RugbyRebels

I'd guess the Daily Fail column pays a lot more than LBC.

OptimisticJock wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:

Zhivago wrote:
Woah there Nellie. I seek only understanding. I'm not the sort of person who thinks in 'an eye for an eye' way. I only want us to be honest about some of the side effects of our regime change projects. Because we really really need to learn our lessons. Iraq, Libya, Syria...

The actions of the West in the Middle East are a factor. But I don't think they are the only factor. Western governments have intervened, in a number of ways, across the globe, yet the direct threat to us remains from a particular group. There are wider issues here as well.

It would be foolish to ignore the politics and religion of the ME and the manner in which there are serious undercurrents in many of the countries that make up the region - both religious, ethnic and tribal. it also must not be ignored that many of the victims of suicide bombers (as well as other forms of attack) by Islamic terrorists are other muslims in the Middle East. They aren't being killed because they are British, or because they suicide bombers are trying to pressurise a western government. The 'debate' over the modernisation of Islam isn't new and is, in many countries, tied up in the wider issues.

I agree that we need to understand the problem better, but that understanding requires a wider view than its all the fault of Bush and Blair for invading Iraq. Its also far too easy to blame Syria and Libya on the west, thus exonerating the local rulers of any responsibility for their actions in the ensuring civil war.

Yeah but we have to seek to exonerate these people of blame. It's our fault. And the all those bairns too.

Oh aye, it's a popular view and one which completely ignores any terrorist attack by an Islamist group in the west prior to 2001.

Vengeful Glutton wrote: Basically you have some muslim geezer whose been told by radicals, that the west are the cause of all the problems in the ME (and they're right insofar as the west has played a pivotal role in sustaining Islamic despots - for its own ends of course).

As has been pointed out in numerous studies, such as the US military's Youth Bulge demographic, young men are particularly susceptible to radicalisation especially if they've become, or feel they've become disenfranchised, and are unemployed.

I don't live in the UK, so you're in a better position to evaluate how well the muslim community integrates with the typical brit. On the wireless here in the land of gombeen men, and paedophile priests, a muslim cleric highlighted that there haven't been any attacks in Ireland (not yet anyway). He reckoned that it was because muslims found it easier to integrate into the community. Personally, I'm not convinced, but it's an interesting point.

On Question Time last night I actually heard one of the panellists say the words:
'These home grown terrorists are in their mid 20's, so they weren't radicalised by the first Gulf War'.

History suggests that it is always English establishment foreign policy that is the root cause.

Sandydragon wrote:

OptimisticJock wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:
The actions of the West in the Middle East are a factor. But I don't think they are the only factor. Western governments have intervened, in a number of ways, across the globe, yet the direct threat to us remains from a particular group. There are wider issues here as well.

It would be foolish to ignore the politics and religion of the ME and the manner in which there are serious undercurrents in many of the countries that make up the region - both religious, ethnic and tribal. it also must not be ignored that many of the victims of suicide bombers (as well as other forms of attack) by Islamic terrorists are other muslims in the Middle East. They aren't being killed because they are British, or because they suicide bombers are trying to pressurise a western government. The 'debate' over the modernisation of Islam isn't new and is, in many countries, tied up in the wider issues.

I agree that we need to understand the problem better, but that understanding requires a wider view than its all the fault of Bush and Blair for invading Iraq. Its also far too easy to blame Syria and Libya on the west, thus exonerating the local rulers of any responsibility for their actions in the ensuring civil war.

Yeah but we have to seek to exonerate these people of blame. It's our fault. And the all those bairns too.

Oh aye, it's a popular view and one which completely ignores any terrorist attack by an Islamist group in the west prior to 2001.

What because the West never messed up the middle east before 2001?

There seems to be a lot of people coming up with excuses why scum like this are blowing themselves up along with innocent people, why is this? do people try to make excuses up for child killers and pedophiles, or other such murderers of innocent people?? I have never seen it, so why is it so in this case?
Islamist scum are killing people in many countries around the world, Nigeria for instance, they are slaughtering people in their hundreds over there, and in the most horrible way, yet it hardly gets a mention.
Example, a woman was preaching the gospel in the street in Northern Nigeria, islamist scum come along and cut her head off. A church service, also in Northern Nigeria, armed islamist scum surround the place, bring the people out one at a time, truss them up like animals and cut their heads off, to cheers from the watching islamist shyte. This never got a mention in Blighty. So my point being why did they do it? whats the excuse for them in that case??

