It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Meanwhile, and this is a genuine question, what does the very low attendance at this rally say about the Muslim community in Birmingham?
http://www.itv.com/news/central/2017-03-25/pictures-unity-rally-in-birminghams-victoria-square-following-westminster-attacks/
This PoS had a long criminal record, and - after stabbing a man in the face - was once arrested in suspicion of attempted murder. This was later reduced to GBH.
All true but if the fundamentalists can weaponize scum like this to terrorise and attack western society they do no longer need organised cells to strike. They have entered a new phase of terrorism in which we do no longer no where to watch and to distrust everybody and hence splitting our society in half. For me it seems like they are winning this battle once again.
I find the attacks in Nice, Berlin, Orly & London more terrifying than the one of 9/11 because how can you defend yourself against ordinary people on your everyday activities.
An armed police officer at the gate would be an option to consider? A single guy with 2 knives sould be one of the easiest threats to anticipate and deal with.
It seems a bit complimentary when he's called a terrorist. This killer was nothing but a murdering lunatic and a weak minded imbecile.
Any nutcase in our society can do damage if they are violent and unhinged enough as we have seen with the Hungerford massacre and the Dunblane massacre.
But to keep giving this idiot publicity is giving him exactly what he wanted. As well as giving Islamic State and their supporters the notoriety and attention they crave so much.
I would like to raise an issue I've talked about before: Must we give this all that media attention? I understand that as a nation we grieve, we feel the pain and so we symbolically unite and stand up against evil and demand that our politicians raise a comforting voice and expound future measures without misunderstanding their place in history. We want our "one minute of national silence" and our flowers near the place of crime. It's become routine. BUT: when television stations and newspapers continue to divulge the finer details of what's happened, others get ideas...
Last year, March 22nd, when the Zaventem Airport in my capital of Brussels was attacked, the newspapers made very clear which explosives were used. The next morning, some of my 14 year old students proudly proclaimed that not only had they found the recipe for said explosives on the Internet, they were also perfectly aware that the ingredients were all present in our school labs. When the first truck incident occurred, many more followed almost immediately. Related? Absolutely not. There's a fat chance those perpetrators never received formal orders by ISIS either. (ISIS almost always claims the crime after the fact but rarely planned it.) Then there's the stabbing of police men and so forth. My point is; one loonatic leads others by example, but it's our media that spread the examples worldwide! With every "breaking news!" article, more potential "lone wolves" are practically instructed on how to proceed. I'm not saying there would never have been another car attack if we had kept the Christmas incident in Germany silent, but it may have made some difference.
Of course it's difficult to keep such a thing from the news, or from Facebook for that matter. But we should still take the time to make this mental exercise. Sure, evil men will always find a way, but there are those who need a little persuasion, a little push as it were, and we're giving it to them by showing a) how easy it is to commit an act of terrorism and b) how much it hurts us. If we could stop being so obsessed with "the latest news" and with phrases like "the people have the right to know", we would hurt terrorism pretty badly. In a way, it's not so much the act of terror that scares us, it's the many weeks of political debates and opinionated talk in the media that make us frightened. Some politicians feel a need to blow an attack out of proportion to "prove a point". As a result, we wet our pants when we see a Muslim with a briefcase in a train station. We consider staying home from work and keep our children indoors. We cripple our nation out of fear and that fear is fed by--again--the media. ISIS and others take notice of that and laugh, because that's what they want. If something happened and no-one but the victims, their relatives and the bystanders would know, as with a car accident for example, if our nation weren't mourning and just kept moving on instead, terrorism would be deprived of its primary tool. Like a bad horror film that leaves us neither scared nor excited and gives its producers no excuse to make a sequel, we'd take away the one thing they have to hurt us.
Again, this is practically impossible. We can't just have an incident like what happened in London and pretend nothing ever transpired. It would be pretty cold and harsh towards the victims and their relatives and it would leave the bystanders and their iPhones confused. But in my opinion, all of our extensive media covering, political speech giving, monument building, national mourning... feeds the illusion of terrorism success and encourages others to do the same. It "inspires" them. Would other things not inspire them? No. But I can't shake the feeling that by highlighting a madman's background, motives and actions, and by openly showing the wounds the death of one innocent person has inflicted on an entire nation, we're giving ISIS sympathisers (and others) a clear invitation to do the same. We're telling them their actions do matter, that they do hurt us, and that's the one thing we really shouldn't do.
