The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

That's about as damning as you can get. Cameron is going to kill people (by proxy) to exploit Labour's divisions for Conservative party gain.

That single line should be enough to have him immediately removed from parliament and banged up.

It would be if it was true, which it's not. Whether or not you agree with the intervention it's absurd to suggest that this is all a plot by Cameron to highlight Labour's divisions, not least because there's been talk of intervention in Syria since way before Corbyn became leader.

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Right you are then Mantis. What about people that support the Free Syrian Army?

In exactly what way are they different? It's just that my understanding, is that Cameron wants to run bombing raids to help them rise up and take Raqqa.

Is Cameron one of these terrorist sympathisers?

Or are they, erm, freedom fighters?

How are the FSA comparable to the IRA or Hamas/Hezbollah?

[blandy]

9 minutes ago, Mantis said:

It would be if it was true, which it's not. Whether or not you agree with the intervention it's absurd to suggest that this is all a plot by Cameron to highlight Labour's divisions, not least because there's been talk of intervention in Syria since way before Corbyn became leader.

It's Tony saying that, not me. My post just paraphrases his and then says that Tony's line should mean Hammy gets chucked in the big house.

Last time he (hammy) wanted to bomb Assad (and so help ISIS). Now he wants to bomb ISIS (and so help Assad). It doesn't look overly consistent or well thought through ,indicating a long held belief or plan to me.

[Mantis]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's Tony saying that, not me. My post just paraphrases his and then says that Tony's line should mean Hammy gets chucked in the big house.

Last time he (hammy) wanted to bomb Assad (and so help ISIS). Now he wants to bomb ISIS (and so help Assad). It doesn't look overly consistent or well thought through ,indicating a long held belief or plan to me.

I'm not claiming it's all well thought out or something that's been brewing for years but there has been talk about us extending air strikes to Syria for quite some time.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Mantis

[blandy]

22 minutes ago, Mantis said:

How are the FSA comparable to the IRA or Hamas/Hezbollah?

Er, you don't have to look very far to find out

 http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/atrocities-of-the-syrian-rebels-graphic-nsfw/#ixzz3tBpTk437

Quote

As the US government debates on whether to assist Syrian rebels in their war against Bashar al-Assad, American citizens are learning more about their potential allies every day. The Free Syrian Army fighters are reportedly made up of al Nusra forces, which are al Qaeda affiliated fighters who have committed incredible acts of brutality in their effort to gain control of the state....

 

Quote

HRW stressed that it has received reports of 'executions by armed opposition groups of security force members and civilians'. Earlier this week, two booby-trapped car blasts hit Damascus city leading to 24 martyrs and torn-off limbs of three other martyrs and 140 civilians and law-enforcement members were injured.Grauniad

 

These are not "moderates" they're maybe not quite as vile as ISIL, but they're no peaceful orderly fighting force. Suicide bombing, child killing and all the rest. Quite terroristy, I'd have thought you'd agree?

[tonyh29]

22 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's Tony saying that, not me. My post just paraphrases his and then says that Tony's line should mean Hammy gets chucked in the big house.

Last time he (hammy) wanted to bomb Assad (and so help ISIS). Now he wants to bomb ISIS (and so help Assad). It doesn't look overly consistent or well thought through ,indicating a long held belief or plan to me.

I might go back now and edit my thread so you look like you've made things up  

 

but yeah it was my somewhat cynical and simplified view of events

[tonyh29]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I think sometimes people on both sides of the divide in real life, in parliament and even on VT can be deliberately thick.

I'm not convinced that Corbyn automatically secretly sides and sympathises with all terrorists. I do think that sometimes we need to probe exactly what a 'terrorist' is. There's the whole Palestinian terrorist thing, that's one for a thread all it's own. There's the Irish terrorism thing, ditto. I'll happily debate that one with you if you like. But you have to remember that even the very worst terrorist organisations sometimes somehow become magically sanitised and can eventually be talked to, engaged in communication. Most people would now recognise the ANC were probably right overall. But we all had them down as ignorant brutes and murderers previously. There are some even on VT that would still describe Nelson M as a terrorist. Now, I know we are to see ISIS as a whole different thing, literally a different animal. Right now, they are. There is no space right now for negotiation of anything with them. I get that. But that's where we were with the Taliban (at that point in between them being freedom fighters against Russian occupation and terrorists against the coalition). They aren't really animal / walking dead different though. Plenty of expanding empires have beheaded people, burnt them at the stake, pulled them apart with horses or stuck body parts on spikes on bridges. A fairly recent example would be the Khmer Rouge. A more distant example would be, well, us. The only real difference, time and technology.

So to simply label people wholesale as 'terrorist sympathisers' is a pretty piss poor attempt to dumb down what is literally a life and death debate.

