Are we safe? Suspected terrorist attack in London this afternoon

[eighthobstruction]

Another stupid Vox Pop comment....Asian (I think) woman talking about a friend showing her tube footage about Chechnya and atrocities there....she comments " and that is why he hates the British".....Errrrrr??? ....Hmmmmm

[Petrushka]

Why glorify this evil deed with the label of 'terrorism'? As was said, much earlier upthread, this was murder plain and simple. The acres of newsprint and hysterical media coverage provide all the 'oxygen of publicity' the perpetrators could want. Dumb or what?

In any case, if this really is that modern bogeyman, Al-Quaeda, then the use of such low-level operatives indicates, as others have done before them, that they have long been a busted flush.

[Ian Thumwood]

Can I say this is one of the more sensible posts on this thread? Totally deluded, possibly schizophrenic perhaps? I wouldn't be surprised, when it comes to trial, that mental health issues play a big part.
As to the Kippers and the vile EDL, well it's any excuse isn't it? The smashing of windows of mosques reeks of the Black Shirts and the attacks on synagogues.

Anna

Someone I work with provoked a very interesting conversation about this incident yesterday and he suggest that the Islamic fundementalist issue may ultimately prove to be something of a more personal level whereby one of the individuals might have been targeted by soldiers in an earlier incident and held a grudge. I don't agree at all that this will prove to be a mental health issue as the murderer seemed extremely calm and in control of his senses despite the horror of what he perpetrated . I think that the press has made a massive mistake in linking this crime with Islam and their criminal history including a prison sentence of at least one of the murderers is far more salient. In my opinion, these people will be found to be small time criminals who have run with gangs or become involved in drugs and who ultimately sought to find a niche for themselves within the umbrella of radical Islam. This will prove to be more of a criminal incident as opposed to one with a religious edge. The press would have been doing a far better job if they had centred upon the sanitising influence of violent computer games or films which I feel probably has had more of an influence in the horrendous behaviour of these two animals. The fact the someone can contemplate of inflicting such a gruesome death on a fellow human is more disturbing that the mutterings of a religious fanatic.

There were several elements which interest me about this case. If the individuals had stated that they had killed the poor soldier becuase of Irish nationalism would they have been taken quite as seriously as they have been by their claim that they were "radical muslims?" I also thought it was really odd that one of the offenders made the comment about taking "an eye for an eye" as this is a Christian proverb. The two murderers are no more muslims than football hooligans are fans of football. In my opinion, this has little to do with Islam whatsoever. To say it is so is simply because the BBC likes a good story and it will sell papers in the right wing press. The actual issue is very much a broader one for society as it asks the question as to what kind of world do we live in where someone could contemplate such a heinous crime.


The other issue that I have always been very uncomfortable with is the charity "Help for heroes." If I am correct, the victim was wearing one of their t-shirts. I actually have a direct debit for two charities (I don't think this is uncommon) and am not adverse to supporting "good causes" that I feel strongly about. However, I refuse to give anything to "Help for heroes" as I don't believe that the soldiers should have been out in Iraq or Afghanistan fighting anyway and the whole enterprise smacks of jingo-ism to me. I was surprised that my work collegue had come to the same conclusion as myself. I'm not aware of anyone else expressing these sentiments but I think I could easily be construed as sending out a confused message. For me, the whole charity , whilst doing good insofar that it tries to bring the handicapped back into society, it also sends out a message, however unintentional, that our soldiers are doing a good job we should be proud of in Afghanistan. In my opinion, we are interfering where we are not welcome and alienating a good proportion of British citizens who see this as an afront to their religion. Whilst I admire the courage of anyone who goes out to this country, I can't help feeling just how bad this charity must appear to both mainstream and law-abiding muslims and in other countries where our foriegn policy might not be so readily appreciated. All in all, I'm shocked by what happened in Woolwich and appalled by the fact that anyone could be murdered in such a barbaric fashion. However, I am hugely surprised that there have not been any previous attacks upon anyone supporting "Help for heroes" such as wearing a t-shirt or a wrist-band. It would be very wrong indeed for this charity to be targeted in this fashion but it does seem to be quite an antagonistic organisation if you start to take a view like mine that the invasion of Afghanistan is amoral.

