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May 15, 2008
Exclusive: Dominic Whiteman: Lessons in Fighting Islamism from Across the Pond
Dominic Whiteman has been European Director of the private intelligence-gathering network, VIGIL www.vigilnetwork.com since its inception in 2005. VIGIL was set up in the wake of the 7/7 London al Qaeda attacks by Dominic Whiteman and others, originally to form a bridge between former military and intelligence personnel and the authorities. VIGIL soon became an international network of experts - ranging from linguistic experts to banking experts - and involved itself in the secret provision of intelligence to mostly British and American authorities with the aim of preventing extremism and terrorism.
During his time as head of VIGIL Europe, some changes have happened, particularly in British society: the extreme Islamist sect Hizb ut-Tahrir has come closer to being banned, legislation has been changed on UK libraries' stocking of extreme literature and Tamil Tiger funding networks and their kingpins across Europe have come to the attention of the police.
Dominic leaves VIGIL at the end of May to head up a new operation called V7 Europe www.v7europe.com. V7 Europe seeks to investigate encroaching extreme Islamism in European member states; its investigative remit includes Muslim faith schools, infiltration of police forces, immigration departments and local government by extreme Islamists, as well as highlighting cases of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and Muslim honor violence across the continent. Here, Adrian Morgan talks to Dominic about the last few years and his expectations for the future.
Q: So, why the move from VIGIL to V7?
I have taken VIGIL as far as I can as European Director. I felt the time was right to up the pressure on the extreme Islamists particularly in Europe, where the real battle for preserving democracy and our liberties exists. Europe is where the enemy is making headway and I refuse to accept this. VIGIL is an international network and though I've enjoyed receiving tip-offs from exotic compartments as distant as Dubai and Indonesia over recent years, the real battleground is Europe and V7 gives me the freedom to concentrate wholly on key European problems.
I've decided the time is ripe to focus purely on Europe and put the extreme Islamists on the back foot across Europe by exposing their means and ways - simple as that. I'll achieve this by working closely with the EU and colleagues in European member states to affect legislation change. We hope this will curtail extreme Islamists' ambitions of ever achieving a European Caliphate. Having said that, I'm remaining on VIGIL's steering committee and will be relying to a great degree on VIGIL investigators across Europe to get the job done.
Europe's a soft touch right now for the Islamists, where those who stand up to extreme Islamism are wrongly seen as neo-cons - this will change in the cool light of day when the Islamists' project is exposed for real and the Madrid bombers, 7/7 bombers and other Islamist terrorists are seen merely as products of an Islamist system that seeks to expand. Political poles are changing and we are slowly coming to grips with our real weakness of recent years - fondness for over-arching political correctness.
Q: What do you hope to achieve at V7?
I hope to be able to put the facts on the European table - that extreme Islamists have infiltrated our schools, local government, charity commissions, immigration departments, central government and police forces with an aim to changing our way of life from the inside at our expense and at the expense of decent Muslims. I'll deliver the facts as they are - there's no need for trimmings. I want to achieve this goal in a cool, collected manner - away from the headlines and the increasingly extraneous hubbub of national politicking - and I want my team to leave no stone unturned in the process of uncovering the truth.
I want to work with EU legislators to stamp out extreme Islamism in Europe, so that the majority of Europe's Muslims (peaceful citizens that they are) can start to feel at home again. I look forward to getting the best out of the very talented team which has gathered to push V7 forward. I am already especially grateful to our Muslim investigators on the ground, who have already dug up some stunning intelligence, which we'll report back on in the late summer of 2008 through think tank reports, which will be made available publicly.
What goes on in Europe is important to all the world's citizens but especially important for our American friends. Bear in mind, any extreme Islamist can, at any time, catch a plane to the U.S. using a visa waiver and stroll into the U.S. from Europe. Americans are rightly proud of their Homeland Security but they sometimes forget how far their Homeland extends.
Q: What were your best memories of VIGIL?
I really enjoyed seeing Abdul Wahid of Hizb ut Tahrir squirming on BBC Newsnight chair in late 2006 when the interviewer Jeremy Paxman questioned him after VIGIL's successful infiltration of his sect had just been aired. I watch the Wahid interview whenever I feel down.
I enjoyed having a one-to-one with the Islamist extremist Abu Izzadeen last year on Omar Bakri's cyber mosque where I asked him in a private message session whether he'd be choosing a plane (like Bakri) or jail - he was genuinely flustered. Then, just two weeks later, (nothing to do with VIGIL - purely the work of the anti-terror police) he was jailed.
