Terrorism and Nuance 934

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There is no question to which the answer is to wander round killing people. It takes a few words or keystrokes for any right thinking person to condemn the killings in Paris today. But that really doesn’t take us very far.

It is impossible to stop evil from happening. Simple low tech attacks by individuals, a kind of DIY terrorism, cannot always be pre-empted. If you try to do so universally, you will end up even further down the line we have gone down in the UK, where people are continually arrested and harassed who have no connection to terrorism at all, often for bragging on websites. These non-existent foiled terrorist plots are a risible feature of British politics nowadays. Every now and then one hits the headlines, like the arrests just before Remembrance Day. Their defining characteristic is that none of those arrested have any means of terrorism – 99% of those arrested for terrorism in the UK in the last decade – possessed no weapon and no viable explosive device.

In fact the only terrorist in the last year convicted in the UK, who possessed an actual bomb – a very viable explosive device indeed, was not charged with terrorism. He was a fascist named Ryan McGee who had a swastika on his wall and hated Muslims. Hundreds of Muslims with no weapons are locked up for terrorism. A fanatical anti-Muslim with a bomb is by definition not a terrorist.

I am assuming that the narrative that Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamists is correct, though that remains to be proved. For argument, let us assume the official narrative is true and the killings were by Muslims outraged at the magazine’s depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.

It is essential to free speech that it includes the freedom to offend. That must include the freedom to offend religious belief. Without such freedoms, the values of societies would freeze. Much social progress has caused real anguish and offence to some people. To have stopped Charlie Hebdo by law would have been wrong. To stop them by bullets is beyond any mitigation.

But that doesn’t make the unfortunate deceased heroes, and President Hollande was wrong to characterise them as such. Being murdered does not make you a hero. And being offensive is not necessarily noble. People who are persistently and vociferously offensive are often neither noble nor well-motivated. Much of Charlie Hebdo‘s taunting of Muslims was really unpleasant. That they also had Christian and other targets did not make this any better. It is not Private Eye – it is a magazine with a much nastier edge. I defend the right of Charlie Hebdo to publish whatever it wants. But once the shock dies off, I do hope a more realistic assessment of whether Charlie Hebdo was entirely admirable or not may be possible. This in no way excuses the dreadful murders.

The ability to say things that offend is an important attribute of a free society. Richard Dawkins may offend believers. Peter Tatchell may offend homophobes. Pussy Riot offended Putin and the Orthodox Church. This must not be stopped.

But that must cut both ways. Abu Qatada broke no British laws in his lengthy stay in the UK, but was demonised for things he said (or even things newspapers invented he had said). Most of the French who are today in solidarity for freedom of expression, are against people being able to express themselves freely in what they wear. The security industry who are all over TV today want to respond to this attack on freedom of expression by more controls on the internet!

I condemn, you condemn, we all condemn, and so we should. But the amount of nuanced thought in the mainstream media is almost non-existent. What will now happen is that conservative commentators will rip individual phrases from this article and tweet them to show I support terrorism. The lack of nuanced thought is a reflection of a general atmosphere of anti-intellectualism which has poisoned public life in modern western society.

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934 thoughts on “Terrorism and Nuance”

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  • Mary

    http://www.jpost.com/International/France-foreign-leaders-to-march-together-in-show-of-solidarity-after-attacks-387357

    CaMoron interviewed.

    Mr Cameron: “The memory I’ll have from today in Paris is people leaning out of windows with their flags and great signs, being proud to be French. People of all ages wanting to show real solidarity. It was great to see that in action today.

    I think our threat level is appropriate given all the intelligence. To push it higher, to the level of critical, means that you need the warning of the imminence of a terror attack, and we do not have the evidence for that today. A lot of work has been done to improve the capability of our armed police officers, and planning for potential scenarios. More work will go on, and I will meet with security personnel tomorrow to discuss these issues.

    pic.twitter.com/MYYsYutunE

    These are early hours for learning all the lessons. What we will do in the UK is ask how we would respond to these situations. We already have the second-highest terror level in the UK, which means an attack is highly likely. In a free country, there is never any way you can guarantee against an attack, and the damage that an attack can do. However, we have very strong counter-terrorism policing to make sure that when these things happen, we respond in the best way we possibly can.

