Terrorist Attacks

[Guest MattP]

2 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

Although it's a complex issue, it's clearly true that immigration levels were controversial & might be reflected in subsequent votes. There's certainly a valid argument to be had about that, about whether fears were justified, whether other policies were to blame etc. But that wasn't the point that you repped. The point made was that the Labour Govt invited millions of migrants from the Middle East. That is simply untrue.

 

Anyone who pointed out that grooming was occuring was correct - and they were correct to link particular forms of abuse mainly to particular communities (mainly British of Pakistani origin, I think), even if other forms of abuse are dominated by white people, black people or whoever. But it's interesting that, of all people, you chose to praise the BNP....and to do so in a thread about terrorism (amateurish would-be Islamist terrorism, in this instance).

 

All sorts of people support every party for all sorts of reasons. I judge a party by its policies and actions: e.g.criticism of Labour over its failure to properly tackle anti-semitism is justified, even if disingenuous opponents make opportunistic use of it.

Yaxley-Lennon backed the Tories and even claimed to be a member, as I recall.

 

Anyway, I've made my point and have work to do..... 

Me too.

 

Again it wasn't intended to be praise, just making a wider point it's important to listen to allegations no matter who make them, especially when it's so serious.

 

Regarding SYL, he did claim to have joined - reality was he tried to join and was rejected - as people like him are not welcome in the party.

[String fellow]

Is Streatham's new MP more concerned about the human rights of terrorists than their victims?

[urban.spaceman]

It's depressing to see this thread descend into a discussion about immigration and race, as I personally don't see them as related to the issue that much - 3/4 of the 7/7 bombers were born and bred in the UK, as was Salman Abedi (Manchester Arena), Lee Rigby's killers, some of the 2017 London Bridge attackers and the 2019 one; crucially Darren Osbourne and Thomas Mair were British too. It's not even fair to make it about religion either, as there's millions of peaceful Muslims in this country that deplore the violence perpetrated in the name of their religion, and whose lives are constantly made more difficult for it. Mass immigration may play some part.

 

It's about ideology and radicalisation, which is far more dangerous, as it can take even the kindest person and convince them to do something ****ing horrific in a very short space of time. Darren Osbourne for example, became so enraged by the Rotherham scandal docudrama Three Girls that he radicalised himself and decided all Muslims were to blame, so decided to murder innocent Muslims for it. Lee Rigby's killers were both raised Christian, but fell in with Anjem Choudhury's Islamist crowd after converting to Islam. Jo Cox's killer was so far right that he believed anyone to the left of him was responsible for all the world's problems. 

 

We need to be doing better at stopping and reversing radicalisation. 

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

It's depressing to see this thread descend into a discussion about immigration and race, as I personally don't see them as related to the issue that much - 3/4 of the 7/7 bombers were born and bred in the UK, as was Salman Abedi (Manchester Arena), Lee Rigby's killers, some of the 2017 London Bridge attackers and the 2019 one; crucially Darren Osbourne and Thomas Mair were British too. It's not even fair to make it about religion either, as there's millions of peaceful Muslims in this country that deplore the violence perpetrated in the name of their religion, and whose lives are constantly made more difficult for it. Mass immigration may play some part.

 

It's about ideology and radicalisation, which is far more dangerous, as it can take even the kindest person and convince them to do something ****ing horrific in a very short space of time. Darren Osbourne for example, became so enraged by the Rotherham scandal docudrama Three Girls that he radicalised himself and decided all Muslims were to blame, so decided to murder innocent Muslims for it. Lee Rigby's killers were both raised Christian, but fell in with Anjem Choudhury's Islamist crowd after converting to Islam. Jo Cox's killer was so far right that he believed anyone to the left of him was responsible for all the world's problems. 

 

We need to be doing better at stopping and reversing radicalisation. 

Spot on.

 

Sadly, as with a lot of things, the problem is when human perception clashes with what really is - rationality often doesn't come into a debate like this.

[RowlattsFox]

Question is does prison rehabilitate or make them worse? I don't know enough about the processes to know, and I'm sure terrorism related prisoners are not lumped in together? Then there is also the scope for them to influence others whilst in prison, who may not have extremist views beforehand. I guess it isn't difficult for a prisoner to pretend he is no longer a threat and has no intention of carrying out extremist attacks, how do you prove someone is no longer a threat? Obviously was considered enough of a threat to keep surveillance on him.

 

Made me think about how many plain clothes coppers there are amongst us in everyday life, but there is still little they can do until after he attacks. Did he know he was being followed?

[urban.spaceman]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

Spot on.

 

Sadly, as with a lot of things, the problem is when human perception clashes with what really is - rationality often doesn't come into a debate like this.

