Manchester atrocity

[OwlsFan]

I see President Higgins and others used the word "cowardly" when describing the Manchester murderer. Bush also used that word when describing "the folks" who flew in to the Twin Towers. Anyone who straps a load on TNT around their waist ready to blow themselves up, even if their victims cannot defend themselves or are children, or flies in to a building, are not cowards. Vicious, barbaric etc but not "cowardly". The IRA bombs in the UK were cowardly because the bombers didn't put themselves in harms way. I bring this up because the reactions are nearly always the same to these atrocities, to even using the same words of condemnation: Prime Minister visits the site, Britons will not be cowed, flower laying, the city (whichever) is strong and will come together, atrocity won't divide, grainy videos of the attack and the perpetrator is soon named. No matter where and when it happens and how terrible the deed, it's always the same.

Who are the words of condemnation aimed at? The terrorists ? The stronger they are the better as far as they are concerned because they see Arab women and children being blown to pieces in their countries often by western bombs so western women and children being blown apart doesn't bother them at all

What irritates me is that the perpetrators get the publicity they desire. Their names and pictures are spread all over the media - if you go to the 9/11 museum they're also there with the pictures of their victims. The guy who murdered the kids in Manchester must have brought some identity with him as how was he identified so quickly. He was "known to the police" though but still very fast. No doubt what's left of him will eventually be returned to his people for burial. Most are religious fanatics. Would it be too much to announce that any future Muslim terrorists will be buried with the remains of a pig? Might give them something to think about.

What point am I making ? I don't know really but something different needs to be done as these will just continue. Most of these fanatics are "known to the police". They don't live in a police state in the UK and they do thwart some attempts but obviously not enough. In the meantime, we wait for the next atrocity and the words of condemnation and the city will be "business as usual" and the body count continues. Just a vicious circle with people being murdered. The UK isn't going to convert to Islam; it's not going to pull back from its foreign commitments because of the killings and the fools who blow themselves up are going to get a shock when they find there is no harem of virgins waiting for them as their guts splatter against the 4 walls. So depressing.

[NeverFeltBetter]

It's certainly been playing on my mind recently, what new and additional approaches can be advocated to tackle terrorism by those who espouse a generally liberal and progressive political philosophy (so no to greater military efforts, surveillance state crackdowns, draconian immigration laws, etc).

One thing I heavily advocate is a greater legislative and diplomatic effort to clampdown on Saudi funding for Wahabbism-based Islamic schools throughout Europe, including Ireland. The amount of money the House of Saud sends to them is mind-boggling, and they frequently educate children in a very fundamentalist and inherently hateful manner, that is out of kilter with most other interpretations of Islam.

We (the west that is) should also be more willing to come to the table with terrorist groups. I think it was a RAND investigation I read during my Masters, that somewhere in the region of just 7% of former terrorist movements were defeated by military power, with the majority ceasing to exist as effective groups when they agreed to join a political process or when they were hunted to extinction by civilian constabulary forces. God knows the Irish should recognize that reality, and so should the UK.

In regards your "suggestion" for how the perpetrators of suicide bombings should have their remains treated, I remember that it was either official or semi-official policy from the Israeli government for the family homes of suicide bombers to be demolished after they were identified. The practice was formally stopped in '05, and I don't believe it was ever especially effective as a deterrent. Indeed, it was probably counter-productive. Punitive treatment beyond the established societal and cultural norms for those carrying out such acts leading to greater public support for their cause is also something the Irish should be well-versed in.

[bennocelt]

Horrific atrocity

Wonder will T May use political capital out of this considering she voted for the bombing of Libya, while Jeremy didn't.

[backstothewall]

It was obviously a ghastly attack. May got it very badly wrong when she described it as indiscriminate murder. It is obvious that the targeting of children was completely deliberate which sets it apart from anything that has happened in Europe in centuries. The manner in which it has been used by politicians and the press to attempt to influence the upcoming election has also been sickening.

This 3 way conflict between the Western, Shia and Sunni powerblocks for control of the middle east has been going on since at least as far back as 1978 and shows no sign of ending.

Any previous time the world has got into this sort of state it has required the competing parties to sit down together and do a deal. To me it seems time for a new Congress of Vienna style summit to draw up a new blueprint for the power structures of the 21st century. The alternative is perpetual deterioration of the situation to the point where some event triggers a terrible conflict. If we learned anything from the 20th century it is that if you go through the conflict you only end up having to go to Versailles or Yalta to thrash out a new world so the sensible approach would seem to be to follow the 19th century approach and cut to the chase without destroying millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

[osarusan]

I would imagine the 'cowardly' refers to the attack on unsuspecting victims rather than the more 'honourable' idea that you fight it out like a man.

[DannyInvincible]

A terrible incident and it felt scarily close-to-home as I lived in Manchester for six years until a few months ago. My sister and brother have also lived there for extended spells in recent years. In fact, I lived in Oldham Street, which isn't really that far from the Manchester Arena, for my final year there and had actually attended the venue itself to see a boxing match between Dungiven's Paul McCloskey and Amir Khan a few years ago.

Fallowfield, where one of the raids took place, was a regular haunt when I was at uni and I have very close friends living in Chorlton, where another raid occurred. The sister of another one of my friends previously lived in the Granby House flats off Sackville Street, where there was another controlled explosion and raid today (https://twitter.com/louisebolotin/status/867342644808208384).

Nobody I know was directly caught up in Monday night's chaos at the Arena, although some friends working in the city centre were either let home early yesterday or had their building (near the Arndale) evacuated due to another scare that resulted in the arrest of a man on Market Street (https://twitter.com/amjad_amjo/status/866967455041716224). People have been on high alert since.

I know a few junior doctors as well who were working in the hospitals and their reports of some of the injuries coming in to them on Monday night and Tuesday morning were harrowing; they spoke of bolts being embedded in sinuses, facial fractures and shrapnel in a cerebellum. Another friend said that a work colleague of his sister, who works in Blackburn, had lost his wife in the attack, whilst another friend of a friend personally knew Martyn Hett.

I was following the BBC and Sky News channels for much of the day yesterday and it's a shame that they devoted not a second of coverage to this positive story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/more-than-30000-ahmadiyya-muslims-from-across-the-world-meet-in-the-uk-to-reject-isis-and-islamic-a7191306.html


Thousands of Muslims from across the world converged on the UK for a convention where they rejected extremism and violence of terror groups such as Isis.

More than 30,000 members of the Ahmadiyya Islamic movement met at Oakland Farm in Hampshire for a three-day convention, the 50th time the annual event has taken place.