Unfortunately, the new fashion in British news coverage appears to be the 'saturation' approach. It is a fairly recent phenomenon, yet it appears here to stay. Perhaps we should look again at the faithful old 'newsflash' approach to TV coverage?
As I said on the other thread, I was most surprised to learn that there were unarmed officers on perimeter duties at Westminster. They weren't there by chance but as a result of threat assessments. The police commanders in charge of protecting this site, working in liaison with other agencies, would have made the decision that it was safe to deploy unarmed officers at certain points on the perimeter. This will have changed permanently on the day of the attack.
Another thing to remember is the footfall around Westminster. There are many tourists/pedestrians passing by at all times. It is still quite possible that a would be terrorist who adopted the stealth approach, could position himself close enough to attack a member of the security team. The police face the disadvantage of having to react, before they could draw their weapon they could find themselves stabbed in the neck. There is of course a solution to this, and that is to separate the police from the public by creating a 'buffer zone' of sorts along the perimeter of Westminster, a permanent security barrier beyond which no one is allowed. I'm unsure if the authorities would wish to go this far though.
I dont think it's just rolling news that is the issue. Its also social media and our thirst for "back stories". I was reading in the Sunday Times today a big, 2 page spread with photos of the killed and injured with details of their lives which, frankly, is just not news. Knowing that innocent people died is enough for me. I dont need to see photos of the family or interviews with their neighbours etc. It just adds to the whole way the story is overblown. Any innocent life lost is a tragedy. It makes it no more or less of a tragedy with a full "back story".
Another spin off is the way we are changing as a society. This whole issue about reporting anything suspicious is open to abuse and/or paranoid reporting. My inlaws have reported a white Transit van that has been parked in their road for 3 days. Its taxed etc but, as they have never seen it before and neither have the neighbours, they reported it to the Police. By doing so, they have created more work for an overstretched Police force and this adds to the feeling of paranoia and distrust.
Car hire frims have been asked to report any suspicious customers. How's that going to play out? We can no look forward to many stories of innocent men who are of middle Eastern origin being investigated purely because they want to hire a car for a couple of days! This is exactly the type of atmosphere that the terrorists want to create: a social impact that goes way beyond the grief created by the actual acts themselves.
We see constant overkill with the news in all its forms. A case in point being Jo Cox. TBH I had never even heard of her until she was murdered. That itself was a terrible tragedy, but one which has since been turned into a circus (for want of a better word). Call me cynical but I think some people have latched onto the fact that there is money to be made. Her husband even popped up during the reports of the Westminster attack to issue a statement!
There are always ways and means to get round most things. For example, if the would be terrorist wanted to use a car for an attack and thought that if he hired a vehicle he may be reported, he could simply buy an old banger for much the same money as it would cost to hire a car for a few days. It needn't be roadworthy, fitted with false (show) plates it would only be required to go on a short one way trip.
I am afraid that we as a western society carry some blame as well when it comes to the current status in the Middle east.
When you compare the recent London attack to others around Europe, both in terms of casualties and the level of organisation shown by the attackers, it makes you wonder how the UK media would handle a larger attack? Perhaps SKY would create a dedicated channel?
There is reason to be mindful and fearful. The threat is real and it's not going anywhere. The more people understand that and internalize it, the better.
The current policy by western countries will inevitably lead to an Israeli style mindset and response mechanism with time. That is where we are headed. We're just not there yet.
These folks aren't going to give up. That is the one certainty. This attack will inevitably motivate others, like it did in France.
We cant have a committed and co-ordinated response until we agree on what the root causes are.
Multiculturalism as it currently exists doesn't work in my view. When I lived in the UK as a youngster there was a requirement & expectation to assimilate. I think some of that may have been lost. I haven't been back in a while, so I'm not sure. Here is a point of view on it (I don't know if I agree but I welcome the poster's thoughts).
https://ktwop.com/2014/09/04/a-society-to-be-a-society-can-be-multi-ethnic-but-not-multicultural/
I was more referring to the inevitability of a heightened security posture & loss of personal freedoms. We will see more of that with time, as technology improves and as these attacks continue.
