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A new low in terrorism


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Sounds like the Gloves are off now with the French interior minister saying they will now fight Islamic extremism "by any means possible".

 

That remains to be seen.

Politicians in France often talk the talk but rarely walk the walk.

Up, up Cronulla; The boys in the black, white and blue; Up, up Cronulla; Name of the Sharks fits you; Sharks, Sharks forever; Go out and play without fear; Now's the time to see good football*; For the Sharks are here!

* Subject to change

Currently playing: Gorbachev: The Fall of Communism & Swing States 2012

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Sounds like the Gloves are off now with the French interior minister saying they will now fight Islamic extremism "by any means possible".

 

I would love to know what that actually meant. Easier said than done... 

 

Another sad day in France; was in Rouen less than 3wks ago. Nice place. 

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I appreciate the heading may appear to be ridiculous. Attacking people in a Church, truly beggars belief, even by the extremities of what we have witnessed to date.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36892785

It's been happening for years across the Middle East, South East Asia and Pakistan but seeing it in Europe might just be a turning point for many people. That sound in the background is drawbridges being pulled up.

"Just as we had been Cathars, we were treizistes, men apart."

Jean Roque, Calendrier-revue du Racing-Club Albigeois, 1958-1959

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It's been happening for years across the Middle East, South East Asia and Pakistan but seeing it in Europe might just be a turning point for many people. That sound in the background is drawbridges being pulled up.

 

Which is exactly what IS want - in fact, they almost can't lose. If the West goes in to the Middle East after them, it eventually fails and just stokes up an even more violent backlash (is that even possible any more - perhaps it is). If the West pulls out and becomes isolationist it leaves them free to pursue terror, violence, genocide and ethnic cleansing as it doesn't seem that the nearby Islamic nations have the ability, will or cohesion to do anything about it. Isolationism seems to be the direction of the wind right now - starting with Brexit, continuing with President Trump and the likely rise of the far right in Europe. It all smacks of the 1930s but with nuclear weapons around.

"I am the avenging angel; I come with wings unfurled, I come with claws extended from halfway round the world. I am the God Almighty, I am the howling wind. I care not for your family; I care not for your kin. I come in search of terror, though terror is my own; I come in search of vengeance for crimes and crimes unknown. I care not for your children, I care not for your wives, I care not for your country, I care not for your lives." - (c) Jim Boyes - "The Avenging Angel"

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Then maybe it *is* time that the Islamic nations get the will and cohesion to do something about IS.

And we can keep out of the whole area.

 

I'm not trying to be funny, John but what do you suggest we do? Impose trade sanctions and stop buying their oil? Can't see that leading to a good outcome.

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I appreciate the heading may appear to be ridiculous. Attacking people in a Church, truly beggars belief, even by the extremities of what we have witnessed to date.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36892785

It was the nature of it too.  To force a man in his 80s on to his knees and then slit his throat is barbaric.  They then did some weirdo thing on the altar and took the nuns and small congregation as hostage.  If it hadn't been for one nun escaping and raising the alarm the chances are there would have been a bloodbath in that church.  Just as in so many churches in the ME and Pakistan, as someone else has pointed out, where this kind of barbaric butchery has been going on for years. 

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Terrorism has existed for centuries and probably always will exist in one form or another. The main issue with IS (and affiliated groups) is that they seemingly have very few rules to which they abide by except for their own religious beliefs. The IRA for example went to great lengths to not get caught meaning that even though many of their attacks were 'indiscriminate' and against 'soft targets' they often aborted their plans if they thought they had been detected with "we live to fight another day" attitude. Our security services were to some extent able to exploit this and foil many attacks

IS are far more dangerous because they care nothing about getting caught and see death as some sort of path to enlightenment. When you face an enemy with this attitude I think you have to question whether our 'traditional' methods of combating terrorism are still appropriate.

 

This then opens up a while new can of worms regarding what is 'morally' right in the actions we take in order to keep our citizens safe from these people.

 

I've no idea what the answer is on this one on how we ultimately defeat IS but with each new horrific attack there's likely to be a change of mindset amongst western leaders and security services about what we consider to be an 'acceptable' response.

