'Plot to blow up planes' foiled

Trode

Trode wrote:

Saying that all muslim terrorists are just wronged innocents reacting in anger is just as naive and simplistic as saying they are all evil and hate us. The fact is that many of these groups do have a ideological motives, and consider western society an affront to their beliefs that must be eradicated. Remember, the average suicude bomber isn't a poor man who's lost everything to an American bomb, he's a relatively affluent college student brought to the cause by by like-minded peers. Look into Sayid Qutb, one of the founding thinkers of modern radical Islam. Know what great American evil drove him to his hatred of the west? Teenagers having sex. The fact is,more often than not these are not the kind of people who can be bought off, and not the kind of people we should be seeking a compromise with.

Speaking of Sayid Qutb the first part of the Power of Nightmares details his rise to power and influence on the Muslim Brotherhood

Ciaran500

Ciaran500 wrote:

You think we shouldn't be able to bring laptops, Ipod's, PSP's, DS's, magazines, news papers, our own water onto a plane?

With the current loonies working on ways to use them to blow up planes correct.
No doubt something will be figured bomb detection wise to slowly reintroduce them.

Al Queda didn't plan the madrid bombings
Today 15:32

I dont care what little evidence there is in terms of al queda ,the guys that bombed those trains can call themselves AlQspainnorthafricaleda if they like , they're all the same.

Flukey

Of course they are not all wronged innocents Trode, but that does help in the recruitment process. It adds to the sway that the leaders can have. For them it is evidence and excuses they can use to convince people to support them. Most of the people supporting the war in Iraq or that joined the army in the past few years and are out there now, did not have any friends and/or relations in the Twin Towers, but it did act as a reason for them to sign up. It was also helped by the spin put on it by their political leaders. Some of them do naievely believe that all muslims are bad, in the same way that some muslims believe that all westerners are bad. They may be on opposite sides, but there is a lot of parallels.

Trode

Deleted User wrote:

Speaking of Sayid Qutb the first part of the Power of Nightmares details his rise to power and influence on the Muslim Brotherhood

I know, I've seen it, but thanks for the link anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing it again. It really is quite fair and not the conspiracist ramblings many people who cite it wish it was.(not you, just most times I see it cited it's spoken of as being similar to 'Loose change' or other conspiracy videos)

Wibbs

Ciaran500 wrote:

Al Queda didn't plan the madrid bombings

A quick google suggests they did; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3509556.stm
They certainly claimed responsibilty and many high level types in AQ have come out in support of it. In any case AQ are a very loose organisation of like minded types. They didn't really exist and most likely don't exist as a cohesive entity like the IRA as an example. Anybody who has similar feelings can claim the title. This is part of it's strength. Makes them far harder to fight as well. Many in fact think the threat from the orgainsation was largely invented by the inteligence types in the US(after the first unsuccessful twin towers attack) as an umbrella title for disparate islamist groups, mostly for the ease of use and the comforting idea of a single evil james bond like villianous organisation. Over simplistic thinking from the cold war.

Speaking as a right wing looney militarist who would be first to send in the troops and adopt a scorched earth policy if it would work, I still have to agree with Flukey. We need to address the underlying issues, whatever they may be. This is a different situation to other wars(and it is a war. In todays terms it only takes a few people to wreak havoc, both economically and to the civilian population and that's how most wars are won).

This could escalate to world war 3 if we're not careful. The danger is many "western" people are fighting this war. A countries own citizens are taking up arms in defence of a viewpoint not held by the majority of their fellow citizens. That Jon Snow programme the other night showed a whole community of British Muslims who feel apart to a lessor or greater extent from the rest. They have their own culture of conspiracy, their own media viewpoint, their own take on world events seperate from those around them. They think this way for many reasons. Most of which are addressable, but these reasons are not being addressed. In fact the biggies are being ignored or exascerbated through ignorance or deliberately. For a start if the catholic irish community in America were watching the catholic irish being killed or demonised in ireland their support would be forthcoming, however misguided. Oh hang on they did pledge support. Scale that up and throw oldtime religion into the mix and away we go up sh1ts creek in a chickenwire canoe.

How is it solveable? Hard one. Dialogue for a start and not just dialogue with the usual 'tame' suspects. Looks only peachy for politicians on TV but useless to the radical on the street. It has the same effect as some oul fella telling you your music's too loud. Dialogue needs to start with the radicals. Having the larger community on your side is one thing, but useless if the community of radicals is off the radar. And this dialogue is possible, if difficult.

