Foreign policy and terrorism in UK - any connection?
Discussion
desolate said:
Deptford Draylons said:
desolate said:
Deptford Draylons said:
Why is Sweden a target ?
Difficult question - can I have a clue?f
k off. (that's a phrasal verb, not an answer)Edited by Deptford Draylons on Saturday 27th May 01:31
Deptford Draylons said:
Why is Sweden a target ?
The same reason that some people here talk about all muslims as one community (and not by country) similarly groups like ISIS see the 'west'/christians/etc as one community. Also separately in the non-ISIS community the impact of events and actions unfortunately last a long time. E.g. Trump selling $300bn of business to the Saudi's including arms that will be dropped on the Yeminis. Any relatives of civilian casualties will blame the west (including Britain, Sweden, etc) and not just the US per se. This anger to the west could last the entire lifetime of the local community that is a victim of that event.
So although Corbyn is partly right, there is a link, but partly wrong in that even if Britain does nothing else in the ME but US keeps arming one side or the other or are seen to be directly or indirectly causing the deaths of local civilians, Britain through its 'special relationship' and unwavering support of the US will continue to be seen as one of the western community of aggressors (by the locals)
Edited by LaSource on Saturday 27th May 03:19
Deptford Draylons said:
desolate said:
Deptford Draylons said:
Why is Sweden a target ?
Difficult question - can I have a clue?s2art said:
Hold on. He went to train in Libya after /Gaddafi had gone.Why would that be? The UK had supported his and his fathers cause in ridding Libya of Gaddafi, why wasnt he grateful? And Libya was about to be plunged into civil war before we intervened.
He went to Libya to fight alongside the so called rebels to get rid of Gaddafi.If we hadn't got involved in bombing Libya, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to become a terrorist in this way.
I'm not sure what's difficult to understand here. We helped Isis take over parts of Libya. Because we wanted rid of Gaddafi we didn't stop to see who we were helping.
UK foreign policy lesson. My enemies enemy isn't always my friend.
Luther Blissett said:
According to Mustafa Setmariam Nasar the tactic is to create a backlash against the muslim population which in turn creates more terrorism, and basically becomes a positive feedback loop until eventually all hell breaks loose. Obviously having a muslim population is a prerequisite for that tactic to work.
Precisely this.I would further suggest that the Muslim birth rate is far higher than the natives, meaning their numbers are increasing rapidly, exacerbating the problem as surveillance becomes nigh on impossible.
So far, the backlash has been kept in check, but it won't take many more outrages before the s
t hits the fan.Is there a connection with UK foreign policy? Indirectly, yes. But as I pointed out on another thread, if we withdrew all our planes, ships, training forces etc from every Muslim nation, & stopped selling them weapons, would the terror problem evaporate over night????
Security Minister Ben Wallace's assertion that there's no connection between foreign policy and terrorism seems either naive then, or designed to mislead.
I don't imagine he's naive, so I'm concluding he has a political motive for stating that there is no connection between foreign polcy and terrorism here.
Actually, I was quite struck by his phrasing when he answered the question.
He said the only people to blame where the individual terrorists themselves, which is the current media phrasing used when avoiding 'victim blaming', which is fine when talking about sex attacks when the only person to blame is the actual attacker but less convincing when talking about terrorism which tends to have some external motivating factors outside of the individual terrorist's sense of self-gratification.
It's an effective media/pr technique but misunderstood and wrongly used by Ben Wallace in these circumstances.
Actions have consequences and we don't always know what they'll be and aren't able to control them either.
I don't imagine he's naive, so I'm concluding he has a political motive for stating that there is no connection between foreign polcy and terrorism here.
Actually, I was quite struck by his phrasing when he answered the question.
He said the only people to blame where the individual terrorists themselves, which is the current media phrasing used when avoiding 'victim blaming', which is fine when talking about sex attacks when the only person to blame is the actual attacker but less convincing when talking about terrorism which tends to have some external motivating factors outside of the individual terrorist's sense of self-gratification.
It's an effective media/pr technique but misunderstood and wrongly used by Ben Wallace in these circumstances.
Actions have consequences and we don't always know what they'll be and aren't able to control them either.
I think it's far too easy to overcomplicate the issue of terrorism.
We can leave it to the professional experts to try and categorise and understand the motives behind different terrorist organisations but one thing is common amongst all those who commit acts of terror.
They ares.
