Manchester atrocity

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

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 policy and Corbyn's office seemed to more or less rule it out a month ago: https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-people-brexit

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Peter Walker and Jessica Elgot

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...l-bill-raises/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Christopher Hope and Steven Swinford

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.”

---

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...-a7756266.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rob Merrick

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BBC News

"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. 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" and "scaremongering":

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BonnieShels

Multi-ethnic states are possible but not ideal. Perhaps deciding that changes to the mess that Sykes-Picot 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.

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.

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...7#.WShONOvyvDd

He claims that the agreement - which was actually arrived at mutually between LBC and Katie Hopkins - 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/1614...ie-hopkins.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brendan O'Neill

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/2017/0...lamist-murder/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brendan O'Neill

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/...inst-the-west/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Glenn Greenwald

[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 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.

'Hundreds of Muslim children and their families marched to the Manchester Arena': http://www.manchestereveningnews.co....arena-13100687

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bethany Lodge

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.

---

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/politic...eremy-10506835

In 2005, when there were political points to be scored from criticising Blair's Labour after the London 7/7 bombings, Johnson said 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 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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BBC News

"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.

'Religious scholars issue unanimous fatwa declaring suicide attacks Haram': https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/20...-attacks-Haram

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The News International

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.

---

'MI6, Theresa May and the Manchester attack': http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/20...hester-attack/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jonathan Cook

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.

---

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

John Pilger's take on matters: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/...minister-know/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by John Pilger

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

---

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark Curtis and Dr. Nafeez Ahmed

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:

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

---

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/20...-occurred-now/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jonathan Cook

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.

---

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

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 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.

---

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.