Dirk Gently

earthman wrote:

Why? Simply because from last years bombing and Madrid we have definite proof that AlQueda are planning these atrocities as well as their modus operandi and who they are using etc

- I'm not questioning al quedas intentions but I am questioning on how often they are to blame and how often they are used as a handy excuse to whip up hysteria.

earthman wrote:

Comparing that to the lead up to the Iraq war and the subsequent revelations regarding poor inteligence is absurd.

- not really, the war in Iraq was planned and went ahead based on a deliberte lie and misinformation. Many innocent civillians died as a result of western bombings when those involved knew they had no justification for dropping the bombs but chose to spin a web of lies instead.

earthman wrote:

Well I dont recall the london metropolitan police and their counterparts being involved in the debacle that was the WMD claims...If they are as bad as that,I'd suggest people in the Uk may stay in at night and rarely go out at daytime because well the wrong people 100% of them are in prison....

Who said anything about the police been involved in anything. They only follow orders. Its the intelligence which forces the police to react that I want more information on

earthman wrote:

Well the only increased action I've heard called for so far is clear plastic bags for your wallet and passport and no hand luggage.I for one support that,it should have been done long ago. ....

I think we both know that these kind of high profile security alerts which scare the population act to change a lot of peoples views in regard to if they support the Governments policy when dealing with the war on terror. Alerts like this change minds of the people affected and could increase support for the policy of Bush and Blair. I think its important to find out the facts before throwing blind support behind Bush and Blair.

earthman wrote:

I'd be hoping that due process rather than Guantanamoesque process is applied to the 20 or so arrested this morning.We shall see.

as do I and if proved guilty they should be jailed for life but I just want to see some transparency before I jump on the bandwagon.



I'm still a little curious as to why you objected to my post in the manner in which you did. From what I can see my opinion is not much different from a lot of other posters, including Gandalf, however you seem to have taken exception to me. I don't know if it was a case of you misreading my posts or if I didn't make myself clear enough but I thought I was fairly clear in that I will adopt a wait and see approach before I accept today’s intelligence revelations as past intelligence failures have left me skeptical about the timing and scale of the alerts. That means I'm skeptical (with good reason) about believing the intelligence services out of hand without any further analysis. It does not mean I doubt the intentions of Al quedia.

InFront

Flukey wrote:

Well, it proves yet again that the so-called "war on terror" does not exist, but the "war for terror" goes from strength to strength. What I mean is that the activities going on are provoking more terrorism rather than stopping it. Ask the people in London, Madrid and Bali, amongst other places, if the "war on terror" is working. Things are getting worse, not better and the terrorists are being given more reasons, from their perspective, to attack and more propaganda to use to gain recruits.

As we have seen in many places, including Ireland, the way to tackle terrorism is to address the causes, not the perpatrators. Until that is done, nothing will improve. Dropping food parcels in places like Iraq and Afghanistan would do far more damage to Al Q'aida and co than bombs, which are like manna from heaven for them. Every bombed dropped is yet another propaganda victory for them, as another chance to say "look at what they are doing to us, let's get them back."

Helping the ordinary people over there would eliminate that propaganda and begin to hack into the support for the terrorists. Iraqis and Afghanastanis were never going to welcome the allies as liberators when their people are being killed and their homes being destroyed and they are turned into refugees and ripe for terrorist recruitment people. I want all this to stop, but until the underlying causes are tackled, like they were in Ireland and South Africa and other places, nothing will improve.

The plan was to blow up planes in mid-flight using liquid-based explosives. Of course we will now get the usual, "this proves why we should be in Iraq and other places" from the usual suspects on this board, where in reality it proves what being there is doing and how it is increasing the threats that people are under. Will they ever learn? Probably not. Fortunately nothing has happened today and I hope that nothing else does in the future.

Just quoted for truth really. This is the best thought out post that Ive seen in this thread so far. I agree that the apporach laid out above and in your subsequent four or so posts are they way to defeat the threat from extremists.

For now, we have to assume that the threat is real and act accordingly. It's no time for questioning when there could be a bomb about to explode - just act. The post mortem will come later and then it can be fully analysed. Personally, i doubt the UK authorities ary hyping this up. Terrorism is an ugly and cold blooded assault on humanity, and such an attack as has been suggested, would not be shocking.