Explains a lot, doesn't it? Simple. Then work from there.
Is there a connection between foreign policy and terrorism? Might be. In specific cases.
Controlled violence can achieve a lot. Uncontrolled acts of barbarism are most straightforwardly explained by my former contention.
We can leave it to the professional experts to try and categorise and understand the motives behind different terrorist organisations but one thing is common amongst all those who commit acts of terror.
They are
s.Explains a lot, doesn't it? Simple. Then work from there.
Is there a connection between foreign policy and terrorism? Might be. In specific cases.
Controlled violence can achieve a lot. Uncontrolled acts of barbarism are most straightforwardly explained by my former contention.
s2art said:
Why did Gaddafi fund the IRA? What about our foreign policy prompted that? Various groups in the ME (Taliban, AQ etc ) have been involved in terror before we even invaded Iraq. Bin Laden first attacked NY in the 1990's well before the USA invaded Iraq or Afghanistan. The excuses given after the terror attack are merely window dressing, the root cause can be found in the words written by ISIS. Stop buying into a false narrative.
The CIA trained Bin Laden in the 1970s as a freedom fighter / terrorist against Russia in Afghanistan. He was the original "moderate rebel". The Manchester bomb is just a repeat of the same lesson, not that we will learn from it. Before that the CIA were manipulating Russia into invading Afghanistan as they knew what a land war in Asia does to you.Yes, nothing would immediately stop if we changed our foreign policy now. Revenge has momentum.
And Islam in fundamentally expansionist - a return to Old Testament convert, conquer, kill approach. It's in the book.
But the connection from our actions to these killings is clear. There is a straight forward sequence of events from our actions to the blowback, running over decades. We trained the bombers who trained the bombers who bombed us.
Don said:
I think it's far too easy to overcomplicate the issue of terrorism.
We can leave it to the professional experts to try and categorise and understand the motives behind different terrorist organisations but one thing is common amongst all those who commit acts of terror.
They ares.
Explains a lot, doesn't it? Simple. Then work from there.
Is there a connection between foreign policy and terrorism? Might be. In specific cases.
Controlled violence can achieve a lot. Uncontrolled acts of barbarism are most straightforwardly explained by my former contention.
I would speculate that our 'foreign policy' can be viewed as terrorism by the people who have to put up with it. We can leave it to the professional experts to try and categorise and understand the motives behind different terrorist organisations but one thing is common amongst all those who commit acts of terror.
They are
s.Explains a lot, doesn't it? Simple. Then work from there.
Is there a connection between foreign policy and terrorism? Might be. In specific cases.
Controlled violence can achieve a lot. Uncontrolled acts of barbarism are most straightforwardly explained by my former contention.
So they would view us in the same way you view them.
That's a reasonable conclusion.
Unlike us, they don't always believe we must be acting in their best interests.
It's all about perspective and other countries have points of view that are different to ours - which doesn't always make them wrong - or right - but it helps explain things I think.
footnote said:
Security Minister Ben Wallace's assertion that there's no connection between foreign policy and terrorism seems either naive then, or designed to mislead.
I don't imagine he's naive, so I'm concluding he has a political motive for stating that there is no connection between foreign polcy and terrorism here.
I think that the many people take a very black and white view of a very nuanced situation.I don't imagine he's naive, so I'm concluding he has a political motive for stating that there is no connection between foreign polcy and terrorism here.
If there's the merest acceptance that foreign policy may be one of the motivations of some terrorists you're justifying it or an apologist or criticising our foreign policy.
It can't be foreign policy because there were attacks in Sweden and they weren't involved as if every terrorist acts for exactly the same set of motives and reasons.
The list goes on but you can't treat all of these things as mutually exclusive.
Luther Blissett said:
Deptford Draylons said:
Why is Sweden a target ?
According to Mustafa Setmariam Nasar the tactic is to create a backlash against the muslim population which in turn creates more terrorism, and basically becomes a positive feedback loop until eventually all hell breaks loose. Obviously having a muslim population is a prerequisite for that tactic to work.
These are some Twitter accounts I've found really helpful to learn more about this:
https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi
https://twitter.com/intelwire
https://twitter.com/rcallimachi
https://twitter.com/abususu
https://twitter.com/MazMHussain
Can anyone suggest any others?
grumbledoak said:
The CIA trained Bin Laden in the 1970s as a freedom fighter / terrorist against Russia in Afghanistan. He was the original "moderate rebel". The Manchester bomb is just a repeat of the same lesson, not that we will learn from it. Before that the CIA were manipulating Russia into invading Afghanistan as they knew what a land war in Asia does to you.
