In remarks so bizarre and out of touch that satirists at outlets like The Onion would have rejected them if someone had suggested their inclusion in a made-up story, London's police chief has described the diversity of the city's London Bridge terror attack victims and witnesses interviewed as positive things.
Gregory Katz at the Associated Press did his part to play along with the charade by failing to identify the lack of diversity among those who carried out the attack.
"Diversity" has apparently become so obsessively important that the need to comment on it in a positive fashion at every turn has clearly overwhelmed basic common sense.
Here are the first six paragraphs from Katz's Saturday morning report (bolds are mine throughout this post):
London police chief: Attack victims show city’s diversity
The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police says the nationalities of the eight victims in the terrorist attack on London Bridge tell a proud story of London’s unique makeup.
“It’s desperately sad and poignant but among those who died is someone who’s British, there are French, Australian, Canadian, Spanish,” Cressida Dick told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday.
“In terms of our witnesses that we’ve spoken to so far, out of the 300-odd people, there are about 20 different countries of origin. And the London British population comes from all kinds of backgrounds and every kind of faith and ethnicity.”
She said longtime Londoners value this international aspect of the British capital.
“We believe of course that that’s what makes our city so great,” she said. “It’s a place where the vast majority of time it’s incredibly integrated and that diversity gives us strength.”
Dick became London’s first female police chief in April, taking over the sprawling agency also known as Scotland Yard several weeks after a terrorist attack on Parliament.
But suddenly it was time to cease all discussion of diversity, as Katz described what has happened since Ms. Dick assumed the helm at Scotland Yard:
Since then a crowded Manchester concert featuring the pop singer Ariana Grande was hit by a bomber and three knife-wielding men in a rented van attacked civilians in and around London Bridge.
Do the attackers and others who have been "arrested" in connection with these plots — "arrested" is in scare quotes for reasons which will become plain shortly — possess the same treasured "diversity" as the victims? Hardly, and as is usually the case with the press, Katz clearly avoided describing their common characteristics.
Sadly, almost no one in the press dares to observe the utter lack of diversity among terrorist attackers. As has almost invariably been the case since 9/11, those who carried out the two most recent UK attacks were Muslims with a jihadist mindset. That combination has proven itself to be the greatest current enemy of genuine diversity and ethnic and cultural camaraderie on earth.
Regarding the Manchester Arena bombing on May 22, which at last count has left 23 victims dead and 119 injured (23 critically), the facts are these:
- The UK Telegraph reported that "Manchester bomber Salman Abedi took his twisted revenge out of 'love for Islam' after being radicalised by (an) Isil (Islamic State) preacher."
- 22 others were ultimately detained after the attack, but they were released without charges Sunday morning.
- On May 24, the BBC described "a triangle of Islamist-jihadist connections between Manchester, Libya and Syria" which also may have influenced Abedi, even if one takes the unlikely view that he acted totally alone without anyone else having the first clue as to what he was up to.
Concerning the June 3 London Bridge attack, which at last count has left 8 victims dead and 48 injured (21 critically):
- Attackers Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane, and Youssef Zaghba first "mounted the pavement at London Bridge and ploughed into pedestrians, knocking them down like skittles." Then, after leaving the vehicle, they "began attacking passersby," and "shouted 'this is for Allah', as they stabbed indiscriminately."
- 19 others have been arrested in connection with the attack, but 12 have already been released without charges.
Instead of uncritically taking dictation from London's police chief, reporters like the AP's Katz might consider looking into whether the quick releases of most of those arrested after these two attacks indicate that post-attack police "roundups" really represent a form of street theater designed to make it appear as if officials are accomplishing something when they really aren't.
Returning to the main theme, there's not a lot of precious "diversity" among the attackers because those involved never got the memo that there's nothing wrong with racial and ethnic "diversity" in a society as long as its members buy into that society's fundamental values.
The reason they never got the memo is that it hasn't been sent to new arrivals in the UK and many other western nations for years.
Thus, we have large numbers of people who have emigrated to countries with centuries of democratic institutions, traditions, and values who hold core beliefs that are hostile to those found in their host countries. Among them: that Muslim "sharia" law should predominate in their enclaves; that routine police presence is not welcome (hence the appearance of "no-go zones" throughout Western Europe); and that women, individually and collectively, should be subjugated to the will of men. As Andrew McCarthy wrote of radical Islam after March's Westminster attack in the UK: "Islam, thus understood, is not non-Western. It is anti-Western."
Meanwhile, London's police chief is cheered by the diversity of the victims of attacks her agency couldn't prevent, and by the diversity of witnesses who helped her agency gather facts after the non-diverse group of jihadists had done their damage.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