What remains to be seen, is whether or not this will act as a wake up call to the Western activists in the so-called war on terror (or as Flukey described it, a war-for-terror). Personally, I hope that they will approach the terrorism problem with real, comprehensive, three dimesnional logical response, and not this all-out warfare that is ploughing up the ME into a myre of hatred and resentment. They need to look at where terrorism has come from - cut the ivy at the root, so to speak.

Originally posted by Metrovelvet
Yes. If your not going to be Muslim, you're not going to live! Kill the infidel.

Almost definitely, the most offensive, ill-thought out, downright stupid comment in politics recently, from a poster who AFAIR has otherwise tended to express her opinions with a bit of sense.

Flukey

InFront wrote:

Just quoted for truth really. This is the best thought out post that Ive seen in this thread so far. I agree that the apporach laid out above and in your subsequent four or so posts are they way to defeat the threat from extremists.

It is not well thought out InFront. It is just common sense, something sadly lacking with knee-jerk reactions we get, from people posting on message boards to the people in power, where the real dangers lie.

Trode

Flukey wrote:

Of course they are not all wronged innocents Trode, but that does help in the recruitment process. It adds to the sway that the leaders can have. For them it is evidence and excuses they can use to convince people to support them. Most of the people supporting the war in Iraq or that joined the army in the past few years and are out there now, did not have any friends and/or relations in the Twin Towers, but it did act as a reason for them to sign up. It was also helped by the spin put on it by their political leaders. Some of them do naievely believe that all muslims are bad, in the same way that some muslims believe that all westerners are bad. They may be on opposite sides, but there is a lot of parallels.

I'd say it gets them support and sympathy from their community, probably. But most of those who actually sign up, pick up a gun or strap on a TNT vest, they're pretty hardcore zealots already. Not nutters necessairly, but certainly firm enough in their beliefs that their enemy is an inhuman monster, one that must be fought at every opportunity, and one that can never, ever, be compromised with.
So yeah, there are a lot of parallels. But I don't see a lot of intelligent people saying "You know maybe Iraq should have just listened to what the Americans wanted, they'd have never been attacked. They brought it o themselves, really."

Wibbs

InFront wrote:

They need to look at where terrorism has come from - cut the ivy at the root, so to speak.

Agreed.

Almost definitely, the most offensive, ill-thought out, downright stupid comment in politics recently,

I'm assuming she means that's what the radical islamists believe to one degree or other. In which case she's accurate. If she means the muslim bloke on the corner talking to his mates about football then she's not. Then again there exists shades of grey and degrees of belief between both the guy on the corner and the nutjob. I've talked to Irish born pretty lax Muslims who wouldn't harm a hair on anyones head talk about "western" culture and believe quite strongly that it's wrong and corrupt. You see similar in Britain were everyday Muslims see the society they live in as somehow lesser. Now everyone does this to one extent or other. Check out the moaning that you regularly get on after hours. The only difference may be that in the Muslim community there may exist a small radical faction that attract the upper end of that feeling about the west and actually have a roadmap and the will to do something about it. Hell that would be the same in good old days of catholic ireland too. It goes for any community really. It's relevance is just down to the moment.

Flukey

Another bit of common sense for you: Many people would say that views like mine make me and others who hold them anti-American. Firstly that is usually an attempt to rubbish views held as being irrelevant, as they can't counter them. So we are labelled as being anti-American and that means, in their view, that our opinions don't count. Now my point of common sense is this: The fact I don't agree with American foreign policy does not make me anti-American, it just makes me anti-American foreign policy.

Let me put it another way, with a question to you all. Do you agree with every single policy every Irish government has ever had on any issue? I doubt it. Does the fact that you do disagree with some Irish government policies make you anti-Irish? Of course it doesn't, and the very suggestion is completely and absolutely ludicrous. Of course it is no less ludicrous than people saying that anyone disagreeing with American foreign policy is anti-American. So if you do think I am anti-American then just about every Irish person is anti-Irish, including yourself.

The_Scary_Man

The question has been asked a number of times on this thread as to why the british government would wish to propogate a culture of fear. A population in fear is a population that is easier to control and manipulate.

If they came out before the Iraq war and said that this military action was about consolidating and protecting Israel's interests in the middle east and securing oil fields then they woiuld have had a job garnering support from the public.

Instead they falsely linked Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and again falsely claimed that not only did he have WMD's but that he was intending to use them to attack mainland USA. The populous was angry and afraid after the 911 attacks and people, especially in the US, were happy to see any action taken against anyone who even remotely resembled their attackers.

