Awol

Secular push back against the creeping Islamisation being introduced by Erdogan and his mates. It's a good thing. EDIT: Meanwhile.. Ali al-Manasfi from West London has become the first confirmed British Jihadi killed by regime troops in Syria. Another good thing. Link

Again, no disrespect meant, but this is so far divorced from reality as to be unanswerable in a sensible fashion. So I'll leave it...

If they get there.... Neither Israel nor the west can allow Assad (and whoever follows him) to acquire S300 SAMs because they could reach every acre of Israeli, Turkish and Cypriot airspace (think RAF Akrotiri), not to mention the missiles can also be fitted with different warheads - which is handy seeing as Syria has massive stocks of seriously nasty chemical weapons. As MV says above, the most powerful rebel factions are serious Jihadis (on youtube eating the hearts of their enemies) so the thought of them taking control is equally grim, and of course there is the small matter of a Russian naval base at Tartus to consider. There are no 'good guys', only varying degrees of bad men and if this ends without a broader conflict it will be miraculous. It is in no respect a matter for Israel to decide unilaterally whether Syria may purchase arms, any more than it is for Saudi Arabia or Chad to decide if Israel may purchase arms. Of course the international community as a whole should be stopping all of them buying arms, and enforcing UN resolutions, but I suppose the first step in doing that would be to disarm the World's Policeman, the USA, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen quickly. Yes, there are no good guys. And bottom of the list of prospective good guys come the US and Israel, the most insanely aggressive, dangerous and pathological states to be involved in any of this. Mate, change the record, tu quoque is getting a little repetitive. 1) The situation in Syria is not the fault of the USA. 2) It is the Russians (and the Iranians), not the USA which is feeding high capability weapons into the Syrian theatre. 3) It is the Russians and the Chinese not the USA who are vetoing all multilateral attempts through the UNSC to calm the situation in Syria. 4) Any remotely responsible Israeli government cannot allow weapons that can threaten the country so directly to be supplied to a regime next door that could either: implode and leave those weapons to whoever takes control, or use them against Israeli planes that are trying to prevent the transfer of all sorts of nasties from Assad to Hezbollah in Lebanon - where there sole purpose is to further threaten Israel. All nation states reserve the right to defend themselves and whatever their other crimes may be Israel is no different in that respect. Israel hasn't been launching raids in Syrian territory just for the hell of it. 5) Those missiles could also cover the airfields in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey that would be used to implement any no fly zone that may eventually be imposed by the international community (or parts thereof) to try and limit the slaughter currently taking place. Obviously that's not something the west can or should accept from the perspective of their own security. I'm not going to get into a big argument with you because no amount of discussion will dissuade you that the Americans/Zionists aren't always in the wrong, but in this case they really are not.

If they get there.... Neither Israel nor the west can allow Assad (and whoever follows him) to acquire S300 SAMs because they could reach every acre of Israeli, Turkish and Cypriot airspace (think RAF Akrotiri), not to mention the missiles can also be fitted with different warheads - which is handy seeing as Syria has massive stocks of seriously nasty chemical weapons. As MV says above, the most powerful rebel factions are serious Jihadis (on youtube eating the hearts of their enemies) so the thought of them taking control is equally grim, and of course there is the small matter of a Russian naval base at Tartus to consider. There are no 'good guys', only varying degrees of bad men and if this ends without a broader conflict it will be miraculous.

Not entirely, if you asked an Omani whether I - or any foreigner - was part of their society, you'd receive an emphatic "no". That is the same all over the Middle East. As for substantial foreign populations, over a third of the people in this country are expatriates so you're wrong on that too and discrimination against foreigners is active government policy. Anyway, time for some other people's definitions...

What about those people within that defined geographical area who don't see their nationality (or the nationality of others) as the basis for being part of a 'distinct group' or, indeed, other nationals in that area? Having spent the last 3 plus years living overseas I'm conscious that although I live in a society I am certainly not of it, Why? Because of your nationality? That and having cultural beliefs (values) that are essential alien to the society in which I live.

In retrospect perhaps shared culture and values should also be added to nationality as components of what a society means. Should individuals transgress the laws that govern a society they are in effect putting themselves beyond society, hence their physical removal and separation from it through incarceration.

I didn't ask you what other people thought; I asked you about your definition, especially about those whom it excluded. Does the part of my post you didn't quote not explain my view sufficiently?

What about those people within that defined geographical area who don't see their nationality (or the nationality of others) as the basis for being part of a 'distinct group' or, indeed, other nationals in that area? I'm sure those people have their own views of what constitutes "society", so you'd have to ask them I suppose. Maybe the one's who liked your reply but didn't comment might be a good place to start? Having spent the last 3 plus years living overseas I'm conscious that although I live in a society I am certainly not off it, and that has probably shaped my view somewhat regarding the practical over the conceptual of what a society is. So, what is your definition of the various areas the OP was asking about, or are you just intending to question others on their views?

What about those people within that defined geographical area who don't see their nationality (or the nationality of others) as the basis for being part of a 'distinct group' or, indeed, other nationals in that area? What about your opinion?

Haha, oh dear. May as well close this site now then.