In spite of that and the fact the bomber, Salman Abedi, had stopped attending the Didsbury mosque - which is incredibly moderate and actively campaigns against ISIS - apparently because he didn't like how much they pushed the anti-ISIS message, we still get idiots like Piers Morgan tweeting stuff like the following which only stirs further animosity and indulges racists/Islamophobes who seek to blame Islam or Muslims as a whole:

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc12/poguemahone85/Capture_zpskdwceedr.png

Abedi was already known to security services, possibly even because of a tip-off from the mosque or someone in the community.


The IRA bombs in the UK were cowardly because the bombers didn't put themselves in harms way.

Quite a few (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/terrorists-killed-by-their-own-devices-1319857.html) IRA volunteers were killed by their own bombs exploding prematurely. Thomas Begley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Begley), who died whilst planting the Shankill bomb, was a notable example. They evidently did put themselves in harms way considering so many lost their lives whilst planting explosives.

As a general rule, save for exceptions (which were numerous) like the horrendous Kingsmill massacre, the IRA didn't intentionally target civilians either. That was official protocol (https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4pAjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=v6EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=974%2C2948003) and members who acted "rogue" or who targeted civilians potentially left themselves subject or open to being court-martialled, the penalty of which, if found guilty, was execution (or enforced exile in cases where an execution - of an informant, for example - might have sapped internal morale or embarrassed the organisation in publicly exposing the extent to which the IRA had been infiltrated by UK intelligence).

After the allegedly-unsanctioned (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_pub_bombings#First_IRA_statement) Birmingham bombings in 1974, the IRA Army Council's Dáithí Ó Conaill stated:


If IRA members had carried-out such attacks, they would be court-martialled and could face the death penalty. The IRA has clear guidelines for waging its war. Any attack on non-military installations must be preceded by a 30-minute warning so that no innocent civilians are endangered

As mentioned there, the IRA also gave warnings as a general rule - many, such as those given for the Birmingham bombings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_pub_bombings#The_bombings), were indefensibly inadequate, sloppy, vague or late, as those obligated with providing the warnings (generally the bombers themselves, seeing as only they knew when a device had actually been set and made viable) had to rely on getting to a working phone box in time in the days before mobile technology - in order to avoid civilian casualties, as civilian "collateral" was regarded as both strategically counter-productive (it was unpopular even within hardline republican communities, whilst it hardened public attitudes in Britain and turned an increasingly-embittered British working-class, who were historically allied to the Irish republican cause, against the IRA rather than against their own government for its continued involvement in the north of Ireland) and morally indefensible or "regrettable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bomb_attacks#Second_attack). It's at least an operational or practical difference, whether one views it as morally distinguishing or not.


The guy who murdered the kids in Manchester must have brought some identity with him as how was he identified so quickly. He was "known to the police" though but still very fast.

He had ID on his person. If he's part of a cell or wider network, I would suggest that having ID on his person was a very careless oversight as it enabled police to identify him almost immediately, work out with whom he associated and then make raids on the basis of that information within hours.

It was actually the US intelligence services who leaked his identity to the US media (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/23/trump-administration-manchester-bomber-name-leak), contrary to the wishes of UK intelligence. Naturally, the UK security services weren't happy (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2017/may/24/manchester-arena-bombing-terror-attack-victims-threat-critical-ariana-grande-concert-live-news?page=with:block-59253d0fe4b0662750017021#block-59253d0fe4b0662750017021):


Rudd, the home secretary, took the rare step of issuing a public reprimand to the American authorities for releasing information about the Manchester investigation to the media. Asked about the leaks of information coming out of the US (see 7.40am), she said:


The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise. So it is irritating if it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again.

It is very unusual for a government minister to criticise the Americans explicitly in this way.


No doubt what's left of him will eventually be returned to his people for burial. Most are religious fanatics. Would it be too much to announce that any future Muslim terrorists will be buried with the remains of a pig? Might give them something to think about.

I'd be very uneasy with the idea of the state dictating to a family how or with what they ought to bury their son, in spite of what he did. Dictating that he be buried with the remains of a pig would be particularly insensitive to his family (who are no doubt in a state of shock and likely to be grieving too), whilst it would be utterly incendiary to the wider Muslim community, even to moderates, I would think. It would be a bonkers idea that would only serve to provoke more resentment, grievance and trouble than it would prevent, subdue or deter.

[DannyInvincible]

What point am I making ? I don't know really but something different needs to be done as these will just continue.

I posted this letter (that was written in February by two Manchester social workers and an academic in response to a previous Guardian article characterising Manchester's Moss Side as a breeding ground for "jihadis") in the 'Trump' thread (http://foot.ie/threads/219506-Trump?p=1909205&viewfull=1#post1909205) a while back, but I feel it's particularly pertinent in light of recent events: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/27/unfair-criminalisation-of-moss-side-residents


...

As for the Asian/Muslim population, the sentiments of one of the interviewees who said “It is telling that one of those quoted in the article says that what is pulling these youngsters toward terrorism is something he does not understand”, is telling. The government’s misunderstanding has been to claim that radicalisation is the main cause of terrorist violence. Often known as the “conveyor belt theory”, it states that extreme interpretations of belief systems offer the best explanations for why people commit acts of violence. This has been largely discredited by most mainstream academics (http://www.claystone.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Claystone-rethinking-radicalisation.pdf) as it ignores the role of structural violence: racism, poverty, vulnerability, foreign interventions etc – often the products of state policy.

Your article ignores the underinvestment of social and public services in the community. Moss Side is often presented as responsible for many of society’s ills, and your article pathologises its residents. It oversimplifies what causes terrorism and “gang violence”, castigating an area with a rich spirit and fantastic people who have to continually answer the charge of its imagined criminality.

I fully agree with NeverFeltBetter and backstothewall in that dialogue and trying to reach some sort of mutual understanding, agreement or compromise is the way forward, as undesirable as that may sound. It's only being realistic and pragmatic; "military solutions" to conflicts are very rare and they clearly haven't been working over the past ten to twenty years considering tensions have only gotten worse.

[backstothewall]

Something that has been playing on my mind again recently is this.

Would it be so bad if there was a new caliphate? It seems to me that we (the west) are doing no more than playing whack-a-mole with Islamism. It was driven from Afghanistan and showed up in Iraq. It was driven from Iraq and moved on to Syria. If it is beaten is Syria it is going to show up in Libya, or Lebanon, or Turkey or some other god forsaken place which has become fertile ground for political extremism.

