Woolwich soldier killed (was "Did cops just shoot 2 dead in woolwich?")

[SpineyNorman]

two questions,. one is when will the left protest against the Islamic fundamentalists? and two, all over the web the EDL are being described in terms of dress, education, or in the words of one btl commentator, 'council' can't think of nay other political formation that is described in this manner.

Agree with the second point, but how exactly do you protest against Islamic fundamentalists, or even fundamentalism? It's not like protesting against a government policy where the people putting it in place have to at least pretend to care what you think.

I'd have thought a much more productive approach would be to try and get muslims and non-muslims together in activities, preferably political but they don't have to be. To keep people together. Cos the real danger is that distrust and suspicion drive people apart and Muslims and non-Muslims kind of self-segregate. That kind of alienation from society is what's driving this.

Demonstrations might be tempting cos it looks like you're 'doing something' and it's a lot less tedious than the above kind of stuff but what will it achieve? What would the message be?

 

[SpineyNorman]

a fair few of the MAB older members were too

MAB?

 

[frogwoman]

Agree with the second point, but how exactly do you protest against Islamic fundamentalists, or even fundamentalism? It's not like protesting against a government policy where the people putting it in place have to at least pretend to care what you think.

I'd have thought a much more productive approach would be to try and get muslims and non-muslims together in activities, preferably political but they don't have to be. To keep people together. Cos the real danger is that distrust and suspicion drive people apart and Muslims and non-Muslims kind of self-segregate. That kind of alienation from society is what's driving this.

Demonstrations might be tempting cos it looks like you're 'doing something' and it's a lot less tedious than the above kind of stuff but what will it achieve? What would the message be?

Well fucking said.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I agree. Absolutely nobody deserves to die like that .

Very few people deserve to be murdered, full-stop.

 

[treelover]

Sorry, MCB


Muslim Council Of Britain

 

[laptop]

Agree with the second point, but how exactly do you protest against Islamic fundamentalists, or even fundamentalism? It's not like protesting against a government policy where the people putting it in place have to at least pretend to care what you think.

I was wondering whether treelover had put any thought into, for example, where A and B should be.

 

[treelover]

expand please

 

[cyprusclean]

they had no escape play.

Seems they didn't want one. They stood around waiting for the police to show up. And got themselves filmed giving jusitfications, and issuing more threats about noone and their children being
safe on the streets, if we didn't get out of their lands.

they had only the most basic weapons

Only had meat cleavers and machetes.

and they went for a fairly unambitious target. if some 'proper' plotting went into this, then the result, again with the greatest respect to Dmr Rigby, has got to be pretty disappointing.

Sounded like a roaring success to me, as the incident went global. Which is what they wanted.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If they've been brainwashed enough to carry out a suicide attack, which this was, perhaps they sincerely believe the 72 virgins in paradise bollocks. So perhaps choosing death doesn't require so much courage? I dunno, being an atheist I find it hard to see mortality and the afterlife from a god-botherer's POV.

The problem is that people apply psychological norms when talking about "suicide bombers". They assume that such a person is proceeding from the same basic set of values and rules, and that they'd require an external factor such as "brainwashing" in order to kick over the traces of those values and rules.
What doesn't get speculated on, is that a suicide mission can be a spectacularly rational action, that "brainwashing" might not be required for someone to work out that given the relative imbalance of power between themselves and the state, that an action that includes ones' own death, because of both what it can achieve and what it can signify, is sane and tactically-sound.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The problem is that people apply psychological norms when talking about "suicide bombers". They assume that such a person is proceeding from the same basic set of values and rules, and that they'd require an external factor such as "brainwashing" in order to kick over the traces of those values and rules.
What doesn't get speculated on, is that a suicide mission can be a spectacularly rational action, that "brainwashing" might not be required for someone to work out that given the relative imbalance of power between themselves and the state, that an action that includes ones' own death, because of both what it can achieve and what it can signify, is sane and tactically-sound.

The key is considering yourself to be part of a greater whole that is more important than you, isn't it? In many ways it's a peculiarly modern condition not to think like that.

 

[laptop]

expand please

You've never heard the phrase "A to B march"?

Where should A and B be?

 

[ViolentPanda]

ok, if you were an insurgent deep deep behind enemy lines. Would you give your target the chance to get close to you and do you harm, or the chance to escape and identify you later . Just to be sporting .

If you're an insurgent behind enemy lines, you're going to let your target get as close as is necessary for you to do your job with the weapons to hand. Access to materiel dictates tactics.

 

[treelover]

where the idiots have their marches, just like the EDL.

where you trying to insinuate I was suggesting Mosques?

 

[SpineyNorman]

expand please

I assume he/she is referring to the a to b march that's the usual format for this kind of thing, where the 'b' (or the 'a') is somehow a symbol of what they're protesting. In other words where would the demo be and what/who would it focus on as the enemy/thing being protested against.

I'm not against it in principle, but in this case I just can't see how it could be effective - in fact I can see it at best being a distraction from what really needs doing - building mutual respect and a sense of shared interests between Muslims and non-muslims - and at worst achieving the exact opposite.

So what kind of demonstration were you thinking? What would its message be? Would it just be a set piece demo or a focal point for a more long-term campaign, and if so what would the campaign be?

 

[butchersapron]

A barbecue would be better than a march. A march that grew out of that barbecue then... great.

 

[manny-p]

I would imagine that Urban is the only place that you will be saying this.