In a UK context - and from the hip: Society - all people within a defined geographical area who mutually identify with each other by nationality as a distinct group. Law - the rules arrived at by consent which govern the behaviour of the society Sovereignty - the ability of a society to exclusively make and strike down the laws by which it is governed Government - the elected structures (assuming that the Civil Service serves the Government and is not an intrinsic part of it) by which laws are made and removed Courts - the vehicle through which laws are applied Politics - any and all discourse relating to the business of Government

Yeah, the decapitation of a British soldier on the streets of London in broad daylight by men shouting "Allahu Akbar" is essentially a banal event. What the media did is give the killers precisely what they wanted. Any copy cat killings are on them. First sentence is true, second is not. Any copy cat killings are on the people doing the killing. "Kay Burley made me do it." Really?

Would possibly be good for the global economy ?? By cutting it off from the global oil supply? Maybe not.

Yes, and the French have a proper far right political movement, nothing in the UK mainstream even compares.

That will always be the case, though, won't it? There will always be more potential bods on one side than actual bods on the other (avoiding any possibly contentious use of 'good' ). As soon as the information came out that these people were 'known' to the intelligence services there seemed to me to be an implicit 'how could they [the security services/powers that be] have let this happen?' line taken by the media (and to a lesser degree the public). Apologies if it comes across as me lumping you in to this category - I'm not - but I do feel that the resource constrained risk lessening argument rather plays in to this line of thinking (or perhaps it's more the other way around) and I find that incredibly worrying as it means that, however high the level of resources invested, any successful action by an individual or organization can/will be used as a call for more resources (and more laws - see the communications bill link made by John Reid). I wasn't making the point for ever expanding resources for anti terrorism, merely resourcing to meet the current level of threat, which whether people like it or not is sustained and increasing. Instead we have the sheer bloody stupidity of cutting the available resources that were in place before the Olympics, just because there is now less chance of the UK being embarrassed in front of the world's media by a terrorist attack (take a bow Osborne, you utter throbber). Subsequent cuts of 20% ("allegedly") to the security services budgets might charitably be described as cretinous. Chindie is absolutely right that you can never prevent every attack, however when you have already identified dangerous people and don't have the resources to monitor them (same as with a number of the 7/7 bombers) then something is going badly wrong at government level. By the way, when one side is plotting terrorist attacks on British soil and the other side is trying to stop them, it takes some fairly bizarre logical contortions to suppose the latter being called "good" is contentious - smiley noted.

To the first point, causing a distraction is a good way to divert the attention of those on board should others wish to try and gain control of the aircraft. To the second point, probably not, but then the consequences of terrorist action on a plane has the potential to be more severe than on any other type of transport. As air travellers have had more than a decade to digest the mantra that any incident on a plane will be treated as terrorist related, you'd think most people would have got the message by now. The knobs.

Is the resource problem, in your view, to do with intelligence gathering, 'observation', some sort of prevention or actually following through with capture and prosecution of people who have done things which are illegal? A combination of all of the above. MI5 have at least 3000 people under observation who pose a varying degree of threat to the population of this country or indeed other countries, in addition to trying to locate and disrupt new threats. Some of those people may require 24 hour surveillance which is extremely manpower intensive, particularly if the subject doesn't know he/she is being targeted. Therefore difficult (almost impossible) choices have to be made about who presents the greatest threat, when in reality greater resources would lessen the risk of making the wrong call. In short there are too many potential terrorists and not enough good guys to stop them.

From memory, I think that you may have misconstrued what people have said and meant. To what end, Jon? I don't think I have misconstrued anything, but as you point out if the threads are no longer there then it's not something that can be demonstrated anyway. In terms of the risk assessments I suspect that overstretched resources rather than the candid view of intelligence officers is driving the classification of some people as low risk when in fact they are not. In turn I suspect that is driven by substantial budget cuts to the broader intelligence apparatus.. I'd like to see MI5 call the Home Office's bluff and simply tell it how it is then let the government justify the current situation to HoC Intelligence and Security committee.

Are there many in that category? From memory (and without the time to trawl back through a load of related threads) I think that there were, yes. You must be confused. No, I'm not. But thanks for that.

Are there many in that category? From memory (and without the time to trawl back through a load of related threads) I think that there were, yes.

This one's interesting too. A more academic approach, looking at why some people become radicalised and also are prepared to act violently. It seems a more useful approach than some of the explanations doing the rounds. But at the same time as outlining several factors which are probably involved, it notes that there's not a formula which can predict who will become involved in violence. Readable but nothing really earth shattering in there to be honest. My point was more that a documentary maker who observed Choudary's group at close range for a period of two years concluded that he was in fact a key driver in radicalising individuals to the point where they are ready to cross the line from bravado to extreme violence. Many on here have stated that he's an idiot, but not a dangerous one. Perhaps that point of view was incorrect after all? Anyway the two particular nutters that caused this thread were not victims of poverty or discrimination, and if they disagreed with the Iraq war then they are part of huge group who shared that view but didn't feel the need to kill randomly to express it. They simply chose to murder an entirely innocent man for political ends. On a separate note if I was Home Secretary I'd also be asking questions about some of the risk assessments on domestic extremists currently being made by the Security Services.

Thought this was an interesting article, particularly for those who have often stated that Anjem Choudary is just a harmless gobshite... Woolwich attack: Why are young British men like my brother drawn to Islamic extremism?

Sickened but not at all surprised by this, it's been coming for while. As I recall at least two plots by radical muslims to abduct and behead a British soldier have been disrupted in the last few years. Both in the Midlands too.

Thank f*** for that.