Maybe it is better to give them enough rope to hang themselves. They would probably soon be fighting each other rather than us and at least we would have someone to talk to

[DannyInvincible]

Indeed, it turns out Abedi was reported to the authorities by the Muslim community on a number of separate occasions over the last few years and little or nothing was done about it. The following article is a pretty damning indictment of the UK's security services: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/24/security-services-missed-five-opportunities-stop-manchester/

The article mentions one community leader who said that Abedi had been reported two years ago "because [the community leader] thought [Abedi] was involved in extremism and terrorism". Mohammed Shafiq (https://twitter.com/mshafiquk?lang=en), the chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, is quoted as saying:


People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels. They did not hear anything since.

Furthermore, two friends of Abedi's telephoned the police counter-terrorism hotline separately from one another - five years ago and again last year - after they became concerned that "[Abedi] was supporting terrorism" and due to Abedi having expressed the opinion that "being a suicide bomber was OK".

According to a member of south Manchester's close-knit Libyan community, Akram Ramadan, Abedi had been banned from the mosque in Didsbury due to having confronted the imam there as the imam delivered a sermon denouncing extremism. Ramadan claims Abedi should have been placed on a watch-list because the mosque had reported him as a result of the views he expressed. The mosque had contacted the British Home Office's 'Prevent' (http://www.ltai.info/what-is-prevent/) programme to warn them.

A US official also alleges that members of Abedi's own family had gotten in touch with British police to report that Abedi was "dangerous", whilst it transpires that British authorities were even aware that Abedi's father had connections to a well-known militant group in Libya that happens to be proscribed in Britain.

[CraftyToePoke]

I fully agree with NeverFeltBetter and backstothewall in that dialogue and trying to reach some sort of mutual understanding, agreement or compromise is the way forward, as undesirable as that may sound. It's only being realistic and pragmatic; "military solutions" to conflicts are very rare and they clearly haven't been working over the past ten to twenty years considering tensions have only gotten worse.

What do you offer ISIS though ? What will chill them the f*uck out a bit ?

[Charlie Darwin]

Most are religious fanatics. Would it be too much to announce that any future Muslim terrorists will be buried with the remains of a pig? Might give them something to think about.
I really doubt people who vaporise their bodies are concerned with how their bodies will be buried. Unless you plan on doing DNA tests on blood spatter so you can smear it on a sausage.

[DannyInvincible]

What do you offer ISIS though ? What will chill them the f*uck out a bit ?

In statements, ISIS consistently state that attacks are "in response to [the infidels'] transgressions against the lands of the Muslims": http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manchester-bombing-isis-responsibility-salman-abedi-ariana-grande-concert-shock-awe-tactics-syria-a7752056.html

If such attacks are indeed "blowback", then there's room for movement there on the part of Western governments. Refraining from meddling in the affairs of the Middle East might be a start.

If that's too much to contemplate, another option would be to go after the roots of their funding - which comes from other states, as far as I understand - and exert influence over those states in order to force ISIS to the negotiating table. The ideology of ISIS may appear utterly warped and depraved to us, but they are also humans, like us, with basic needs, desires, grievances and demands. That's not to say that working something out would be easy, but they're not aliens living in bubbles that are immune from the influence or effects of the material conditions within which they operate. They are products of their environment and there are causal reasons for why they think the way they do. I do think that provides room for working towards some sort of "common ground"/conflict resolution, or at least a de-escalation of tension.

Internally, governments could also pursue policies that will prevent, or at least reduce, the marginalisation of minorities, especially Muslims, in Western countries.

[DannyInvincible]

I really doubt people who vaporise their bodies are concerned with how their bodies will be buried. Unless you plan on doing DNA tests on blood spatter so you can smear it on a sausage.

According to info leaked by porous US intelligence to the NY Times, half of Salman Abedi's body (his torso) was actually in tact and had been flung across the foyer of the arena: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/24/world/europe/manchester-arena-bomb-materials-photos.html

That's not to say I'm disagreeing with your general point. I similarly suspect such a policy (as burying whatever remains of suicide bombers may be left with a pig) wouldn't act as a deterrent.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Another thing to bear in mind is the idea of the "accidental guerilla", essentially that large sections of insurgency/terrorist groups like ISIS operating in the Middle East aren't doing so out of any genuine diehard belief in the religious aspects, but because they are young men bored with their crappy lot in life and lack of prospects.

How the west can counter-act that, without undue interference in the internal affairs of the Middle-East, is very tricky. You can pour money into the "legitimate" governments of countries like Iraq for the purposes of improved infrastructure, education, etc, but the results are all over the place in nations factionalised at every level.

[backstothewall]

Another thing to bear in mind is the idea of the "accidental guerilla", essentially that large sections of insurgency/terrorist groups like ISIS operating in the Middle East aren't doing so out of any genuine diehard belief in they religious aspects, but because they are young men bored with their crappy lot in life and lack of prospects.
A lot of the initial success Islamic State enjoyed taking territory was achieved thanks to the military proficiency provided by veterans from the Sadaam Hussein era. The idea that the army of Sadaam Hussein are radical Islamista is obviously laughable. It clearly started as a Sunni Alliance resisting domination by the new Iran backed Shia government in Bagdhad, and the Iran backed regime in Syria.


How the west can counter-act that, without undue interference in the internal affairs of the Middle-East, is very tricky. You can pour money into the "legitimate" governments of countries like Iraq for the purposes of improved infrastructure, education, etc, but the results are all over the place in nations factionalised at every level.

I sometimes feel like the west are guilty of trying to find a miracle drug that will sove the problem without causing any disruption. That is impossible but there are smaller things which could be done to create improvement here and there, which could then be built upon.

For example Tunisia came out of the Arab Spring in fairly good order before the attack on the beach. Tourism has presumably fallen flat on It's face since then but the EU doesn't seem to be doing anything to assist.

If we do nothing, and the new democratic government falls in time, who have we to blame but ourselves?

More limited action to bolster moderate (or at least stable) governments like Tunisia, Kuwait etc, and perhaps establishing some new states where an ethnic group might be able to maintain a stable government. The Kurds and the Druze seem like obvious examples.

But it isn't going to be possible to build a giant multi-ethnic nation states to govern huge areas/populations. Iraq showed that more than clearly

[BonnieShels]

But Iraq, while not ideal did have freedoms of certain degrees under Saddam. Multi-ethnic states are possible but not ideal. Perhaps deciding that changes to the mess that Sykes-Picot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) gave the world should be made around ethnic, religious and ethno-religious lines perhaps may stop this whole sh!tshow finally!

As said above, we are long overdue some sort of Vienna or Versailles again.