I am made extremely uncomfortable by this charity which, despite your comments about EDL being vile and the continued rise of the comical UKIP (surley a good thing as it will split the Tory vote in two and make them unelectable and possibaly the third party behind the Liberals) , had probably managed to absorb itself in to mainstream British society more than any other right wing body. "Help for heroes" smacks somewhat of the hypocracy of the Haig Fund at the end of WWI. My Grand-father fought in this war and was dead against the way the victims of the war were celebrated by those who only benefited from it. I would have agreed totally with him in this and think it disappointing that the notion of "the Glorious Dead" still seens to manifest itself especially where it is so unnecessary and leads to racial and religious disharmony in the UK.

[Mr Pee]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_for_Heroes

[jean]

I also thought it was really odd that one of the offenders made the comment about taking "an eye for an eye" as this is a Christian proverb.

Rather it's an Old Testament saying, found also in Islam, but specifically rejected by Christ.

[Beef Oven]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_for_Heroes

Been trying to get a navy zipper x-large hoodie all day today - lines totally chocka. Will keep trying.

Must show solidarity with Lee, his family and comrades :ok:

[Simon]

A reasoned and thoughtful post, Ian, with which I agree in part. But of course, you and I are unlikely to agree on much, so may I make a couple of comments, just to provide another perspective?

...a view like mine that the invasion of Afghanistan is amoral.

The behaviour and attitudes of the Taliban - whom, primarily, we are fighting over there - is surely on all fronts far more amoral. I heard a journalist say, some weeks ago, that out of all the world's troubles he has covered over the past twenty-five years, he feels the most repelled - and frightened - by these barabaric, backward and vicious fanatics.

Whether it is right to ignore evil things when they don't, or may not, directly affect you, or whether one should try to intervene to protect the weak, is another big question.

My Grand-father fought in this war and was dead against the way the victims of the war were celebrated by those who only benefited from it. I would have agreed totally with him in this and think it disappointing that the notion of "the Glorious Dead" still seens to manifest itself...

I've heard that said before. Of course, I can't really understand it, as I'm too young. But what I can say is that, in a village near here, a woman lost both her sons, within a few weeks, in WW1. My Gran and Great-Gran knew her, and if I'm not mistaken I also remember her daughter, as an old lady, when I was child. The two men's names are on the war memorial, and one can only imagine her sorrow. But I gather that one of the comforts she did have was when they were remembered each year. Of course, the family is now long gone, and it's a long time since I went to a remembrance service there, but I do sometimes call at the church for other reasons, and it always makes me pause and think when I see those names... For me, they and the other names there will always be thought of with sadness and gratitude for their sacrifice, though I've never been sure what the "glorious dead" meant. But "O valiant hearts" is a great hymn...

...where it ... leads to racial and religious disharmony in the UK.

I think you're right that it does lead to this, but of course there's the point that, had the policies on immigration been different over the past fifty odd years, the problem would not exist. It occurs to me that the current problems in Sweden are, whilst not of the same background cause, manifestly the results of the same past mistaken immigration policies.

[Pabmusic]

Rather it's an Old Testament saying, found also in Islam, but specifically rejected by Christ.

Very true, although it's a favourite of fundamentalist Christians, who often ignore Jesus's teaching.

The Koran 5:45 says (English translation): "In the Torah We prescribed for them a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, an equal wound for a wound: if anyone forgoes this out of charity, it will serve as atonement for his bad deeds. Those who do not judge according to what God has revealed are doing grave wrong". It is applied in many states under sharia law.

[scottycelt]

... My Grand-father fought in this war and was dead against the way the victims of the war were celebrated by those who only benefited from it. I would have agreed totally with him in this and think it disappointing that the notion of "the Glorious Dead" still seens to manifest itself especially where it is so unnecessary and leads to racial and religious disharmony in the UK.

I fail to see the connection. The Muslim Council of Great Britain and other Muslim organisations have been at pains to point out that many Muslims have served and continue to serve in the UK armed forces with distinction. Their veterans and representatives are seen paying their respects at the Cenotaph every year.

I wholly agree with you that the savage atrocity committed last Wednesday has little to do with Islam. Religion has been used historically as an excuse for war. Most wars are caused by tribal divisions not religion. "Muslims" and "Christians" fight among themselves as well as with each other due to tribal and territorial disputes, and many claiming justification from God.