This country and other countries with big muslim populations are in trouble, the media keep ramming it down our throats that islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, this couldn't be further from the truth, in fact the exact opposite is true, it is a religion of war and intolerance, its not even a religion its more of a cult with a twisted ideology.
To say that the radicals are not real muslims or they are not proper muslims is completely false, they are fundamentalist muslims. I suggest people arm themselves about the true intentions of islam, because its coming for us whether we choose to believe it or, and to keep saying we will just carry on as normal, they will not stop our way of life, isn't going to combat it, no matter how stiff we keep our upper lip, it won't stop these nutters from blowing us up and doing us harm. We need to act, and act fast.

And before anyone says it, yes I know there are nice muslims out there, they are not all bad, just like not all Germans were Nazis during the war, but a lot of them are bad, and they need to be dealt with, asap.

I honestly don't know why I bother replying to you.

No amount of common sense will change your right wing, racist world view. The websites you visit, and circles you keep provide you with all the 'information' you need.

Again, you need to separate the word extremism from the word Islam.

That same word 'extremism' exists in all walks of life and all religions for that matter. Even people who vehemently support a particular football team will be more than happy to beat the shit out of someone who supports an opposing team. Hey, in some cases football fans have been killed simply because they support a particular team. The vast majority of people who support football do so in a perfectly acceptable way, but some are happy to maim and kill for their 'religion'. Should football be banned because some people are unable to separate extremism from support?

Religious extremism, in all its forms has been responsible for killing millions, upon millions of people throughout history. Believe it or not, Christians, including white Anglo-Saxon Christians have killed, and no doubt continue to kill, as well as call for the killing of others. Reading the comments sections on US news sites has been a bit of an eye-opener for me. I've lost count of the number of times that God fearing Christians have called people to arms to kill others, or approve of the killing of others. The Christian God has even played a part in many a ME invasion or military strike targeted against Muslim countries. Dubya and quite a few other Presidents, including Trump have used God as an excuse to kill people. That's ok though?

How is that any different?

For all the instances of Western people being killed in these barbaric and dreadful events of religious extremism, how many people are being killed by western governments around the world? This is no excuse for what happened in Manchester, London or anywhere else for that matter. We need to start looking at cause and effect imo.

During the troubles, were you calling for Catholics to be rounded up and put into internment camps?

I'm all for letting the security and intelligence services do their job. Identifying people and hopefully taking them off the streets before they commit atrocious acts and if that's not possible, then the full force of the law should deal with anyone responsible. That should not mean we, as a country should single out an entire religion where the hugely, massively, vast majority of believers live a peaceful life. We should not be arbitrarily murdering or interning people based on their religion. Isn't that what Hitler did? Didn't he have some extreme views?

I do think that freedom of speech laws have made it far easier for people to spread hate, but that works for all sides. One of your own guys; Thomas Mair was a racist, white-supremacist, national front supporter and anti-liberal who no doubt was influenced by a lot of things protected by free speech. He murdered a pro-Europe MP as you may recall.

Extremism is the problem. It always has been.

onlynameleft wrote:I don't live in the UK, so you're in a better position to evaluate how well the muslim community integrates with the typical brit. On the wireless here in the land of gombeen men, and paedophile priests, a muslim cleric highlighted that there haven't been any attacks in Ireland (not yet anyway). He reckoned that it was because muslims found it easier to integrate into the community. Personally, I'm not convinced, but it's an interesting point.

Likewise I can't comment on the position in Ireland and my experience is limited to having lived close to rather than in several large muslim communities, but the vast majority of those who seem to become radicalised come from communities that largely choose, or chose some time ago, not to integrate. There are many in places like Bradford for example who have been here 30 ears and speak no English, they live with and speak to other muslims, they shop at muslim stores etc. I've seen local authorities blamed for the phenomenon but the vast majority in Oldham, Bradford etc are not in local authority accommodation and never have been. To some extent it's voluntary ghettoisation by the previous generation that has perhaps lead to isolation of the current one.