[DannyInvincible]

Labour have closed the gap between themselves and the Tories to just 5 points now in the latest YouGov/Times poll (https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/867848732666023936) (taken since Monday's atrocity). The Tories are down one (since the last YouGov survey) and are now at 43 per cent whilst Labour are up three, now at 38 per cent.

Has Monday had an impact? I had anticipated, or feared even, a reactionary lurch to the right, but that seems not to have transpired. Perhaps people are seeing the merits of Corbyn's vehement anti-war stance.

Interestingly, when Labour won the 2005 UK general election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005) and Blair was re-elected as PM, they won 35 per cent of the popular vote. If Corbyn's Labour manage to top that, which appears a distinct possibility if this latest poll is an accurate reflection of popular opinion, the media narrative that "Corbyn is destroying Labour" is exposed as nonsense.

[BonnieShels]

The only thing that concerns me is that Labour in power weakens Scotland's independence argument and the reunification of Ireland somewhat. A slight Tory majority may be no bad thing. Get us to the next Scottish referendum. Watch them make a balls of Brexit and have them hammered in the inevitable following election to an almost rump party. I'd take that.

I've consistently said May is the worst PM ever. It's proving to be the case.

[DannyInvincible]

Here's the ever-insightful John Pilger discussing Monday night's attack on Russia Today:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1iiBuAmQGA


Pilger argued that individual research by the Joint Intelligence Committee, the CIA and the think tank Chatham House all showed that Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War was resulting in a “blowback” of terrorism in the West.

“They were bombs brought about because of Britain’s invasion of Iraq, its whole historic role in the mayhem, exploitation and suffering of the Middle East,” the documentary filmmaker said.

Although Nafeez Ahmed (https://twitter.com/NafeezAhmed), the British Muslim author of this piece (https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-manchester-attack-was-the-price-of-business-as-usual-6a74f385912f), agrees with Donald Trump's description of Salman Abedi as an "evil loser" - whilst I feel such terminology trivialises a complex and serious issue - Ahmed's piece still makes for an interesting read as it looks deeper into what the appeal of joining or acting in the name of ISIS is for young "jihadis". He cites as factors: societal alienation, mental illness, ISIS' promise to recruits of meaning, the "seductive theology of heroic salvation" and "British [or Western] collusion in Saudi Arabia's support for Islamist terror".


So what is it that pushes someone from this confluence of depression, alienation, and ‘social defeat’ into violence? In the case of ISIS, the research to date shows that most people who join up or sympathise are attracted to the group’s promise of meaning — a twisted, but seductive theology of heroic salvation.

People who join Islamist extremist groups, for the most part, are not grounded in religious observance. Instead, usually (though not exclusively) their first major encounter with Islam is through contact with an extremist preacher or recruiter outside the traditional mosque circuit, or by finding extremist literature — often online.

...

Theological illiteracy is actually a useful precondition for the prospective recruit, from ISIS’ perspective. It permits them to effectively promote these ideas in such a way that they push a person into accepting the ISIS worldview. Because the prospective recruit lacks the theological resources and grounding to see ISIS ideology for what it is — a flagrant b*stardisation of Islam.

Meanwhile, in the north of Ireland...

'Calls made by Unionist councillors for British Army to be deployed on the streets of Derry following Manchester terror attack': https://www.derrynow.com/news/calls-made-unionist-councillors-british-army-deployed-streets-derry-following-manchester-terror-attack/164678


Independent Unionist Councillor Maurice Devenney said that troops should be deployed because of the increased terror threat in the wake of the Manchester attack. A minute's silence was held at the meeting for all civilian victims of conflict being particularly mindful of those in Manchester. Speaking at the meeting Alderman Devenney said that the attack had brought back painful memories for those who had lost loved ones due to attacks 'on the mainland by the IRA'. His call was seconded by the UUP's Derek Hussey who said that 'every defence force should be made available' to deal with the terror threat.

You have to wonder what planet these guys are on. British soldiers on the streets of Derry would provoke more trouble and disorder than they'd prevent, and it's hardly as if Derry - of all places - is going to be targeted by ISIS! That these councillors would be prepared to have the peace process threatened by the presence of British troops on Irish streets simply in order to prove their uber-Britishness beggars belief.

[DannyInvincible]

The only thing that concerns me is that Labour in power weakens Scotland's independence argument and the reunification of Ireland somewhat.

This is true, unfortunately. I'm a fan of Corbyn (the fact he's an ally of Irish republicanism wins him extra kudos) and the prospect of another half a decade (at least) of Tory rule disconcerts me, but I also desire Irish unity - preferably as soon as possible - and I can see that Tory rule and all that would most likely come with it (Scottish independence, hard Brexit, the onward march of imperious Anglocentrism, greater economic hardship for ordinary people and the continued destruction of the NHS, for example) would serve to make re-unification much more attractive to the "undecideds" and would, therefore, make it much more likely in the short-term.

No matter what happens, it's a double-edged sword, but I think I could tolerate the immediate pain of a Tory victory for the greater benefit or "payoff" - for this island and the Irish people as a whole - of Irish unity down the road.

[CraftyToePoke]

Have Labour committed to going back to the people with the final deal or am I wrong in that ?

[DannyInvincible]

Have Labour committed to going back to the people with the final deal or am I wrong in that ?

As far as I know, it's not a manifesto (http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017) policy and Corbyn's office seemed to more or less rule it out a month ago: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/20/jeremy-corbyn-john-mcdonnell-speech-establishment-people-brexit


John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, who was attending the speech in Westminster, was asked repeatedly about a second referendum by reporters afterwards, but declined to give an answer.

Mid-afternoon, however, the leaders’ office issued a statement, which definitively ruled out a second referendum as a manifesto pledge. “A second referendum is not our policy and it won’t be in our manifesto,” a spokesman said.

Tory politicians have since been claiming that Labour's plan to scrap the Tories' Great Repeal Bill would make a second referendum practically inevitable (although such claims could well just be their attempts at scaremongering): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/24/labour-plan-frustrate-brexit-scrapping-great-repeal-bill-raises/


A Labour Government will also scrap the Tories’ Brexit White Paper, which set out the Government's plans for Brexit, and “replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union”.

...

Conservative Eurosceptic MPs said the scale of the plans would make it difficult for Jeremy Corbyn, as Prime Minister, not to agree to hold a second referendum.

Iain Duncan-Smith, the former Tory Cabinet minister, said: “The truth is that Labour is running scared that the Liberal Democrats will steal their votes. It is clear and obvious that they are in the worse of all worlds - they are in effect opposing Brexit and raising the prospect of a second referendum but haven't got the guts to say so.”

