Grisly islamist attack in Britain...

[Makalakumu]

You keep saying the state doesn't represent our interest but there are millions of people that love Obama and everything he's done so I do think the govt is an accurate representation of the people. Obama is one of the most loved and hated people I've ever seen. I literally see shrines to him in peoples homes.

15,000 hours of force indoctrination does wonders for the State.

 

[K-man]

Even if all this is our faults which I don't agree with but forbthr sake of argument say your right. At what point do we say screw it. We started it they pushed back now the gloves come off and we just wipe them all out regardless. The story of the kid getting bullied knocking out the bully doesn't happen in real life. The big kid wins most of the time. When does a nation say screw PC screw being fair and wipe them out? So nobody's left to cause blow back? Or is there no time where that happens? Say they pull a Beslan style attack killing hundreds or thousands of kids here do we then say enough or do we just say oh well blow back were sorry?

Let's be honest. Not only is it not going to happen, it can't happen. Which country are you going to knock out first? Iran? Yemin? Chechnya? Maybe Pakestan? Terrorists have come from Libya and Morroco. Do you destroy them too? There are some real nasty people in Indonesia. Are you going to wipe out another few hundred million there?

After you have cleansed the world you then have to turn on yourself. There are many examples of home grown terrorists in the UK and the US. We even have some firebrands in Australia. Are you going to destroy us too? What you are proposing puts Hitler and Ghengis Khan to shame. The genocide you are countenancing makes Idi Amin and Pol Pot look like Sunday School teachers. Let's face it, that option isn't even on the table, such is the nature of terrorism. :asian:

 

[Makalakumu]

Let's be honest. Not only is it not going to happen, it can't happen. Which country are you going to knock out first? Iran? Yemin? Chechnya? Maybe Pakestan? Terrorists have come from Libya and Morroco. Do you destroy them too? There are some real nasty people in Indonesia. Are you going to wipe out another few hundred million there?

After you have cleansed the world you then have to turn on yourself. There are many examples of home grown terrorists in the UK and the US. We even have some firebrands in Australia. Are you going to destroy us too? What you are proposing puts Hitler and Ghengis Khan to shame. The genocide you are countenancing makes Idi Amin and Pol Pot look like Sunday School teachers. Let's face it, that option isn't even on the table, such is the nature of terrorism. :asian:

What is the solution then?

 

[ballen0351]

Let's be honest. Not only is it not going to happen, it can't happen. Which country are you going to knock out first? Iran? Yemin? Chechnya? Maybe Pakestan? Terrorists have come from Libya and Morroco. Do you destroy them too? There are some real nasty people in Indonesia. Are you going to wipe out another few hundred million there?

After you have cleansed the world you then have to turn on yourself. There are many examples of home grown terrorists in the UK and the US. We even have some firebrands in Australia. Are you going to destroy us too? What you are proposing puts Hitler and Ghengis Khan to shame. The genocide you are countenancing makes Idi Amin and Pol Pot look like Sunday School teachers. Let's face it, that option isn't even on the table, such is the nature of terrorism. :asian:

I'm not proposing anything. I'm asking the question. What happens when people have enough? The Beslan shooting killed over 300 kids. If that were to happen in the US or UK or In your neck of the woods or something even bigger say a planned multi school attack killing 1000s of kids. Its there a breaking point where revenge becomes more important then doing what's right.

 

[ballen0351]

I also wouldn't be so quick to say it can't happen. People can be talked into very evil things when they believe they are right

 

[Sukerkin]

{deletes post he was typing }.

 

[billc]

We lost 3000 people in one attack and even in the fighting in Iraq and Afganistan we held to doing as little harm to civillians as possible. The fear of "retaliation," against muslims here in the states never happened (please don't tell me about the extremely isolated incidents...if 3000 people had been killed in a terrorist attack in a muslim country the blood would be running in the streets, look at what happened over the cartoons of mohammed.) so not all cultures are the same...I have yet to here about mass retaliations against muslims in Britain after this attack.

The western democracies are far advanced from the past...

 

[billc]

It just happened in France...

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/...cked-by-Bearded-North-African-Wearing-a-Jihab

[h=2]A French Soldier (in uniform) was attacked in Paris while conducting his "anti-terrorist" duties. The soldier's throat was stabbed by knife-wielding man described by police as "bearded, of North African origin and wearing a light coloured jihab’ under a jacket."[/h]

 

[arnisador]

We lost 3000 people in one attack and even in the fighting in Iraq and Afganistan we held to doing as little harm to civillians as possible.

How well has that worked out? What are the Fox News numbers on civilian casualties there? Maybe 3 in Iraq, 7 in Afghanistan?

 

[ballen0351]

How well has that worked out? What are the Fox News numbers on civilian casualties there? Maybe 3 in Iraq, 7 in Afghanistan?

Still much much lower then the alternative. The military goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. We could have easily carpet bombed the entire country into dust killing millions

 

[K-man]

What is the solution then?