Absolutely, but the problem with that is that, like most social issues, not everyone is on the same page. When things like this happen you see a multitude of responses, mostly through emotion and a lot through ignorance.

 

I've come to the realisation recently that ignorance isn't necessarily a bad thing - it just means literally you don't know. A lot of people choose to remain ignorant, and so when paired with emotion will respond to a terror attack by blaming all Muslims for it. That's obviously ****ing stupid, but I can understand why people come to that conclusion, especially when you've got a multitude of sinister voices like Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins banging that drum because it's in their favour to blame all Muslims for it. 

 

You then get on the other side people like Baroness Warsi and Mehdi Hasan going ultra defensive, denying any terror attack done by an Islamist has absolutely nothing to do with the religion, and somehow manages to convince the Labour Party to adopt a definition of Islamophobia to include any criticism of the religion being somehow racist.

 

Both of those extremes thrive because people react emotionally to it, blindly ignoring the fallacy of the argument on either side because to do so would be to concede any ground to the other side. I've certainly been guilty of forming opinions on all sides of that spectrum; the trick is to be able to rationalise your way out of it.

 

The only person in this debate I have any respect for is Maajid Nawaz, who has personal experience with radicalisation, and almost always gets the issue spot on. 

[DennisNedry]

3 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

 

not much more for me to add other than you're clearly wide of the mark in suggesting millions of people from the Middle East live here.

@Alf Bentley  Having googled which countries make up the middle east, it appears I need to brush up on my geography. I thought Pakistan counted, for example.

 

Still, if I widen the definition net slightly to include countries such as Pakistan, and widen the date range a bit (especially post-2010, I'm not afraid of bashing the Tories, I'm no fan of them at all) I'm sure you'll find there are millions living here. We won't know really until the 2021 Census (but as I say, that'll exclude illegals of which there are an estimated 800,000 - 1.2 million according to Pew).

 

Would you not agree that the British government firstly allowing biblical amounts of immigration then wading into foreign conflicts is a large factor in the terrorism we're suffering from now?

 

 

Edited 3 February 2020 by DennisNedry

[Voll Blau]

11 minutes ago, DennisNedry said:

@Alf Bentley  Having googled which countries make up the middle east, it appears I need to brush up on my geography. I thought Pakistan counted, for example.

 

Still, if I widen the definition net slightly to include countries such as Pakistan, and widen the date range a bit (especially post-2010, I'm not afraid of bashing the Tories, I'm no fan of them at all) I'm sure you'll find there are millions living here. We won't know really until the 2021 Census (but as I say, that'll exclude illegals of which there are an estimated 800,000 - 1.2 million according to Pew).

 

Would you not agree that the British government firstly allowing biblical amounts of immigration then wading into foreign conflicts is a large factor in the terrorism we're suffering from now?

 

 

Oh, just at random like.  I mean, parts of the Middle East are as close to Western Europe as they are to Pakistan, but then that doesn't really fit your agenda of apparently being shocked by the number of brown faces you see in UK cities which have had significant non-white communities for decades does it?

 

Stop it with the rhetoric. "Biblical amounts" FFS? No, successive UK governments getting involved in military campaigns they shouldn't have hasn't helped, but as someone else on this thread pointed out many of those who commit acts of terror on UK soil are born and bred here (some are even white you know!) so as a society we need to do more to prevent marginalised members of society from becoming radicalised to the extent whereby they commit such evil acts in the name of whatever ideology they align themselves to.

[Alf Bentley]

5 hours ago, DennisNedry said:

I'd point the finger squarely at the Government, Labour primarily.

 

The combination of a) Inviting millions of people from the Middle East from the late 90s - late 00s and b) Bombing the shit out of these areas. All against the wishes of the vast majority of the British public.

 

Hardly surprising what's happening now is it? The government has radicalised part of the population it imported.

 

 

25 minutes ago, DennisNedry said:

@Alf Bentley  Having googled which countries make up the middle east, it appears I need to brush up on my geography. I thought Pakistan counted, for example.

 

Still, if I widen the definition net slightly to include countries such as Pakistan, and widen the date range a bit (especially post-2010, I'm not afraid of bashing the Tories, I'm no fan of them at all) I'm sure you'll find there are millions living here. We won't know really until the 2021 Census (but as I say, that'll exclude illegals of which there are an estimated 800,000 - 1.2 million according to Pew).

 

Would you not agree that the British government firstly allowing biblical amounts of immigration then wading into foreign conflicts is a large factor in the terrorism we're suffering from now?

 

 

Depends what you are defining. Immigrants generally? Muslim immigrants? Immigrants from Middle East?

As you were connecting immigration to Islamist terrorism, I presume you were mainly talking about Muslim immigration.