This is how fear is used, it is used to obfuscate the truth, to muddy the waters up sufficiently so that people don't differentiate between different types of muslims. People don't view muslims as being reasonable people who as a people hold a spectrum of beliefs and practices just as diverse and relevant as our own.

They create fear so they can use it to justify actions that they know the people, the people they are supposed to work for, wouldn't countenance if asked honestly. At the moment there are elements of the US and British govts pushing for an invasion of Syria and Iran. This they say will lead to peace in the region because the despotic governments will be overthrown and democracy will be foisted upon the people so that they can change and live tlike civilised people, like us.

Well US style democracy hasn't exactly been embraced by the people of Iraq, things are far, far worse over there now for the average citizen then they ever were under Saddam Hussein. As far as the rest of us are concerned this was supposed to be a massive blow to the terrorist networks, a move designed to make us all safer by decapitating the regimes that would support terrorists.

Well I haven't seen that happen and I don't see it happening any time soon. Rather than alienating the terrorist organisations they have made them more popular among the average middle-eastern muslim who see them as the only ones willing to stand up to the Evil Powers of America and Britain.

Before you judge their naivety remember that they are as much victims of a biased media as we are plus they are seeing the violent life destroying effects of this conflict first hand not on the TV as we are.

One more thing, we live in a society where time has become a commodity, we label our time to better use it. We assign 8 hours to work, 3 hours to travel, 3 hours to our family, a half hour to eat, a half hour to watch the news and learn what going on in the world.

Consequently all the major events of the day have to be reduced down to five minute segments that can't possibly communicate a coherent picture of the actual event. You can't trust the media, especially the privately owned companies, as their job is not to tell you the truth, its to rack up eyeball hours, to sell you a product.

Try watching a different news program every night across the range from Channel 4/More4 news which has a fairly liberal world view to Sky News which I would suggest is a fairly conservative station. Notice the differences in the way the stories are conveyed and THEN decide which version of the truth is more likely to be true.

The_Scary_Man

Flukey wrote:

Another bit of common sense for you: Many people would say that views like mine make me and others who hold them anti-American. Firstly that is usually an attempt to rubbish views held as being irrelevant, as they can't counter them. So we are labelled as being anti-American and that means, in their view, that our opinions don't count. Now my point of common sense is this: The fact I don't agree with American foreign policy does not make me anti-American, it just makes me anti-American foreign policy.

Let me put it another way, with a question to you all. Do you agree with every single policy every Irish government has ever had on any issue? I doubt it. Does the fact that you do disagree with some Irish government policies make you anti-Irish? Of course it doesn't, and the very suggestion is completely and absolutely ludicrous. Of course it is no less ludicrous than people saying that anyone disagreeing with American foreign policy is anti-American. So if you do think I am anti-American then just about every Irish person is anti-Irish, including yourself.

Well said, since when did it become an act of sedition to question the way our governments, who again people please remember work for US not the other way round, work or make decisions. In my view it is not only our right to question it is our DUTY.

If we don't do it who will?

They certainly won't police them!selves

Benedict XVI

On topic - I wish to congratulate the British and US authorities for nipping this in the bud.

Off Topic but somewhat related – A security expert was on the Ryan Tubridy on Radio 1 this morning and made some interesting comments about how Ireland could be involved in such a terrorist plot.
Not because of the use of Shannon but because Ireland is the weakest link in the European security chain.
He suggested if anyone wanted to blow up a plane on approach to a UK (or US) airport in a build up area then they could simply board it in Ireland with whatever explosive device they have without any problem.
I have to totally agree, if you look at it we are a sitting duck for being the origin of an attack.
Minister for Defense Willie O’ Dea is on the Last Word this evening, I’m sorry I can’t listen to what guff he has to offer.
A girl from Dublin airport was on earlier said that they were not upping their security checks in light of this !!!!

But then again we are neutral so it’s all going to be ok !!!

clown bag

clown bag wrote:

- I'm not questioning al quedas intentions but I am questioning on how often they are to blame and how often they are used as a handy excuse to whip up hysteria.

I doubt if you had 70 different organisations doing this , that reactions would be any different.

- not really, the war in Iraq was planned and went ahead based on a deliberte lie and misinformation. Many innocent civillians died as a result of western bombings when those involved knew they had no justification for dropping the bombs but chose to spin a web of lies instead.