[DannyInvincible]

As campaigning for the election re-commences, it is understood that Corbyn, in a speech later today, will blame attacks like Monday night's on the UK's foreign policy: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-manchester-attack-terrorism-uk-foreign-policy-wars-speech-a7756266.html


The Labour leader will claim a link between “wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home”, as he relaunches his party’s election campaign on Friday after the three-day pause.

Mr Corbyn will stress that his assessment is shared by the intelligence and security services and “in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children”. “Those terrorists will forever be reviled and held to account for their actions,” he will say.

This will be in accordance with what Eliza Manningham-Buller, a former director general of MI5, stated in 2010 during the Iraq Inquiry. She stated that the invasion of Iraq had "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10693001


"Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam," she said, before immediately correcting herself by adding "not a whole generation, a few among a generation".

The ex-MI5 chief said she shared her concerns that the Iraq invasion would increase the UK's exposure to terrorism with the then home secretary David Blunkett, but did not "recall" discussing the matter with Prime Minister Tony Blair. MI5 did not "foresee the degree to which British citizens would become involved" in terrorist activity after 2004, she admitted. "What Iraq did was produce fresh impetus on people prepared to engage in terrorism," she said, adding that she could produce evidence to back this up.
"The Iraq war heightened the extremist view that the West was trying to bring down Islam. We gave Bin Laden his jihad."

Theresa May is also taking some heat over her cuts to police force spending (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/05/theresa-may-police-cuts/). When Damian O'Reilly, a police officer from Manchester, warned May in 2015 that cuts to police funding would be a risk to the UK's national security, May had dismissed him as "crying wolf" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnaNj3NHovU) and "scaremongering":


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al2F1bkXAK0

[backstothewall]

Multi-ethnic states are possible but not ideal. Perhaps deciding that changes to the mess that Sykes-Picot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) gave the world should be made around ethnic, religious and ethno-religious lines perhaps may stop this whole sh!tshow finally!

Unsurprisingly I'm not going to suggest that the partition of Iraq would solve everything. But at this stage I fail to see how it could get any worse. All the worst predictions of the anti water demonstrators (and more) have come true. Sadaam Hussein behaved like a monster, but he may not have been one. Maybe he was just a realist who knew it was the only way to hold Iraq together.

I'd give a cautious yes to a Sunni state in NW Iraq under some Sunni ex-baath party type. There must be someone from that deck of cards still knocking around.

[Charlie Darwin]

Of all the things I'd call Saddam Hussein, realist would be way down the list. A realist doesn't need to torture people and operate a police state.

[DannyInvincible]

This piece on Katie Hopkins by Spiked's free speech "champion" Brendan O'Neill is such a crock of incoherent and hypocritical b*llocks: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/katie-hopkins-sacking-the-mob-claims-another-scalp/19877#.WShONOvyvDd

He claims that the agreement - which was actually arrived at mutually between LBC and Katie Hopkins (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/26/katie-hopkins-leaves-lbc-radio-final-solution-tweet-manchester-attack) - to end Hopkins' employment with the radio station is a free speech issue, apparently because people on Twitter happened to express outrage at her "final solution" tweet (below) prior to her being relieved of her duties. :confused:

https://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1614806/katie-hopkins.jpg


Some will say LBC is well within its rights to sack Hopkins. ‘Freedom of speech doesn’t include the freedom to have a radio show’, they’ll say. Yawn, but also they’re right, narrowly. Everyone has the right to say what they want, but we don’t have the right to a column or a TV spot or a book deal. But here’s the problem: LBC didn’t make this decision in a vacuum. It wasn’t, so far as we can tell, a clean, simple business decision. No, it has taken this action under duress, under the barbs and anger and threats of a baying Twittermob. People don’t have a right to a radio show, but if they have a radio show and it is taken away from them at the fuming request of liberals who don’t understand the first thing about liberty, then that absolutely is a free-speech issue. Then it is unquestionably an act that falls under the banner, somewhere, of censorship.

What O'Neill colourfully describes as "duress" was merely people holding a viewpoint and expressing it freely. The agreement to end Hopkins' employment was a mutual one, but, even so, the choice to sack Hopkins, if LBC had have wanted to do that, would still have been LBC's. O'Neill even admits this, thereby pretty much rendering his entire argument void.

People on Twitter and elsewhere expressed outrage at Hopkins' (ridiculously offensive) remarks and urged that she be dropped by the station, sure, but it was still the choice of LBC, ultimately and entirely, whether to continue employing her or not. Nobody else could make that choice for them. They were her employer and were fully entitled to end her employment for whatever reason they liked (so long as it didn't constitute a breach of contract or employment law), be that because they made a judgment and feared she would damage their reputation/brand or whatever. Nobody is entitled to popularity or a platform; Katie Hopkins is no exception just because she might have had a radio show.

And of course they didn't come to the decision in a vacuum; LBC and Hopkins don't operate in a vacuum. They operate in, y'know, the real world, where we all live, including O'Neill (as far as I know!), and where words, actions and decisions have knock-on effects and consequences. (For what it's worth, I don't think LBC even confirmed that the tweet or the subsequent Twitter storm were the specific reasons for the decision to part ways, but that didn't stop O'Neill from making all sorts of daft assumptions and allegations.)

O'Neill is on very shaky ground when he claims that people on Twitter venting fury are a threat to (Hopkins') free speech seemingly simply by virtue of them having vented their fury. Aren't people on Twitter who vent their fury simply exercising their right to free speech? If they wish to boycott LBC because they don't agree with Hopkins' views, they're perfectly entitled as free citizens to do that as well, aren't they? Again, they'd simply be exercising their right to free expression. What's the issue? Why does O'Neill have such a gripe with this?

What's the logical conclusion of what O'Neill is arguing exactly? That people should have to listen to LBC and give their time to Katie Hopkins, even if they disagree with her, because they're not allowed to boycott or ignore whatever they wish?...

