The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[peterms]

Agree with OBE's take on this. We are being prepared for two things: a further chipping away at our civil liberties under the cover of a fabricated and nonexistent existential threat; and further acts of war to promote arms sales and oil deals.

The media spin on this is fascinating. Look! An act so savage you don't even want to look! And if you do, the Met will threaten you that even viewing the video is likely to lead to prosecution! It's that bad!

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia beheads 19 people in a week, including one for "sorcery". Not uncommon.

And thousands have been murdered in the last month in Gaza, by " surgical strikes". And the US continues to murder people with drones, every week. These things are deemed less worthy of reporting in the same horrified tones.

What IS are doing is appalling. They are clearly a bunch of murderous thugs, bent on territorial expansion for gain, using a trumped-up religious/moral justification for their acts. I see little difference between what they are doing, and what so many other groups and countries have done, including us, France, Germany, Italy, Spain...too many to name, but including in the last week, the US and Israel.

But we are told that this IS thing is qualitatively different, a new and more terrible form of cruelty which plumbs new depths. They crucify people! Outside, in the sun! While the US crucifixions take place indoors, in Guantanamo, with the benefit of added water, repeated many times over the course of years. And we conspire to transport people there, our employees visit and observe and come away and we do nothing. But we must condemn in the strongest terms the vile behaviour of IS, and stand ready to do whatever the US tells us to, and lose some of our freedoms, in this global fight against...what, exactly?

[maqroll]

 

 

nonexistent existential threat

Hmmm...

[snowychap]

We are being prepared for: a further chipping away at our civil liberties...

It's not a chipping away, Boris and Hogan-Howe have both called for people travelling to Syria (or elsewhere) to be declared terrorists unless they can prove themselves otherwise; Cameron said he wouldn't go for a 'knee-jerk' reaction and then, after waiting a week, has gone for a knee-jerk reaction (the substance of which we will see on monday - but would appear to be a reduction in the bar before people's passports can be withdrawn).

T.Blair will be spinning on his forked tail with glee.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Not trying to troll you Rugeley, but personally I get an awful lot more grief where I live and in my job from people off their tits on drugs and booze 4 or 5 nights of every week.

That will teach you to move next door to Rugeley

the only problem chrisp65 would have with me is that i play my horrible music way to loud

Rainbow and Nazareth I seem to recall having a soft spot for when I was a kid.

I must have a couple of Nazareth albums up in the attic and a few days ago I found an old Motorhead / Girlschool cassette single! I would give them to you, I really would (my roof needs work).

Of course, I'm far too hipster for that stuff now, I'm all about Johnny Cash and late cheesey Vegas Elvis today, uh hu hu.

----

You need to worry a bit more about the Chinese though, they've bought more of Africa than ISIS could ever dream of driving around in a stolen Nissan Navara.

love early rainbow but nazareth i dont like and motorhead after one song ive had enough. i just think this whole islamic threat gets played down but i really hope im wrong about it.

The Islamic threat gets played down??? It's all we've bloody heard about since 9/11!

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

If we can sit passively by while our civil rights are being eroded away, we don't deserve them in the first place.

[maqroll]

It's dangerous out there...

 

 

Respect MP George Galloway was taken to hospital with a suspected broken jaw on Friday night after being attacked in the street.

Police arrested a British man over the incident, which is believed to have been prompted by comments Galloway has made about Israel in past weeks.

The 60-year-old was posing for pictures in Notting Hill, London, on Friday evening when a man lashed out at him, his spokesman said. Galloway gave a statement to police after a man aged 39 was arrested.

"George was posing for pictures with people and this guy just attacked him, leapt on him and started punching him," his spokesman said.

"It appears to be connected with his comments about Israel because the guy was shouting about the Holocaust. George is badly bruised but OK. He has bruising to his head and face and is in pretty bad shape."

 

Edited August 30, 2014 by maqroll

[Awol]

nonexistent existential threat

Hmmm...

IS is plainly a threat to Europe but not an existential one. If you lived in northern Iraq / eastern Syria then the perspective would be a little different.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Awol

[maqroll]

I know, I just thought "nonexistent existential" sounded funny

[maqroll]

 

 

I realise it puts me in the tinfoil on the head corner

It's a good habit, to question the legitimacy of the information you are sold.

[MakemineVanilla]

 

 

 

I realise it puts me in the tinfoil on the head corner

It's a good habit, to question the legitimacy of the information you are sold.

 

 

I always assume that the media deliberately try to put the public into a state of semi-hysteria, to ensure they are so busy dealing with their own emotions, that they are incapable of questioning the message. 

[Rugeley Villa]

 

 

 

 

 

Not trying to troll you Rugeley, but personally I get an awful lot more grief where I live and in my job from people off their tits on drugs and booze 4 or 5 nights of every week.

