The Olympics had my favourite one of these, where a ‘journalist’ placed peices of paper with the word ‘BOMB’ written on them under stadium seats, and then declared that they could have planted bombs instead. C’est ne pas un bomb. Or whatever. Or as the police cheif put it – sniffer dogs are trained to sniff out explosives. Not peices of paper. You could tell that under his breath there was something like – you stupid fucking prick.
‘It could have been a bomb’ is no better than walking into Tescos with a raincoat on and then, once you are safely home, declaring that under that coat there could have been a machine gun and you could have murdered everyone. Whoopy-doo. What an amazing claim.
Incidentally, if Al Queda is reduced to an ‘ideology’ which includes any Muslim terrorist then it is a useless concept as far as effective strategies vs. terrorism are concerned, only having value as a political tool to maintain a state of tension.
]]>Surely then it’s unbeatable without killing all the Muslims? Or would just Osama do?
]]>http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5170380-103677,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=629209
In the latter one, scroll down and read below "What now for the terror laws?"
Oh Bollocks, I now see that this is actually the article which John linked to (I should actually click on them, instead of just going by what I’ve read on the subject elsewhere). The point is that the truth behind Bourgass, and what Blair etc. tried to make it into, is quite a vast chasm of exaggeration.
Anyway, horse flogged and found to be dead.
]]>"It could be anyone. They don’t have to have links to other terrorists. They don’t need any history of extremism. Any Muslim you know could, at any time, simply decide to start killing for Osama." That would be a more accurate picture, and arguably a scarier one.
I would say that you’re over-egging with "They don’t need any history of extremism." Also, as others have said, it’s not just any Muslim.
But even if this is scarier, it is certainly truer. And it also shows that things like detention without trial, use of torture to get information etc. are not warranted. If there is not some massive, well-organised group behind it all, then those policies will at best achieve nothing, and at worst will alienate other people in communities who might notice lone nutters being nutty, and confirm lone nutter’s paranoia.
The fact we live in a vaguely dangerous world is true. What politicans want us to believe is that we live a dangerous world that they can, with their draconian policies, make less dangerous. It’s this latter view that I have problems with.
]]>Secondly, they don’t just use violence for profit or respect; they also use it to influence voting behaviour. McGuinness’s recent "veiled" death threat against the McCartney sisters is a case in point: opposing the IRA didn’t upset them half as much as threatening to oppose an IRA candidate. Large numbers of Northern Irish Catholics are faced with "Vote for us or die" on a daily basis. The IRA use violence against civilians to manipulate Parliament. That’s the wider point you’re missing about the McCartney murder.
Thirdly, they still use violence to force Protestants to move house.
]]>What is happening in NI, then? I thought the ex-terrorists on both sides had turned into ganglords who robbed and extorted from businesses (including the bank job at Christmas), murdered people like Mr McCartney for disrespecting them, and generally acted like evil ganglords everywhere.
]]>> Mafioso racketeering and punishment shootings
It’s sad that you think that’s all that’s happening. Even if it were, it’s still part of a wider terrorist operation. When Al Qaeda rob a bank to pay for weaponry, that’s terrorism.
]]>The point on Bush is irrelevant: the problem according to Matt is not that some Muslims are lone mentalists, the problem is that it’s becoming easier for lone mentalists of any hue (like Rudolph) to blow things up. I disagree here: lone mentalists have been blowing things up since forever; while bombs have improved, so has policing; and the sky hasn’t fallen yet.
Re: "IRA terrorism is happening": Only if you class Mafioso racketeering and punishment shootings as terrorism, which would be an odd thing to do.
]]>Fair point. Mind you, wouldn’t the real picture be more alarming to the general public? "It could be anyone. They don’t have to have links to other terrorists. They don’t need any history of extremism. Any Muslim you know could, at any time, simply decide to start killing for Osama." That would be a more accurate picture, and arguably a scarier one.
> The problem we have is that it’s becoming increasingly easy for single people, or very small groups of people, to inflict damage upon society. No-one seems to be seriously thinking about how to stop this
No, some people are seriously thinking about how to stop it. Bush’s theory is that you need to stop the totalitarianism and oppression in people’s home countries that diverts their anger into anti-American violence. You may disagree with the theory, but it’s still a serious one.
> The end result is that IRA terrorism isn’t happening anymore, sectarian violence is way down, and NI is going through a cultural and economic resurgence.
No, the terrorism is happening, but it’s no longer happening in mainland Britain. The economic resurgence should have happened at least thirty years ago, and would have if the IRA had been destroyed rather than contained.
]]>