Essentially, O'Neill's piece is about the author himself taking a huff because other people in the world happen to hold views or happen to engage in forms of expression with which he disagrees. Some free speech advocate he is!... :rolleyes:

In another piece for the Tory-sympathetic Spectator, O'Neill condemns Corbyn for supposedly having "politicised" Monday night's attack: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/jeremy-corbyn-politicising-islamist-murder/


In the days since the Manchester attack I’ve encountered loads of people saying our foreign policy is to blame or that Blair is at the root of this current chaos. If only he hadn’t invaded Iraq. There is curiously prejudiced bent to this argument. The suggestion seems to be that Iraqis or Libyans or Syrians do not bear true responsibility for the movements they create or the policies they pursue. I agree that Blair’s invasion of Iraq was a colossal error and that it created a post-Saddam vacuum into which all sorts of forces could move and grow. But these forces, including Isis, are made up of sentient adults. They have free will. They are consciously choosing to be evil. To blame Blair, or Cameron or May, for what Isis does in Fallujah, never mind in Manchester, is to suggest these people lack moral capacity and autonomy. It is an ironically colonialist take on allegedly child-like foreigners; it’s tinged with racism.

Corbyn didn't politicise the attack. The attack was already inherently political by virtue of it occurring and affecting people's lives. How could it not have been political? It didn't happen in a vacuum either. We live in a world of cause and effect, where sentient beings react to and make rational (or emotional) decisions, including moral judgements, based on their circumstances and material conditions, which necessarily deny us absolute autonomy and which naturally influence who we are, how we think and how we behave. This is the same for every human being. Acknowledging that fact isn't racist.

Glenn Greenwald actually dealt very well with this specific form of misrepresentation in a piece he wrote last year in relation to the general debate over the causes of terrorism in the West: https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/the-deceptive-debate-over-what-causes-terrorism-against-the-west/


[I]t’s a total mischaracterization to claim that those who recognize a causal connection [between Western foreign policy and terrorism against the West] are denying that terrorists have autonomy or choice. To the contrary, the argument is that they are engaged in a decision-making process — a very expected and predictable one — whereby they conclude that violence against the West is justified as a result of Western violence against predominantly Muslim countries. To believe that is not to deny that terrorists possess agency; it’s to attribute agency to them.

The whole point of the argument is that they are not forced or compelled or acting out of reflex; the point is that they have decided that the only valid and effective response to Western attacks on and interference in Muslim societies is to attack back. When asked by a friend about the prospect of “peaceful protest” against U.S. violence and interference in Muslim countries, Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, replied: “Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows?”

One can, needless to say, object to the validity of that reasoning. But one cannot deny that the decision to engage in this violence is the reasoning process in action.

By pointing out the causal connection between U.S. violence and the decision to bring violence to the West, one is not denying that the attackers lack agency, nor is one claiming they are “forced” by the West to do this, nor is one “infantilizing” them. To recognize this causation is to do exactly the opposite: to point out that some human beings will decide — using their rational and reasoning faculties and adult decision-making capabilities — that violence is justified and even necessary against those who continually impose violence and aggression on others (and, for the logically impaired, see the update here (https://theintercept.com/2014/10/22/canada-proclaiming-war-12-years-shocked-someone-attacked-soldiers/) on explaining — yet again — that causation is not the same as justification).

People don't tend to "consciously choose to be evil" either. That is as if to suggest that someone who causes harm is some sort of cartoon villain who just gets a thrill out of inflicting harm upon people for harm's sake. Rather, what we or others regard as "evil" is perpetrated mainly by ordinary people, who respond to perceived harms to them - including perceived "provocations" by their victims - in ways that they've convinced themselves are perfectly moral, reasonable and just.

I would suggest that all humans, depending on our environment and circumstances, are capable of doing something that might be regarded by others as "evil". It's commonplace and banal. In fact, most if not all of the major atrocities in human history were carried out by ordinary people who believed that they were doing "good", that they were innocent victims of some perceived wrong or possibly even that they had some deity on their side. They simultaneously may have believed that their enemies were the "evil" or "harmful" ones. People tend to convince themselves that what they are doing is the right thing and there is no doubt that Salman Abedi convinced himself of exactly that too.

[DannyInvincible]

'Hundreds of Muslim children and their families marched to the Manchester Arena': http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/muslims-march-to-manchester-arena-13100687


Hundreds of Muslim children and families said prayers and laid flowers outside the Manchester Arena for those killed and injured in Monday’s attack. North Manchester Jamia Mosque in Cheetham Hill organised the walk to show their disgust at the actions of bomber Salman Abedi - and to show their solidarity with victims.

Around 500 adults and children from across the city’s Muslim community in north Manchester took part in the Friday evening peace walk from the Woodlands Road mosque to the Manchester Arena. Carrying flowers and balloons, they walked the three-mile distance to the site of the indoor venue to hold a vigil outside the scene.

[DannyInvincible]

Boris Johnson dubbed Jeremy Corbyn "absolutely monstrous" yesterday for having said something he's said himself in the past (video in link): http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-just-called-jeremy-10506835

In 2005, when there were political points to be scored from criticising Blair's Labour after the London 7/7 bombings, Johnson said (https://www.spectator.co.uk/2005/07/just-dont-call-it-war/) it was "difficult to deny" that foreign wars increase the terror threat in the UK, but was yesterday condemning Corbyn for having said the very same thing in his Saturday morning speech. Johnson is the epitome of the politician who will say virtually anything if it is politically expedient to do so. Opportunistic flip-flops are his modus operandi.

In fact, the Tories generally have rounded on Corbyn in faux-outrage since yesterday morning's speech suggesting a link between the UK's foreign policy and terrorism. The insincerity of their condemnation was further exposed (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/27/fallon-left-red-faced-after-condemning-boris-johnson-extremism-comments) by Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 News who astutely set up an interview question ("Isn't it possible that things like the Iraq war did not create the problem of murderous Islamic fundamentalists, though the war has unquestionably sharpened the resentments felt by such people in this country and given them a new pretext?") for defence secretary Michael Fallon which quoted Boris Johnson in such a way that Fallon ignorantly assumed the words being quoted were Corbyn's.

Of course, Fallon fell for it hook, line and sinker. He condemned the words, believing them to have been spoken by Corbyn, only for it to then be revealed to him that he had actually just denounced words that had been written by his own foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. Fallon immediately tried to claim that what Johnson had said actually concurred with Fallon's expressed position before being corrected by Guru-Murthy. Fallon then tried to dodge admitting the contradiction and opportunistic hypocrisy at the root of the current Tory stance by claiming he wasn't entirely sure of what Johnson had said because he didn't have the text of Johnson's words in front of him. This was despite Guru-Murthy having been very clear and having clarified the words for him.

A video of the exchange:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvpaO8nP19A

There's a video of the full interview here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wTPckw2m1Y&feature=share).

[backstothewall]

Of all the things I'd call Saddam Hussein, realist would be way down the list. A realist doesn't need to torture people and operate a police state.

Has anyone ever been able to create stability in Iraq without using such means?