St.Helens - The Home of record breaking Rugby Champions

 

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There are many things that are considered acceptable (if somewhat unpleasant) when you are at war with another state.

 

Imprisoning that country's nationals for example - which we and the USA did in WW2. This is pretty tough for people who have rejected the ethos of their home nation and have embraced the opportunity of their new home. Star Trek's George Takei has written and spoken of this from personal experience, for example.

 

Similarly anyone in WW2 who aided the enemy would be arrested, tried and possibly executed for being a spy or a traitor.

 

These are perhaps 20th century ideas and don't apply but if we were in a traditional war, and we were being attacked from the skies or there was a potential invasion, for example, would you want these kind of laws to be brought in? How is that different to what IS and their followers are doing? IS isn't a state because we don't recognise it as such, but it has a command structure, leadership, international trade and territory. 

 

I'm no warmonger so I'm just putting this up there and asking - are we at war or not? If not, what actually is the state of play? If yes, what are we actually doing other than being like a boxer who is trying to avoid blows and copping the occasional right hook or jab?

"I am the avenging angel; I come with wings unfurled, I come with claws extended from halfway round the world. I am the God Almighty, I am the howling wind. I care not for your family; I care not for your kin. I come in search of terror, though terror is my own; I come in search of vengeance for crimes and crimes unknown. I care not for your children, I care not for your wives, I care not for your country, I care not for your lives." - (c) Jim Boyes - "The Avenging Angel"

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Reacting to aggression does not make you as bad as the aggressor. In fact it's unnatural to expect or there be no reaction. 

 

That's why it  would be different to IS.

Who do we react against?

They don't wear uniforms and our defence is always passive, we can only react against each terror act as it occurs.

I would like to see a much more vehement defence of our way of life by OUR Muslim countrymen.

The leaders in the Muslim communities must be seen to be condemning the extremists within their faith.

It would help if they started to make some concessions in the dress code etc so that they can be seen to be trying to assimilate to our way of life. There must be an attraction in our values or they would not be here to make a better life for themselves and their families.

We need them to stand up and be counted or else bit by bit they will be ostracised even more than they already are.

Ron Banks

Midlands Hurricanes and Barrow

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One things for certain Islamic extremism is winning. Their aim to cause as much disruption is going very well

No disruption for my family . Went to London for a superb wkend soon after the 7/7 attack . Family members have been flying around the world for work and pleasure . Family heading to Germany for Octoberfeast (In October) . We will support other nations and our own by doing what we want (within the law !) when we want . Things will have to get a lot worse before we alter our lifes.

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An Algerian at work showed me some reports (including some nightmarish pictures) of airstrikes in Syria which he said were the french response to the Nice attack.  I don't remember seeing anything on the british news so I have no idea about the validity (I'd like to think that the western media wouldn't ignore it but there is form for it) but whatever the truth, the message is going out in some quarters that France have killed innocent children in response to the terrorist attacks.  This is only going to be helping the IS recruitment.

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An Algerian at work showed me some reports (including some nightmarish pictures) of airstrikes in Syria which he said were the french response to the Nice attack.  I don't remember seeing anything on the british news so I have no idea about the validity (I'd like to think that the western media wouldn't ignore it but there is form for it) but whatever the truth, the message is going out in some quarters that France have killed innocent children in response to the terrorist attacks.  This is only going to be helping the IS recruitment.

 

 

The USA killed 70+ civilians by accident last week.  So its easy to see how such propaganda is made.

With the best, thats a good bit of PR, though I would say the Bedford team, theres, like, you know, 13 blokes who can get together at the weekend to have a game together, which doesnt point to expansion of the game. Point, yeah go on!

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I was on holiday in Turkey recently, and one one of the tour guides in Fethiye, was trying to convince us that Islam is a peaceful religion, this is a week after the Bomb in Istanbul airport, as she was showing us around a village that the Government sponsored scheme made empty of Greeks, and other towns & villages because they wanted to ethnically cleanse their area of Greeks, because the Turks were allies to the Germans, and Greeks were allies of the French during WW 1,  the Turks uprooted thousands of non-Turkish from Attaturks new Turkey to maintain a Turkish Turkey. This was a week after the Istanbul Airport bomb, and a week or so away from the attempted coup, and clamp down by a barely elected government. This still continues with the Kurdish massacres in North-East "Turkey".

