Privacy and the State

[MrGongGong]

namely that it is wholly wrong to to suggest that Islamist terrorists somehow discriminate in their choice of target based on any particular country's Foreign policy. They do not

Really ? is it
and on what evidence do you base that ?
So what about countries that have played NO part in the dodgy wars in Iraq ? for example ?

Pretending that somehow there are NO consequences to ones actions is extremely foolish
and I don't see anyone suggesting that there are "excuses"
but i guess if you really do buy the whole "war on terror" script then that's what it says :sadface:

[Beef Oven]

So what? http://www.4smileys.com/smileys/thin..._smiley_07.gif

Whether they are deranged and delusional, or wish to impose Sharia law on the West- which one might say amounts to the same thing- makes no difference at all to the point; namely that it is wholly wrong to to suggest that Islamist terrorists somehow discriminate in their choice of target based on any particular country's Foreign policy. They do not. That fiction gives them a convenient excuse for their murderous attacks, an excuse which some in the West seem happy to indulge. :sadface:

That is the "crux of the biscuit" as Beef Oven so delightfully put it.

Great post Pee :ok:

Now that's the Crix of the Crux of the biscuit :bubbly:

[Richard Barrett]

it is wholly wrong to to suggest that Islamist terrorists somehow discriminate in their choice of target based on any particular country's Foreign policy. They do not.

Well, actually that's exactly what they do, unless you can find examples of terrorist actions carried out by Muslims against nations which haven't invaded Muslim countries, or opposed (as Russia and China do) independence for predominantly Muslim regions under their control like East Turkestan, which is certainly no more Chinese than Tibet is. Perhaps you have some insider knowledge which isn't to be found on the Wikipedia page you linked to.

[MrGongGong]

Great post Pee :ok:

Now that's the Crix of the Crux of the biscuit :bubbly:

But it's simply NOT true
as Richard points out
but I guess if you want to believe that then it's up to you
though many of us would like to have something a bit more truthful

[Beef Oven]

Well, actually that's exactly what they do, unless you can find examples of terrorist actions carried out by Muslims against nations which haven't invaded Muslim countries, or opposed (as Russia and China do) independence for predominantly Muslim regions under their control like East Turkestan, which is certainly no more Chinese than Tibet is. Perhaps you have some insider knowledge which isn't to be found on the Wikipedia page you linked to.

Holland?

[ahinton]

But it's simply NOT true
as Richard points out
but I guess if you want to believe that then it's up to you
though many of us would like to have something a bit more truthful

Quite so.

But again, might we get back to the issue about privacy and the state to the extent that it is not just the British security services who might be given snooping powers over the citizens of Britain but also other government departments, local authorities and the rest - and let's also remember that whoever gets that position of privilege in being able by law to snoop will be in a position to share and sell any data that they collect, whether legally or not.

[scottycelt]

Well, actually that's exactly what they do, unless you can find examples of terrorist actions carried out by Muslims against nations which haven't invaded Muslim countries, or opposed (as Russia and China do) independence for predominantly Muslim regions under their control like East Turkestan, which is certainly no more Chinese than Tibet is. Perhaps you have some insider knowledge which isn't to be found on the Wikipedia page you linked to.

There have many 'Muslim' attacks against citizens of countries not involved in Afghanistan especially in Africa and particularly against 'Christians'

Terrorist atrocities are carried out regularly in Muslim countries between members of the Sunni and Shia tribes. These tribal divisions are ancient and have nothing to do with 'Western Imperialism'. It is Muslim against Muslim. Nothing to do with 19th Century Divide & Rule or 20th Century Capitalist Oil. Remember the Iraq-Iran wars and the gassing of the Kurds? In Burma, Muslims and Buddhists are currently committing atrocities against each other. Again nothing to do with invasions by the evil Western imperialists.

Neither pair of savages responsible for Boston and Woolwich knew very much about life in Afghanistan & Iraq, as far as we know. They are largely 'home-grown' terrorists who abused and exploited the freedoms they were granted in their host countries.

Mr Pee's Wiki link makes for some very chilling reading as to what wholly innocent citizens of different countries and cultures throughout the world have already experienced in the accurately-described global war against terrorism.