    Speaking to Sky News, Prime Minister David Cameron said: As a country, we believe in tolerance, openness and democracy – and we face the same threat.”

  • Macky

    Quite possibly KOWN, but what to make of the accounts that he was more even gung-ho than Dubya, virtually pushing him even faster into attacking Iraq ?!

  • BrianFujisan

    Nevermind @ 2;09 Pm.

    Thanks for that Fb Link… I didn’t know you were on Fb. Cheers.

  • Mary

    Israel moves quickly to exploit Paris attacks
    Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Sun, 01/11/2015

    After hesitations reportedly over cost and security, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally decided to attend the “solidarity” march in Paris on Sunday, ostensibly in support of “free expression” and other “Western values.”

    The march had been called in the wake of the attacks in Paris last week in which two gunmen murdered twelve people at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, and a third murdered four people at a Jewish grocery store.

    /..
    http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-moves-quickly-exploit-paris-attacks

  • Paul Barbara

    Groan! Not Habbalottatimetowaste again!! @Habba 1.17pm Jan 10:

    ‘Paul Barbara

    Good to see you’re still around, but bad to see that you are still spouting bollocks.

    1/. “France had angered Israel with it’s pro-Palestine votes; what better way to both punish France, and further demonise the Muslims so the French people would be further brainwashed that ‘Muslims are our enemy’.”
    ______________

    So you are claiming that Israel was behind the killings? Come out and say it in the open, why don’t you.

    I am not saying that, though I suspect it:
    1. Charlie Hebdo has reportedly made fun of the Mossad agent Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Simon Elliot).

    2. French MPs voting in favour of a Palestinian state.

    3. France voting against Israel at the UN.

    4. The objective of the attack is likely to turn public opinion in favour of Israel.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    2/.” Supermarkets were raked with gunfire, policemen and random men, women and children were murdered, and it was all blamed on the ‘Reds’”
    _______________________

    .Here you are referring to the Brussels area supermarket killings of the 1980s (still unsolved, by the way).

    Well, I happen to know something about them and the reactions, and I can assure you that no one in Belgium, neither at the time nor since, blamed them on the “Reds”. On the contrary, the theory that these were attacks by an extreme right wing group was aired very early on.

    So you are lying when you write that. Please apologise.

    The attacks were by Gladio agents; some people may well have adduces they were the work of the Right Wing, but the object of the exercise was to blame it on the Reds.
    I am not going to reread Daniele Ganser’s ‘NATO’s Secret Armies’, or rewatch the 2 1/2 hour 3-part series ‘Gladio’ just to provide you with evidence of where the blame was laid.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    3/. “The probable scenario was the two brothers were taken to the siege, shot, and their killers ‘merged’ with their mates when the Fuzz entered the building.”
    ________________

    Now you do cover your arse by saying “probable” but you obviously are at least willing to entertain that idea.

    Could you please spell out in some more detail why you believe that this scenario is correct?

    It is the most probable in my estimation; at the end of this post, I will answer the question posed by many, ‘Why are some people so eager to blame every terrorist attack (and so-called ‘Foiled Attack’).

    @Anon 1.02pm Jan 10: ‘“The link with this thread is that Israel had a motive to be involved with CH.”

    Could you expand on this a bit, Paul? Thanks.

    Sure; already done (above to Habba).

    @ Habba – ‘..In which way would the Cirque Soleil be contributing to “apartheid” in Israel by performing there?

    To remain on the artistic front, demanding what Mr Barbara (I corrected you spelling pb calls for is about as silly as some Israeli extreme right wing politician saying that Daniel Barenboim should be boycotted because Palestinians (terrorists, you see) perform in Barenboim’s mixed Israeli-Palestinian youth orchestra

    Boycotting cultural and sporting events worked in Apartheid South Africa; it’s worth trying in Israel.

    @ Anon 10 Jan 1.40pm: ‘Busy trying to prevent a circus act performing in Israel while 2,000 Nigerians are feared dead at the hands of Boko Haram. The supposed “human rights” activists of the type you see forming in flash mobs all around London are in fact just Israel and Jew obsessives who can tell you the exact number of trees uprooted in Israel but don’t give a fig for the murdered and displaced elsewhere unless they can pin some of the blame on the West.’

