Current affairs Serious incident in Woolwich

[snowychap]

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

From memory, I think that you may have misconstrued what people have said and meant.

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.

To what end, Jon?

[bickster]

particularly for those who have often stated that Anjem Choudary is just a harmless gobshite...

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. I can only find two topics in which he's even mentioned and only two posters have named him. One poster no longer has posting priveledges the other is you

[snowychap]

I think a couple of topics, in which he and his organization (under whichever name it was going at the time) were discussed, have been pruned.

I do remember one about the bods having (or just planning) some kind of march or 'demonstration' in London - it may have been at the same time as they threatened to turn up in Wootton Bassett, too.

Edited May 25, 2013 by snowychap

[Keyblade]

Even that threat was most likely just a clever way for Choudary to get himself invited on t.v. again.

[Awol]

 

 

 

particularly for those who have often stated that Anjem Choudary is just a harmless gobshite...

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.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Awol

[Awol]

 

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

From memory, I think that you may have misconstrued what people have said and meant.

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.

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.

[peterms]

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.

 

The point of the article is that several things need to come together, and something like listening to Choudary or others might be a part of that mix, but is neither a necessary nor a sufficient factor.  Similarly, that people who become both radicalised and violent may or may not be victims of poverty:

 

poverty need not be a factor, he also argues that the experiences of discrimination and social segregation encountered by middle-class, educated persons can also be a significant cause of radicalisation

 

But when you say they weren't victims of discrimination, I don't think I've seen anything which throws much light on that one way or another.

 

What's perhaps more interesting is the piece on Newsnight last night, here, about MI5 trying to recruit him as an informant, and how when he went to Kenya he was arrested and tortured.  The person giving this information to Newsnight was then arrested by the police while he was still in the BBC studio, immediately after the programme had been broadcast.

 

There's a piece in the Independent about how Muslims are being approached by the security services and threatened that is they do not become spies and informants, Stasi-style, they will be harassed and detained when they travel abroad, with UK security forces telling their overseas equivalent that the person concerned is a terror suspect.

 

I look forward to some investigation of whether these threats were used against Adebolajo, whether they were carried out, whether that was the cause of him being tortured and sexually assaulted by Kenyan security forces, and whether this played any part in his subsequent adoption of violence.

 

 

 

[snowychap]

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.

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?

[Awol]

 

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.

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.

[snowychap]

In short there are too many potential terrorists and not enough good guys to stop them.

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).

Edited May 25, 2013 by snowychap

[Chindie]

This kind of incident is damn near impossible to stop. It's not far off from a completely random act of violence - it doesn't require much planning, it's not grand enough to require much logistical complexity and that in turn reduces the opportunities to catch the perpetrator beforehand. Unless they were spouting off about it online and/or being constantly surveiled, it's not doable.

 

We have to accept that society will sometimes encounter violence like this. It's a price we pay for the life we lead and, to an extent, a risk we take for our global activity. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to stop people intent on political violence - we certainly should and the job done by the security services in stopping many far grander attempts is laudable - but to stop things like this we would need to cash in more than a little of the freedom we enjoy or significantly threaten proportions of society, in many cases entirely needlessly. I'm not sure that is a road I would like to see the UK journey on.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

The only way to stop a crime like this is some kind of Minority Report deal.

 

And that doesn't exist.

 

So suck it up and move on.

[Awol]

 

In short there are too many potential terrorists and not enough good guys to stop them.

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. 

[StefanAVFC]

Has Islamism branched off from racism as its own thing?

[Chindie]

Has Islamism branched off from racism as its own thing?

 

Islamism = 'Political Islam', the belief that Islam should guide society and not just the personal sphere.

 

Racism = belief that that the races are distinct biological entities that have an implied hierarchy based on differing attributes leading to bigotry.

 

?

 

I think you might be looking for the concept of Islamophobia.

 

Religion=/=race

[StefanAVFC]

Islamism was a term I heard on Question Time this week as a form of hate against Islam. Apologies if that isn't the correct usage.

 

And Race and Religion combine when people target 'pakis' (in their own words) for being Muslim. Not for being of pakistani descent (as an example)

[Chindie]

No it's not the correct usage. Whoever used that is clearly a **** idiot who doesn't have the faintest idea what they're talking about. Islamism is a defined thing, and a very dangerous one.

 

Race and religion don't combine. They only ever do in the eyes of idiots, usually bigots. In which case the correct usage of terms is probably the least of our worries.

 

Anyway, as said, you're looking for the concept of Islamophobia.

[StefanAVFC]

Ah okay, fair enough.

 

Well, the idiots and bigots are in force since this incident and lines between race and religion in their eyes have been blurred. I've seen comments like 'kick all paki's out of the country so there will be no more Islam extremism' (obviously stated in a different way). The sad thing is, this isn't an isolated incident. The EDL FB page has 50,000 more likes since Woolwich. We all saw what happened after that bloke was killed in Tottenham. People are opportunistic bastards.

 

I think you're agreeing with me, in a weird way

Edited May 25, 2013 by StefanAVFC

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

'The BNP has also announced it will be demonstrating in Woolwich. National organiser Adam Walker claims the brutal murder meant a "line has been drawn in the sand and it signals the beginning of the civil war we have predicted for years".'

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-attack-islam'>From a rather concerning article in the Grauniad

Edited May 25, 2013 by CarewsEyebrowDesigner

[StefanAVFC]

Civil war? Jesus Christ. Surely these knuckleheads are promoting more violence by championing civil war?

 

Wanting what's best for the country, my arse.

 

All they've done is use the death of Lee Rigby to promote their agenda while pretending they actually care. It's sickening.