Well integrated my arse! Although I suppose it depends where they are put and whether they are protestant or catholic muslims.

We tend to have a couple of organizations that enjoy a monopoly of criminal violence here. There was an attempt in the late 90s, by a few deluded Lithuanians, to take a slice of the organised criminality pie and they ended up in a ditch in south Armagh with a terminally sore head. I think that we are all so marginalised here in Ireland, that one more group of insular nut-jobs wouldn't necessarily stand out. Whereas the Manchester bomber's extremist views were brought to the attention of the police by members of the Disdsbury mosque, in west Belfast they'd have touted him to the RA and had his knee-caps shot off.

It always amuses me to remember the attempted suicide bombing of Glasgow Airport - and one of the bombers being given a good hoofing by a taxi driver as he burned. There are some places you just don't feck with, no matter how radicalised you get yourself.

So the reason there have been no extremist attacks in Ireland is that suicide bombers are too scared? Interesting.

Not so much scared as resigned to the miserable fact that they could blow the shit out of the middle of Lurgan and we would struggle to notice. If they did it to Mullingar, we wouldn't hear of it for a week. We have a higher threshold in terms of 'tolerable levels of violence.'

onlynameleft wrote:So the reason there have been no extremist attacks in Ireland ....

Now I wouldn't go that far! The Christian Brothers were right bastards in their day.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:Not so much scared as resigned to the miserable fact that they could blow the shit out of the middle of Lurgan and we would struggle to notice. If they did it to Mullingar, we wouldn't hear of it for a week. We have a higher threshold in terms of 'tolerable levels of violence.'

To be honest they could do that to much of the north west (St Helens, Leigh, Burnley and it would no doubt massively improve Barrow and Whitehaven) and the result would be the same but they didn't, a bomb was let off at Manchester Arena killing, to date, 22 people. I'm pretty sure the same thing at the 3 arena wouldn't go unnoticed.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:Not so much scared as resigned to the miserable fact that they could blow the shit out of the middle of Lurgan and we would struggle to notice. If they did it to Mullingar, we wouldn't hear of it for a week. We have a higher threshold in terms of 'tolerable levels of violence.'

They could target Birr and gain supporters

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

onlynameleft wrote:I don't live in the UK, so you're in a better position to evaluate how well the muslim community integrates with the typical brit. On the wireless here in the land of gombeen men, and paedophile priests, a muslim cleric highlighted that there haven't been any attacks in Ireland (not yet anyway). He reckoned that it was because muslims found it easier to integrate into the community. Personally, I'm not convinced, but it's an interesting point.

Likewise I can't comment on the position in Ireland and my experience is limited to having lived close to rather than in several large muslim communities, but the vast majority of those who seem to become radicalised come from communities that largely choose, or chose some time ago, not to integrate. There are many in places like Bradford for example who have been here 30 ears and speak no English, they live with and speak to other muslims, they shop at muslim stores etc. I've seen local authorities blamed for the phenomenon but the vast majority in Oldham, Bradford etc are not in local authority accommodation and never have been. To some extent it's voluntary ghettoisation by the previous generation that has perhaps lead to isolation of the current one.

Well integrated my arse! Although I suppose it depends where they are put and whether they are protestant or catholic muslims.

We tend to have a couple of organizations that enjoy a monopoly of criminal violence here. There was an attempt in the late 90s, by a few deluded Lithuanians, to take a slice of the organised criminality pie and they ended up in a ditch in south Armagh with a terminally sore head. I think that we are all so marginalised here in Ireland, that one more group of insular nut-jobs wouldn't necessarily stand out. Whereas the Manchester bomber's extremist views were brought to the attention of the police by members of the Disdsbury mosque, in west Belfast they'd have touted him to the RA and had his knee-caps shot off.

