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The Mirror may not be the most august of newspapers but if half of what they are saying is true, this could be very interesting indeed and puts the whole psychological makeup of the ‘suicide’ bombers in question. Maybe it was not suicide at all!
The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding _ a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry “Allah Akhbar!” – “God is great” – usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.
Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.
So perhaps it was all done with timers and those little terrorist shits were told a porky about exactly when they were going to blow up. If this is true then the more widely this is known, the less likely it will be that non-suicidal Muslim terrorist supporters might not be quite so willing to act as couriers or bomb planters for ‘the cause’. Maybe the whole deranged ‘Shaheed’ thing has rather less resonance with the UK Islamic fringe than we thought. If the facts are correct, it is a pretty compelling interpretation.
Whilst watching the BBC news’ report about the horrific terrorist attacks against Shi’ite civilians in Iraq, I was astonished to hear the following uttered:
Ominously, there are increasing calls for locals to take up arms and defend their communities.
Excuse me? These poor people have just had the centre of their community blown out and many people killed but the desire to defend themselves is denounced by the BBC as… ominous? It might tell you something about what is happening in Iraq but it also tells you quite a lot about the mindset at the BBC.
It seems to me that locals taking up arms to defend themselves against terrorism directly are exactly what the USA should be encouraging whole heartedly. The fact is that people will start doing so regardless of the wishes of the USA if the security situation continues to deteriorate, so not only would it be pointless to try and stop them, why not make a virtue of necessity and show that the occupying powers welcome Iraqis becoming more self-reliant and willing to confront these murdering bastards themselves?
Iraqi territorial para-militaries could be quite an asset fighting the insurgency precisely because they are not going to be centrally directed, at least to some extent. Counter-insurgency by its nature relies on more than just firepower, which the US has in abundance. It also relies on local knowledge and a willingness to be ruthless, something pissed-off locals could certainly provide. The idea that Al Qaeda can only be fought in Iraq ‘top down’ (i.e. directed from Washington using US and Iraqi government forces) is probably a mistake, so arming the people who are taking the brunt of the attacks seems a pretty sensible way to go.
Watching the news is starting to give me a strange throbbing headache. Most people in Britain realise that just because our enemies are Muslims, that does not mean all (or even most) Muslims are our enemies. Other than in a few shitholes like Oldham, most British folks really do value, or at least accept, the pluralistic tolerant society that largely prevails in these ‘Sceptred Isles’.
Ok? Did you get that Messers Blair, Howard, Kennedy, etc. etc? Most of us understand that and those who think otherwise are not going to listen to you anyway. You will note that synagogues getting vandalized in France are such a regular occurrence that it is hardly even news anymore, whereas a stone through a mosque window in the UK makes the papers. Does that tell you something?
So next time there is some hideous atrocity, be it here in the UK, in the USA, in Iraq, in Israel or anywhere else in the world that Al Qaeda or Hamas have infested, can you kindly resist the urge to say “But Islam is a religion of peace…”. We heard you before and we have not reacted to previous incidents by torching mosques from London to Lanarkshire. Please. PLEASE…just.shut.the.fuck.up.
Thank you.
Now that we know what everyone except Tony Blair suspected (that the suicide bombers were probably British born or at least legal residents), perhaps it is worth noting that had mandatory ID cards been in force, they would have been perfectly entitled to avail themselves of one each.
Yes, I can see how this will help stamp out terrorism. Right? Right?
Here is a project I certainly welcome called We are not afraid. The message is simple, worth repeating and lets you do strange things with a camera.
USAF personnel in the UK have been told to stay out of London because of the bombings. Sorry but this is not just a propaganda gift to the enemy, it is just plain daft.
Firstly, the US was not the target of these bombs, Londoners were. Secondly, London is always full of American visitors and US military folk do not really stand out from the crowd all that much. In fact Americans are probably more likely to form identifiable ‘target clusters’ in the rural communities around the US bases in the UK.
It was a terrible atrocity but we have seen it all before in London at the hands of the IRA, so please, telling US service personnel to avoid London is foolish and plays to the often held stereotype of Americans as easily scared by such incidents. Methinks USAF people are made of sterner stuff and more than capable of assessing the risks for themselves.
Next time London mayor Ken Livingston professes to speak for London’s outrage at the 7/7 attack, perhaps his long standing support for Islamic extremists (not to mention Irish terrorists) needs to be thrown back at him. Moreover those who continue to support him must not be allowed to avoid these issues either and if the Labour party wants Red Ken ‘back in the fold’, they must be made to pay a suitable political price.