Yes, nothing would immediately stop if we changed our foreign policy now. Revenge has momentum.
And [b]Islam in fundamentally expansionist - a return to Old Testament convert, conquer, kill approach. It's in the book.[b/]
But the connection from our actions to these killings is clear. There is a straight forward sequence of events from our actions to the blowback, running over decades. We trained the bombers who trained the bombers who bombed us.
Some good points there, and yes and no to the bold bit. Whilst there are expansionist verses, there are also non expansionist verses, like all religious texts, it's ambiguous and gets embellished. Yes, nothing would immediately stop if we changed our foreign policy now. Revenge has momentum.
And [b]Islam in fundamentally expansionist - a return to Old Testament convert, conquer, kill approach. It's in the book.[b/]
But the connection from our actions to these killings is clear. There is a straight forward sequence of events from our actions to the blowback, running over decades. We trained the bombers who trained the bombers who bombed us.
Even if we take the expansionist view and ignore any other view, it's a book. It only manifests itself as a result of its followers. If you remove one of the reasons why hard of thinking terrorists might be attracted to the cause, ie, current foreign policy, that might result in less recruitment.
It's a really complex problem, and one which the Quran unfortunately allows itself to be hijacked by because of some of its verses.
Evanivitch said:
skyrover said:
Travel to Pakistan and draw a picture of Muhammed... See how long you survive
Given that Muhammed, and variations of, account for a large number of the Pakistani population, I think you're trying to make a crass point from a position of ignorance.The point being... we could have locked ourselves away for millennia and still been a target.
Our beliefs and freedoms are completely incompatible and this alone makes us fair game. The fact we are nothing more than infidel makes us a target.
How many successful Democracies exist in the middle east? I count one... and it isn't Islamic,
I just like that these G7 blokes have all gone to Rome, sat in a nice open air ampitheather with a lovely orchestra and decided that internet companies need to do more to combat terrorism. Oh and yet again, they couldn't decide on what to do about climate change.
Till the next meeting chaps! A job well done. Let's try Barbados next time.
fk me.
Till the next meeting chaps! A job well done. Let's try Barbados next time.
f
k me.Deptford Draylons said:
Why is Sweden a target ?
Perhaps Swedish culture represents everything extremist Muslims hate?Anyone see this C4 programme on the origins of ISIS violence?
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/isis-the-origin...
There's a good, detailed article about this here:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/attack-...
The war on terror has been a bit like the war on drugs; a piece of political PR to make people at home feel like the problem is being addressed, while not actually addressing the problem at all and therefore making it worse.
It hasn't worked. It needs bigger and braver ideas now.
The author of the article above says our choice is to either continue with things as they are and accept some of us will be blown up occasionally, or to totally rethink the lines drawn up by the British and French colonialists and reorganise the middle east in a more logical way. Interesting idea, and probably true.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/attack-...
Article said:
It was in many ways a return to the U.S. policies of decades past, ones that helped bring us to this violent moment in history. Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, a Saudi citizen, frequently cited American support for repressive Arab dictatorships, as well as Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, as his casus belli for jihad against the United States. His deputy and successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was radicalized as a teenager by the U.S.-backed Egyptian government’s harsh repression of the Muslim Brotherhood.
We can't take our politicians seriously when they declare they are doing all they can while they persist with a strategy that hasn't improved anything in decades. The war on terror has been a bit like the war on drugs; a piece of political PR to make people at home feel like the problem is being addressed, while not actually addressing the problem at all and therefore making it worse.
It hasn't worked. It needs bigger and braver ideas now.
The author of the article above says our choice is to either continue with things as they are and accept some of us will be blown up occasionally, or to totally rethink the lines drawn up by the British and French colonialists and reorganise the middle east in a more logical way. Interesting idea, and probably true.
Edited by durbster on Saturday 27th May 09:35
Just look at the target in Manchester. Young girls and women attending a pop concert, by a young woman. Sadly this way of life is totally abhorrent to the stone age beliefs of the Islamic fundamentalists living in our country.
Sure, foreign policy doesn't help, but as Sweden proves, they're coming for us anyway.
Sure, foreign policy doesn't help, but as Sweden proves, they're coming for us anyway.
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