London UK, 16th May 2010 – Speaking on the BBC’s Today program on the 14th May 2010, recently retired head of the British army, General Richard Dannatt confirmed that the war in Afghanistan is a war on Islam.
When asked about Britain’s continued occupation of Afghanistan, he said there is an “Islamist agenda which if we don’t oppose it and face it off in Southern Afghanistan, or Afghanistan, or in South Asia, then frankly that influence will grow. It could well grow, and this is an important point, we could see it moving from South Asia to the Middle East to North Africa, and to the high water mark of the Islamic caliphate in the 14th, 15th century.”
Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain said, ”General Dannatt, a recent adviser to Prime Minister Cameron, has previously been on the record attacking Islam’s ruling system, the Khilafah (Caliphate). However, this exchange on the BBC confirms a particular matter.”
“He explicitly said that if Muslims adopted Islam’s political ideas and the Khilafah ruling system, this was unacceptable and warranted a military response from Britain. He had no issues with Muslims praying or enacting spiritual rituals, provided they surrendered political life to Western values. He tried to justify this by attempting to label Islam as a religion and not a deen, or way of life that encompasses political matters as well.”
“These comments echo the language of war mongers like Tony Blair, George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld – all of who justified the war on terror by demonising the desire of Muslims to restore the Islamic Caliphate – something that enjoys overwhelming popular support in the Muslim world.”
“If Dannatt’s comments are a reflection of the thinking of the new British government, it is an indication that David Cameron’s government would be committing itself to an almost perpetual war against the political aspirations of the Muslim world – to move towards a greater role for Islam in governance and a greater move to shed the shackles of colonialism, both of which are represented in the aspiration for the return of the Caliphate.”
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Listen to General Dannat’s BBC interview