 

According to that Oxford Uni link that I quoted, there are 9m+ people in the UK who were born abroad.....but most of them are British citizens or Christians/atheists from Europe/USA/Australia or Hindus/Sikhs from India etc.

 

That same link quotes a figure of 535k born in Pakistan, though more than half of them are now British citizens. If you added in Muslims born even further from the Middle East than Pakistan - in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria. N. Africa - I expect you'd be over 1m for foreign-born Muslims. But only a tiny minority would be from the Middle East and there'd probably be under 1m Muslims of foreign nationality.

 

At the 2011 Census, there were reportedly 2.7m Muslims in the UK. In 2017, the figure was estimated at 3.4m. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom#Demographics

But the majority of those would be British-born Muslims, mainly with Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi & Nigerian parents or grandparents, here because we were there (British Empire).

 

I've no idea how reliable those Pew figures are - and by definition nobody can know with much accuracy. Also, only a proportion would be Muslims - and even fewer from the Middle East.

 

I'm sure you're right that Western foreign policy in places like Iraq has been a factor in radicalisation, along with grievances over Palestine & other issues. I was on the big protest against the Iraq War & was totally hostile to Blair's massively damaging policy there - unlike, say, the Tory opposition, who overwhelmingly supported him - some even wanting us to attack without waiting for UN weapon inspections.

 

That shouldn't absolve the tiny minority of Islamist extremists, though. They need to be clamped down on, as most Muslims would agree, whether immigrants or not.

I'm not sure how relevant all that is in this case, though. The bloke seems to have at least grown up in the UK - and been a headcase from the off (people who know him are quoted as saying he used to mouth off about becoming a terrorist but they assumed he was a bullshitter). How you deal with people like that, I don't know, aside from deradicalisation or mental health treatment, as appropriate. Whatever was tried didn't work - he was in prison for possessing/circulating terrorist documents, not attacking anyone, then came out and attacked people....

 

 

 

[foxile5]

3 hours ago, MattP said:

Here's the new Labour MP for Streatham.

 

 

Prevent applies to any and all ethnicities so I don't know what the hell this is about. 

 

I've flagged up neo nazi concerns as part of the prevent initiative. I HAVEN'T had to flag things off Islamic nature. 

 

What is this idiot garbling about? 

[Jon the Hat]

The question is, if this guy had served his full term, would he have been 1) More radicalised and likely to commit this crime or worse 2) Less radicalised and likely to commit this crime or worse?  And how can we possibly know?  

[DennisNedry]

10 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

 

Depends what you are defining. Immigrants generally? Muslim immigrants? Immigrants from Middle East?

As you were connecting immigration to Islamist terrorism, I presume you were mainly talking about Muslim immigration.

 

According to that Oxford Uni link that I quoted, there are 9m+ people in the UK who were born abroad.....but most of them are British citizens or Christians/atheists from Europe/USA/Australia or Hindus/Sikhs from India etc.

 

That same link quotes a figure of 535k born in Pakistan, though more than half of them are now British citizens. If you added in Muslims born even further from the Middle East than Pakistan - in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria. N. Africa - I expect you'd be over 1m for foreign-born Muslims. But only a tiny minority would be from the Middle East and there'd probably be under 1m Muslims of foreign nationality.

 

At the 2011 Census, there were reportedly 2.7m Muslims in the UK. In 2017, the figure was estimated at 3.4m. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom#Demographics

But the majority of those would be British-born Muslims, mainly with Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi & Nigerian parents or grandparents, here because we were there (British Empire).

 

I've no idea how reliable those Pew figures are - and by definition nobody can know with much accuracy. Also, only a proportion would be Muslims - and even fewer from the Middle East.

 

I'm sure you're right that Western foreign policy in places like Iraq has been a factor in radicalisation, along with grievances over Palestine & other issues. I was on the big protest against the Iraq War & was totally hostile to Blair's massively damaging policy there - unlike, say, the Tory opposition, who overwhelmingly supported him - some even wanting us to attack without waiting for UN weapon inspections.

 

That shouldn't absolve the tiny minority of Islamist extremists, though. They need to be clamped down on, as most Muslims would agree, whether immigrants or not.

I'm not sure how relevant all that is in this case, though. The bloke seems to have at least grown up in the UK - and been a headcase from the off (people who know him are quoted as saying he used to mouth off about becoming a terrorist but they assumed he was a bullshitter). How you deal with people like that, I don't know, aside from deradicalisation or mental health treatment, as appropriate. Whatever was tried didn't work - he was in prison for possessing/circulating terrorist documents, not attacking anyone, then came out and attacked people....

 

 

 

Thanks Alf - I always enjoy digesting your posts.

