Is Ireland next?

Ro

I think the pole should be 'Is the UK next?'. They are the last of the big three members of Bush's coalition of the willing that haven't been attacked by these lunatics.

Sand

Shannon is currently quite important to US logistics in shipping men and equipment from the US to Europe and beyond, and it's in regular use at the moment.

This a major issue for the activists in Ireland. Outside of Ireland, it isnt. The truth is if they werent using Shannon theyd use another base in the UK as a pit stop. The truth is, Bin Laden probably couldnt find Ireland on a map. The truth is, Bertie did such a good job of sitting on the fence a person outside of Ireland might have a hard time figuring out whether Ireland was supporting Bush or against him given the contradictions in his pronouncements on the whole issue.

Bush is coming here for a summit talk.

We hold the EU presidency and are arguably one of the softest targets in the EU right now.

Bush will be coming with a small army with a 10 mile radius exsclusion zone on the ground and a 30 mile radius no fly zone, with an aircraft carrier off in the atlantic on standby.

It wont be the Gardai running security on that particular day.

As for the EU presidency and the soft target, that was true before the Madrid bombings - why werent we bombed instead of Madrid? Honestly, imo its because we dont even register. Being the Eu president is a rotating thing - the true power players in the EU remain the big nations regardless of whose president.

Basicly, if you wanted to cause the most mayhem with the least effort, a few backpack bombs on O'Connell street during the parade would pretty much be the optimal solution...

Again, true of anywhere - they could do it every day of the year if it was simply a case of having lax security. They dont need a particular motive, Were Christian westerners - these guys happily slaughter Shia Muslims. If it was simply a case of us having poor security - why arent they bombing us every day?

But they dont. theyve been selective in their targeting to cause maximum slaughter of particular people for the political coup. The Australians in Bali, the French naval personnel in Pakistan, along with that countrys leadership, the aforementioned attacks on the Shias in Iraq, the attacks in Saudia Arabia and Morroco. Theyre not purely random attacks - theyre attacks on the foremost nations in the war against terror, and their regional supporters. Ireland does not fit the bill. A dead american is worth far more than a dead irish person in their propaganda billing.

We should stop supporting women's rights and secularism in the Muslim world as well, we wouldn't want to risk getting on Osama's wrong side.

Yeah, Osama might bomb us for that too. The EU should probably give Osama veto powers on any and all legislation in exchange for immunity from bombings. Now theres a solution that doesnt involve confronting these groups.

To be on the safe side we should also probably all convert to wahibbism.

Spain wasn't attacked. Just over a thousand people sitting in a train station were attacked.

Why were they attacked?

Considering we provided the logistics for the killing of 8-10,000 innocent people in Iraq, how far up or how far down the list is irrelevant.

I disagree, but your points re strategy dealing with the terrorists are quite agreeable.

it is much better not to get too snug and comfortable at the thought that if you don't rock the boat you won't get wet. That doesn't bring us any closer to a solution, rather the opposite....

Its classic defeatism. The problem cant be confronted - its impossible, its dangerous, its doomed to failure. Logically the next step is to determine how to minimise your exsposure to it. Appointing Blin Laden head of government and conversion to Islam (and the right sort of Islam too - none of that moderate stuff for Taoiseach Bin Laden please ) is the clear answer of this logic.

bonkey

Originally posted by Sand
The truth is, Bertie did such a good job of sitting on the fence a person outside of Ireland might have a hard time figuring out whether Ireland was supporting Bush or against him given the contradictions in his pronouncements on the whole issue.

Thats funny. An Irish friend of mine in Bahrain said that the Irish ex-pats over there were treated with vastly more hostility once Bertie allowed the use of Shannon. Before that, they were treated as "this has nothing to do with you, we have no problem with you". After it, it was a case of "You have sided with the Americans against Islam. You fscking Irish."

Bush will be coming with a small army with a 10 mile radius exsclusion zone on the ground and a 30 mile radius no fly zone, with an aircraft carrier off in the atlantic on standby.

Excellent. So while Bush comes here and says what great buds we are, there'll be a nice small part of the country which is safe. Once he's left, however, what will he leave us on the the fact that he highlighted to the world how helpful in teh war on terror we've been, and so on and so forth.

Theyre not purely random attacks - theyre attacks on the foremost nations in the war against terror, and their regional supporters. Ireland does not fit the bill.

Does not fit the bill in who's eyes??? In the eyes of you and I - who insist that terrorism is the wrong way to deal with a problem in the first place? Or in the eyes of those extremist people who's entire way of life is more or less incomprehensible to us??? How did you get to be such an expert on how these people think? If you are that good at understanding their mindset, can you tell us who is next?

jc

chill

If we have any self respect and sense of integrity and honour we will realise that we are part of Europe and part of western culture and that this hate War is on us as much as on the US, Spain and Britain.

Instead of crawling into some kind of pathetic cowardly corner hoping the bad people won't notice us then we will get what we deserve from both the mass murderers and our friends around the world who will see us for the snivelling cowards that we would be.

We need to stand up and be counted as Irish people who are not afraid to support our friends in the face of such evil. We have a long tradition of standing up to tyranny and brutality and we should take our place alongside others.

PHB

While I agree with the sentiments chill, some people would think that America are the tyranic and brutal power

BarryFry

I would say that Ireland has about as much chance of being hit as Bali.

It seems that Al-Qaeda don't always go for the obvious targets - indeed the more random and unfathomable, the greater the terror!

I wouldn't worry about it though. Al-Qaeda will probably kill about 200 people a year for the next ten years. Novelty carpet slippers are estimated to cause the same amount of deaths per annum in the UK alone!