If Cameron is willing to re arrest Gerry Adams and break off links with South Africa and Thailand and The Gambia etc., then he can be bullish about people that talk to terrorists. otherwise, he needs to grow up and debate with his opponents, not look for easy cheers from his chums.

 

I see what you did there ....

Edited December 2, 2015 by tonyh29

[Chindie]

Just wheeling out the 'terrorism is a methodology' comment again... Mr Mandela was a terrorist, he just happened to have a righteous aim...

To support chrisp65 more obviously though, it's entirely possible to have sympathy for terrorists. Sympathy is a daft word to use really as it's ambiguity causes issues (as the Sun knows...). But let's use it. I'd have had sympathy for Mandela at the time he embarked on a terrorist campaign because I could support what he wanted, if not the way he went about it. And so on.

Just because Corbyn might feel similarly, with reason no doubt, about other causes that terrorists have taken up, doesn't necessarily mean he's an evil idiot.

For many, what does is that he's left of Thatcher.

[chrisp65]

1 hour ago, Mantis said:

 

How are the FSA comparable to the IRA or Hamas/Hezbollah?

Blandy has already given you the link for FSA.

You could also look up stuff on the Kurdish groups, the PKK, the Peshmerga and their history of fighting all occupying forces, including the British. If you could just tell me at what point in time the Pesh stopped being terrorists attacking a NATO country and turned into NOT terrorists I'd be grateful.

If the PKK are not terrorists, why aren't we stopping our NATO allies Turkey from bombing them, whilst the PKK are trying to fight ISL?

Perhaps, just perhaps. it's all a bit more complex than goodies forever and baddies forever.

I'm not saying these groups are in the wrong or the worst or a threat to me and my family. I'm just trying to point out it's a bit silly to try and slur people as terrorist sympathisers at exactly the same time you claim to want national unity. 

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Blandy has already given you the link for FSA.

You could also look up stuff on the Kurdish groups, the PKK, the Peshmerga and their history of fighting all occupying forces, including the British. If you could just tell me at what point in time the Pesh stopped being terrorists attacking a NATO country and turned into NOT terrorists I'd be grateful.

If the PKK are not terrorists, why aren't we stopping our NATO allies Turkey from bombing them, whilst the PKK are trying to fight ISL?

Perhaps, just perhaps. it's all a bit more complex than goodies forever and baddies forever.

I'm not saying these groups are in the wrong or the worst or a threat to me and my family. I'm just trying to point out it's a bit silly to try and slur people as terrorist sympathisers at exactly the same time you claim to want national unity. 

The FSA are different because the use of terrorism isn't really their modus operandi in the same way it was for the IRA. As for the PKK, they are terrorists (not the same as the Peshmerga by the way) but it's in our interest to go easy on them for the time being.

This is the crucial difference between Corbyn/McDonnell and most other MPs. Yes most MPs will deal/want to deal with questionable people/states but it's because they see it as being in the national interest as opposed to Corbyn and McDonnell who genuinely sympathise with the aims of terrorists.

[Chindie]

I'd probably 'sympathise' with the PKK, unless I'm very mistaken by their aims. I'm no doubt evil and dangerous.

I'd also be very careful claiming to genuinely know what Corbyn and Co think on something like this, which is a very complex and wide ranging topic, especially when thinking of such terms as 'sympathise'.

[Mantis]

4 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I'd probably 'sympathise' with the PKK, unless I'm very mistaken by their aims. I'm no doubt evil and dangerous.

I'd also be very careful claiming to genuinely know what Corbyn and Co think on something like this, which is a very complex and wide ranging topic, especially when thinking of such terms as 'sympathise'.

On the IRA they were/are pretty clear on their position.

[HanoiVillan]

19 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The FSA are different because the use of terrorism isn't really their modus operandi in the same way it was for the IRA. As for the PKK, they are terrorists (not the same as the Peshmerga by the way) but it's in our interest to go easy on them for the time being.

This is the crucial difference between Corbyn/McDonnell and most other MPs. Yes most MPs will deal/want to deal with questionable people/states but it's because they see it as being in the national interest as opposed to Corbyn and McDonnell who genuinely sympathise with the aims of terrorists.

. . . and some might say that that's no difference at all. Presumably (mistakenly IMO) Corbyn and McDonnell in the 1980's also considered the aims of the IRA (ie, a united Ireland) to be 'in the national interest'. So now the debate becomes 'what is the national interest'. 

So far your analysis is 'the questionable people we deal with is for the national interest, but the questionable people they deal with is sympathy for the aims of terrorists'. We could simplify that fraction even further to 'I'm right and you're wrong' but you can't really expect people who don't start out agreeing to be convinced by that argument. 

[chrisp65]

26 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The FSA are different because the use of terrorism isn't really their modus operandi in the same way it was for the IRA. As for the PKK, they are terrorists (not the same as the Peshmerga by the way) but it's in our interest to go easy on them for the time being.

