BS: attempt mass murder Christmas

Subject: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 05:59 AM

Saved only by luck.
Does no one want to talk about this attack?
Obama says, "Those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know the United States will do more than simply strengthen our defences.

"We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists."

How much of his "national power" is acceptable to use?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 06:33 AM

"How much of his "national power" is acceptable to use? "

Both in the UK and the USA the legislation brought in in the so-called "war" against terror (itself a misnomer)is being used to curtail the basic rights and freedoms of the individual - thereby undermining the very democracy that the terrorists hate and accomplishing their goals for them and playing straight into their hands. A C Grayling's excellent book, 'Liberty in the Age of Terror' deals with this in detail and warns of the consequences.

Sometimes the cure is more harmful than the disease.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:34 AM

What an absurd cock-up. In the age of almost limitless computer power, how could they not maintain data bases to coordinate information and red flag a problem? His father reported he might be a threat. He paid CASH for a $3000 airline ticket. He was barred from entering Britain because he claimed to be attending a fictitious university. Had a US visa.

In the 70s, when hijacking was fairly common, anyone who paid cash for a ticket was searched, questioned and sometimes barred from getting on a flight.

According to one news report, the US paid for and installed four body scan devices for use in Nigeria's international airports. They are not being used.

There was NO AIR MARSHALL on the flight.

LOL But we are all safe because after Sept 11, if anyone acts oddly on a flight, the passengers are prepared to kick the shit out of them. Thank goodness someone is using some common sense.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: bubblyrat
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:38 AM

"Graviora Quaedam Sunt Remedia Periculis ", or something like that.
    Actually,all of this could precipitate a dramatic slump in domestic air travel,which would,in my opinion,be no bad thing in these frenetic, air-polluting times.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: bubblyrat
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:41 AM

I agree, Sinsull ; in fact, as well as the "danger signs" you mention, he wasn't travelling with any LUGGAGE, either !!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,Falco
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:45 AM

Well said Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:49 AM

I think Keith's question was: "How much of his "national power" is acceptable to use? "

Seems to be a notable silence on that one.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:50 AM

The sad truth is that for a while air travellers will be subjected to ridiculously long delays until those in charge grow complacent - again - and those watching and waiting for an opportunity take advantage.
Sooner or later they are going to recruit more efficient suicide bombers for the job.

There is no excuse for all these blatant signs of a real problem to have been ignored or allowed to "slip through the cracks". Two hundred plus lives in addition to those killed on the ground nevermind the effect on national morale is a very big crack.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:02 AM

"...those watching and waiting for an opportunity..."
"Sooner or later they are going to recruit more efficient suicide bombers"

How should we be protected from them?
What should Obama do next?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:03 AM

The guy had, according to the Washington Post, a bag or condom filled with PETN explosive hanging down from his "torso." A pat-down or a sniffer dog or a "puffer" gate would have detected it ("Is that explosives in your pocket or are you glad to see me?").

Why was he allowed on board with a syringe and without a note that he was diabetic?

Granted, so far the dumbasses have proven that they can't light their shoes on fire but they CAN do a great job setting their crouch on fire. In both cases passengers have (as they have with drunks and psychotics) proven that they can and will solve the problem themselves -- the spirit of Flight 93 lives on.

The "first line" failed, the "second line" failed, so it was left to the passengers to take action. This sounds typical to me.

I don't fear Obama as much as I feared Cheney and Co., but I do think that there are people in DC and elsewhere scrambling like crazy to CYA.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:08 AM

The government of Yemen is asking for help to rid them of Al Qaeda.
The attack came from there.
What could we reasonably offer?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:14 AM

SMALL, highly trained, INTELLIGENT, police and military squads who speak the local language and don't think that a bullet or missile is the only answer to a highly complex problem.

By the way, I can think of other terrorist acts which would be nearly impossible to prevent (at least in the USA), would embarrass the government, and would take a lot of people with me. I will NOT NOT NOT give examples...there's already too much of that being done.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: jacqui.c
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:22 AM

I came back from the UK through Heathrow yesterday and the security was almost Draconian. Even after clearing normal security EVERYONE on the flight I was on had their bags searched at the gate and was subjected to a pat down, even the three year old in front of me.