[DannyInvincible]

Investigators now seem to think many of Salman Abedi's movements and actions were "carried out alone" in the four days prior to the attack: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40103563


"Our enquiries show Abedi himself made most of the purchases of the core [bomb] components and what is becoming apparent is that many of his movements and actions have been carried out alone during the four days from him landing in the country and committing this awful attack," said Det Chief Supt Jackson.

However, it was "vital" that police make sure he is not part of a wider network and there were a "number of things" about this behaviour that were a concern, he added.

It is interesting that investigators are now saying they "[can't] rule out a wider network" whilst last week they were suggesting that Abedi was part of a network with near certainty.

[DannyInvincible]

'Religious scholars issue unanimous fatwa declaring suicide attacks Haram': https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/207047-Religious-scholars-issue-unanimous-fatwa-declaring-suicide-attacks-Haram


Religious scholars from all schools of thought on Saturday issued a fatwa (religious decree) that declared suicide attacks, armed insurgency against a state and use of force in the name of imposing Shariah as ‘Haram’ or forbidden in Islam.

The fatwa carrying signatures of 31 noted scholars was released at a seminar “'Reconstruction of Pakistani society in the light of 'Mithaq-e-Madina' (Charter of Madina) and announcement of 'Paigham-e-Pakistan' (Message of Pakistan). The event was organised by the Islamic Research Institute of the International Islamic University Islamabad.

[DannyInvincible]

'MI6, Theresa May and the Manchester attack': http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-05-30/mi6-theresa-may-and-the-manchester-attack/


Back in the late 1990s, MI6 effectively sponsored [UK-based Libyans'] trips overseas to become fighters against Muammar Gaddafi. They came to be known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG.

After 9/11, the LIFG became a proscribed organisation for its extreme jihadist agenda. But it was back in business with MI6 after 2011 [whilst Theresa May was Home Secretary] and the Arab Spring. The fighters were encouraged to travel abroad again to help remove Gaddafi, as Libya became the target of yet more western-sponsored “humanitarian intervention”. Salman Abedi, the young man responsible for the Manchester attack, and his father are believed to have been among them. Abedi would have been only 16 at the time.

[NeverFeltBetter]

The Libyan intervention was always a quagmire dressed up as an incredible success. It's amazing how what has happened there since has slipped under the radar.

[DannyInvincible]

The Libyan intervention was always a quagmire dressed up as an incredible success. It's amazing how what has happened there since has slipped under the radar.

John Pilger's take on matters: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/31/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know/


The unsayable in Britain’s general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy. Critical questions – such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist “assets” in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst – remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal “review”.

The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years. The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organisation which seeks a “hardline Islamic state” in Libya and “is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida

[DannyInvincible]

Another evidentiary compilation piece by Mark Curtis and Dr. Nafeez Ahmed on "the Manchester bombing as blowback": http://markcurtis.info/2017/06/03/the-manchester-bombing-as-blowback-the-latest-evidence/


The evidence suggests that the barbaric Manchester bombing, which killed 22 innocent people on May 22nd, is a case of blowback on British citizens arising at least partly from the overt and covert actions of British governments. The British state therefore has a serious case to answer. We focus primarily here on UK policies towards Libya but also touch on some of those related to Iraq and Syria.

...

In summary, the evidence so far shows that there are six inter-related aspects of blowback:


Salman Abedi and his father were members of a Libyan dissident group – the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) – covertly supported by the UK to assassinate Qadafi in 1996. At this time, the LIFG was an affiliate of Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and LIFG leaders had various connections to this terror network.
Members of the LIFG were facilitated by the British ‘security services’ to travel to Libya to fight Qadafi in 2011. Both Salman Abedi and his father, Ramadan, were among those who travelled to fight at this time (although there is no evidence that their travel was personally facilitated or encouraged by the security services).
A large number of LIFG fighters in Libya in 2011 had earlier fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq – the al-Qaeda entity which later established a presence in Syria and became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). These fighters were among those recruited into the British-backed anti-Qadafi rebellion.
UK covert action in Libya in 2011 included approval of and support to Qatar’s arming and backing of opposition forces, which included support to hardline Islamist groups; this fuelled jihadism in Libya.
One of the groups armed/supported by Qatar in 2011 was the February 17th Martyrs Brigade which, some reports suggest, was the organisation which Ramadan Abedi joined in 2011 to fight Qadafi.
Qatar’s arms supplies to Libya in 2011 also found their way to Islamist fighters in Syria, including groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS.

[DannyInvincible]

An excellent article here by Jonathan Cook on the attacks in London last night; 'Why the London terror attack occurred now': http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-06-04/why-the-london-terror-attack-occurred-now/


Based on prior experience, [those behind the attacks] will assume that by striking now they can increase fear and anger among the British population – intensifying anti-Muslim rhetoric, justifying harsher “security” responses from the British state and shifting political support towards the right. That is good for their cause because it radicalises other disillusioned Muslim youth. In short, it brings recruits. Islam is not exceptional in this regard. This is not a problem specifically of religion. As experts have repeatedly pointed out, disillusioned, frustrated, angry (and mainly male) youth adopt existing ideologies relevant to them and then search for the parts that can be twisted to justify their violence. The violent impulse exists and they seek an ideology to rationalise it.

...

The Islamic terrorists of our time believe in a violent, zero-sum clash of civilisations. That should not be surprising, as their ideology mirrors the dominant ideology – neo-conservatism – of western foreign policy establishments. Both sides are locked in a terrifying dance of death. Both believe that two “civilisations” exist and are incompatible, that they are in a fight to the death, and that any measures are justified to achieve victory because the struggle is existential. We use drones and “humanitarian intervention” to destabilise their societies; they use cars, guns, knives and bombs to destabilise ours.

[KrisLetang]

Who is this Diane Abott woman? Dear God. Seems barely literate. U.K. might be screwed. That is a person in a leadership position? She makes Dan Quayle sound like Albert Einstein.

[Charlie Darwin]

She maybe be dim by the standards of politicians here but your lot still have the lifetime patent on that particular genre.

[BonnieShels]

The endless bullying of Abbott is beyond disgusting and has been relentless during the campaign. The talk of her to "suck it up" just makes me want all the more for her to end up as Home Sec and shove it up the Tories.

[DannyInvincible]

Who is this Diane Abott woman? Dear God. Seems barely literate. U.K. might be screwed. That is a person in a leadership position? She makes Dan Quayle sound like Albert Einstein.

She's not in a leadership position and has been replaced as shadow home secretary, reportedly due to a "period of ill health", so is unlikely to be in a leadership position even if Labour can form a government after the general election tomorrow.