    Well, I am neither just an Israeli or Jew obsessive; for your info I have been a Human Rights campaigner since the ’70’s, mostly Central and South America, but also later East Timor (where the ‘Muslim’ Indonesians invaded and brutally occupied East Timor for 25 years, with the West’s blessing).
    I don’t know how many trees the Israelis have uprooted in PALESTINE (I ccrrect you there; you wrote in ‘Israel’), but I do know (and Moshe Dayan freely admitted) that Israel stole Palestinian land (when asked in the 40’s if he thought there would ever be peace between Israelis and Palestinians).

    @Jemand I’ve lost the exact quote, but an important part of it was praising Robert McNamara’s ‘intellect and integrity’. I believe JFK ordered McNamara to squash the Northwoods plan. He shows his lack of integrity in ‘Dead in the Water’, a very good video about the 1967 murderous attack on the USS Liberty, when he claims ‘amnesia’. A reading of Peter Hounam’s ‘Operation Cyanide’ would show that it was a US-Israeli joint operation, with LBJ ordering the Liberty through the Joint Chiefs to the area, an extremely unusual way of operating, instead of through the normal Naval Chain of Command. And of course, McNamara went along with the ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ lie.

    Now, for all those ‘Conspiracy Theory’ attackers out there, why do ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ immediately claim so many attacks and events are conspiracy theories?
    First and foremost, because we always ask the question, ‘Cui bono?’. Oddly enough, it is invariably the ‘victim’ Government, who get the advantage.
    Secondly, the sheer number of ‘False Flag’, ‘Inside Job’ and similar that have occurred through history, particularly in ‘justifying’ wars or domestic clampdowns.

    Now for a list (by no means all, just what I can put my finger on at the moment: JFK; RFK; Martin Luther King: John Lennon; Jonestown ‘Mass Suicide’; Princess Di (there is an Australian book now out that claims to name the perps: ‘How They Murdered Pricess Daina: The Shocking Truth’); USS Liberty attack; Pearl Harbour (Japan was intentionally goaded to attack; all Japanese Naval Codes broken, Task Force tracked across the Pacific, 3 Aircraft Carriers moved out because they would take too long to replace, but Battleships (and 2,400-odd sailors sacrificed) – see Robert Stinnett’s ‘Day of Deceit’); Gilf of Tonkin Lie; Reichstag Fire; Gleiwitz; ‘Lavon Affair’; WACO; Oklahoma City Bombing; 1993 WTC Bombing; Dr. David Kelly’s ‘suicide’; 9/11; 9/11 Anthrax Attack; 7/7; Bali; Spanish Train Bombing; French Metro bombing (blamed on Algerian rebels, done by Algerian Security Services); MH 17 (shot down by Ukraine Airforce); ‘Odessa Fire’ (most deaths outright murder, fire started to ‘cover’ the preplanned massacre); ‘Spotty Lincoln’ Affair (faked to give ‘justification’ to steal half of Mexico).
    No I am not going to give you links to all of these; do a bit of searching for yourselves.

    While you’re at it, could anyone please supply me with a similar length list of wars or crackdowns that weren’t caused or ‘justified’ by ‘False Flag’ attacks, or similar?

    And to add to the mass of evidence that our MSM are supine ‘Presstitutes’, anyone heard of the massive crackdown on political opposition in South Korea? I doubt it:
    ‘Today is the day democracy is murdered’: Wave of repression sweeps South Korea:
    http://www.answercoalition.org/_today_is_the_day_democracy_is_murdered_wave_of_repression_sweeps_south_korea

    Sweet dreams! Don’t drink too much MSM/Government ‘Koolaid’!

  • John Goss

    You’ll love this guy. Steven Emerson, a Yank, author, and ‘expert’ on terrorism according to Fox News believes Birmingham UK is a no-go zone for non-Muslims.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-MuWDsv5pg

    The only bombings I can recall are the Birmingham bombings during the troubles of Northern Ireland, which certainly had nothing to do with Muslims. Even WIkipedia at the end of its article about Steven appears to have disowned him very quickly. Will he ever work again? Certainly. The Yanks make a living out of misinformation.

