In this globalised world, if we launch weapons of great destructive power into communities abroad, incinerating and shredding women and children, we cannot avoid the fact that those who identify with those communities – ethnically, culturally and religiously – will take revenge on people here. If we are lucky it will be revenge on combatants. If we are unlucky it will be on our innocents. But either way, the truth is this. We caused it.
We caused it by our invasions, occupations and bombings of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, none of which had ever attacked the UK. We caused it by all the dead women and children that British bombs, missiles or bullets killed accidentally. We caused it by the terrible deaths of the people we killed deliberately, who were only defending their country from foreign invaders, just as most of us would do. We caused it by the detainees killed or tortured. As a country, the United Kingdom caused it.
This is not the 19th century. Imperialist aggression now brings a danger of retaliation from empathetic communities embedded in western societies. This is so obvious as not to need stating. The danger of terrorism from Islamic sources would be much reduced if we just minded our own business on the international scene.
All that is very obvious. It does not, however, seem to have occurred to John Sawers, immediate past head of MI6, who has no sensible thoughts at all of the causes of terrorism. The right wing like to think that anyone opposed to the West is, by definition, spontaneously evil. If only they could look in the mirror sometimes and ask why people hate us, that would be a major psychological breakthrough. I have known John Sawers a great many years, and he is somebody who looks in the mirror very often. Sadly, not for that purpose.
At least he has the intellectual honesty to admit an open advocacy of the extreme big brother society. Abandoning the notion of smart intelligence, he has come out with a justification of the mass surveillance society which Snowden revealed. We cannot prevent terrorism without spying on innocent people, he declares.
In a sense, that is a truism. I have very often argued that it is impossible to prevent all evil and daft to try. You have a far, far higher chance of being murdered by a member of your own family than you have by a terrorist. Over the last 10 years terrorists have been responsible for almost exactly 1% of all murders in the UK. Let me type that again. In the last ten years terrorists have been responsible for almost exactly 1% of all murders in the UK. And about 0.007% of woundings. It remains true that the most likely person to kill you is in your own family. It is worth remembering that the number of people who died in the Charlie Hebdo atrocity was the same number murdered in France on average every week.
Now assuming the aim is to prevent murder rather than make propaganda, let us concentrate for a moment on – don’t worry, you will never in your life be asked to do this again, unless by me – let us concentrate on the 99% of murders which are not by terrorists. To take the John Sawers system, if we had permanent CCTV monitoring of every kitchen in the UK, we could probably prevent quite a few of those murders and a vast amount of non-fatal violence. It would take an enormous police and security service, of course, but we are getting there anyway. Sawers’ point is completely correct in logic – you cannot prevent all murders without massive surveillance of the innocent. It would have been even more correct if you just stopped the sentence at you cannot prevent all murders. Precisely the same is true of the tiny risk to individuals that is murder by terrorism.
The surest way to reduce the terrorist threat in the UK is to stop bombing or invading other countries. That simple fact needs to be screamed from the rooftops. The next thing you can do is solid old fashioned evidence-based police and intelligence work. The least effective thing you can do is simply trawl the email and online chat of millions of people. That clogs up the intelligence system with a vast mound of undigestable information, and results in the conviction of fantasists and boastful men who, while unpleasant, are guilty of nothing but thought crime. It is exactly the same result as if you tackled murder by arresting everyone who in an email or chat wished harm to their husband or wife. It is wrong to express that, but the percentage who would have really gone on to murder would be vanishingly small.
The great worry is the presumption which is sneaking in to the mainstream media narrative that it is the responsibility of the state to prevent all crime before it happens. It is not, and that is not an achievable goal. The restrictions on liberty it would entail would do more damage to society than crime itself, which mankind has managed to live with since civilisation began. The entire debate around terrorism needs to be recalibrated. The answer is not the ultimate Big Brother surveillance state. The answer is to stop our hideous violence towards communities abroad.
“That’s a 22, Fred. Low velocity round unless you were using a Hornet.”
