politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The big news tonight is terror attack on a Christmas market in
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The big news tonight is terror attack on a Christmas market in Berlin
Daily Mail
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
But what does cracking down on the Islamists actually mean? and how does it differ from what we are already doing in Iraq, Syria and the streets of Britain?
Looking after our own country has worked better than Germany's approach.
"Saddam had actually believed 9/11 would bring Iraq and America closer because Washington would need his secular government to help fight fundamentalism."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4044216/CIA-agent-grilled-Saddam-Hussein-says-thought-knew-man-WRONG.html
In 50 years time there will be an Islamic state in the UK
The US has warned its citizens that Europe is facing a “heightened risk of terror attacks” at Christmas markets and other seasonal holiday events.
The US State Department said it had “credible information” that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and al-Qaeda were planning attacks and focusing on the “upcoming holiday season”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/22/us-warns-heightened-risk-terror-attacks-christmas-markets-europe/
I saw the concrete bollards in Birmingham last week and never gave them a second thought
Our security services deserve enormous praise and thanks. Every time I have reservations about another slightly dodgy Bill from the government about internet security I remember what they have achieved. It is remarkable and the first job of any government is to keep its people safe. If anyone from GCHQ is reading, thank you.
In deciding whom to let into a country, surely one of the first questions the state should be considering is whether this puts the existing population in that country (the primary concern of any government) at risk of harm.
I think far more could be done to confront the ideology which animates Islamists. Liberal values are better and we should say so and show how evil and horrible their world view is. When there were problems with the BNP and similar Nazi/fascist style groups in the 1970's, we had the Anti-Nazi movements and there was a vigorous - and largely successful - attempt to confront those who showed a penchant for fascism. We don't do anything like the same in relation to those who show a penchant for the Islamist version. Rather, we (or some of us, at any rate) are far too willing to explain it away or excuse it or justify it. If we do not provide a better belief system, a better account, a better story, if we do not say that what these people think and believe and do is wrong and repulsive, we can hardly be surprised if it attracts enough support to be a thorough nuisance or worse.
Yes, intelligence and prosecutions and a sensible immigration policy are essential. But bad ideas, bad ideologies are defeated by good ideas. We should have much more confidence in our virtues and values and ideas and stand up for them and promulgate them. Western Enlightenment values and what they have brought are good and better than the alternatives. Islamist thought is not good; it is horrible and dark and brings evil. in its wake. We should not appease it. We should shun it and fight it and stop it spreading its tentacles amongst our Muslim young. They are our young too and I don't want them succumbing to something which will destroy them as much as it will destroy us.
Not an easy course of action by I think it's time for this country to call time on this experiment of importing millions of Muslims.
Outward expressions such as dress are meaningless, it is what goes on inside that matters. As Queen Bess asked "should we make windows into mens souls?"
I agree with you very strongly, then.
I fear we in the West have lost our ability to justify and defend our way of life. Why liberal democracy? Why freedom of speech? Why rule of law?
If we cannot defend it, we will lose it. If not to Islamist, then to others.
Perhaps an Inquisition with arbitrary powers?
I also bought Dune which I am really really looking forward to. There are not many films which give me goosebumps but that is one of them. Bit of a marmite movie as far as reviews go.
Jihadists have used that refugee flood to get their own operators into Western Europe.
Worth noting that both the Rigby killers were of African Christian background, who converted to Islam. Should we kick out all Africans to be on the safe side?
How willing have they been to uphold the law on for example FGM.
Saddam said an awful lot of things.
I have had the privilege of access to the Saddam Tapes, seized after the fall of Baghdad - his Nixon-like recordings of all his important policy discussions with his inner cabal - and now archived at the Conflict Records Research Center of the National Defense University at the Navy Yards in DC.
Saddam mused about many things. Taking one issue like this out of context of all the rest, I could probably find a quote from Saddam for most things. But lest we fail to remember that, we should definitely remember that it was Saddam who added the words "Alahu akbar' to the Iraqi flag. This man was absolutely ready to use religion for his purposes at the drop of a hat. What he might have mused about US-Iraqi relations on one day would, and did, change regularly.
So the idea that there was some sort of missed opportunity to have good relations with him is spurious to say the least.
A head of department has been shot dead in his apartment in Moscow. Circumstance unclear.
Mr Max PB stopping people from changing their religion is not at all in line British values, I hope we never go down that route. People should be freely allowed to change their religion freely including leaving Islam.
Seriously, how long will the UK maintain an anti-Russian foreign policy if the US pivots?
The EU is hardly a bulwark of anti-Russianism and is very divided. And Fillon looks to be softening the French position.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/07/france-suspends-plans-halal-prison-meals-2014716132046460534.html
No problem with Islamists there is there?
As for the flag, is adding 'Dieu et mon droit' to the Royal coat of arms an example of misusing religion?
As abhorrent as I find the burqa, banning it seems to me fundamentally unBritish. And in any case, it seems more likely to incite terrorism than quell it. Haven't they already banned it in France? Doesn't seem to have helped.
"Unfortunately, the best argument that the defenders of civil society typically offer in response to those challenges is that the complex of personal liberty, the rule of law, and free markets creates more prosperity and a more commodious life than the alternatives. That’s true, but it’s not enough to deflect the damaging blows of the illiberal triumvirate of identity politics, authoritarian populism, and radical Islamism. The moral goodness of liberty needs to be upheld, not only in head-to-head encounters with adversaries, but as a means of stiffening the resistance of classical liberals, lest they continue retreating. Freedom is not an illusion, but a great and noble goal. A life of freedom is better in every respect than a life of submission to others. "
The moral goodness of liberty. That's what we need to fight for.