It must be pretty awful to be part of the great law-abiding majority of Muslims in the UK right now having witnessed these two blood-soaked barbaric savages claiming to represent their religion. While, of course, our thoughts are with the poor family and friends of the butchered young man, it is surely right that we also recognise the shock and now understandable fear currently being experienced by the overwhelming bulk of our wholly innocent Muslim friends and neighbours.

[BBMmk2]

A soldier in paris was knifed yesterday, from the back!

[Pabmusic]

I...I wholly agree with you that the savage atrocity committed last Wednesday has little to do with Islam. Religion has been used historically as an excuse for war. Most wars are caused by tribal divisions not religion. "Muslims" and "Christians" fight among themselves as well as with each other due to tribal and territorial disputes, and many claiming justification from God...

No. This is (I'm sorry, Scotty) delusional. We cannot continue arguing that each incident is nothing to do with religion. If that's the case, then religion must take steps to rid itself of the evil hangers-on.

It is religion that provides the excuse - and at the moment, Islam holds sway. Consider this:

"The ambassador answered us that [their right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise".

That quote predates ai-Qaeda and the Taliban, the creation of Israel or the Arab-Israeli conflict, Ayatolla Khomeini, drones, and before any westeners even knew what jihad or Islam was, and, most importantly, well before the United States had engaged in a single military action overseas or even had an established foreign policy. They are the words of Thomas Jefferson, then the US. ambassador to France, reporting a conversation he'd had with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's envoy to London, in 1786 - more than two and a quarter centuries ago. The problem was the Barbary pirates of North Africa who had captured and enslaved more than a million (an estimate) Europeans.

The "anything but jihad" brigade is out in full force again. If the perpetrators of such attacks say they were influenced by politics, nationalism, money, video games or hip-hop, we take their answers at face value, but when they repeatedly and consistently cite their religious beliefs as their central motivation, we back off, stroke our chins and suspect that there has to be something deeper at play, a "root cause." I suspect that Islam was, at least in part, an excuse for people with the right (wrong?) attitude to act in an evil way, but that does not mean it was not also a root cause, or that on some level the perpetrators thought they were doing something that Allah would approve.

The taboo against criticizing religion is still so astonishingly pervasive that centuries of hard lessons haven't yet opened our eyes to what has been apparent all along: It is often religion itself, not the "distortion," "hijacking," "misrepresentation" or "politicization" of religion, that is the root cause.

And it's not just Muslims. Remember the words of the Abbott of Citeaux, Armand Almeric, commanding the papal army at the siege of Beziers in 1209 - “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius - Kill them all for the Lord knows His own”. About 20,000 were killed. The quote (the Lord knows His own) is, of course, from the Bible (2 Tim. ii. 19).

I am not saying that the majority of religious folk are anything but good, upstanding people - far from it - but religious fundamentalism is not an aberration.

One of my favourite quotes is from Steven Weinberg: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion".

[MrGongGong]

An observation
This attack was a terrible crime and those responsible need to account for their actions

What struck me was that when I heard the army chief on the radio expressing his sadness about this he commented that the soldier who was murdered was both a musician and an "expert" machine gunner.

What does "radicalise" people is the idea that somehow some lives are much more important than others.
Innocent families are killed by air strikes "by mistake" and get a sentence on page 12
one person is brutally murdered on the streets of London and it's a huge national crisis

don't get me wrong it IS a terrible , terrible thing
but there is a not so hidden message that some foolish people will take from this.

TO celebrate someones life as an "expert" machine gunner whilst condemning this murder has more than a slight whiff of double standards......

The "Heroes" industry does little to help achieve a balance,
if ALL members of the armed forces are now "heroes" as we are supposed to believe
that also includes those who have done equally wrong acts
and those who sit in an office , looking at a screen and "take out" the "baddies"

Some people ARE heroes , this soldier might have been ? I don't know, I don't know him or his family
but I do find it insulting to the memory of those who have been heroic to now decide that simply by
virtue of a job one chooses that you become one.

Judging by the rhetoric from our politicians today , the soldiers who murdered innocent protestors on Bloody Sunday
are also "heroes" , as are those who have killed innocent people "by mistake" .......