But the best memories are team memories. VIGIL is compartmentalized so few compartments ever talk to other compartments but as a Director I could talk to everyone and I can say almost every compartment had its finest hour, whether the results remained private or went public. I remember several big moments, most of which will go with me to the grave. The VIGIL team has achieved a great deal since 2005 and will no doubt flourish in the future as the network gains more momentum and the foe further self-divides. We're more than 50% an American network and I'll particularly miss the day-to-day banter with my American friends.
Q: What were your worst memories of VIGIL?
I have no really bad memories. One compartment turned out to include an Islamist and that was a tough few days. I came across excellent people and my memories are mostly rose-pink. We did go through one stressful funding crisis (when two donors died in quick succession) but I look back on that lesson positively now, as it was the time when we weeded out the shallow money-grabbers in the network from those who really wanted to make a difference and were prepared to give everything asked of them to further the cause - we were strengthened as a result and chopped off two compartments who, if anything, were holding us back.
Q: Who is taking your place at VIGIL?
Jane Blunt will be running the European arm of VIGIL. She's from a law enforcement background and has been working with me since the start of 2007 as my European deputy. She's a very learned woman and I'm sure she'll do brilliantly.
Q: Are you optimistic about the future of Britain and Europe?
Of course. If Europe combined to defeat Nazism brazenly bashing down our front doors, we're more than capable of keeping Islamism out, which is cowardly seeping under our back doors. You just have to listen in on some of the Jihadi chat rooms for a long enough period of time - a week or so - and you'll pick up when the occasional reality check temporarily bursts the Islamists' bubble. The Islamists think they are clever but they overestimate their own intelligence and underestimate the intelligence that built the Free World.
I've heard people like Bakri bemoaning the massive strength of secularism - the Islamist youths are mostly rebelling, in the footsteps of the Islamist author Sayyid Qutb, because they know they've already lost the game against what they would call Eurocentricism. Islamism is a dead duck and sometimes we forget to see how obvious this fact is. Europe, and especially Britain, are too stubborn, progressive, successful, freedom-loving and overall unswerving for Islamism to ever really take hold. Even if the Islamists made some political headway - take beer away from a ship's infidel crew and there'll be a successful mutiny every time.
Q: How can we all play a part?
Obviously, keep drinking beer! No, seriously, there are two things you can do: Firstly, keep your eyes open - look for the little things like evidence of scalded ground, vans being filled late at night, sudden changes in previously mainstream Muslim (or other) neighbors, suspicious activity - and report this to your nation's anti terrorist hotline. (0800 789 321 in the UK.) Never be paranoid and enjoy your freedoms to the full.
Secondly, whether in Europe or the U.S., look for evidence of illegal Muslim schools, especially home tutoring, look for Shari'a courts, forced marriage, honor violence, FGM doctors, dodgy Islamist councillors, government workers and police - put yourselves in the shoes of an extreme minority, who might as well have just landed from Mars, and think about how you might try to subvert the current status quo. Report this evidence to VIGIL and, where relevant, it will filter through to those who need to know about it.
Q: Are there global solutions to the War on terror?
Eventually, yes. But first one nation - and I think it will be Britain (as, unfortunately, it has the right mix of extremist problems) - must build a successful blueprint for other nations to copy, to show them how to defeat and stamp out extreme Islamism in a similar way. There will be mistakes along the way and many irrelevant sideshows (such as we are seeing with the pointless squabble over detention periods right now here in Britain).
The terrorism element of the global struggle against militant Islam is already being addressed globally and should be continually addressed: virtually, in terms of funding, operationally, resolutionally, leaving a land corridor open for the military suppression of incorrigible Jihadis, and even theologically.
The culturalist Islamist element of the struggle is more my specialty and, until the evidence is sitting there on the table that shows an extreme Islamist project, then we are merely tilting at windmills. That is where V7 comes in, with its investigative hordes looking wherever they can to piece extreme Islamist plans together and to expose their perfidy. Police forces and security services are too busy catching terrorists - and rightly so - to look into the areas we are scrutinizing.
Eventually all solutions must be global - after all, the Islamist "solution", like Hitler's was, is global in design. Unless the Free World's solution looks to extinguish militant, political Islam as a global (or potentially global) force, we run the risk of unnecessarily perpetuating the struggle.