It always amuses me to remember the attempted suicide bombing of Glasgow Airport - and one of the bombers being given a good hoofing by a taxi driver as he burned. There are some places you just don't feck with, no matter how radicalised you get yourself.

To be fair, they must have been two of the least competent suicide bombers ever, in trying to blow up an airport with a propane cylinder.

onlynameleft wrote:
To be honest they could do that to much of the north west (St Helens, Leigh, Burnley and it would no doubt massively improve Barrow and Whitehaven) and the result would be the same but they didn't, a bomb was let off at Manchester Arena killing, to date, 22 people. I'm pretty sure the same thing at the 3 arena wouldn't go unnoticed.

OK. I get it. You are, of course, absolutely right and my feeble attempts at irony are misplaced.

No; in my view the suggestion that Muslim immigrant communities are better integrated in Ireland is not accurate. There are fewer of them, they have been there a shorter time and, since we do not have large urban concentrations of declining manufacturing industry, we do not tend to have large towns in which the immigrant communities have concentrated such as those of England's Midlands and once industrial north.

Yes; you are right. Were the horrifying events of Monday night to be played out in, say, Dublin or Monaghan, we might notice, we might be hurt beyond measure and 40 years on we might still be asking ourselves what sort of monsters could do such a thing?

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

onlynameleft wrote:
To be honest they could do that to much of the north west (St Helens, Leigh, Burnley and it would no doubt massively improve Barrow and Whitehaven) and the result would be the same but they didn't, a bomb was let off at Manchester Arena killing, to date, 22 people. I'm pretty sure the same thing at the 3 arena wouldn't go unnoticed.

OK. I get it. You are, of course, absolutely right and my feeble attempts at irony are misplaced.

No; in my view the suggestion that Muslim immigrant communities are better integrated in Ireland is not accurate. There are fewer of them, they have been there a shorter time and, since we do not have large urban concentrations of declining manufacturing industry, we do not tend to have large towns in which the immigrant communities have concentrated such as those of England's Midlands and once industrial north.

Yes; you are right. Were the horrifying events of Monday night to be played out in, say, Dublin or Monaghan, we might notice, we might be hurt beyond measure and 40 years on we might still be asking ourselves what sort of monsters could do such a thing?

Ok, fair play to you, although the suggestion of better integration wasn't mine but that of a 'Muslim cleric' on the wireless over there. Have a good evening.
By the way, when did the term 'Moslem ' fall out of use, I remember as a kid the Beeb referring to 'Moslems' all the time.

Following on from the above and perhaps to explain my stridency, I am an adopted Mancunian, I am a creature of many creeds, my mum is Irish, I grew up in Yorkshire and have lived and worked in and around Manchester for 25 years, more on than off. I was here for the 1996 bomb which most agree was the best thing to happen here for 200 years. It is desperately sad that people, including young people, have been killed and injured in this latest atrocity but the response of my friends and people like them has been incredible. A friend of mine, a consultant anaesthetist, was on the way home from a 12 hour shift on Monday when he heard the news, he immediately turned round and went back to work. People of all ages, colours and creeds have come together in defiance. I was at the vigil on Tuesday and heard Tony Walsh reading out this is the place with such vigour and passion it sent shivers down my spine and when the people with me launched into a, spontaneous or not, rendition of don't look back in anger it made me cry. I am an accidental Mancunian but all of a sudden a very proud one. we may not be as inured to violence as some others but fuck me these fuckers will not break us, no matter what. Although there has been indescribable loss here and for families, both locally and who had travelled from elsewhere, this will ultimately make us a stronger city. I'm off to a party at the Vimto bottle tomorrow, I wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing before, I'll be joined, no doubt, by thousands of others in the same boat to both remember and celebrate. Fuck them.

WaspInWales wrote:I honestly don't know why I bother replying to you.

No amount of common sense will change your right wing, racist world view. The websites you visit, and circles you keep provide you with all the 'information' you need.

Again, you need to separate the word extremism from the word Islam.

That same word 'extremism' exists in all walks of life and all religions for that matter. Even people who vehemently support a particular football team will be more than happy to beat the shit out of someone who supports an opposing team. Hey, in some cases football fans have been killed simply because they support a particular team. The vast majority of people who support football do so in a perfectly acceptable way, but some are happy to maim and kill for their 'religion'. Should football be banned because some people are unable to separate extremism from support?