[scottycelt]

No. This is (I'm sorry, Scotty) delusional. We cannot continue arguing that each incident is nothing to do with religion. If that's the case, then religion must take steps to rid itself of the evil hangers-on.

It is religion that provides the excuse - and at the moment, Islam holds sway. Consider this:

"The ambassador answered us that [their right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise".

That quote predates ai-Qaeda and the Taliban, the creation of Israel or the Arab-Israeli conflict, Ayatolla Khomeini, drones, and before any westeners even knew what jihad or Islam was, and, most importantly, well before the United States had engaged in a single military action overseas or even had an established foreign policy. They are the words of Thomas Jefferson, then the US. ambassador to France, reporting a conversation he'd had with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's envoy to London, in 1786 - more than two and a quarter centuries ago. The problem was the Barbary pirates of North Africa who had captured and enslaved more than a million (an estimate) Europeans.

The "anything but jihad" brigade is out in full force again. If the perpetrators of such attacks say they were influenced by politics, nationalism, money, video games or hip-hop, we take their answers at face value, but when they repeatedly and consistently cite their religious beliefs as their central motivation, we back off, stroke our chins and suspect that there has to be something deeper at play, a "root cause." I suspect that Islam was, at least in part, an excuse for people with the right (wrong?) attitude to act in an evil way, but that does not mean it was not also a root cause, or that on some level the perpetrators thought they were doing something that Allah would approve.

The taboo against criticizing religion is still so astonishingly pervasive that centuries of hard lessons haven't yet opened our eyes to what has been apparent all along: It is often religion itself, not the "distortion," "hijacking," "misrepresentation" or "politicization" of religion, that is the root cause.

And it's not just Muslims. Remember the words of the Abbott of Citeaux, Armand Almeric, commanding the papal army at the siege of Beziers in 1209 - “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius - Kill them all for the Lord knows His own”. About 20,000 were killed. The quote (the Lord knows His own) is, of course, from the Bible (2 Tim. ii. 19).

I am not saying that the majority of religious folk are anything but good, upstanding people - far from it - but religious fundamentalism is not an aberration.

One of my favourite quotes is from Steven Weinberg: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion".

Some atheists would say that, wouldn't they? Others (including atheists) might take a rather more dispassionate, considered view of things. However, even if true, that surely proves the point that evil would exist without religion and the latter is sometimes merely used as an excuse for behaviour quite deviant from the religion itself. I do not accept that we are born either as 'goodies' or 'baddies'. We are all prone to do either good or evil and it's up to each one of us which path we decide to take. There can be no excuses and blaming others or institutions.

Yet again we seem to prefer talking about times as far back as the early 13th Century in such discussions. The days of the Crusades are long gone and few Christians would now condone some of the horrible things that happened centuries ago in the name of their religion, even though the wars themselves may have been considered just. In the same way as few now would condone the deliberate mass bombing of civilian men, women and children in Dresden, even though they fully supported the war against Nazism.

I don't see any taboo over criticising religion, quite the reverse in fact, and this forum is a perfect, shining example of that! However, Pab, I must be as good as my word and not get embroiled in another useless ping-pong debate on the subject, so I'm off out to experience some of this most unusual thing called sunshine and will now leave it at that. :cool:

[Pabmusic]

...However, Pab, I must be as good as my word and not get embroiled in another useless ping-pong debate on the subject, so I'm off out to experience some of this most unusual thing called sunshine and will now leave it at that. :cool:

Nice to hear from you, Scotty. Hope all is well. (You're right about ping-pong debates.) :smiley:

[Mary Chambers]

What struck me was that when I heard the army chief on the radio expressing his sadness about this he commented that the soldier who was murdered was both a musician and an "expert" machine gunner.

What does "radicalise" people is the idea that somehow some lives are much more important than others.
Innocent families are killed by air strikes "by mistake" and get a sentence on page 12
one person is brutally murdered on the streets of London and it's a huge national crisis

don't get me wrong it IS a terrible , terrible thing
but there is a not so hidden message that some foolish people will take from this.

TO celebrate someones life as an "expert" machine gunner whilst condemning this murder has more than a slight whiff of double standards......

The "Heroes" industry does little to help achieve a balance,
.

I think this is a very good post - all of it. I have only selected part of it in order not to take up too much space. These were all the things that struck me at the time.