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

    I might be to blame with my articles defending Muslims against the
    concocted “War on Terror”. But Muslims are a minority here in Birmingham, UK. Of course, Birmingham, Alabama, has no particular reputation for racism/religionism from the Ku Klux Klan bombing and killing of innocent children in a Baptist Church. Please Mr Steven Emerson do not bring any of your false-flag shit to this good city.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-MuWDsv5pg

    “I am for innocents.” “Je Suis innocents.”

  • Macky

    Jemand; “To claim that I was inciting hatred of muslims, rather than Islam, is a cheap lie”

    So you admit you were “inciting hatred”, but just againt Islam. The fact is that Muslims cannot be separated from Islam, they are born into, live for, and die for their religion; it being the most important factor & the sole reason why they believe they exist on Earth; for them Islam comes before everything, family, country or any man made law. So what do you think should be done with the 1.57 billion people who are Muslims ?

  • Mary

    The Mail, now that they have overdone the Charlie reporting, return to the fifth in line for their main headline.

    Prince Andrew’s guards ‘turned a blind eye’: Yard officers watched as Duke partied with young girls, says Epstein’s butler
    Prince Andrew’s bodyguards have been accused of ‘turning a blind eye’
    Protection officers accompanied the royal to Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion
    Hundreds of under-age girls are believed to have been abused there
    Epstein’s butler Juan Alessi said bodyguards slept in guest bedroom
    Virginia Roberts, then 17, claims she was forced to have sex with the royal

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2905850/Andrew-s-guards-turned-blind-eye-Yard-officers-watched-Duke-partied-young-girls-says-Epstein-s-butler.html

  • Mary

    Anything in the corporate media about the killing of these 50 humans? No.

    50 Civilians Believed Killed in US Airstrike in Syria
    Airstrike Leveled a Jail Full of Prisoners
    by Jason Ditz, January 11, 2015

    Reports coming out of Syria suggest that a recent US airstrike against the town of al-Bab, an ISIS-held town near the Turkish border, killed a large number of innocent civilians, with estimates floating around 50.

    The strike happened two weeks ago, and the US warplanes leveled a building ISIS was using as a makeshift prison, burying scores of detainees within. Bodies were still being recovered days later.

    /..

    http://news.antiwar.com/2015/01/11/50-civilians-believed-killed-in-us-airstrike-in-syria/

    ~~~~

    Raimondo on Paris: ‘The target is Syria’

    In Paris they march for “free speech” – and they’ll soon be marching off to war
    by JUSTIN RAIMONDO / January 12, 2015

    IT WAS only natural that “world leaders” would place themselves at the head of the Paris “unity” demonstration held to express outrage at the vicious Charlie Hebdo murders. Daniel Wickham, a student at the London School of Economics, compiled a list of the enemies of free speech who elbowed their way to the head of the march.

    Most hypocritical of all are the French themselves, who have laws against “hate speech” which are only selectively enforced and which have been used against the editors of Charlie Hebdo in the past.

    This cognitive dissonance was eloquently expressed by one Frenchman who carried a sign saying: “I’m marching but I’m conscious of the confusion and hypocrisy of the situation.”

    That politicians would steal the spotlight and turn the sincere outrage of millions into an opportunity for self-advertisement is hardly surprising. Sincerity has its uses, however, and these will become apparent in the days and weeks to come.

    Those marchers will soon be cheering their soldiers as they go marching off to war, with “Je suis Charlie” inscribed on their banners.

    The target? Syria, where “links” have been found between the Paris attacks and the self-proclaimed “Caliphate”of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

    /..

    http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/01/11/march-of-the-hypocrites/

  • Anon

    Paul Barbara

    “Sky News Reporter Says Blood Has Been Put There:
    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2efeko_sky-news-reporter-says-blood-has-been-put-there-paris-terrorist-attacks-2015_news?start=1”

    The reporter is doing a live report and clearly muddles the words “the flowers have been put there” with “the blood has been shed there” and corrects himself immediately afterwards.

    Of course, I won’t expect that to make any difference to the conclusions you have already drawn from your YouTube investigations as conspiracy nuts are generally impossible to reason with.