This is the crucial difference between Corbyn/McDonnell and most other MPs. Yes most MPs will deal/want to deal with questionable people/states but it's because they see it as being in the national interest as opposed to Corbyn and McDonnell who genuinely sympathise with the aims of terrorists.

So some terrorists are different to other terrorists, depending on whether some politicians but not other politicians are prepared to deal with them as and when it suits them.

That's cleared that up then. It's a bit like I suggested, not simple.

Incidentally, I did separate the PKK and Peshmerga. It's the Pesh that have attacked British troops back in their history. 

 

[Mantis]

40 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

. . . and some might say that that's no difference at all. Presumably (mistakenly IMO) Corbyn and McDonnell in the 1980's also considered the aims of the IRA (ie, a united Ireland) to be 'in the national interest'. So now the debate becomes 'what is the national interest'. 

So far your analysis is 'the questionable people we deal with is for the national interest, but the questionable people they deal with is sympathy for the aims of terrorists'. We could simplify that fraction even further to 'I'm right and you're wrong' but you can't really expect people who don't start out agreeing to be convinced by that argument. 

Based on their past comments, I get the impression that Corbyn and McDonnell don't care a great deal about the British national interest.

No that's not my analysis at all. Terrorism isn't defined on "who we like/don't like" and nobody tries to claim it is. The difference between Cameron/Blair etc is that they were in government whereas Corbyn and McDonnell were supporting the IRA even in opposition. Corbyn even contradicts himself - he's always claimed to be about peace and dialogue but how is only dealing with one side going to achieve that?

[HanoiVillan]

31 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Based on their past comments, I get the impression that Corbyn and McDonnell don't care a great deal about the British national interest.[1]

No that's not my analysis at all. Terrorism isn't defined on "who we like/don't like" and nobody tries to claim it is[2]. The difference between Cameron/Blair etc is that they were in government whereas Corbyn and McDonnell were supporting the IRA even in opposition. Corbyn even contradicts himself - he's always claimed to be about peace and dialogue but how is only dealing with one side going to achieve that?

[1] It seems to me you're making really quite a statement here. I note that you're not saying they haven't acted in the national interest, which would be to disagree with actions while acknowledging similar intents, but saying they're not interested in the national interest, which seems to me to be quite a remarkable accusation. Without wishing to be dramatic, isn't this an accusation of treason? 

[2] Yes, it very much is, and yes, I very much am. 

Edited December 2, 2015 by HanoiVillan

[Mantis]

19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

[1] It seems to me you're making really quite a statement here. I note that you're not saying they haven't acted in the national interest, which would be to disagree with actions while acknowledging similar intents, but saying they're not interested in the national interest, which seems to me to be quite a remarkable accusation. Without wishing to be dramatic, isn't this an accusation of treason? 

[2] Yes, it very much is, and yes, I very much am. 

Given that McDonnell and Corbyn were supporting the IRA while they were bombing the UK yes I would say that they have a treasonous streak.

You may be, but that isn't actually how terrorism is defined.

[Shaw_nuff]

I see the war mongering tory pig shagger has got his way and is now going to help prop up the petro-dollar, by removing Assad sorry I mean help defeat ISIS by killing loads of civilians and creating more bitter and twisted freaks.

Well he couldn't let that other tory Blair get all the kudos could he. It'll all be over by Christmas......

......2035

[HanoiVillan]

8 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Given that McDonnell and Corbyn were supporting the IRA while they were bombing the UK yes I would say that they have a treasonous streak.

You may be, but that isn't actually how terrorism is defined.

Refusal to Call Charleston Shootings “Terrorism” Again Shows It’s a Meaningless Propaganda Term

'In February 2010, a man named Joseph Stack deliberately flew his small airplane into the side of a building that housed a regional IRS office in Austin, Texas, just as 200 agency employees were starting their workday. Along with himself, Stack killed an IRS manager and injured 13 others.

Stack was an anti-tax, anti-government fanatic, and chose his target for exclusively political reasons. He left behind a lengthy manifesto cogently setting forth his largely libertarian political views (along with, as I wrote at the time, some anti-capitalist grievances shared by the left, such as “rage over bailouts, the suffering of America’s poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt economic elite and their government-servants”; Stack’s long note ended: “the communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed”). About Stack’s political grievances, his manifesto declared that “violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.”

The attack had all of the elements of iconic terrorism, a model for how it’s most commonly understood: down to flying a plane into the side of a building. But Stack was white and non-Muslim. As a result, not only was the word “terrorism” not applied to Stack, but it was explicitly declared inapplicable by media outlets and government officials alike.

The New York Times’s report on the incident stated that while the attack “initially inspired fears of a terrorist attack” — before the identity of the pilot was known — now “in place of the typical portrait of a terrorist driven by ideology, Mr. Stack was described as generally easygoing, a talented amateur musician with marital troubles and a maddening grudge against the tax authorities.”