Are you saying if I said it in the pub I would get a kicking because it is unpopular? If so you seem to be happy I would. So youse can keep your over emotional outrage at a squaddie getting killed in the street. He was in the military for 7 years, I wonder how many folk he killed out in Iraq and Afghanistan many of whom were innocent. Did he perhaps help to call in an airstrike on a position which had little kids in it who after the airstrike were unidentifiable and just bits of skin and bones?

 

[ViolentPanda]

This is not what happened.Two cowardly fucking savages tried to decapitate an unarmed,totally unaware man in woolwich.After they smashed him up in the air with a car. Thats what happened.

The nature of warfare, whether it's perceived or actual warfare, is that you do what is necessary to get the job done. If they'd had assault rifles or an smg, I've no doubt they'd have shot him, rather than running him over. The beheading, as post-mortem beheadings usually are, was symbolic. Value-judgements like "cowardly" and "savage" are meaningless in assessing what was done and why, they're just emotion-fueled flatulence for the outraged. Analyse what has occurred, then give rein to your emotions, otherwise you're little better than the wankers on your TV screen who're currently playing this for their own advantage, because you're allowing them to play you.

 

[treelover]

The simple point is, a demo against the EDL is axiomatic on the left, perhaps with some even knee jerk, why isn't it with chaudary and his ilk?

anyway, I think I will leave this issue, I can't type much and do it justice.

 

[coley]

fuck off. won't be cowed into that shite
agree with LBJ's post in response to your trite demand

Cowed? WTF? And while I don't agree with LBJs argument at least he presents one,whereas you just seem to want to demonstrate what a little gobshyte you can be.

 

[SpineyNorman]

where the idiots have their marches, just like the EDL.

I wouldn't be opposed to that at all. It would be most effective if it was on the back of the kind of community campaigns I mentioned before, so that it was muslims and non-muslims opposing them. That's the kind of message it needs to be IMO - you're scum and decent people, muslims and non-muslims are united in disgust and opposition.

 

[cesare]

two questions,. one is when will the left protest against the Islamic fundamentalists? and two, all over the web the EDL are being described in terms of dress, education, or in the words of one btl commentator, 'council' can't think of any other political formation that is described in this manner.

Your first question, I answered in a jokey way yesterday.

As to the second, people are paying attention to what kind of people are in EDL [read here: they help cause this trouble]. Also, it is not hard (in an area of social deprivation) to go very quickly from (1) relatively high individual racism + good race relations = relatively normal environment, relatively happy, people rub together well; to (2) very low individual racism as community pulls together + poor race relations under outside threat = abnormal environment, people struggling to get back to normal, potential riot situation

 

[treelover]

On the second, you point isn't mine, its the 'ill fitting suits' snobbery which left liberals and plenty of tory types pour all over the web.

 

[SpineyNorman]

The simple point is, a demo against the EDL is axiomatic on the left, perhaps with some even knee jerk, why isn't it with chaudary and his ilk?

anyway, I think I will leave this issue, I can't type much and do it justice.

I get what you mean but I don't actually think the marching against the EDL thing is especially effective either. It's allowed people to ignore the issues that are driving its support, and the hard slog dealing with them would entail, in favour of ineffective 'vibrant' marches with samba bands and shit.

But if Butchers's barbecues came first, and the (muslim and non-muslim) groups that held the barbecues called the march/counter-demo then it would be much more powerful IMO.

 

[cesare]

On the second, you point isn't mine, its the 'ill fitting suits' snobbery which left liberals and plenty of tory types pour all over the web.

Ah, you are commenting on the normal liberal stuff that always comes out of the woodwork, I see.

 

[manny-p]

Not the war, just the killings - think now...

Get to fuck you cunt.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So not condoning what happened to him but he was a legitimate target?

It's exactly what the IRA used to say about off-duty soldiers, and they acted on it plenty of times, too. Kill an off-duty soldier and you don't just lessen the forces against you by one soldier, you also put the wind up every other soldier and cost the MoD money as it invariably scampers to beef up the substandard security that a lot of the military "estate" has (excepting, of course, the MoD itself, for some strange reason).

 

[laptop]

where the idiots have their marches, just like the EDL.

where you trying to insinuate I was suggesting Mosques?

I was merely pointing out that you were indulging in the tired and tedious trope "if my opponents don't do what I say, however daft, I win the argument."

But now you mention you had that in mind: fuck off.

 

[frogwoman]

Was having a conversation with a mate a while back about this sort of stuff and she said something along the lines of "with all the discrimination against jews around the world it's a wonder no jewish people have done something like 9/11."

it's disturbing how this kind of thing has become, not acceptable obviously, but like seen to be some sort of an understandable response, like something people might do in response to religious persecution and you wonder why people haven't done it as opposed to why they did. Its no reflection on her because i've wondered that exact thing myself before (although obviously there have been people like baruch goldstein etc), just on the state of society. It scares the fucking shit out of me. How the fuck did we get to this point?

 

[SpineyNorman]

I was merely pointing out that you were indulging in the tired and tedious trope "if my opponents don't do what I say, however daft, I win the argument."

But now you mention you had that in mind: fuck off.

That's an odd and unnecessary post.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Was having a conversation with a mate a while back about this sort of stuff and she said something along the lines of "with all the discrimination against jews around the world it's a wonder no jewish people have done something like 9/11."

it's disturbing how this kind of thing has become, not acceptable obviously, but like an understandable response, like something people might do in response to religious persecution and you wonder why people haven't done it as opposed to why they did. Its no reflection on her because i've wondered that exact thing myself before (although obviously there have been people like baruch goldstein etc), just on the state of society. It scares the fucking shit out of me. How the fuck did we get to this point?

Have we ever not been at this point?