Yes, the AK47 fires a 0.22 bullet and I’ve found the higher the velocity the less the damage. A fast bullet will go through a glass window and just leave a neat little hole.
“Fred, call me mad but if the video had shown the chap’s head jolting from the impact and even some blood splattering the pavement I’d have concluded it was authentic! I guess you’d be calling fake.”
We don’t know he was shot in the head, from the angle of the gun it could just as easily be the neck. We don’t know the smoke from the pavement was caused by the bullet, it could just as easily be dirt and dust thrown up by the muzzle blast.
I do know that a lack of blood and gore is not evidence the event was faked.
“the AK47 fires a 0.22 bullet”
No it doesn’t. It fires a 7.62x39mm bullet, which is over 0.3 ins.
I don’t agree that “we caused it”, silly though our politicians have been. Rather I think that the current spate of terrorism by a very few Islamic extremists is an attempt to end multiculturalism by creating divisions between communities.
Their real targets are the 99.9% of innocent Muslims who, whether fundamentalist or not, oppose terrorism. After all, the concept of rule of law is even more important in our multicultural society than it would be in a more homogeneous one, since it is the shared glue that binds different cultures together. The terrorists, who seem to belief that only one religious (and cultural) viewpoint should prevail, would seek to break these cultures apart. WE must not let them. We should all be united in speaking out and opposing terrorism in any of its forms – including terrorism by the security services.
“No it doesn’t.”
Yes it does.
“Yes it does”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47
Counter-evidence please.
“Counter-evidence please.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47
See “Variants”.
Fred’s right for many -not all – AK’s post 1974. The original was 7.62. They’re still high-velocity. Like the .22 Hornet, or the old .222, and what I said applies. If you’ve been euthanasing your stock with a .22LR…there’s no comparison. The AK bullet is longer and much faster. The 5.45mm round doesn’t fragment in soft tissue. (TY Wiki – I was right). It would just go through (with cavitation). On hitting bone especially at close range I would expect a huge and visible mess. I’ve shot deer with soft-nosed bullets, but as I have never shot anything but targets with Geneva-approved ammo,, I will refrain from commenting further.
Ba’al Zevul, you seem to be saying that the video could be real or could be fake. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
MJ, people who have at least some experience say the video could be real or could be fake. If you maintain that the video is definitely fake ie. could not possibly be real, please state your relevant experience and/or qualifications.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
MJ, what about the video Collateral Murder of the Reuters’ journalist and others being shot and killed from a US helicopter in Iraq? Do you regard that as real or fake?
@Clark: Wild conspiracy theories – or at least, shrieks of “Fake!” “False flag!” and so on – arise these days every time a car backfires. There are no real criminals or even tragic accidents anymore, with particular reference for the latter coming from that raving lunatic Chris Spivey, which for some reason RoS referenced. No, they are all state-sponsored fakes.
Do you imagine a little seeding of this sort of nonsense is actually encouraged by the state, to foster the notion that all suspicions of underhand state involvement must also – by association – be silly, the work of idiots, and definitely not to be seen anywhere near?
Might a nod and a wink be given in some circles to the spreading of disinformation, simply to discredit all suggestions of state involvement, in other words. Not to mention various stooges planting them directly – laser holograms hitting the Twin Towers, for instance, just to laugh away anyone doubting the official story (which – if anyone were to examine it – is highly contradictory, redacted, and internally inconsistent).
Glenn, you’re absolutely right. I mean, how do They expect us to believe that cars backfire? Do They think we’re Sheeple? We know about fuel injection and catalytic converters, we’ve got the Internet now! Cars obviously leave the factory with firecrackers remote-wired to explode in the final expansion box. Wake up!!!
Ba’al Zevul, you seem to be saying that the video could be real or could be fake. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Neither, lol.
I’m just nitpicking impartially.
Post mortem reports? Inquests? Anybody?
Mary, I’m not experienced in finding such documentation even in the UK. I don’t know how the French system works and I wouldn’t know how to construct search-terms in French, so I probably couldn’t help much. But yes, investigation of these types of documentation would be the way to look for any cover-up.