There is no simple solution. Taking religion out of politics would be a good start. Passing laws that make incitement a more serious or even capital offence may start to reduce the problem. At present we have preachers inciting violence and nobody is prepared to stop them. Oh! That's right .. that would be a restriction of "freedom of speech"! We have people that play the racist card every time someone complains about behaviour that is not part of our culture. Well I couldn't give a toss. If people want to behave like they did in Baghdad, then go back to bloody Baghdad. If you are home grown and you think that the way people behave in Yemen is cool then shift to Yemen. We are too politically correct for our own good. :asian:

 

[K-man]

I'm not proposing anything. I'm asking the question. What happens when people have enough? The Beslan shooting killed over 300 kids. If that were to happen in the US or UK or In your neck of the woods or something even bigger say a planned multi school attack killing 1000s of kids. Its there a breaking point where revenge becomes more important then doing what's right.

Well, I think I answered the question.
You talk about Beslan but the West was pretty quick to condemn the Russians for trying to do something about it in Chechnya. You don't need to wipe out an entire population. You need to wipe out the extremist leaders, and that is the same be they Christian or Islamic. And, no revenge doesn't become more important than what is right. I would argue that that happened once before at Nagasaki. :asian:

 

[K-man]

We lost 3000 people in one attack and even in the fighting in Iraq and Afganistan we held to doing as little harm to civillians as possible. The fear of "retaliation," against muslims here in the states never happened (please don't tell me about the extremely isolated incidents...if 3000 people had been killed in a terrorist attack in a muslim country the blood would be running in the streets, look at what happened over the cartoons of mohammed.) so not all cultures are the same...I have yet to here about mass retaliations against muslims in Britain after this attack.

The western democracies are far advanced from the past...

Yes, a small group of terrorists killed 3000 people in that attack. They were innocent people killed by an act of terrorism. In Iran there were none responsible for that act and in Afghanistan there may have been a hundred or so. The death toll there is probably over half a million innocent people. We just call it 'collateral damage' because we are doing as little harm to civilians as possible! What crap!

The cartoons of Mohammed were in poor taste perhaps but not deserving of such disruption. OK, take the bull by the horns and deport the trouble makers, or lock them up and throw away the key. Atrocious behaviour by one minority group oes not mean the majority of normal peaceful citizens have to do the same.

The western democracies are far advanced from the past.. ​Care to elaborate?

 

[K-man]

Wiping people off the maps, pogroms, brutal oppression/suppression, those things are quite common. Rome had terrible problems with terrorists in it's outlying territories. They sent punishment armies to those regions to steal, rape, murder, and enslave as many people as they could find. Entire cities, villages, and ethnic groups were decimated. In recent times, Germany did this to Russia during WWII. No one really knows how many civilians died, but from the sources that are available from the Eastern Front tell us that the Germans were brutal beyond imagination. Thousands of villages were erased. Hundreds of small to medium cities were put to the torch. Dozens of large cities were completely razed to the ground. Leningrad was starved for 2.5 years to the point where the civilians at each other. If the Germans got a sniff of resistance in any of their newly occupied territory, they encircled a large geographic area and literally murdered everyone in it. In Russia, there are fields of bones as far as the eye can see from WWII. Scholars estimate that 40 million civilians or more died in Russia from the conquest.

Does this mean you are suggesting that because Hitler did it it is OK for the US to do it?

So, this does happen all of the time, even in modern times. Anyone who resists the Empire is usually put to the sword.

The exception, IMO, is Britain and the US. Britain has had it's share of people it's wiped out in it's various colonies, but it seemed like that imperial power would rather rule through proxies and have others do it's dirty work. The US picked up the same system after WWII, neatly stepping into the power vacuum hen Britain gave up the Empire. In some ways, the British Empire never went anywhere. Think of all the prominent American politicians who are inducted into Knightly orders and pledge to serve the Queen. President Reagan, President Bush, and many key placed underlings belong to these Orders. Even if it all is just ceremonial, does it really matter if the empire is being maintained by US power?

Now let's examine this statement. Britain and the US are different, but even Britain had it's share of people "wiped out".
I'm not sure how many American Indians British troops killed but American troops killed quite a number. I'm not talking about killings by settlers, I'm talking of organised military action. I think you'll find it was on both sides.

This is how I know there is no hope to solve this problem with violence. There is no proxy ruler big enough, mean enough, or brutal enough to ever squash these people into submission. The best, cheapest, and most peaceful thing the government could do is walk away. Let the people develop their own economies, cultures, and social institutions. The extremism will disappear exactly as it has in the West.

That is no likely to occur. Iran has had a pretty free reign but the West is still complaining about their nuclear programme.
Extremism will continue to grow in the West because no one wants to put thir hand up to stop it.

Of course, for this to happen, the people in the West will have to understand just how far divorced the State has become from their interests. The Empire does not benefit us at all. Not like Rome. We don't get slaves or gold shipped home to serve the cities. We get propaganda and we get to fight and die and we get to pay with our unborn childrens wealth. Every time I see stories like the one above, this big picture is plastered on it. Most people have red propaganda glasses strapped on by the State, so they can't see the bloody pattern.