Religious extremism, in all its forms has been responsible for killing millions, upon millions of people throughout history. Believe it or not, Christians, including white Anglo-Saxon Christians have killed, and no doubt continue to kill, as well as call for the killing of others. Reading the comments sections on US news sites has been a bit of an eye-opener for me. I've lost count of the number of times that God fearing Christians have called people to arms to kill others, or approve of the killing of others. The Christian God has even played a part in many a ME invasion or military strike targeted against Muslim countries. Dubya and quite a few other Presidents, including Trump have used God as an excuse to kill people. That's ok though?

How is that any different?

For all the instances of Western people being killed in these barbaric and dreadful events of religious extremism, how many people are being killed by western governments around the world? This is no excuse for what happened in Manchester, London or anywhere else for that matter. We need to start looking at cause and effect imo.

During the troubles, were you calling for Catholics to be rounded up and put into internment camps?

I'm all for letting the security and intelligence services do their job. Identifying people and hopefully taking them off the streets before they commit atrocious acts and if that's not possible, then the full force of the law should deal with anyone responsible. That should not mean we, as a country should single out an entire religion where the hugely, massively, vast majority of believers live a peaceful life. We should not be arbitrarily murdering or interning people based on their religion. Isn't that what Hitler did? Didn't he have some extreme views?

I do think that freedom of speech laws have made it far easier for people to spread hate, but that works for all sides. One of your own guys; Thomas Mair was a racist, white-supremacist, national front supporter and anti-liberal who no doubt was influenced by a lot of things protected by free speech. He murdered a pro-Europe MP as you may recall.

Extremism is the problem. It always has been.

What a load of crap, surely you can do better than that, you are nothing but a radical muslim apologist, and FYI you only reply to my posts because you want to stick your pc oar in.
Go and start a candlelit vigil somewhere, that will really put the shits up the radicals.

Dr Ali Selim is the "muslim cleric" (forgot his name when I posted).

You can listen to the discussion here:

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplay ... %2D2017%5F

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/today-with-sea ... 36#2494836

kk67 wrote:
On Question Time last night I actually heard one of the panellists say the words:
'These home grown terrorists are in their mid 20's, so they weren't radicalised by the first Gulf War'.

History suggests that it is always English establishment foreign policy that is the root cause.

It's arguable. Mark Curtis has written two excellent studies of the at times incestuous relationship between the US, Britain and SA.





On a separate note, does anyone else find the "quote" function on this site very....hmmmm..., well very disorienting?

Lord Lucan wrote:What a load of crap, surely you can do better than that, you are nothing but a radical muslim apologist, and FYI you only reply to my posts because you want to stick your pc oar in.
Go and start a candlelit vigil somewhere, that will really put the shits up the radicals.

I consider it quite an achievement to be accused of being both a western imperialist apologist as well as a radical muslim apologist...on the same forum.

Just to put you straight, I reply to your odious, hate filled little rants in the hope of you suddenly developing a sense of reason. I realise there is little chance of that happening as your views are extreme in themselves. Remember, extremism is the issue here. You have called for people to be rounded up, interned and even murdered.

I'm sure you look up to fellas like this:
http://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown ... upremacist

Murdered two innocent people just for standing up for two young muslim girls he was using threatening behaviour against.

He uses language scarily similar to yourself.

Pfft...flat earth.

Perhaps there's a link there somewhere.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:Not so much scared as resigned to the miserable fact that they could blow the shit out of the middle of Lurgan and we would struggle to notice. If they did it to Mullingar, we wouldn't hear of it for a week. We have a higher threshold in terms of 'tolerable levels of violence.'

Definitely true in the north.

Sandydragon wrote:

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:Not so much scared as resigned to the miserable fact that they could blow the shit out of the middle of Lurgan and we would struggle to notice. If they did it to Mullingar, we wouldn't hear of it for a week. We have a higher threshold in terms of 'tolerable levels of violence.'

Definitely true in the north.

