Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 12:56 am  

andym1988 wrote:

slightly OT but I'm astonished one of the do gooder brigade hasn't started a thread today calling mark bridger a poor lamb, who doesn't really deserve a prison sentence and needs to be rehabilitated back into society as soon as possible...

Shouldn't you be somewhere else, tipping losers, or telling racist jokes?

Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 7:15 am  

andym1988 wrote:

slightly OT but I'm astonished one of the do gooder brigade hasn't started a thread today calling mark bridger a poor lamb, who doesn't really deserve a prison sentence and needs to be rehabilitated back into society as soon as possible...

Talk about idiotic posts. The vast majority on here want people like him punished for what they do and I would imagine few will object to the whole life tariff imposed on Mark Bridger, where there is a difference in general is the two camps of 'yes' and 'no' to the death penalty. I would by astounded if even one subscribed to your theory.

Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 7:26 am  

Not normally one to bite, but isn't admission of guilt normally the first step to rehabilitation? On that basis he has no chance.

Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 7:33 am  

andym1988 wrote:

slightly OT but I'm astonished one of the do gooder brigade hasn't started a thread today calling mark bridger a poor lamb, who doesn't really deserve a prison sentence and needs to be rehabilitated back into society as soon as possible...

Astonished are you?
You guessed 100% wrong then didn't you?
Going to come back and apologise are you?

Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 10:55 am  

WormInHand wrote:

A brilliant and obvious suggestion in the Independent article - suffocation of extremism by self-engendered ridicule. To say nothing of the opposite effect that would be manifested if Warsi and May had their way - the inevitable propelling of the suppressed evil voice into a state of misguided pre-eminence...

Absolutely.

You give them credibility or kudos by, in effect, giving them the 'honour' of censorship.

WormInHand wrote:

The jihad article is illuminating. While it is undoubted that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving, there is an apparent reluctance by Imams to firstly admit that terror crimes are being committed in the name of Islam and secondly to denounce armed jihad when such crimes are perpetuated. Jihad undoubtedly has many definitions, but the form that we see manifesting in incidents such as Woolwich, 7/7, Boston etc. is combative and is happening today.

Muslims like Tarek Fatah and Maajid Nawaz who are not afraid to speak the truth should be lauded. Instead, the British authorities tiptoe around the notion that the rotten worm that is militant Islamism does exist and does indeed have it's roots in Sharia law and Islam. Why do they?

Mr Fatah would be the perfect interviewer of Choudary on national telly.

Agreed.

Something else that comes into the mix too is our relationship with Saudi Arabia – more pussyfooting, if you will. IIRC, a huge amount of the funding for extremist/fundamentalist forms of Islam (Wahhabism, certainly) is coming out of Saudi – and yet we continue to sell it arms and be 'friends'.

Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 9:52 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Absolutely.

You give them credibility or kudos by, in effect, giving them the 'honour' of censorship.

Agreed.

Something else that comes into the mix too is our relationship with Saudi Arabia – more pussyfooting, if you will. IIRC, a huge amount of the funding for extremist/fundamentalist forms of Islam (Wahhabism, certainly) is coming out of Saudi – and yet we continue to sell it arms and be 'friends'.

I'd be more worried about supplying weapons to the rebels in Syria. Could easily fall into the hands of Islamist nutjobs. Say Assad is defeated, what's saying that Syria wouldn't go from moderate to fundamentalist, A La Egypt?

If there had been no uprising in Syria then our govenment wouldn't be giving two poops about Assad's regime.

Re: Woolwich incident : Fri May 31, 2013 10:57 pm  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

I'd be more worried about supplying weapons to the rebels in Syria. Could easily fall into the hands of Islamist nutjobs. Say Assad is defeated, what's saying that Syria wouldn't go from moderate to fundamentalist, A La Egypt?

If there had been no uprising in Syria then our govenment wouldn't be giving two poops about Assad's regime.

There are already stories coming out of Syria that at least some of the rebels are Islamic extremists. So what with Russia backing Assad's regime and Israel rattling the sabres over that, it has the potential to get very messy.

And what happened in Iran, with Islamic fundamentalists taking over that revolution should teach us something. I couldn't quite 'get' why so many people were so excited about the Arab Spring. It seemed more like a case of: 'let's wait and see what actually happens'.

But I still think the point about Saudi Arabia stands: there's a lot of money form there that has gone into promoting that particularly fundamentalist Muslim sect and yet we happily continue to do business with them (albeit there being a difference between the regime/monarchy and the clerics).

Oil, I guess.

Re: Woolwich incident : Sat Jun 01, 2013 1:00 am  

Mintball wrote:

There are already stories coming out of Syria that at least some of the rebels are Islamic extremists. So what with Russia backing Assad's regime and Israel rattling the sabres over that, it has the potential to get very messy.

And what happened in Iran, with Islamic fundamentalists taking over that revolution should teach us something. I couldn't quite 'get' why so many people were so excited about the Arab Spring. It seemed more like a case of: 'let's wait and see what actually happens'.

But I still think the point about Saudi Arabia stands: there's a lot of money form there that has gone into promoting that particularly fundamentalist Muslim sect and yet we happily continue to do business with them (albeit there being a difference between the regime/monarchy and the clerics).

Oil, I guess.

It's also quite handy to have a heavily armed friend in the region to 'keep the peace'.

Your point on the Russian missiles. It seems like Israel, Britain etc. are unhappy, not because the armarments may be used against the uprising, but because with them, it would be extremely difficult to bomb the cack out of Syria.

Re: Woolwich incident : Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:57 am  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

It's also quite handy to have a heavily armed friend in the region to 'keep the peace'.

And the whole 'better the devil you know', perhaps.

wigan_rlfc wrote:

Your point on the Russian missiles. It seems like Israel, Britain etc. are unhappy, not because the armarments may be used against the uprising, but because with them, it would be extremely difficult to bomb the cack out of Syria.

Israel claims to be happy because of the links between the Assad regime and Hezbollah, but yes, it would make it a damned sight harder.

Re: Woolwich incident : Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:19 pm  

The (latest mentioned) Russian weapons are surface-to-air missiles.
As the rebels don't have any planes, these weapons are not to "balance out" anything that the UK, France or US might supply, they are to deter the likes of Syria's neighbours from bombing anything in Syria.
Russia's message is to those states primarily and I suspect those missiles would have been supplied regardless of the recent EU talks outcome.
Nonetheless, it is another ramping-up of the stakes in preparation for a proxy war that could and probably will be unwinnable by anyone and will kill hundreds of thousands of innocents.

This is not actually "about" Syria, it is about the differing agendas of Russia and the US regarding the middle-East in general, centred on attitudes towards Israel.
Syria is to be the battleground.