"It’s time for advocates of liberty to realize that some people reject liberty for others (and even for themselves) not merely because they don’t understand economics or because they will realize material benefits from undermining the rule of law, but because they oppose the principles and the practice of liberty. They don’t seek equality before the law; they reject it and prefer politics based on unequal identities. They don’t believe in your right to disagree with them and they certainly won’t defend your right to do so. They consider trade a plot of some sort. And they prefer a politics of will to one of processes. They will attack anyone for offending their sacred identities. They do not want to “live and let live.”"
Some groups - and Islamists are one example - prefer identity politics, the identity of being a "Muslim" above anything else and authoritarianism. Our failure to realize this has led us to underestimate for too long the threat we face from such ideas, especially when they take root amongst the young.
That is why we have to win - at least in our own countries - the battle of ideas.
Well, the answer to that is Saddam. He used them without provocation against his own people, the Kurds, in Halabja and on many other occasions, and in a first-use manner against the Iranians, again on many occasions, culminating in massive use during the al Fao campaign and on the Majnoon Islands. He is caught on the Saddam Tapes discussing when and how to use his 'special weapons' many times.
Given that Saddam was so palpably misleading in that question, why was this CIA agent so credulous of Saddam's other utterings?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4044216/CIA-agent-grilled-Saddam-Hussein-says-thought-knew-man-WRONG.html
'Trumpian hyperbole.'
Could it be any worse than what Merkel has dumped on us ?
Max, have you moved to Switzerland yet? You seem to have gone all ein folk on us.
In the U.K.
But Labour created Pakistan in 1947, no?
Except by proxy of her shite failure to realise the implications of an open door policy to 1m Syrians to the EU debate.
The answer, as yet at least, is that as far as the UK, and especially London, was concerned, the IRA attacks were much worse. For years, you were aware every single day of the risk, the disruption to everyday life was huge. I remember multiple times where we were evacuated from a theatre or tube station because of an IRA bomb alert, and there were many deadly attacks here involving loss of life: Brighton, Warrington, Birmingham, Guildford, Harrods, and many more. In Belfast and Londonderry, course, it was much worse.
For now, despite the 7/7 murders, the murder of Lee Rigby, and other atrocities, we have thankfully been relatively less affected here in the UK by Islamic terrorism, and daily life hasn't been affected anything like as badly as it was in the IRA campaign. Let's hope we can keep it like that.
As regards Europe as a whole, the picture is different, given Barcelona, Paris, Nice, Brussels, and this latest outrage in Berlin.
Defeating terrorists requires a counter culture hearts and minds operation. Boring and unsatisfying as it might sound to you. You starve the terrorists of support and then you have a chance of defeating them.
Give them a recruiting sergeant and you set yourself back decades.
Shame the plebs don't have it so easy.
Are you sure the freely bit here,this is not far from where I live.
Man forced to flee his home after converting from Islam to Christianity
http://metro.co.uk/2016/11/06/man-flees-home-after-converting-to-christianity-from-islam-leads-to-attack-6239445/
It's time to try something else, whatever we're doing at the moment isn't working. The Casey report was damning on Islamic integration in the UK and poll after poll has shown 25-30% of UK Muslims (higher among the young) support the actions of terrorists. That is not only damning, but dangerous for the nation. The nation has no bloody need to these people to stay here, if we can move them on with stealth laws that make being Muslim difficult then we should do it.
There are questions about the political bias of the jury in this trial (which I believe was made up of MPs).
Nevertheless, you can't have an IMF lead found guilty of fraud - by negligence or otherwise.
She should resign.
"I have heard so many people say the book is amazing and miles better than the film. Quite remarkable that the book was published back in the 60s"
I have never seen and will never see the film, I have however read the book many times since it was first published. The book had one great thing, it never tried to explain the technology - the physics behind an ornithopter, for example, were left blank. It was just a great story brilliantly told and like a really good play on the radio it left much to the imagination of the audience.
The sequels I have never been able to get on with. In fact to be honest I have never got beyond the first fifty pages of Dune: The Messiah - the first sequel.
so
1991 400k Muslims in London out of 6.8m overall population = 5.8%
2001 607k out of 7.3m = 8.3%
2011 1.02 out of 8.2m = 12.4%
I think on those numbers it is fair to estimate 50% being achieved by 2066
We should win who we can win and move on those who we can't.
Saddam added it to the flag during the Iran Iraq war specifically to rebut Iranian allegations that he and Iraq were infidels and to mobilize islamic fervor to his side. So, yes, in that case it was using religion.
Meanwhile Hillary has lost 4
And she is not, as @MP_SE seems to think, a 'convicted criminal'. The court specifically exonerated her of any criminal offence.
But I'm sure mere facts like these won't have much potency.
"Moving in January!
It's time to try something else, whatever we're doing at the moment isn't working. The Casey report was damning on Islamic integration in the UK and poll after poll has shown 25-30% of UK Muslims (higher among the young) support the actions of terrorists. That is not only damning, but dangerous for the nation. The nation has no bloody need to these people to stay here, if we can move them on with stealth laws that make being Muslim difficult then we should do it."
I wish you the best of luck on your move.
The Casey report was damning. And, sadly, already yesterday's fish and chip wrapping.
But the damage, to me, was done years ago in the easy going 70s, 80s, and 90s. Islam is here to stay in Britain. Now that we know the ramifications of that, we should halt as much immigration from Islamic countries as possible. But as far as I know we have largely done that.
(someone will correct me).
@Cyclefree and others are right. This is now about hearts and minds. However we are wedded to certain shibboleths that prevent the full-blooded defence of our own values.
I still don't think it's a good look though.
She should go.
It's a system that works IMO, but really it's because we don't have the basics like education and language in place it won't work here.
Opens a number of possible avenues of any allegiance.