[Pabmusic]

There have many 'Muslim' attacks against citizens of countries not involved in Afghanistan especially in Africa and particularly against 'Christians'

Terrorist atrocities are carried out regularly in Muslim countries between members of the Sunni and Shia tribes. These tribal divisions are ancient and have nothing to do with 'Western Imperialism'. It is Muslim against Muslim. Nothing to do with 19th Century Divide & Rule or 20th Century Capitalist Oil. Remember the Iraq-Iran wars and the gassing of the Kurds? In Burma, Muslims and Buddhists are currently committing atrocities against each other. Again nothing to do with invasions by the evil Western imperialists.

Neither pair of savages responsible for Boston and Woolwich knew very much about life in Afghanistan & Iraq, as far as we know. They are largely 'home-grown' terrorists who abused and exploited the freedoms they were granted in their host countries.

Mr Pee's Wiki link makes for some very chilling reading as to what wholly innocent citizens of different countries and cultures throughout the world have already experienced in the accurately-described global war against terrorism.

I have been reluctant to post on this site so far, but here we go...

Firstly, can I say that I fully agree with you, Scotty. I'll say that again...you are right! :ok: I'm not sure if you would go as far as I would, though.

Consider this chilling threat:

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 is not a quote from al Qaeda or an Iranian fatwa. They are the words of Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, reporting a conversation he'd had with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's envoy to London, in 1786. The issue was that American and European ships entering the Mediterranean had been attacked regularly by pirates from the Barbary States (modern-day North Africa). More than a million Westerners had been kidnapped, imprisoned and enslaved over the years (this is no exaggeration either). Tripoli was the centre of these operations. Jefferson's attempts to negotiate resulted in deadlock, and he was told simply that the kidnapping and enslavement of the infidels would continue - hence the exchange above.

This was before the US had engaged in any 'foreign adventure' at all. Britain and France were not the imperial powers they would become (the Sultan of Mysore's war against the British in 1779 was as an ally of the French, not as a Muslim), and the last 'religious' war against an overtly Muslim foe had been the Turks' attempt to take Vienna in 1683, itself a re-run of their attempt in 1529.

The point I'm making is that no-one seems prepared to recognise a consistent pattern here. We look for meanings for atrocities in anything except religion. I have read that most Muslims are good, peaceful people who have barely read the Koran and seldom follow it except for the occasional cherry-picking and hearsay, much like the adherents of any other religion - and I'm sure that is so. Most of the billion Muslims in the world don't even understand Arabic (the largest populations are in Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

But I also understand that extremism in any ideology isn't a distortion of that ideology. It is an informed, steadfast adherence to its fundamentals - hence the term fundamentalism. Muslim terrorism isn't primarily linked with Islam because of propaganda, the media or 'Islamophobes'. It is because jihadists link themselves with Islam. But we are very reluctant to acknowledge this, and look for other reasons, such as the appalling way the US, Britain and other Western countries have acted from time to time (and they have).

Take a different example. We rightly condemn slavery. The slave trade was a Christian abomination (though justified by our biblical texts). We recognise that now. We apologise. We don metaphorical sackcloth and ashes. But we never, never talk about the Muslim slave trade. It went on much longer (at least 1,000 years) and affected even more people. (Naturally, it was justified by Koranic texts.)

[Ironically, it was the 'imperialist' Royal Navy that was the single biggest factor in stopping the slave trade - the Muslim one too, with the capture of Zanzibar in 1896.]

The ills of the world are not all to be heaped on the West. They should be heaped on the religions that give justification to the fundamentalists' actions, and we should be prepared to say this openly rather than look for other causes.

Here's just one little example from your own post - 'Shia' and 'Sunni' are not tribes. In a Christian context, you might call them Protestant (Shia) and Catholic (Sunni). They have killed each other over the centuries for reasons similar to Protestant -vs- Catholic killings - religious dogma.

[Richard Barrett]

Remember the Iraq-Iran wars

Now you're redefining terrorism to include any act of war, yes? You must be exhausted from all that goalpost-moving.

[Mr Pee]

I have been reluctant to post on this site so far, but here we go...

Firstly, can I say that I fully agree with you, Scotty. I'll say that again...you are right! :ok: I'm not sure if you would go as far as I would, though.

Consider this chilling threat:

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 is not a quote from al Qaeda or an Iranian fatwa. They are the words of Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, reporting a conversation he'd had with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's envoy to London, in 1786. The issue was that American and European ships entering the Mediterranean had been attacked regularly by pirates from the Barbary States (modern-day North Africa). More than a million Westerners had been kidnapped, imprisoned and enslaved over the years (this is no exaggeration either). Tripoli was the centre of these operations. Jefferson's attempts to negotiate resulted in deadlock, and he was told simply that the kidnapping and enslavement of the infidels would continue - hence the exchange above.