Q: Who do you admire most for taking the Islamists on?
Apart from all the military personnel daily facing down the enemy, I most admire Muslim women who refuse to throw out their jewellery and colourful clothing, who stand up to the Islamists knowing that by their very presence and expression of freedom they are hurting the misogynistic male Islamists where it hurts them most. Especially those women who daily walk the streets in what the Islamists call "Muslim lands" in Europe (like Leytonstone, Small Heath, Luton etc. in Britain) and tell the Islamists where to go when they are abused for showing the slightest hint of flesh. These women deserve medals - they're why we'll win.
Q: You come across many politicians. Which politician do you think is most aware of, and committed to countering, home-grown terrorism?
I come across many British politicians. There are several who are good in their own ways - Baroness Neville Jones, Patrick Mercer, Michael Gove, Liam Fox, David Davis, Anne Cryer - though confined to the limited powers of Westminster. Likewise, Tony Blair was good in his own way. Home-grown terrorism is a European problem, not just a British one. Spain has Judge Baltasar, France has Sarkozy etc. There are plenty of politicians who, as they say, "get it" but all successful politicians are self-preservers - politicians are often not the right vehicles to counter culturalist Islamist encroachment in a sustained campaign, just as they are invariably the wrong people to issue military orders.
Q: What factors are holding politicians back from addressing - or creating a proper strategy against - home-grown terrorism in Britain?
Labour politicians, in particular, are risking seats in inner cities where Islamists dominate electoral wards - this is a major political factor which sees members of parliament embrace people who are often no better than terrorists. Similarly, Liberal MPs have a huge problem in certain London seats with Tamil Tiger leaders who have large bloc votes which to some degree dictate MPs' success at elections.
Another factor is EU Human Rights legislation, though I think that the EU legislation is not as destructive as Britain's Labour Government's Human Rights Act of 1988, which placed the ECHR of 1950 above all UK law. Human Rights legislation has caused a temporary field-day for so-called civil rights lawyers, who, whilst some do some good, merely help terrorists and their extreme Islamist brothers and sisters go about their pernicious business. There's no coincidence that when failed 21/7 bus-bomber Muktar Ibrahim was caught after going on the run, he shouted out to armed police "I have human rights."
Again, the overwhelming need for political correctness is a stumbling block - extreme Islamists are turning any building they can find in Ward End, Birmingham (UK), into a charity-run, tax free "mosque" or community centre to promote their brand of extreme Islamism and yet go try and build a church in Rawalpindi or Jeddah ... political correctness is getting in the way of our ability to deliver home truths and stop some of the extreme Islamist madness before it happens. Attend these so-called "mosques" and community centers and they're 2% religion and 98% politics - stirring up their members to hate Britain and further divide - and they are abusing the objects of their charity listings.
Finally, I must bring up resourcing - whilst European police and security services are better funded and focused on the terrorist threat, there should be more preventing extremism funds to investigate what the culturalist Islamist enemy is up to in our communities, radicalizing the youth, creating ghettos, forming extremist sects (like Hizb ut-Tahrir) etc. Why funds are given to Islamists themselves by the likes of the British Government I have no idea - like giving candy to pedophiles.
Until there are more resources put into combating extreme Islamism - from inspiration all the way along the conveyor belt right through to terrorism outcome - then we're giving extreme Islamists more of a start than they deserve.
Q: Which politician do you respect least, and why?
I am humble enough to admit that there are people I respect least but politically astute enough to have publicly forgotten them.
Q: Which leader of any Islamist group do you admire most?
I admire Ed Husain of the British Quilliam Foundation the most. He's an all-round good egg. He's a devout Muslim involved in politics, so I guess he's an Islamist. Ed, Maajid Nawaz and Rashad Ali at Quilliam do a sterling job and their days of extremism are well and truly over - where they have come from and how their metamorphosis has occurred gives us real hope for the metamorphosis of other Islamist extremists.
Q: What is your favorite quotation?
I suppose I should go for Edmund Burke's "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing", but I don't publicly "do God", so I suppose I don't publicly do "good" or "evil."
Instead - especially in the current climate of weakness in Europe in relation to countering extreme Islamism - I'll bank on Churchill's "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
Q: What would you say to Abu Qatada who has been granted bail in Britain?
"Behind you." No, seriously, I'd rather not waste my breath. He should not be allowed to walk a street in the Free World ever again.
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