Fuksake don't you start, he killed 22 fecking people, don't shit me that anywhere
is so fecking hard to just brush that off. Manchester you got bombed because you are soft, ffs.

You need to calm down ONL. No one is saying that Manchester was chosen for the attack, because Manchester is 'soft'. The people who planned and conducted the attack chose their target in order to achieve the greatest effect and what Sandy and I are saying is that Ireland, particularly the north has become so inured that the terror effect of bombing us might be less that an attack elsewhere.

I deliberately mentioned Dublin and Monaghan in one of my earlier posts to see if it might trigger some recognition. Just over 43 years ago, loyalist bombs in Dublin and Monaghan killed 33 (Including a full-term pregnant girl) and injured over 300 - of course this hurt, but amidst all of the misery of those times, it was just one atrocity heaped upon many others.

But let me ask you, were you aware that a prison officer in Belfast was killed by a bomb under his car last March? Or that a policeman was shot and wounded in a terrorist gun attack on Belfast's Crumlin Road this February? Or that there were 5 killings in Northern Ireland last year that were attributed to paramilitary (Terrorist) punishment shootings? We live with this every fucking day and no one feels the need to gather to weep over Seamus Heaney's best bits or blurt out shit renditions of Stiff Little Fingers' greatest hits.

And I am a little confused why you might loose the rag over a couple of comments about Ireland, when you made your 'best thing in 200 years' comment about the 1996 IRA bombing of Manchester. I dare say that it did allow for a subsequent remodeling of the city, but it can't have been that brilliant for the 200-odd people who were injured by it, or the families whose businesses and livelihoods were destroyed - and we're all still paying for the £Billion+ insurance bill. It may interest you to know that I deployed to South Armagh with a rifle company 5 days after the Docklands bomb and was serving there when Manchester was bombed. Believe me, non of us thought it was particularly brilliant at all.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:You need to calm down ONL. No one is saying that Manchester was chosen for the attack, because Manchester is 'soft'. The people who planned and conducted the attack chose their target in order to achieve the greatest effect and what Sandy and I are saying is that Ireland, particularly the north has become so inured that the terror effect of bombing us might be less that an attack elsewhere.

I deliberately mentioned Dublin and Monaghan in one of my earlier posts to see if it might trigger some recognition. Just over 43 years ago, loyalist bombs in Dublin and Monaghan killed 33 (Including a full-term pregnant girl) and injured over 300 - of course this hurt, but amidst all of the misery of those times, it was just one atrocity heaped upon many others.

But let me ask you, were you aware that a prison officer in Belfast was killed by a bomb under his car last March? Or that a policeman was shot and wounded in a terrorist gun attack on Belfast's Crumlin Road this February? Or that there were 5 killings in Northern Ireland last year that were attributed to paramilitary (Terrorist) punishment shootings? We live with this every fucking day and no one feels the need to gather to weep over Seamus Heaney's best bits or blurt out shit renditions of Stiff Little Fingers' greatest hits.

Sad but true. As soon as NI is mentioned we switch off. I'm as guilty as anyone.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

onlynameleft wrote:
To be honest they could do that to much of the north west (St Helens, Leigh, Burnley and it would no doubt massively improve Barrow and Whitehaven) and the result would be the same but they didn't, a bomb was let off at Manchester Arena killing, to date, 22 people. I'm pretty sure the same thing at the 3 arena wouldn't go unnoticed.

OK. I get it. You are, of course, absolutely right and my feeble attempts at irony are misplaced.

No; in my view the suggestion that Muslim immigrant communities are better integrated in Ireland is not accurate. There are fewer of them, they have been there a shorter time and, since we do not have large urban concentrations of declining manufacturing industry, we do not tend to have large towns in which the immigrant communities have concentrated such as those of England's Midlands and once industrial north.

Yes; you are right. Were the horrifying events of Monday night to be played out in, say, Dublin or Monaghan, we might notice, we might be hurt beyond measure and 40 years on we might still be asking ourselves what sort of monsters could do such a thing?

I'd imagine the small muslim population has a lot to do with it. It is expected to increase.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/is ... 74239.html