11 dead in gun attack on newspaper office in France

[Mr Shoe]

Have a google for "Blackwater". A mercenarey army given immunity from Iraq law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Baghdad_shootings

 

Nothing like your suggestive statement.

[P.K.]

Excellent piece in the Grauniad on terrorism and where it may be headed - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/31/terrorism-spectacle-how-states-respond-yuval-noah-harari-sapiens

 

Interesting how if a state responds with increased counter measures the terrorist attacks have little consequence - except for the victims of course. However should the state react with overwhelming military force the terrorist act that triggered it could end up being a political game-changer.

 

Well worth a read.

[ScotsAlan]

Excellent piece in the Grauniad on terrorism and where it may be headed - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/31/terrorism-spectacle-how-states-respond-yuval-noah-harari-sapiens

 

Interesting how if a state responds with increased counter measures the terrorist attacks have little consequence - except for the victims of course. However should the state react with overwhelming military force the terrorist act that triggered it could end up being a political game-changer.

 

Well worth a read.

 

Good article.

 

The Lockerbie photo was poinent for me, because I have family in Lockerbie, and at the time we were worried. They all survived. I had an auntie and uncle there, with their two kids. My relations all survived, but they had to deal with the body parts etc. Not good.

 

But they were not close family to me. In fact, the only reason my dad kept in touch with this particular sister was because some family fued had distanced him from his brothers and driven him to his sister they had already been rejected. So she had moved to Lockerbie with her husband, who the family did not accept.

 

Long story cut short. They survived the bombing.

 

Next thing... you can guess it.... the estranged family are suddenly best friends because they want a share of any potenial compensation.

 

I think the family in Lockerbie got a few 100 thousand each. Not sure where from.

 

But that was a long time ago. Before the instant book deals and the cries for war. That was when no one was telling us Islam was out to destroy us. That was when the bombers were terrorists. Plain and simple.

 

Pan Am 103. I drink to the memory of the victims.

 

Pointless deaths, pure and simple.

 

But then, when Scotland realeased the only man convicted of that bombing, on compassionate grounds, I felt so proud of my country. A massive outrage, forgiven to allow someone to die in peace.

 

And even now, there is an ongoing case to clear al-Megrahi.... from the Scottish courst system that convicted him under international pressure.

 

Honestly guys. The only way to beat them is with undersatnding and compassion. Don't execute in vengenge. Detain to obtain understanding. Educate people. Don't destroy them because their education has been bad. If someone wants to destroy you, take their sword from them. Talk.

[Vulgarian]

Honestly guys. The only way to beat them is with undersatnding and compassion. Don't execute in vengenge. Detain to obtain understanding. Educate people. Don't destroy them because their education has been bad. If someone wants to destroy you, take their sword from them. Talk.

 

A bit of understanding and compassion wouldn't go amiss, but its not going to defeat ISIS, who are responsible for the French attacks. Their extreme ideology is rooted in the history of the Middle East, which has been shaped to a large extent by Western powers. Most recently the invasion of Iraq which left that country without strong or stable government, allowing insurgencies to gain strength and take hold.

 

Before any kind of negotiations can take place ISIS must be made to understand that their victory by force is not a possibility. As it stands their approach seems to be working very well for them and they have gained a lot of territory. As long as there is the possibility of their survival or even expansion through force they will continue to fight. It took a show of arms in Ireland to persuade the IRA that military victory was not possible and to attend the negotiation table.

 

It is the British and Americans, who are the proximal cause of this instability, who should by rights be piecing things back together but there is not the appetite at home for the kind of military persuasion that is needed, let alone the occupation and nation building that is required to stabilise the region. Some good old fashioned colonialism would definitely not go amiss. Brutal suppression of insurrection, disarmament of the civilian population, robust and fair judiciary, and plenty of capitalism to kickstart the economy. It is what the Allies ought to have done after the 2003 invasion. Alas, the British, once masters of the trade, no longer have the stomach for this kind of enterprise.

[pongo]

It took a show of arms in Ireland to persuade the IRA that military victory was not possible and to attend the negotiation table

Some say that the IRA were fighting for a united republic. Others argue that the PIRA of the 70s and the 80s was much more a reaction to actual conditions in the northern state. Between those two perspectives existed the possibility of a way forward. The Downing Street Declaration was issued 8 months after the Bishopsgate bombing came close to collapsing the insurance market.

 

But do ISIL even have a negotiating position ? Surely it's a nihilistic-death-cult rather than a spectrum of political perspective ? Do they have hawks and doves ?