That doesnt answer my questioning your comparison of that with the reasoning behind todays airport alert and arrests.
You were doing a chalk and cheese with them.
The fact that islamic terrorists championed by Bin laden et all bombed London last year is absolutely certain as is the police investigation arising out of it and related activities leading to todays events.
Thats cheese.
Going to war and having nothing direct regarding WMD-thats chalk in comparison.

Who said anything about the police been involved in anything. They only follow orders. Its the intelligence which forces the police to react that I want more information on

The police have a terrorism investigation unit and its been doing most of the investigating of this and the London bombs.

I think we both know that these kind of high profile security alerts which scare the population act to change a lot of peoples views in regard to if they support the Governments policy when dealing with the war on terror. Alerts like this change minds of the people affected and could increase support for the policy of Bush and Blair. I think its important to find out the facts before throwing blind support behind Bush and Blair.

Do you not think that average joe would prefer to be informed and on a state of alert rather than take a bus one day and it explodes.
The latter,now thats much more effective at scaring the population.

as do I and if proved guilty they should be jailed for life but I just want to see some transparency before I jump on the bandwagon.

To be frank with you I dont think theres any bandwagon here.Personally my line on it is, oh they're there,they're nasty and lets hope to fcuk that they're twarted by the police etc.

I'm still a little curious as to why you objected to my post in the manner in which you did. From what I can see my opinion is not much different from a lot of other posters, including Gandalf, however you seem to have taken exception to me. I don't know if it was a case of you misreading my posts or if I didn't make myself clear enough but I thought I was fairly clear in that I will adopt a wait and see approach before I accept today’s intelligence revelations as past intelligence failures have left me skeptical about the timing and scale of the alerts. That means I'm skeptical (with good reason) about believing the intelligence services out of hand without any further analysis. It does not mean I doubt the intentions of Al quedia.

No I took your post and replied to it.I could have taken others to make a similar point.Thats often done.The fact that its yours specefically is immaterial.
What is material is the fact that theres a discussion going on arising out of various posts including yours.
Enjoy the limelight

RedPlanet

Hold on does anybody know exactly what happened?
RTE are reporting that 21 people have been arrested, although they didn't state they've been charged with any crimes, or if they have been charged, what are the charges?
Also, at this point isn't this "plot" an allegation?
The media certainly aren't reporting it that way. Rather, they seem to be taking the queue from the governments of Britain and USA and reporting this as FACT, when in reality, facts at this point are hard to come by.

RedPlanet

RedPlanet wrote:

Hold on does anybody know exactly what happened?

What do you mean? does anybody know the details of the police investigation? Of course not its ongoing.

RTE are reporting that 21 people have been arrested, although they didn't state they've been charged with any crimes, or if they have been charged, what are the charges?

I'd imagine when theres court,the charges wont be parking fines,if thats what you're worried about.I'd be surprised if some if not all of these 20 ended up in court.

Also, at this point isn't this "plot" an allegation?

So? This thread isnt a trial either,its a discussion.

The media certainly aren't reporting it that way. Rather, they seem to be taking the queue from the governments of Britain and USA and reporting this as FACT, when in reality, facts at this point are hard to come by.

Well it is a FACT that the deputy chief of scotland yard police has said that there was a plan to commit mass murder.
In fact its a fact that the UK home secretary and the police have used terms like the "main players" are in custody-of course you are correct that they arent "in fact" the "main players" untill convicted in a court of law-but they are definitely the "strong suspects" in the plot.
A broad indication of the terminology used today in various quarters, plus a summary of the story so far can be found here

RedPlanet

A lot of bluster in that article, but little else.
Excuse me while i don't buy into all the hype.

Anyone remember Jean Charles de Menezes?

Dirk Gently

Earthman wrote:

That doesnt answer my questioning your comparison of that with the reasoning behind todays airport alert and arrests.
You were doing a chalk and cheese with them.

To answer your question I'm not comparing chalk with cheese I'm questioning the reliability of the intelligence organisations who we know in the past lied and mislead the public.

Earthman wrote:

Do you not think that average joe would prefer to be informed and on a state of alert rather than take a bus one day and it explodes.

Of course the public need to be warned on genuine threats. I just want to know if this particular threat is genuine or if it was hyped up for political reasons. I only question it because fear has been used for political purposes quite a lot recently by the UK and US to justify the war on terror and until I know more about what actually happened today I will withhold judgment. (imagine if we withheld judgement on the WMD claims and the links between sadam and Bin Ladin) If and when it becomes clear that an attack was imminent then I will congratulate the British security services on a job well done.