This was before the US had engaged in any 'foreign adventure' at all. Britain and France were not the imperial powers they would become (the Sultan of Mysore's war against the British in 1779 was as an ally of the French, not as a Muslim), and the last 'religious' war against an overtly Muslim foe had been the Turks' attempt to take Vienna in 1683, itself a re-run of their attempt in 1529.

The point I'm making is that no-one seems prepared to recognise a consistent pattern here. We look for meanings for atrocities in anything except religion. I have read that most Muslims are good, peaceful people who have barely read the Koran and seldom follow it except for the occasional cherry-picking and hearsay, much like the adherents of any other religion - and I'm sure that is so. Most of the billion Muslims in the world don't even understand Arabic (the largest populations are in Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

But I also understand that extremism in any ideology isn't a distortion of that ideology. It is an informed, steadfast adherence to its fundamentals - hence the term fundamentalism. Muslim terrorism isn't primarily linked with Islam because of propaganda, the media or 'Islamophobes'. It is because jihadists link themselves with Islam. But we are very reluctant to acknowledge this, and look for other reasons, such as the appalling way the US, Britain and other Western countries have acted from time to time (and they have).

Take a different example. We rightly condemn slavery. The slave trade was a Christian abomination (though justified by our biblical texts). We recognise that now. We apologise. We don metaphorical sackcloth and ashes. But we never, never talk about the Muslim slave trade. It went on much longer (at least 1,000 years) and affected even more people. (Naturally, it was justified by Koranic texts.)

[Ironically, it was the 'imperialist' Royal Navy that was the single biggest factor in stopping the slave trade - the Muslim one too, with the capture of Zanzibar in 1896.]

The ills of the world are not all to be heaped on the West. They should be heaped on the religions that give justification to the fundamentalists' actions, and we should be prepared to say this openly rather than look for other causes.

Here's just one little example from your own post - 'Shia' and 'Sunni' are not tribes. In a Christian context, you might call them Protestant (Shia) and Catholic (Sunni). They have killed each other over the centuries for reasons similar to Protestant -vs- Catholic killings - religious dogma.

Excellent post. Thank you.

:ok:

[ahinton]

There have many 'Muslim' attacks against citizens of countries not involved in Afghanistan especially in Africa and particularly against 'Christians'

Terrorist atrocities are carried out regularly in Muslim countries between members of the Sunni and Shia tribes. These tribal divisions are ancient and have nothing to do with 'Western Imperialism'. It is Muslim against Muslim. Nothing to do with 19th Century Divide & Rule or 20th Century Capitalist Oil. Remember the Iraq-Iran wars and the gassing of the Kurds? In Burma, Muslims and Buddhists are currently committing atrocities against each other. Again nothing to do with invasions by the evil Western imperialists.

Neither pair of savages responsible for Boston and Woolwich knew very much about life in Afghanistan & Iraq, as far as we know. They are largely 'home-grown' terrorists who abused and exploited the freedoms they were granted in their host countries.

Mr Pee's Wiki link makes for some very chilling reading as to what wholly innocent citizens of different countries and cultures throughout the world have already experienced in the accurately-described global war against terrorism.

This is all very well but, when one faction commits atrocities against another within one country, how are matters improved or cured by forces from another country invading, particularly as they usually have an imperialist agenda that has little or nothing to do with those atrocities or their cause?

That said, can I make yet another plea for the topic to cover the permissions that government would give to organisations other than the security services under the kind of snoopers' charter that we're supposedly discussing here? The notion that justification for such legislation is predicated upon catching terrorists and those who encourage and fund terrorism, whilst undoubtedly flawed, is not the whole scenario here; NHS, DWP, HMRC, local authorities and who knows who else will almost certainly not expect to use the powers to seize personal and corporate data as granted to them under such legislation for the purpose of going after terrorists and their supporters!

[french frank]

Here's just one little example from your own post - 'Shia' and 'Sunni' are not tribes. In a Christian context, you might call them Protestant (Shia) and Catholic (Sunni). They have killed each other over the centuries for reasons similar to Protestant -vs- Catholic killings - religious dogma.