Is this the time to start fighting back against Islam? What would happen if a Christian walked into a Mosque of a Friday evening prayers and opened fire? Would our Government say "If war is what they want, we will give it to them"?

 

I am not anti-Islam, or any other religion, I an not religious but respect everybody's beliefs 

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I was on holiday in Turkey recently, and one one of the tour guides in Fethiye, was trying to convince us that Islam is a peaceful religion, this is a week after the Bomb in Istanbul airport, as she was showing us around a village that the Government sponsored scheme made empty of Greeks, and other towns & villages because they wanted to ethnically cleanse their area of Greeks, because the Turks were allies to the Germans, and Greeks were allies of the French during WW 1,  the Turks uprooted thousands of non-Turkish from Attaturks new Turkey to maintain a Turkish Turkey. This was a week after the Istanbul Airport bomb, and a week or so away from the attempted coup, and clamp down by a barely elected government. This still continues with the Kurdish massacres in North-East "Turkey".

Is this the time to start fighting back against Islam? What would happen if a Christian walked into a Mosque of a Friday evening prayers and opened fire? Would our Government say "If war is what they want, we will give it to them"?

 

I am not anti-Islam, or any other religion, I an not religious but respect everybody's beliefs

I'm not quite sure why you are stating you aren't anti-Islam, all I took from the above was problems that Turkey have.

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With the best, thats a good bit of PR, though I would say the Bedford team, theres, like, you know, 13 blokes who can get together at the weekend to have a game together, which doesnt point to expansion of the game. Point, yeah go on!

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 Reacting to aggression does not make you as bad as the aggressor. In fact it's unnatural to expect or there be no reaction. 

 

That's why it  would be different to IS. 

I agree.

 

However, if someone is trying to punch you, punching yourself even harder is not always appropriate.  It seems (I am no expert) that IS(IL/S) want there to be a big war between Sunni Islam and everyone else.  Their problem is that this is not something most Sunni Muslims want, so they have to provoke the West to help them in this.

 

Part of the reason they will be eager to try and cause chaos and disruption abroad is that it is not going well where they have territory, so they have to expand the battle to be one of cultures rather than the one they are losing.

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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I do think part of the reason Britain has largely escaped many of the atrocities we are currently seeing on the continent is down to the expertise of our security services. A few years ago they publically admitted they were tracking over 5000 people in the UK with suspected terrorist connections, and while they cant track all of them all of the time they must be doing something right.

 

Sadly its almost inevitable that an attack will happen at some point and questions will be asked, but what can you do ?

You still need some evidence in order to lock them up and you cant just lock up 5000 people on suspicion

St.Helens - The Home of record breaking Rugby Champions

 

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I do think part of the reason Britain has largely escaped many of the atrocities we are currently seeing on the continent is down to the expertise of our security services. A few years ago they publically admitted they were tracking over 5000 people in the UK with suspected terrorist connections, and while they cant track all of them all of the time they must be doing something right.

 

Sadly its almost inevitable that an attack will happen at some point and questions will be asked, but what can you do ?

You still need some evidence in order to lock them up and you cant just lock up 5000 people on suspicion

 

How many people were held on suspicion in Guantanamo Bay? I do wonder, how much propaganda Fundamentalists took from that situation.

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If anyone want to go to Syria, just let them go.

But don't ever let them back in.

If only we could !

 

We could of course fit them all with trackers, then the moment they touch down in Syria deem them to be enemy combatants and fire off a missile locked onto their tracker - only way to guarantee they wont come back ;)

St.Helens - The Home of record breaking Rugby Champions

 

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How many people were held on suspicion in Guantanamo Bay? I do wonder, how much propaganda Fundamentalists took from that situation.

Yup. Things like France taking a hard stance on things like the Burqa just haven't helped either.

 

We need to be very careful that we don't make the divide bigger.

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