UK 'social cohesion' minister wants to surrender to terrorist

Observer/Guardian:

The UK must distance itself from American foreign policy if Pakistani youths are to be prevented from growing up hating Britain, according to the government's social cohesion minister.

The comments by Sadiq Khan, who has just returned from a fact-finding trip to Pakistan, follow the arrests of 12 men - 10 of whom were Pakistani nationals - in the north-west of England last week on suspicion of planning a terror attack. They are likely to be given short shrift from Number 10, which has been keen to ally itself to the Obama administration. Earlier this month Gordon Brown stressed the two allies were united in their fight against terrorism in Pakistan.

But Khan, London's first Muslim MP, said the UK must differentiate itself from the US after attending meetings at universities in Pakistan. "I listened to the anger and pain over the challenges that young people growing up in Pakistan face, including the anger and frustration over US drone attacks," he said.

The attacks by unmanned US drones have provoked fury in Pakistan, where scores of militants have been killed in the country's remote border regions, along with innocent civilians.

"The anger and frustration at the drone attacks was huge," Khan said. "The view they [the students] had was that the UK was somehow responsible for this. They haven't understood this was purely a US matter. They lumped us together with the US, which to me is a poison. It demonstrates to me we have a big problem."

Khan, whose parents are from Pakistan, suggested the UK should look to reach out to disaffected Muslim youths by emphasising the close links between the two countries. "Much of the Pakistani population doesn't realise the good we are doing," Khan said: the UK is to double aid to Pakistan to £180m by 2011.

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The irrational hatred of the US by people who are more sympathetic to the terrorist should not be the basis for policy. Polls taken by people who live in the region where the drone attacks take place show a majority support them and are glad to be rid of the terrorist leaders who make their lives miserable.

Students who feel otherwise have been indoctrinated by religious bigots and the government needs to deal with those doing the indoctrination. What Khan is suggesting is surrendering to the terrorist. Pakistan has made a mess of itself by doing that and there is9 no reason for the UK and US to follow that unwise course.