That will teach you to move next door to Rugeley

the only problem chrisp65 would have with me is that i play my horrible music way to loud

Rainbow and Nazareth I seem to recall having a soft spot for when I was a kid.

I must have a couple of Nazareth albums up in the attic and a few days ago I found an old Motorhead / Girlschool cassette single! I would give them to you, I really would (my roof needs work).

Of course, I'm far too hipster for that stuff now, I'm all about Johnny Cash and late cheesey Vegas Elvis today, uh hu hu.

----

You need to worry a bit more about the Chinese though, they've bought more of Africa than ISIS could ever dream of driving around in a stolen Nissan Navara.

love early rainbow but nazareth i dont like and motorhead after one song ive had enough. i just think this whole islamic threat gets played down but i really hope im wrong about it.

The Islamic threat gets played down??? It's all we've bloody heard about since 9/11!

 

by some of the public i meant. decades down the line and the shit is going to hit the fan big time.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Rugeley Villa

[Ads]

I don't see the relevance in the point in attempting to conflate what IS is doing as being in anyway equivolent to actions by the US. Comparisons with Saudi Arabia are of course relevant; they're one of IS fathers and have a share of the fundamental Wahhabist view of "our way, or your head", only taken further than Wahhabism as SA know it because IS denies the core pillar of being subservient to the house of Saud, again this is IS stated political position.

There is no current equivalence for what they're doing. The media, far from being part of some machine intent on eroding your civil liberties is vastly underreporting what they're doing. They have death camps in al Raqqa where captured Syrian Army are being murdered by the truck load on a regular basis. I mean that quite literally. It comes down to an Iraqi Kurd being decapitated in front of a Mosque not being as newsworthy as poor James Foley.

IS have been strengthened by the men who kept Saddam ticking over. We didn't kill them when we opened the Box on this post 2003 or when they fought under the flag of AQII post 2004, and now they're busy setting up infrastructure for soft government and doing their best to annihlate their apostate enemies and those Sunnis that won't comply.

*Warning: Highly Graphic Content*

https://ia801509.us.archive.org/18/items/al_saleel_4/SaleelSawarim.mp4

That's a taste for what they're doing. That's not media hyperbole and it's nearly two months old. Since then, more civilians have been killed in Iraq in August than were destroyed by the IDFs concept of total war.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Ads

[Vive_La_Villa]

Rugeley I personally think the 'Islamic threat' has never been so low. Take a read through history and you will see that yes in the past religion was a reason used for wars and shaped the world we live in today. But not any more.

I personally think these days the real powers of the world couldn't care less about religion. It's all about the money and power.

Civilians and soldiers are just pawns in the game.

As for large Muslims populations in Europe. It may be the case but it's due to immigration. Not conversion. A lot of these people are segregated so yes if you go in to one of those areas of course it will feel like they've taken over. If it bothers a person just don't go in to those areas. There are apparently over a million Muslims in a population of around 60M.

I'm sure some Muslim free areas can be found.

Thinks need to be kept in to perspective.

[Rugeley Villa]

Rugeley I personally think the 'Islamic threat' has never been so low. Take a read through history and you will see that yes in the past religion was a reason used for wars and shaped the world we live in today. But not any more.

I personally think these days the real powers of the world couldn't care less about religion. It's all about the money and power.

Civilians and soldiers are just pawns in the game.

As for large Muslims populations in Europe. It may be the case but it's due to immigration. Not conversion. A lot of these people are segregated so yes if you go in to one of those areas of course it will feel like they've taken over. If it bothers a person just don't go in to those areas. There are apparently over a million Muslims in a population of around 60M.

I'm sure some Muslim free areas can be found.

Thinks need to be kept in to perspective.

i see your point and yes i do agree about the whole money and power over religion but in my eyes there is a big threat. i can see muslim growth in britain and europe expanding more and more, ive got no problems with your normal muslim person but i struggle to see the light with this whole thing. radical islam is allowed to fester in this country and around the world. i know it comes across i have a problem with every muslim and islam itself but that really is not the case. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

So what's your answer?

[Rugeley Villa]

i aint got a clue, i think the damage has been done. by no means are the west innocent in this whole thing though, you must know immigration and terrorism is going to get worse decade by decade though. its built into the arab world in the middle east to hate the west, they even teach it in the schools.

[OutByEaster?]

I think the opposite effect also occurs - I see your point Rugeley about the movements of people and the cultural and religious movements that come with that, but form the other side, the Islamic community will be feeling that the Islamic faith is being threatened by it's existence within a non-Islamic culture, that people will become less committed and that Islam will change as a result of the societies in which it is being hosted. I actually think that the increased mixing of people and cultures has a balancing effect that will (hopefully) harm religions - I think it unfortunately has a polarising affect where those that stay with their belief become more committed to it, more extreme, but I think that in terms of numbers large numbers drift off, they become less interested, more a product of their society than their religious background. Young Asians in Britain don't feel the same about their religion as their parents and grandparents, third and fourth generation Irish Brummies aren't as stereotypically Catholic as their great grandparents; I think that ultimately secular society will defeat religion, leaving just a smattering of loonies.