[Lionator]

6 hours ago, RowlattsFox said:

Question is does prison rehabilitate or make them worse? I don't know enough about the processes to know, and I'm sure terrorism related prisoners are not lumped in together? Then there is also the scope for them to influence others whilst in prison, who may not have extremist views beforehand. I guess it isn't difficult for a prisoner to pretend he is no longer a threat and has no intention of carrying out extremist attacks, how do you prove someone is no longer a threat? Obviously was considered enough of a threat to keep surveillance on him.

 

Made me think about how many plain clothes coppers there are amongst us in everyday life, but there is still little they can do until after he attacks. Did he know he was being followed?

An adequately funded prison system would provide rehabilitation, academic research throughout first world countries indicates this despite what our glorious supreme leader BJ stated this afternoon. The reoffending rate for individuals found guilty of terrorism offences is tiny (below 1% in a study which I've just found). Our prison system is not fit for purpose and this can be evidenced not just by terrorism statistics but by the reoffending rate across the criminal justice system. They're merely holding pens until a sentence has been served (or half-served in some cases), people come out worse than before. It should not be that way. As @urban.spaceman said, we need to be doing the ground work in communities, schools and if it gets to that stage then prison. For the Tories however, your life, a high crime rate and a failing prison system is expendable for a 'good economy'. 

[Kopfkino]

Given that Sky News found that 2/3rd of jihadists released refuse to engage with deradicalistion programmes then I think people can be forgiven for thinking deradicalistion for Islamists is a bit of a fad. Coming round to what I never could countenance, some people are just a bit of a lost cause. 

 

Its all about managing risk for me and ultimately preventing it, or intervening early, in the first place

[Free Falling Foxes]

I am not saying we should deny them the 'oxygen of publicity' as Mrs. Thatcher advocated with reference to the IRA, but I do believe the 24 hour news channels are not helpful.

These terrorists have most of their wish in trying to spread fear carried out for them. Endless repeating of the events and the unnecessary scraping the barrel for new 'angles'; 'I gave him a blanket to stop the blood' and 'I couldn't stop shaking for days' were just two that I saw though didn't read I must admit.

 

One other thing: if you do witness the aftermath of an event and feel the need to film it on your phone and give/sell it to the papers/TV, for crying out loud do it in landscape not portrait. Your TV gives you a clue which way around you should use your phone to film.

[RonnieTodger]

It's a tough one, especially when they're born and raised here. That said, the naivety to release ***** like Amman early is an absolute failure and immediately puts the public at risk. Personally, I don't think deradicalisation of sub human scum like him is possible. 

 

Thank goodness the useless **** was the only one that died in the attack. Only a matter of time until the next one though. 

 

 

[lestajigs]

23 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

The question is, if this guy had served his full term, would he have been 1) More radicalised and likely to commit this crime or worse 2) Less radicalised and likely to commit this crime or worse?  And how can we possibly know?  

The  answer is, lock them up for the rest of there life 

[Fox92]

Minute silence held in Reading.

 

RIP.

 

Very strange for it occur in a town. It's not like we're talking about a big City.

[Dahnsouff]

34 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Minute silence held in Reading.

 

RIP.

 

Very strange for it occur in a town. It's not like we're talking about a big City.

I agree, Reading is a pretty quiet town (In the grand scheme of things), nothing feels "tense" about it and that highlights the almost impossible job policing such acts represents.

[yorkie1999]

On 04/02/2020 at 15:13, lestajigs said:

The  answer is, lock them up for the rest of there life 

And become a 35 grand a year tax burden. How about just nudge them off beachy head whilst out for some healthy country exercize, and keep quiet about it.

[EastAnglianFox]

18 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

And become a 35 grand a year tax burden. How about just nudge them off beachy head whilst out for some healthy country exercize, and keep quiet about it.

 

Gets my vote

[Fox92]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54573356

 

Quote

Terror inquiry after teacher beheaded near Paris

A teacher has been beheaded in a suburb north-west of the French capital Paris, reports say, with the attacker shot dead by police.

The victim in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine was a teacher who is said to have shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his students.

 

 

Another attack after a cartoon ?

Edited 16 October 2020 by Fox92

[Nalis]

2 hours ago, Fox92 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54573356

 

 

 

Another attack after a cartoon ?

A sad, tragic waste of a life.

[foxile5]

10 hours ago, Fox92 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54573356

 

 

 

Another attack after a cartoon ?

Insane. 

[urban.spaceman]

On 16/10/2020 at 20:11, Fox92 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54573356

 

 

 

Another attack after a cartoon ?

This gets more and more sinister the more information that comes out. 
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54598546

 

15 arrested so far, FOUR of whom were Paty’s students. Among the others were relatives of the killer and one of the students who had started an online campaign against the teacher, the parent of whom (and a preacher) apparently declared a fatwa against him. 
 

Because of a ****ing cartoon.