What is the point in asking for Post Mortem reports? They would only be dismissed as fakes. It proves nothing – one could deny the existence of, say, Australia by employing the same tactic of denial and accusation of fakery of evidence.
Not to mention various stooges planting them directly – laser holograms hitting the Twin Towers, for instance…
I have always particularly enjoyed Trowbridge H Fraud, in that connection.
I agree with previous poster Craig – the world has a real problem that is not going to go away no matter how nice we become. Bertrand Russel’s fallacy of the superior virtue of the oppressed comes to mind. Religious facism now has a horrible momemtum of it’s own. I agree that we should seek to be just and that we should not tolerate living under draconion terror laws. I don’t see that this will do much at all to stem violent islamism. To understand the grievances is not to agree on the solution.
Should we all not be honest about the tragedy in France?
There would have to be context to ally with the post as follows:-
Parallel universes
Recall the case of Andres Brevik in Norway. He slaughtered some 77 mainly teenagers. He happened to be an extremist Christian.
For balance in sensitivity we might weigh and consider the equivalence of outrage and response to some 2,000 persons recently slaughtered by Boko Horam in Nigeria.
Free speech is not really “free”
Recall the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote of “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre” . Obviously the dangerous expression will cause mayhem and potentially the loss of life. My point?
Holmes had ruled a speech opposing the draft in 1919 not protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
There are laws in France which prohibit Holocaust deniers and other restrictions imposed in the legal systems of all Western countries – against incitement; defamation; etc.
So – we need not be caught or be delimited in our thoughts of correct indignation and condemnation against the killings, while simultaneously not embracing incitement and provocations of speech/expression which lead to death. Justice Holmes, I believe, would agree with me.
Posted this on Squonk, but just in case anyone missed it…
Please pay attention, RoS and other keen False-Flag watchers.
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Here’s another clear false-flag, faked up so-called “accident” :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-30965592
Now bear in mind this supposedly only happened a couple of hours ago, yet already they have all this information, pictures, profiles and statements.
Just look at this statement, supposedly from a fireman. (Yeah – right! A “fireman” was right there and actually observed it! How likely is that?). This is from “Fireman Lee Morley”:
Now I asked my mate who’s a fireman, and he said he’s never heard of the guy. Clearly this is a put up job. There’s already a nice profile pic of him, and the accident is still being cleaned up! Do me a favour!
Next up, this dude “Cory Richards”. Look at the poor quality of the video – the clearest sign possible of a false-flag in operation. He says the following:
Compare that with the statement from “Fireman Lee Morley”, who says HE saw the bus hit the smaller car, which then hit the Land Rover. But “Cory” has it the other way around.
Why can’t they get their stories straight???
Notice how calm, and rehersed “Cory” is. Furthermore, I’m from Swansea myself, and I’ve never seen this guy before.
Even before the wreckage is cleared, there are professional looking, high quality images. How likely is that?
Next, the picture labelled “Traffic queuing at Miskin” is low-quality. An obvious hallmark of a false-flag.
The police then send out a tweet saying, “Please avoid the M4 in the area of Capel Llanitern & Miskin crews are currently dealing with a road incident JE”
What is it that the police don’t want people to see??
The Fire & Rescue services also sent out a tweet about the same thing. Clearly, they are co-ordinating their cover stories.
They also have not mentioned terrorism. Why wouldn’t they want to say about any possible connections, unless they have something to hide?
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More to follow, as soon as I’ve finished this bottle of Crazy Jack’s old Eye-Twitcher.
Sorry about my outburst the other day, Craig. I now realise I was completely wrong to assume that you were somehow ‘privileged’ just because you went to grammar school. Didn’t realise that they used to take people on ability as opposed to purely class etc. You’ve obviously worked hard to get where you are and it’s admirable how you have succeeded on your own merit. I was well out of order jumping to assumptions like that and yourself and several posters on here rightly called me out. Take care and best wishes.