Earthman wrote:

Enjoy the limelight

Thanks, I feel really special.
It was just out of curiosity more than anything else seen as you let Gandalf go unanswered who basically had the same concerns as me and when another mod (Billy I think) asked questions about the timing of the threat and if it was a cover to deflect pressure you seemed to address his concerns in a very respectable and less confrontational manner compared to your reply to me. I'm sure it was probably just due to my own poor illustration of my points.

Anyway thanks for clearing up the confusion on my part.

cinnamon

Earthman wrote:

I'd place more faith in democracy than I would in the lunacy of Alqueda to be frank with you.I'd agree that some loonies do get elected but at least we can turf them out.

Yeah George Dubya is serving his second term - they did a great job of turfing him out


RTE are reporting that 21 people have been arrested, although they didn't state they've been charged with any crimes, or if they have been charged, what are the charges?

This smacks of The Guidford Four/Birmingham Six conspiracies. Let's wait and see..

Frederico

Tyrone wrote:

I am glad to see the Brits are staying on top of the game and protecting their people and all of us non combat combatant civilians from these Muslim radicals.

I laugh when I read some of these posts. All these nations have a big conspiracy
going on so they can take away your rights and put you into jail under the guise of the war on terror.

Why would a rational nation spend millions or billions of dollars on airport security, slow their own economy, and make hundereds of thousands of passengers waste hours in an airport just to board.

Do any of you have a clue as to how many lifetimes are wasted each day in airport delays. Take 500,000 people and that is a low number BTW, delay each for 2 hours each day and you now have wasted one million hours. If a person lives to be 74 then he would have 648,240 hours of life. This dose not include the time and expence wasted by airport personal.

Millions of people travel each day via airplane all over the world and many lifetimes and their economic value are lost due to the actions of these Muslim radicals.

We have the apeasers here that want to give them food thinking that will
stop the violence. Ya right. These radicals are taught that any non muslim
is the enemy and below them. All should be killed.

Some of you people better think again. We are talking about Muslim radicals
that have no problem killing men, women or children that are not of their faith. Just how many military personal do you think they are targeting on commerical aircraft. They arn't.

Some of you bi*ch about how we treat prisioners. How do they treat prisioners? They beat them half to death and then wack off their heads.

And you want to give them food in the hope they will stop! Good luck

The only thing I would give them is a bullet in the head.

We're talking about the kind of radicals that blew up that building in Oklahoma? The British government talked to the IRA, maybe one day some "pansy leftwing gawd dang merican guvmint" will talk to Al Qaeda, maybe in 50 years when there's no end in sight.

Islamic fundamentalists lop off prisoners heads, this makes it "ok" for us to treat our prisoners badly.. some kind of comparison?

Annyhhooww..

oscarBravo

daveg wrote:

I think it's time for a drastic change to all airline security. Whatever is takes to make flying safe. If that means no hand luggage so biet. Mandetory finger printing on passports.

Why stop there? Why not bind, gag, blindfold and sedate all passengers? Require that they send all their luggage by separate freight service? Strip- and cavity-search all passengers before boarding?

Flying is safe. People are piss-poor at assessing risk, is all.

Frederico

I have to say Sky News are having a field day, I even saw an ad on one of their other stations reminding you to tune into the hype.

I cant imagine what Fox News is like.

The spin and lies and propaganda of Western Governments are making us so skeptical (we can barely believe such a massive plot has been foiled) and of course just making young muslim men angrier and angrier.

Tyrone

Flukey wrote:

Another bit of common sense for you: Many people would say that views like mine make me and others who hold them anti-American. Firstly that is usually an attempt to rubbish views held as being irrelevant, as they can't counter them. So we are labelled as being anti-American and that means, in their view, that our opinions don't count. Now my point of common sense is this: The fact I don't agree with American foreign policy does not make me anti-American, it just makes me anti-American foreign policy.

Flukey, Not everyone agrees with our forign policy. There are many thing I don't agree with. The one thing I do agree with is going after these Muslin Radicals.

Many Americans want us to beat feet in Iraq. That dose not make them anti-American in my book. It makes them STUPID in my book.

But we all know this so called war on terror really dosn't exist. It was made up by Bush and Blair with the help of the CIA and Scoutland Yard so it would give them an excuse to exert more control over their own Nations.