 

I don't see a spread of Islamic extremism, because I don't see the vast majority of populations having any interesting in it and I see a leakage coming the other way of people who want to be part of the society they live in rather than the one they come from.

[Vive_La_Villa]

I think the opposite effect also occurs - I see your point Rugeley about the movements of people and the cultural and religious movements that come with that, but form the other side, the Islamic community will be feeling that the Islamic faith is being threatened by it's existence within a non-Islamic culture, that people will become less committed and that Islam will change as a result of the societies in which it is being hosted. I actually think that the increased mixing of people and cultures has a balancing effect that will (hopefully) harm religions - I think it unfortunately has a polarising affect where those that stay with their belief become more committed to it, more extreme, but I think that in terms of numbers large numbers drift off, they become less interested, more a product of their society than their religious background. Young Asians in Britain don't feel the same about their religion as their parents and grandparents, third and fourth generation Irish Brummies aren't as stereotypically Catholic as their great grandparents; I think that ultimately secular society will defeat religion, leaving just a smattering of loonies.

I don't see a spread of Islamic extremism, because I don't see the vast majority of populations having any interesting in it and I see a leakage coming the other way of people who want to be part of the society they live in rather than the one they come from.

Great post mate. I wanted to say something similar but I think Rugely is convinced there is a threat no matter what anybody says.

[Rugeley Villa]

I think the opposite effect also occurs - I see your point Rugeley about the movements of people and the cultural and religious movements that come with that, but form the other side, the Islamic community will be feeling that the Islamic faith is being threatened by it's existence within a non-Islamic culture, that people will become less committed and that Islam will change as a result of the societies in which it is being hosted. I actually think that the increased mixing of people and cultures has a balancing effect that will (hopefully) harm religions - I think it unfortunately has a polarising affect where those that stay with their belief become more committed to it, more extreme, but I think that in terms of numbers large numbers drift off, they become less interested, more a product of their society than their religious background. Young Asians in Britain don't feel the same about their religion as their parents and grandparents, third and fourth generation Irish Brummies aren't as stereotypically Catholic as their great grandparents; I think that ultimately secular society will defeat religion, leaving just a smattering of loonies.

 

I don't see a spread of Islamic extremism, because I don't see the vast majority of populations having any interesting in it and I see a leakage coming the other way of people who want to be part of the society they live in rather than the one they come from.

yes i can only imagine the islamic world will feel threatened, of course they will. in their eyes we are the evil, the propoganda machine over there teaches that the west wants to wipe islam off the face of the world, so i can see why there is this problem. its the same with people on this side of the fence, we are feeling the same as they are in the sense that islam is evil etc etc. the thing i will point out which already has been pointed out, a lot of these islamists and other terrorists from all other religions they are going against what their religion preaches. a lot of these young jihadists are not doing this because of religion, islam has been dangerously hijacked and i dont see for the life of me how its going to improve. do you think we would get away with the immigration levels of there? churches springing up everywhere and demos in the street, no chance because we would be slaughtered. we are not allowed to invade muslim land but its quite ok for islam to spread everywhere because thats whats meant to happen. im sticking my neck on the line again here to be branded racist.

[Rugeley Villa]

 

I think the opposite effect also occurs - I see your point Rugeley about the movements of people and the cultural and religious movements that come with that, but form the other side, the Islamic community will be feeling that the Islamic faith is being threatened by it's existence within a non-Islamic culture, that people will become less committed and that Islam will change as a result of the societies in which it is being hosted. I actually think that the increased mixing of people and cultures has a balancing effect that will (hopefully) harm religions - I think it unfortunately has a polarising affect where those that stay with their belief become more committed to it, more extreme, but I think that in terms of numbers large numbers drift off, they become less interested, more a product of their society than their religious background. Young Asians in Britain don't feel the same about their religion as their parents and grandparents, third and fourth generation Irish Brummies aren't as stereotypically Catholic as their great grandparents; I think that ultimately secular society will defeat religion, leaving just a smattering of loonies.

I don't see a spread of Islamic extremism, because I don't see the vast majority of populations having any interesting in it and I see a leakage coming the other way of people who want to be part of the society they live in rather than the one they come from.

Great post mate. I wanted to say something similar but I think Rugely is convinced there is a threat no matter what anybody says.

 

we all see things differently, i wish i did see things differently. its just a matter of opinion, time will tell whos right and wrong.