(It's people trying to descend stairs with them on that 's the big problem, apparently)

martarg

Martarg, my point was not "oh, it wasn't us, it doesn't matter" - it was that it's not acceptable to go down the US route of "it's an attack on democracy and to fight it we need to make just a few small changes to our lives for the purpose of security - so from now on the cops can tap your phone, kidnap you from anywhere, intern you without trial or presenting charges, and don't get too used to that free speech thing". No offence was intended to anyone but Cork, and that only because he was jumping on a bandwagon that everyone else, with the exceptions of George Bush and Sky News, had the good taste to stay off.

Ok Sparks, point taken.... : o ) Of course I agree with all that, it means finishing off the terrorists' work, we westerners so proud of our democracies and so ready to forget civil liberties under pressure...

As regards the question of whether Al Qaeda may be likely to attack Ireland or not, I think there are several points to take into account. To begin with, Al Qaeda works as independent cells in the different countries, it doesn't matter if Bin Laden from his Afghan hideout is aware of Ireland's location on the map. If you have a sufficiently large muslim immigrant base with some fundamentalist component, you may already have an Al Qaeda cell on Irish territory that might strike, or not, simply because you are Christian infidels, as someone pointed out....

That said, it is true that some countries have more tickets for the raffle than others. It now appears that some of the suspects are Moroccans. Spain has had a long and troubled relationship with Morocco, and a vast immigrant population with its own social and economic issues, so I would imagine that individual personal background has its own weight, whatever Bin Laden may say from Afghanistan. Then again, who can tell what twisted criteria the terrorists will apply....

mr_angry

Given that Bin Laden himself studied and lived in London for some years, I'm sure he's well-aware of the existence of Ireland. And assuming he's the criminal mastermind that he's made out to be, I assume he'd at least contemplate the logistics of staging an attack in Ireland.

But how do you respond to such mindless hate? Create a police state? Try to eradicate them from the face of the Earth? Just keep our fingers crossed and hope that nothing happens? To me, none of these options seem particularly good, and I don't honestly see a good alternative. The real problem is the imbalance of wealth in the world today, and until that is rectified, we are doomed to repeat the same series of events over and over again.

MrPinK

Originally posted by chill
If we have any self respect and sense of integrity and honour we will realise that we are part of Europe and part of western culture and that this hate War is on us as much as on the US, Spain and Britain.

It's not a war against western culture that Al Qaeda are fighting though. They aren't trying to stop the spread of freedom and democracy around the world, as American propagandists spout. Their war is against the western military presence on what they consider holy lands, the interference of western governments in Middle Eastern politics for economic reasons, and the US's unconditional support for Isreal.

dathi1

We need to stand up and be counted as Irish people who are not afraid to support our friends in the face of such evil. We have a long tradition of standing up to tyranny and brutality and we should take our place alongside others.

Exactly..by opposing the occupation of Palestine and pushing for the "coalition" out of Iraq in favour of an Muslim based international force.... the first 2 steps to quelling the oxygen of Islamic fundamentalism. Now what you mean is by supporting Partido Popular, Blair and the rest...then I assume your one of those good guys / bad guys theorists.

BarryFry

Originally posted by mr_angry
Given that Bin Laden himself studied and lived in London for some years, I'm sure he's well-aware of the existence of Ireland. And assuming he's the criminal mastermind that he's made out to be, I assume he'd at least contemplate the logistics of staging an attack in Ireland.

But how do you respond to such mindless hate? Create a police state? Try to eradicate them from the face of the Earth? Just keep our fingers crossed and hope that nothing happens? To me, none of these options seem particularly good, and I don't honestly see a good alternative. The real problem is the imbalance of wealth in the world today, and until that is rectified, we are doomed to repeat the same series of events over and over again.

I was agreeing with you mr_a until your last statement. Al-Qaeda have never campaigned for the rescinding of third world debt, or fair trade for Columbian coffee growers.

Al-Qaeda want a Sunni-dominated islamic world free of all non-sunni influence, whether it be from the West, the Jews, the Shia or the Turks. Well, that's their initial negotiating position.

It should be pointed out that this is not something that the overwhelming majority of muslims themselves want, in the Arab world or anywhere else. Which is why, out of the Billion-plus muslims, only a few thousand at most follow Al-Qaeda.

martarg

It's not a war against western culture that Al Qaeda are fighting though. They aren't trying to stop the spread of freedom and democracy around the world, as American propagandists spout. Their war is against the western military presence on what they consider holy lands, the interference of western governments in Middle Eastern politics for economic reasons, and the US's unconditional support for Isreal.

True, but I think it is even more complicated than that. The situation in the Middle East is probably the biggest issue, but Al Qaeda is formed by many different isolated cells, ranging from the Taliban to the Philippino fundamentalists, I have the feeling that this is a more global phenomenon, likely to appear wherever Islamic fundamentalists have a grievance or an objective of any kind. They are not probably targetting democracy itself, but whatever deviates from their notions of "purity". And personally, I am not sure exactly where they are willing to stop. Bin Laden himself mentioned re-conquering "Al-Andalus" (i.e. Spain )

BarryFry

Originally posted by martarg
Bin Laden himself mentioned re-conquering "Al-Andalus" (i.e. Spain )

He would find it full of fat, drunken British tourists. Then he would start to wish he was back in Afghanistan......

martarg

He would find it full of fat, drunken British tourists. Then he would start to wish he was back in Afghanistan......

Thanks, you have made me laugh, I needed it... things have been so depressing around here since the attack on Thursday....

And by the way, according to the latest election results, it appears PP is out, PSOE in...

kanurocks

you cant claim its completely sectarian.Bin laden was trained by the c.i.a he knows the united states underlying agenda.Be that political or economical(oil duh!)