  • Johnstone

    John Spencer-Davis 11 Jan, 2015 – 10:05 pm

    John Hilley has overlooked the incredible aspects of the STORY ‘This is what happened in Paris’ that has been broadcast by the MSM. He has come up with a thesis which he has set out to prove by selecting tweets that provide the appropriate evidence.

    His thesis..
    -The problem with much liberal ‘Je Suis Charlie’ solidarity is not its condemnation of violent jihadism, or cherishing of free speech. It’s that such expression still relies on flawed identifications with ‘enlightened’ entities like ‘our’ states and their ‘civilising’ status.-

    His supposition begins to look futile when you consider the implications of other possible examinations for what happened in Paris last week. Shouldn’t he have examined the evidence upon which he based his thesis?

  • nevermind

    well said Daniel Wickham, via JE’s link, the line of state terrorists and deniers of free speech at the front of the march yesterday was ominous and palpable, the fearful looks at the surrounding windows showed how nervous they were.

    If France had not brutalised Algeria during its colonial past, this episode would not have happened.

    And NO Ms. Hussaini, BBC reporter, this was not the most attended march in modern history at all, however much emotionally moved you were by it, it was the march in London against an illegal Iraq war, but that was not the MSM promoted march then was it?

    marching will do nothing, fine words of integration and mutuality and speaking to each other, mean nothing at all if you then order your fighter jets to bomb the fuck out of innocent Muslims, wherever that might be.
    Unless Britain wrests back its foreign policies from Israel and the US, takes charge of its own affairs again, nothing will change at all. We should stand up and say that we have nothing to do with |Ukraine and that we will not take part in a war against Russia, not in Georgia and not in an increasingly fascist Ukraine.

    Time to put the focus on to the problems that exists at home, the NHS, care for the elderly, young people and more jobs, invest in some modern technology and basic skills such as brick laying, we don’t have enough bricklayers, no wonder we have to employ EU migrants.

    But we seem to be unable to do higher qualified jobs as well, why else would we allow 300.000 US citizens to live here, and what of those from Oz, have they not got any jobs to go to at home?
    I advocate limited protectionism in vital industries, however much we have moved forward with globalisation, it has never been for the better for consumers and their needs, (not demands) but soley chimed in with the aims and objectives of large multinationals who are now foisting the TTIP on us Europeans.

    We should leave a ruthlessly expanding NATO and meet with our EU partners to create a European peace and defence force, we have no gains from a nuclear conflict in Europe.

    If the BRIC countries want to establish a new world currency that’s fine by me, bit coin anything, that’s how it always was and traders will find the right value to trade with each other.
    As for gold reserves and the refusal by some central banks to repatriate what they hold in lieu, it is a crash/clash of interests to come soon. Increasingly countries will refuse to stock their metals abroad.

    back to the subject of terror and fear, both used by states to create their very own conducive equilibrium, with the police and armed forces, supposing to be serving us, being politicised and shanghaied into protecting the status quo.

    William Morris and Alfred Wagenknecht are turning in their graves.

  • Paul Barbara

    Yes, ‘Anon’, many people who say embarrassing things in ‘slips of the tongue’ ‘correct’ themselves, but the damage is done. Of course the Sky reporter didn’t intend to say ‘blood put there’, but he did. And odd the blood was not apparent in the footage of the ‘shooting’.
    Why not have a look at the previous post I put up shortly before that one? Much more for you to get your ‘teeth’ into, n’est pas?
    Oh, yes, just a thought, it is a fact that the US, EU and Israel pay people to troll the websites; ever come across that phenomenon, ‘Anon’?

  • shibboleth

    It’s curious to say the least that the great bastion of free speech in the mainstream media – The Guardian – has taken to censor all commentary that suggests there is something equally curious about the video they’re running an article about today. The list of the piece is that the photographer who took the film of the shooting now regrets uploading it to Facebook. Fair enough; his choice, his regret. But the video s interesting nonetheless from a forensic science perspective and those with some knowledge of impact velocity and exit plumes in soft tissue from 7.62mm ammunition will probably already have concluded that the terrorist i) missed or ii) the round was a dud. Aside from the above, there would have been considerable displacement from an unsupported head – such as the unfortunate policeman in the clip. Given that the foregoing is fairly obvious, why the decision to censor all comments that explore the hypothesis? Just about as curious as to why no comments have been allowed re Prince Andrew…

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