Some practical statistics

[chickenfeet]

Lord Stevens claims 3000 British based Muslims have been through Al Quaeda training camps.

Let's see:

There are 1.6 million Muslims in Britain, of which half, one assumes, are female and unlikely to attend AQ camps. So, 800,000 males.

At least a quarter of those must be too young to have had terrorist training so let's say 600,000 adult males.

So 1 in 200 adult British Muslim males have left the country for terrorist training?

I have my doubts.

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

True, and even if there were 1500 who had been through AQ camps, it would be too many for my liking.

Absolutely. 100 would be at least 99 too many.

the opinions expressed by all those Muslims interviewed in the documentary were so extreme

You can find people to say anything if that's what you want for a documentary. I bet I could easily find a dozen, apparently respectable, middle class Brits, in the leafier suburbs who have never actually met a Muslim but "know" that they are all extremists planning to bomb whatever.

Look at the average Tory party conference!

What I would really like to know is how widespread pro AQ views are and by what vectors they are being spread. Unfortunately, having seen at first hand the utter political ineptitude of the so-called "intelligence" services when it comes to differentiating between different strands of dissent, I doubt that will happen. I mean if they can't tell the difference between the CPGB M-L and the Militant Tendency, how the heck can you expect them to unravel the complexities of the different strands of militant Islam?

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

Also true, also true. But one would assume that the people who are most likely to resort to violence would not be the people volunteering to appear on a BBC2 documentary. In other words, there are people out there who we should be even more afraid of.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I'm sceptical about anything said on documentaries since being at a meeting of the Labour Co-ordinating Committee that was filmed by Panorama. At least that's what they thought they filmed. What they got and broadcast was staged. The real meeting happened after the cameras left.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

like the "meeting" between the Labor Minister and the trade unionists that appeared on Paris's Olympic bid video. Clearly bogus. But these were long interviews, done one on one, shot in a closed studio. I thought they were quite chilling.