[DannyInvincible]

The endless bullying of Abbott is beyond disgusting and has been relentless during the campaign. The talk of her to "suck it up" just makes me want all the more for her to end up as Home Sec and shove it up the Tories.

It's pretty distasteful alright, but the Tories and their backers in the media have always preferred to focus on the personal rather than policies, because their policies aren't in most people's interests. Nasty politics.

[KrisLetang]

Serious question...is it known if the London Mayor's parents are first cousins? I understand that many of the Pakistani immigrant children in England are in that situation? Up to 90%??!!

[KrisLetang]

I sadly have to agree with this piece. Where's Diane Abott's brilliance when you need her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4578026/KATIE-HOPKINS-Ineffectual-people-supposed-protect-us.html

[DannyInvincible]

Serious question...is it known if the London Mayor's parents are first cousins? I understand that many of the Pakistani immigrant children in England are in that situation? Up to 90%??!!

Have you read somewhere that Khan's parents were first cousins or are you just asking if they were? I'm not aware that they were, nor can I find any reference to such being the case, so I would say it's unlikely.

And where did you get the 90 per cent figure? Generally, the figure for the percentage of Pakistani immigrants in the UK who marry a first cousin is said to be around 55 per cent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#United_Kingdom).

[KrisLetang]

Molotov cocktail thrown into restaurant in Paris suburb tonight.

[peadar1987]

I sadly have to agree with this piece. Where's Diane Abott's brilliance when you need her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4578026/KATIE-HOPKINS-Ineffectual-people-supposed-protect-us.html

Katie Hopkins? Seriously?!

[KrisLetang]

She's like Ann Coulter, not PC but you can't deny how often she is right. She always ends up right. And the more she is right the more often she gets fired for saying the un-PC truths. Which is ultimately counter productive to society. She also makes me laugh for being so self depreciating at times ( "I look like a tampon with knobs" was a recent quip)...a personality trait you rarely, if ever, see on the pompous, over educated limousine left.

They take themselves SO seriously. Coulter is really genuinely funny at times too. Contrast that with people like Dan Rather and the like. He "resigned" in shame for making up that story about Bush but is still out there spewing nonsense pretending to be an elder statesman. That's what I love about news anchors. They get paid to read off a teleprompter. None of them write anything they say. So anyone who can read can do their job. It's so silly.

Caveat: One time Rather showed up for work with a black eye. He claimed a "deranged maniac" came up to him out of nowhere and shouted "What's the frequency Kenneth" and punched him in the face. REM wrote a song about it. He was terrible at lying.

[DannyInvincible]

She's like Ann Coulter, not PC but you can't deny how often she is right. She always ends up right. And the more she is right the more often she gets fired for saying the un-PC truths. Which is ultimately counter productive to society. She also makes me laugh for being so self depreciating at times ( "I look like a tampon with knobs" was a recent quip)...a personality trait you rarely, if ever, see on the pompous, over educated limousine left.

They take themselves SO seriously. Coulter is really genuinely funny at times too.

Ann Coulter is a hypocrite who purports to stand up for free speech and the expression of unpopular, impolitic or "un-PC" views. She'll have us believe she loathes "political correctness" for its supposed chilling effect on expression. In reality, she only believes in "free expression" so long as that expression falls within the realm of what she deems to be acceptable, tolerable or politically correct. See her exceptionally illiberal and vindictive outrage (http://foot.ie/threads/219506-Trump?p=1917876&viewfull=1#post1917876) in reaction to Colin Kaepernick's US anthem stance, for example. She professes to stand up for the marginalised; only problem is that, in her warped conception of reality, she inexplicably thinks some mythical "silent majority" represent society's marginalised rather than those who are actually on society's periphery.

She was taking herself very seriously in relation to Kaepernick (presumably because his stance threatened the political and cultural fabric of the privileged bubble she inhabits), but I guess, on many other matters, she enjoys the luxury of not having to take things as seriously as those who don't share the same level of privilege as she does or as those who are at the butt of her prejudice and who suffer discrimination or ill treatment as a result of it. Life tends to be a bit more serious for those who find themselves closer to rock bottom. I'm sure Coulter has a lot less to be worrying about from her lofty perch. She has the luxury to self-deprecate, to dispense with serious critical thinking and can peddle her nonsense opinions without fear. Whilst others suffer the consequences of her nasty bile, she gets book deals.

Katie Hopkins is little more than a professional troll who evidently craves attention in order to satisfy some deep urge or need to feel relevant and empowered. Besides entirely lacking any sense of dignity, she presents simplistic and lazy "solutions" to complex social issues (as part of her "telling it as it is" schtick) that appear superficially attractive to people because they play on their primal fears and insecurities.

Poor people who've been experiencing a squeeze on their wallets due to the neoliberal programme of austerity are particularly vulnerable to her "charms". Instead of holding power to account and calling out the real reasons for poverty, inequality, crime and social unrest, the likes of Hopkins instead focus their contemptible energies on convincing the poor, unemployed, miseducated and disenfranchised that some "smelly", "animalistic" or "threatening" group of even poorer people on the social rung below them - immigrants (who also conveniently happen to look a bit different from them) - are why they're so poor and are why they're experiencing a relative diminishing in social status as the gulf between Britain's poorest and Britain's richest widens exponentially.

Check out this interview of Hopkins by the BBC's Andrew Neil:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPGJs_skkgI

Personally, I find Neil to be a bit of a churlish tw*t at times, but he does at least do a good job in exposing the contradictions, incoherence and ultimate vacuity of Hopkins' nonsense. She "always ends up right"? I don't think so. Neil runs rings around her.

Essentially, Hopkins' arguments are base appeals to prejudice and caricature. She's a bigot who scapegoats visible minorities and society's most vulnerable. She may appear to have guts, but, in reality, she's a coward who prefers to take the easy route of punching down rather than up. That she deflects attention away from those in power and away from those in whose favour society's wealth is disproportionately distributed is a convenient bonus for such people, or maybe that's part of the reason why they reward her with columns and air-time in the first place... Who knows?

[DannyInvincible]

Molotov cocktail thrown into restaurant in Paris suburb tonight.

French police believe this was a botched robbery: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-four-injured-molotov-cocktail-10606790

[Real ale Madrid]

Caveat: One time Rather showed up for work with a black eye. He claimed a "deranged maniac" came up to him out of nowhere and shouted "What's the frequency Kenneth" and punched him in the face. REM wrote a song about it. He was terrible at lying.

I once had my picture taken with REM. I often show people; That's me in the corner.