But surely, that is one flaw in an otherwise cogently argued post? Protestant and Catholics do not kill each other now over 'religious dogma' or what they find in the Old Testament: they kill each other now, sporadically, over politics. Nor have I heard of a Christian cleric suggesting they should kill each other. If there were one such, I would concede that some would hearken to the call, but would that be because they were 'devout Christians' or because of other underlying motives?

[Richard Barrett]

they kill each other now, sporadically, over politics

... which, as I've been saying, is always the motivation, even if religion (or race, or nationality) is brought in as a way of fostering a simply-understood collective identity. But "wishing to establish Sharia law" and other such ideas routinely cited by politicians and islamophobes is vanishingly unlikely to be cited by attackers themselves as the motivation for their actions. Here (I've been searching for this article since yesterday!), Glenn Greenwald quotes several Muslim terrorists on their motivations, centring his arguments on the USA although they're certainly germane to the arguments presented in this discussion. I recommend that all contrinutors here read the article, but here anyway are two paragraphs from it:

As the attackers themselves make as clear as they can, it's not religious fanaticism but rather political grievance that motivates these attacks. Religious conviction may make them more willing to fight (as it does for many in the west), but the motive is anger over what is being done by the US and its allies to Muslims. Those who claim otherwise are essentially saying: "gosh, these Muslims sure do have this strange, primitive, inscrutable religion whereby they seem to get angry when they're invaded, occupied, bombed, killed, and have dictators externally imposed on them." It's vital to understand this causal relationship simply in order to prevent patent, tribalistic, self-glorifying falsehoods from taking hold.

(...)

Being targeted with violence is a major cost of war and aggression. It's a reason not do it. If one consciously decides to incur that cost, then that's one thing. But pretending that this is all due to some primitive and irrational religious response and not our own actions is dangerously self-flattering and self-delusional. Just listen to what the people who are doing these attacks are saying about why they are doing them. Or listen to the people who live in the places devastated by US violence about the results. None of it is unclear, and it's long past time that we stop pretending that all this evidence does not exist.

[Pabmusic]

But surely, that is one flaw in an otherwise cogently argued post? Protestant and Catholics do not kill each other now over 'religious dogma' or what they find in the Old Testament: they kill each other now, sporadically, over politics. Nor have I heard of a Christian cleric suggesting they should kill each other. If there were one such, I would concede that some would hearken to the call, but would that be because they were 'devout Christians' or because of other underlying motives?

I don't think it's a flaw. When we talk of Northern Ireland, we (more often than not) use the euphemistic terms 'Nationalist' and 'Loyalist', but surely we recognise the history? It's unlikely that there have ever been many wars fought for the finer points of dogma, but the finer points of dogma give the justification for the cultural differences. You're either 'one of us' or 'one of them' - usually from birth. Children (who are usually too young to decide) are labelled one or the other. It's not as though genuine political grievances turn one into a Catholic or a Protestant.

But anyway, this obscures my point, which was to clarify that Shia and Sunni Muslims follow different interpretations of Islam No doubt they now kill each other just because they are labelled 'Shia' or 'Sunni' and each group is either acceptable or not - for religious, historical, political or whatever reasons. It's unrealistic, though, to absolve religion because people don't kill each other specifically over 'religious dogma'. And yet in some places, people are killed for being heretics, apostates or whatever. Abortion clinics in the southern USA are bombed (and occasionally doctors murdered) for reasons that stem from religion. Youngsters are killed in several African countries for being witches ("thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"). Even the Salvaton Army (the Salvation Army !!!) in the USA has come out saying that homosexuals should be put to death (but we won't do it, 'cause we obey the law) because the Bible says so - http://tgvnews.com/2013/06/salvation...-put-to-death/.

There has been much killing of Protestants or Catholics over the years, just because they have those labels. Whether it's fair to call it 'religious', I couldn't say (not having ever been religious) but it certainly seems a better label than non-religious. :erm:

[scottycelt]

Now you're redefining terrorism to include any act of war, yes? You must be exhausted from all that goalpost-moving.

Depends on whether one believes that words are just words and are therefore open to vast changes in meaning, remember ... ? :devil:

Your own goalpost-moving started right at the beginning with predictable talk of Western 'invasions' and all that sort of thing, so I assume you now believe that such 'acts of war' have little connection with 'terrorism' and are therefore irrelevant to this discussion?

I am quite happy to go along with any mutually-understood definition of 'terrorism' but not on ever-changing meanings of the word which tend to render such discussions pretty well pointless.

Of course, I may be doing you a gross injustice and you may be all too aware of that, already!