So London was attacked and hundreds were killed or wounded by Islamic fanatics (showing incidently why we are utterly right to be fighting these vermin wherever they are to be found)… and having ID cards would have made not one damn bit of difference.
Next time some pontificating dissembling jackass holds up ‘terrorism’ as why Britain need these odious things, I am likely to spit in their face.
The retirement of a Supreme Court justice is always big news in the USA. Coming on the heels of a ruling which made big business developers grasping municipalities across the United States rub their hands together with glee, it is vital that the mindset which produced one of the most monstrous anti-liberty trends in America today not be reinforced with yet another ultra-statist. To her credit, although Sandra Day O’Connor was neither a darling of the right nor consistently supporting of civil liberties, she did dissent quite strongly from the monstrous Kelo verdict.
Perhaps now that more people are seeing past the simplistic left/right divide on the issue of eminent domain abuse, the importance of insisting on a judge who does revolt at the very idea of such a predator’s charter should become the main focus not just for George W. Bush but people of any party who think that being secure in your property is one of the very lynchpins of a free society.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
– 5th Amendment: US Constitution
Today is the 4th of July, when Americans celebrate their independence and much talk of freedom and constitutions occurs. This day is in many ways an orgy of self-congratulation, much of which is entirely justified (I make no secret of my pro-Americanism Atlanticism).
But perhaps, just perhaps, the ‘shot heard around the country’ that was delivered by the Supreme Court of the United States with the Kelo verdict will snap a great number of Americans out of their understandable but entirely misplaced complacency regarding the benevolence of their own nation-state.
Not only does Eminent Domain now pose a threat to anyone whose property happens to catch the eye of a well connected property developer, the USA also has outrageous ‘asset forfeiture’ laws that allow suspects to have their property taken by the state, reversing the burden of proof and making the accused (but un-convicted and usually un-tried) person prove their property is not the proceeds of some crime in order to have the property returned (they cannot prevent it from being taken in the first place). So much for ‘due process’.
Americans would do well to remember that it was the use of British sedition laws to seize private property from political activists was a major cause of disaffection in the colonies in the lead up to the Revolution in 1776. Moreover those sedition laws were far less capricious and more respectful of due process than modern ‘asset forfeiture’ laws (colonial era sedition laws at least required you to actually be convicted).
The fight against Al Qaeda and any who ally with them must go on but the greatest threat to liberty (and in the long run that inevitably means life) facing the people in the United States comes not from without but from within. Until the entire scope of what government can do is radically cut back, Kelo is pointing the way to a grim future. I hope that the Supreme Court’s destruction of the 5th Amendment by allowing the state to take private property for the private use of property developers, will be reversed long before it requires the active use of the 2nd Amendment to make private property secure against those who would rather use political power rather than markets to enrich themselves.
Happy birthday America.
You know we have a greedy government. Even if they cancel the debt, it will not help if the government is greedy. Senior government officials should cut their salaries first.
– Phillip Khisa
The original Live Aid back in 1985 was something I supported. I watched it, gave them my money and continued to vote for Margaret Thatcher in the next election because, just like in Africa, extreme statism needed to be opposed in the country I lived in too. Back in those days the Tory party had at least some intellectual coherence.
Live Aid was a very specifically targeted project: there was a catastrophic famine in Ethiopia and regardless of the fact that it was the result of a war vastly exacerbating the effects of a drought, I felt at the time that specifically aiding civilians with emergency assistance was neither going to destroy the local economy (it had already collapsed to less that subsistence) nor would it significantly enrich the Marxists at the top who were in no small way responsible for that state of affairs. Most importantly, Live Aid was asking for private money, and as it was mine to give, I gave some.
This time things are rather different and far less straightforward. It is not all bad, mind you. The Live 8 extravaganza has quite a few people associated with it making demands for the developed world (of which Russia is not truly a member, it should be noted) to open their markets to the Third World… and this is rightly targeted at the G-8 leaders. Quite so. What the hellholes of the world need is more globalization, not less, if they are to lift themselves out of their dire conditions.
But alas the main thrust of what Live 8 seems to be about is to induce the governments of the G-8 to take money from their taxpayers and assign it to nebulous and frequently counter-productive projects in Africa, often in effect propping up the regimes who are the single biggest cause of their own nation’s problems and directly responsible for local poverty.
As with any large gathering of the music illiterati, coherence and cogency are going to be as rare as pelicans in Perthshire. Yet some of the people listening to the streams of babble at this event will come away with the simple idea lodged in their brains that making trade freer is one of those things that would make the world a better place. So whilst I have no interest in supporting Live 8 myself and I had better things to do than watch it yesterday, perhaps some good will come from it in spite of the toxic statist message at this event’s core.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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