security forces.

Unlike the lobbyists and the politicians their entire agenda is to protect the public. They know the tools they need and the action required.

Unlike the ideologues who are obsessed with the concept of Muslim victimhood they recognise that militant Islam is a very real menace to our way of life.

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The new US President Trump also recognises this. That is why he and his new Attorney General Jeff Sessions are determined to keep Guantanamo Bay open as they strengthen Americas counter-terrorism policy.

Inevitably Trumps policy, which overturns President Obamas executive order to close the camp, has been opposed by lawyers and liberal campaigners.

But the case of al-Harith provides him with powerful ammunition to maintain this military prison.

Trump has been derided by smug European sophisticates for his declaration that he will put America first.

But we need far more of that kind of patriotism in Europe rather than the current anarchy of open borders, social breakdown and cultural cringing.

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Political correctness is to blame for terrorist payout, says Leo McKinstry - Express.co.uk