[woolley]

 

It took a show of arms in Ireland to persuade the IRA that military victory was not possible and to attend the negotiation table

Some say that the IRA were fighting for a united republic. Others argue that the PIRA of the 70s and the 80s was much more a reaction to actual conditions in the northern state. Between those two perspectives existed the possibility of a way forward. The Downing Street Declaration was issued 8 months after the Bishopsgate bombing came close to collapsing the insurance market.

 

But do ISIL even have a negotiating position ? Surely it's a nihilistic-death-cult rather than a spectrum of political perspective ? Do they have hawks and doves ?

 

The Irish agreement evolved from a generation of combatants becoming old and tired and a great deal of taxpayers' money to sweeten the deal with a lot of parties on both sides. It isn't beyond the bounds of possibilty for a young generation to take up the struggle although, hopefully, maybe there will be a sufficient majority of the population who prefer a quiet life to restrain them.

 

Muslim fanatics are different. No point in talking to them. At least the Provos used to issue warnings so that areas to be bombed could be evacuated. These lunatics want to kill as many as possible and should be dealt with in the same way.

[Vulgarian]

With regards to Ireland none of the progress that was made would have been possible without first laying down the principle that the IRA would make no progress by military means, and that Northern Ireland would remain British unless its citizens voted otherwise. If there had been no military response by the British to the violence in that country, and if the IRA had seen the possibility of achieving some of their aims through military means the conflict could have been much worse in terms of violence. The above posters are right of course about the other factors involved.

 

I wouldn't underestimate ISIS though. All we see in the news are the sensational highlights, if you like; the beheading, burnings, bombings. Its easy to see them as deranged jihadists with a death wish. But ISIS controls territory roughly the size of mainland Britain with a population of millions from whom they are collecting taxes. They are estimated to have as many as 50,000 fighting men, many of whom have traveled from other countries to join up. Even before they began their insurrection they were an organised crime syndicate. They are essentially a state in their own right, and one with an extreme and violent ideology that has support from some Muslims elsewhere. I don't see how they are going to be eradicated without large-scale military operations including occupation.

[the stinking enigma]

with regards to ireland i believe peace absolutely had to be in place there to avoid very uncomfortable questions being asked during and after 9/11 and the resulting already mapped out "war on terror"

[Tarne]

There are radical muslims and moderate muslims: A radical muslim wants to behead you, a moderate muslim wants a radical muslim to behead you.

[ScotsAlan]

There was a guy who predicted this of course.

 

This is what he said in 1991 in respons to questions on why the first gulf war stopped at the Iraq/Kuwait border,

 

Quote

 

"Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it - eastern Iraq - the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families - it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

 

" End quote.

 

That guy was Dick Cheney.

 

Then he went off and got a job at Halliburton. Made a lot of money, then 10 years later he was back working for another Bush and he was making the case to the UN as to why Iraq should be invaded.

 

How much money did Hallibuton make from the second Iraq war? $39.5 billion.

 

The war on terror is a money spinner.

 

Wars in general are vote winners. Would Maggie have gotten another term if it were not for the Argentinians?

 

Shame about all the people who die.

 

Edit to add, the quote is from wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Aftermath

[Vulgarian]

On the subject of support for jihadist violence in mainstream Islam, the BBC conducted a survey within the last month asking if attacks such as those carried out in Paris were ever justifiable. Link.

 

"Asked if acts of violence against those who publish images of the Prophet Muhammad can "never be justified", 68% agreed that such violence was never justifiable.

But 24% disagreed with the statement, while the rest replied "don't know" or refused to answer."

 

Though the article was headlined "Muslims oppose cartoon reprisals" we actually find, according the BBC's own survey, that just under a third of them either aren't sure if it's ok to kill cartoonists for drawing a picture of a man, or they actually support it. This is not to take into account those who secretly harbour such views, whose number is bound to be statistically significant.

 

Typically misleading headline from the BBC which attempts to mask the scale of extremist thought in mainstream Islam in Britain.

[ScotsAlan]

On the subject of support for jihadist violence in mainstream Islam, the BBC conducted a survey within the last month asking if attacks such as those carried out in Paris were ever justifiable. Link.

 

"Asked if acts of violence against those who publish images of the Prophet Muhammad can "never be justified", 68% agreed that such violence was never justifiable.

But 24% disagreed with the statement, while the rest replied "don't know" or refused to answer."

 

Though the article was headlined "Muslims oppose cartoon reprisals" we actually find, according the BBC's own survey, that just under a third of them either aren't sure if it's ok to kill cartoonists for drawing a picture of a man, or they actually support it. This is not to take into account those who secretly harbour such views, whose number is bound to be statistically significant.

 

Typically misleading headline from the BBC which attempts to mask the scale of extremist thought in mainstream Islam in Britain.

I read that today.

 

The follow on study of course should be " How many non Muslims believe all muslims want to behead them?"

 

It's a roundabout of hatred created by the money men.