As a result, said the Paper of Record, “officials ruled out any connection to terrorist groups or causes.” And “federal officials emphasized the same message, describing the case as a criminal inquiry.” Even when U.S. Muslim groups called for the incident to be declared “terrorism,” the FBI continued to insist it “was handling the case ‘as a criminal matter of an assault on a federal officer’ and that it was not being considered as an act of terror.”

By very stark contrast, consider the October 2014, shooting in Ottawa by a single individual, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, at the Canadian Parliament building. As soon as it was known that the shooter was a convert to Islam, the incident was instantly and universally declared to be “terrorism.” Less than 24 hours afterward, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared it a terror attack and even demanded new “counter-terrorism” powers in its name (which he has now obtained). To bolster the label, the government claimed Zehaf-Bibeau was on his way to Syria to fight with jihadists, and the media trumpeted this “fact.”

In his address to the nation the day after the shooting, Harper vowed to learn more about the “terrorist and any accomplices he may have had” and intoned: “This is a grim reminder that Canada is not immune to the types of terrorist attacks we have seen elsewhere around the world.” Twitter users around the world en masse used the hashtag of solidarity reserved (for some reason) only for cities attacked by a Muslim (but not cities attacked by their own governments):#OttawaStrong. In sum, that this was a “terror attack” was mandated conventional wisdom before anything was known other than the Muslim identity of the perpetrator.

As it turns out, other than the fact that the perpetrator was Muslim and was aiming his violence at Westerners, almost nothing about this attack had the classic hallmarks of “terrorism.” In the days and weeks that followed, it became clear that Zehaf-Bibeau suffered from serious mental illness and “seemed to have become mentally unstable.” He had a history of arrests for petty offenses and had received psychiatric treatment. His friends recall him expressing no real political views but instead claiming he was possessed by the devil.

The Canadian government was ultimately forced to admit that their prior media claim about him preparing to go to Syria was totally false, dismissing it as “a mistake.” Now that Canadians know the truth about him — rather than the mere fact that he’s Muslim and committed violence — a plurality no longer believe the “terrorist” label applies, but believe the attack was motivated by mental illness. The term “terrorist” got instantly applied by know-nothings for one reason: he was Muslim and had committed violence, and that, in the post-9/11 West, is more or less the only working definition of the term (in the rare cases when it is applied to non-Muslims these days, it’s typically applied to minorities engaged in acts that have no resemblance to what people usually think of when they hear the term).

That is the crucial backdrop for yesterday’s debate over whether the term “terrorism” applies to the heinous shooting by a white nationalist of nine African-Americans praying in a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Almost immediately, news reports indicated there was “no sign of terrorism” — by which they meant: it does not appear that the shooter is Muslim.

Yet other than the perpetrator’s non-Muslim identity, the Charleston attack from the start had the indicia of what is commonly understood to be “terrorism.” Specifically, the suspected shooter was clearly a vehement racist who told witnesses at the church that he was acting out of racial hatred and a desire to force African-Americans “to go.” His violence was the byproduct of and was intended to publicize and forward his warped political agenda, and was clearly designed to terrorize the community he hates.

[. . .]

Ample scholarship proves that the term “terrorism” is empty, definition-free and invariably manipulated. Harvard’s Lisa Stampnitzky has documented “the inability of researchers to establish a suitable definition of the concept of ‘terrorism’ itself.” The concept of “terrorism” is fundamentally plagued by ideological agendas and self-interested manipulation, as Professor Richard Jackson at the the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand has explained: “most of what is accepted as well-founded ‘knowledge’ in terrorism studies is, in fact, highly debatable and unstable” and is “biased towards Western state priorities.” Remi Brulin is a scholar who specializes in the discourse of “terrorism” and has long documented that, from the start, it was a highly manipulated term of propaganda more than it was a term of fixed meaning — largely intended to justify violence by the West and Israel while delegitimizing the violence of its enemies.

What is most amazing about all of this is that “terrorism” — a term that is so easily and frequently manipulated and devoid of fixed meaning — has now become central to our political culture and legal framework, a staple of how we are taught to think about the world. It is constantly invoked, as though it is some sort of term of scientific precision, to justify an endless array of radical policies and powers. Everything from the attack on Iraq to torture to endless drone killings to mass surveillance and beyond are justified in its name.'

https://theintercept.com/2015/06/19/refusal-call-charleston-shootings-terrorism-shows-meaningless-propaganda-term/

 

[Mantis]

I would call that terrorism.

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, Mantis said:

I would call that terrorism.

 

The point of the article is that the media very specifically chose not to refer to it as terrorism. It looks like we have a problem! Mantis says it is terrorism, the media says it isn't. Almost as if the meaning of 'terrorism' wasn't as simple as all that after all . . .