There is a mass of evidence to show that Muslim communities have not intergrated into modern Western culture in the same way that other communities have. But to point this out and imply that, in some way, Muslim communities have a shared responsibilty re their role is seen by many as simply not acceptable.
Unfortunately, the issue has been allowed to fester like a pus filled wound. It has to be confronted, and quickly. The time for pleasantries may soon be over.
I believe that the solution must come from within Islam. It cannot be top down. Someone like Maajid Nawaz in the UK or Mubin Shaikh in Toronto have an inside track on the terrorist's mind, and people like them who have reformed must be given more opportunity to be heard.
That people (ordinary people) feel they cannot speak about matters which they feel pertain directly to extremism and/or terrorism not only hands a pass to the terrorists but also serves to create frustration and anger amongst others. Sometimes the racist card is a cheap shot employed by people who don't want to hear the rational views of others. I myself was banned from another forum for backing Brexit. Another member (a rabid Europhile) began to accuse my of making racist statements. After asking the person in question to point out any racist comments I made on that forum - which he couldn't do simply because there weren't any - I complained to the moderators. Then just because I continued to counterpoint his statements about the EU (this was before the referendum) I was banned without warning.
I never got the apology I asked for regarding the false accusations of racism!
Now I'm not PC, but neither am I a bigot. I think that plain common sense debate about the root causes of terrorism - and this includes the mistakes we make which contribute to the situation - is needed in society. While we all must respect peoples freedom to peacefully practice their faith and identify with their cultural heritage (and, in the case of the UK, I mean Christian faith and British identity as much as any other) we must seek to identify the rot within our society and then remove it.
I'm pretty damn sure we here are mature enough to debate this issue without recourse to accusation or name calling and I for one would welcome it.
Excellent article which, surely, no right minded person can disagree with?
While I agree that currently the Islamic terrorism is essentially the only terrorism currently in business it has won all major battles, we spend way too much money on wars that are continued due to us starting them after 9/11. We took the exact road the fundamentalist strategists wanted us to take and in doing so we destabilized the whole middle east, We started distrusting our neighbours who came drom different cultures but had lived among us for ages without any major incident bar the occasional bigotry, We spend a shedload of money that would be better spend on healthcare, economy and climate, by devastating our world with bombs and other weapons, while at the same time scaring the general public.
Some blame the media which is in essence owned by some very rich folks who do not have a social agenda but more one of reaping power. Murdoch owning the UK media does get listened to by the UK government if he wants to talk in Brussels nobody cares about him he has no real pull. So sure he is against EU and favors his little UK. The same applies more or less in the US where a set of billionaires have hijacked the political arena with one of them running the show and he will be good for the big companies and bad for social welfare because there is no bucks in them. The last election was mostly fact free assumptions and opinions. The media played a major part in the Bread and games these days and I am always surprised how quick the security services seem to know who to blame. With the amount of money they have they should know everything way before it can happen.
I do not blame the media, I blame those who manipulate the media, and there is if you read enough plenty to worry about but a lot of it is simply Stimmungmacherei, like a magician showing only what you should see while he is doing something totally else.
People with guns kill people.
People with toasters toast bread and don't kill people but feed them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39398548
"I think what Prevent has often done is seen to target the Muslim community, not anybody else, looks to say there is a kind of suspicion over the whole community and it's actually often counter-productive....I'm saying broaden it into an agenda of inclusion ... Focus it on all communities'
With the security services having their resources stretched way beyond breaking point as it is, the alleged leader of the opposition thinks diverting officers to combat extremism in the Quaker and 7th Day Adventist communities just to appease Muslims is a credible solution?
Article below is a great example from the liberals who refuse to beleive that Islam plays any role...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/should-blame-islam-terrorism
"Let’s assume for a moment, then, that Islam is especially predisposed towards violence"
A few minutes on Youtube watching women getting stoned to death, atheists flogged or young girls "cut" is admissibe within the debate?
Due process could be followed, by this I mean certain criteria would have to be met before any action could be taken. Each case put before a panel of judges who would decide whether or not the action was justified.
I know the bleeding hearts brigade and other assorted liberalists would be up in arms about this but - from my perspective - it it saved one innocent life - it would be worth it.