Well if it is the State at fault I would suggest then it is the fault of the people. If you say the people can't do anything about it then I would say somewhere your Constitution is letting you down badly. :asian:

 

[Makalakumu]

We may never be able to agree on what to do about the problem of terrorism, but perhaps it would help if we redefine what happened. Was this attack actually terrorism?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

Two men yesterday engaged in a horrific act of violence on the streets of London by using what appeared to be a meat cleaver to hack to death a British soldier. In the wake of claims that the assailants shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the killing, and a video showing one of the assailants citing Islam as well as a desire to avenge and stop continuous UK violence against Muslims, media outlets (including the Guardian) and British politicians instantly characterized the attack as "terrorism".
That this was a barbaric and horrendous act goes without saying, but given the legal, military, cultural and political significance of the term "terrorism", it is vital to ask: is that term really applicable to this act of violence? To begin with, in order for an act of violence to be "terrorism", many argue that it must deliberately target civilians. That's the most common means used by those who try to distinguish the violence engaged in by western nations from that used by the "terrorists": sure, we kill civilians sometimes, but we don't deliberately target them the way the "terrorists" do.
But here, just as was true for Nidal Hasan's attack on a Fort Hood military base, the victim of the violence was a soldier of a nation at war, not a civilian. He was stationed at an army barracks quite close to the attack. The killer made clear that he knew he had attacked a soldier when he said afterward: "this British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

If the target is other soldiers, is this attack actually terrorism?

 

[K-man]

We may never be able to agree on what to do about the problem of terrorism, but perhaps it would help if we redefine what happened. Was this attack actually terrorism?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback

If the target is other soldiers, is this attack actually terrorism?

Well let's look to the UN definition.

The definition of terrorism was discussed by several delegates, including the representative of Syria, who spoke for the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), stressing the distinction between terrorism and the exercise of the “legitimate right of peoples to resist foreign occupation” as stated in the United Nations Charter and General Assembly resolution 46/51. He said the OIC supported a comprehensive strategy which addressed the root causes of terrorism and would continue to consider the latest proposal of the draft convention. However, a high-level conference was needed to formulate an agreed definition of terrorism and develop an international joint organized response to terrorism in “all its forms and manifestations”.


Echoing the need for clarification in the draft convention of the definition of terrorism, the delegate of Lebanon said terrorist acts were not in keeping with the tenets of Islam. Terrorist acts did not spare Muslims, he said, noting those who had died in the events of September 11th, as well as in Iraq and in Afghanistan.


http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/gal3386.doc.htm

Mmm. Not a lot of clarity there.

How about a dictionary definition?

ter·ror·ism [ter-uh-riz-uhm]
noun
1.
the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2.
the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3.
a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Now that helps a bit. This attack certainly falls in to the area of 1. It is linked to 2. and has shades of 3.


Just for fun, let's look at a local definition ... that is the FBI.

Definitions


There is no single, universally accepted, definition of terrorism. Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).


The FBI further describes terrorism as either domestic or international, depending on the origin, base, and objectives of the terrorist organization. For the purpose of this report, the FBI will use the following definitions:


Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.
International terrorism involves violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any state. These acts appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. International terrorist acts occur outside the United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.
The FBI Divides Terrorist-Related Activities into Two Categories:


A terrorist incident is a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, in violation of the criminal laws of the United States, or of any state, to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
A terrorism prevention is a documented instance in which a violent act by a known or suspected terrorist group or individual with the means and a proven propensity for violence is successfully interdicted through investigative activity.
Note: The FBI investigates terrorism-related matters without regard to race, religion, national origin, or gender. Reference to individual members of any political, ethnic, or religious group in this report is not meant to imply that all members of that group are terrorists. Terrorists represent a small criminal minority in any larger social context.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

It definitely fits in here. :asian:

 

[yorkshirelad]

So let me get this straight, if we pull out of the Middle East completely, and let radical Islamists have free reign, we'll appease them and violence will cease. Oh, then we'll have to appease the right wing militants in British society by deporting the radical muslims in British society. Then they'll be some other faction complaining that their rights are being infringed. Then, whet about the abortion clinic bombers who want to put a complete end to abortion, do we appease them too? The list goes on and on.
We should all know by history, that appeasement is never the answer.

 

[billc]

Actually, you only have to appease the violent extremists who hate the West. The rest deserve getting stomped on.

 

[Makalakumu]

So let me get this straight, if we pull out of the Middle East completely, and let radical Islamists have free reign, we'll appease them and violence will cease. Oh, then we'll have to appease the right wing militants in British society by deporting the radical muslims in British society. Then they'll be some other faction complaining that their rights are being infringed. Then, whet about the abortion clinic bombers who want to put a complete end to abortion, do we appease them too? The list goes on and on.
We should all know by history, that appeasement is never the answer.

There is a big difference between appeasement and incitement.

 

[yorkshirelad]

There is a big difference between appeasement and incitement.

We incite them by being who we are. We incite them by having freedom of expression, speech, and religion. Britain has one of the largest populations of muslims in Europe. Extreme right wingers are being incited by the fact that Britain is being over run by muslims. how do we deal with them?