Maybe thats not it, perhaps the real game plan between Bush and Blair is to
rule the world so they made up this so called Terror threat and had the CIA
fly plains into the world trade center. Yea that must be it.

The good news is this. Pakistan arrested someone a few days ago. I suppose he was suspected of being a terrorists or something. Well, whoever they arrested dropped the beans that the plot was going operational. I am sure the only reason this prisioner gave up this information was because one of his guards brought him a fresh "Ham Sandwich" and a pack of cigaretts.

Here is what Human rights news has to say about Pakistan.

PAKISTAN
Torture is routinely used in Pakistan by civilian law enforcement agencies, military personnel, and intelligence agencies. While acts of torture by the police are generally aimed at producing confessions during the course of criminal investigations, torture by military agencies primarily serves to frighten a victim into changing his political stance or loyalties or at the very least to stop him from being critical of the military authorities. Suspects are often whipped to the point of bleeding, severely beaten, and made to stay in painful stress positions. A July 2004 Human Rights Watch report focuses on abuses against farming families in the Punjab, including testimony about killings and torture by paramilitary forces.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/27/china10549.htm

Some how that human rights org left out the lives that were saved by a lousy
Ham sandwich and a pack of butts.

I sure hope they keep up the GOOD work. It really dose save lives!

Tyrone

Frederico wrote:

I have to say Sky News are having a field day, I even saw an ad on one of their other stations reminding you to tune into the hype.

I cant imagine what Fox News is like.

The spin and lies and propaganda of Western Governments are making us so skeptical (we can barely believe such a massive plot has been foiled) and of course just making young muslim men angrier and angrier.

Don't imagine anything Frederico, Go to Foxnews.com and find out yourself.

Fox news leans a little right but CNN leans a bit left. In my honest opinion you will get the straight story from fox news 99% of the time. There is always the Wall Street Journal which no one disputes is honest and factual and if an error is made in their reporting they correct it.

Flukey

Positive policies in the Middle East would save many more lives Tyrone. With positive policies in the Middle East over the past few decades, there could be about 3000 people working in the pristine Twin Towers as we speak.

mike65

Deleted User wrote:

For all of you out there who don't think Governments use terror alerts to mould public opinion then please watch this very enlightening BBC documentary

The Power of Nightmares < click to watch

Glad you bought that programme up, twas very interesting however it also traces back the origins of what is called Al-Qeada so its not all made up you know! Also worth watching is Peter Taylors 3 part series The New Al-Qaeda: jihad.com dunno if thats on-line but both programmes are due a swift repeat maybe.

Some more stuff coming out (as speculation) namely two of the suspects are anglo converts and one is a Heathrow employee. Pakistan authorities were part of the intelligence mix too it seems.

Mike.

Tyrone

Flukey wrote:

Positive policies in the Middle East would save many more lives Tyrone. With positive policies in the Middle East over the past few decades, there could be about 3000 people working in the pristine Twin Towers as we speak.

Flukey, Flukey, Flukey, those pristine Twin Towers were the "WORLD TRADE CENTER" People from many nations had offices there. Many of the people that died were not Americans. It was not just a shot at Americans, it was a shot at the whole world.

InFront

In my honest opinion you will get the straight story from fox news

Ive been watching all the major news channels today, above all, FOX has been nothing but theatrical in their reporting. It has just been spinning some scare tactic (they literally used the word "scary") that 81% of British Muslims see themselves firstly as Muslim and secondly as British people.
Now I'm no expert on theology, but I dont think that many Catholic, Sikh, Hindu or Baptist would identify their loyalties as being with the government before being with God. It's a silly game they are playing with the viewrship, utter propaganda. Saying your primary loyalty lies with God does not make you a militant extremist.

George Galloway was on Sky earlier on responding to a question about the radicalization of the Muslim community and told the presenter that all any young Muslim had to do to become radicalised was switch on Sky News! Sadly he has a point. Federico referred to spin and hype as being what is radicalising young British Muslims, and turning them against their country, and he's right. This demonisation of a religion is a vicious circle, I get the feeling things are going to get a lot worse before we see any hope of a resolve.

Nick_oliveri

mike65 wrote:

Some more stuff coming out (as speculation) namely two of the suspects are anglo converts and one is a Heathrow employee. Pakistan authorities were part of the intelligence mix too it seems.

Mike.

Love that documentary, seen it when it started on bbc. Very informative.