Talking to an official in Boston airport it seems that, whilst the UK is taking this action, this is not the case at the Dutch airport through which this guy for his flight. I know that UK security is generally pretty good - twice a year I have to get through it - but maybe the rest of the world should be looking to improve their own security. After all, their own nationals are likely to be travelling on those planes.

I do think that, as passengers, we should be more aware of what is happening around us but, in this case, there was a definite failure to act by a number of authorities in a number of countries.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:23 AM

Keith,
In this case, Homeland Security did not use the information they had to protect its citizens. First step is to create (if they haven't already) a computer program to coordinate incoming information and red flag potential problems.
The airlines, in this case, had a cash paying customer on an international flight with no luggage. They should have caught this. Again, a simple computer program or properly trained agent could have red flagged this passenger.
Funny how they instantly know if I short changed my income taxes by $15 but haven't the ability to keep a mass murderer off a plane despite numerous warnings.
I think my biggest complaint is the innate complacency of those claiming to protect us. They usurp one privacy after another and then lose sight of the real threat. This will happen again and we will have another September 11. Meantime, we will be fed a lot of platitudes about how it all worked out OK because Tom from Sarasota jumped across the aisle, put out the fire and kept the terrorist in a choke hold.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:03 AM

Sad but true: on Sunday that same flight to Detroit. A Nigerian man went to the rest room and stayed "too long". The pilots called for security to meet them upon landing. No one is saying exactly what happened to the man on the plane but upon arrival he was escorted off and questioned then released.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:15 AM

As Rapair said, if we make flying totally secure, they will switch targets.
No one can breach Israel's flight security, so they get on a bus carrying lots of children or drive into a club full of youngsters.
It seems better to leave them in their faraway lands of which we know little.
That is what many said about Hitler in the 30s.
They will just get stronger and perfect their ways of killing us.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:30 AM

According to ongoing reports, a dirty bomb is in our futures. Although the radiation is minimal, the panic it creates will cause irrational fear. Ten years ago I would have laughed at the possibility. Now I shrug and think - we'll deal with it when it happens.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:30 AM

"I think Keith's question was: "How much of his "national power" is acceptable to use? "

Le'ts see now. 279 people were supposed to go screaming to a horrible death. The fragments of the airliner might come crashing down on buildings and people below. And you wish us to discuss an abstract concept like 'national power?'

Me, I'd like to know if the airport employees were smoking their famous wacky tobaccy before they let the guy on the plane.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:33 AM

Personally, I never understood why people feel they have to carry on so much stuff on an aircraft. People take huge amounts of material and storet it over the heads of passengers (that could be projectiles in rough weather).

Additionally never understood why the security folks let passengers and the airlines do it....since it poses a significant weak point for those wanting to do bad things. I suspect its mostly a profit thing for the airline companies....as it allows them more cargo space below....for commercial shipments.

If there was less or no carry on items....it would free up security to pay attention to other items that may be brought onboard....as in this case.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:35 AM

How did he get that stuff on the plane?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:41 AM

The can of worms is that now we may have to hear Pat Buchannon scream that we are at war and that we should withold all treatment and pain medication from the crazy kid who set his genitals on fire and suffered 3rd degree burns. Torture the animal! Bomb Yeman! Don't let him have a lawyer or the ACLU will set him free, send this mass murderer to GITMO and throw away the key..etc etc. etc.

________________________________________________________-

The fact is we are bombing Yemen. Most recently on Christmas eve and again 2 days later.

The crazy kid bought his ticket with help on Christmass eve eve.

He was accompagnied by a 55 year old man of Indian/Pakistani appearence who helped the kid get on the plane despite the fact the kid DID NOT HAVE A PASSPORT. Apparently a manager at the airport allowed this to happen.

PETN has failed twice to explode aboard a commercial plane. Perhaps this once succeeded but we were not told.


Short of X ray scanning everyone, or ridiculously asking people to sit palms upward for the final hour of the flight and denied all visits to the bathroom, will not stop these attempts.

This year a Suadi Prince survived an Al Quada explosion from a bomb activated by a cell phone call. The bomb was inside the terrorists rectum.


The US can not occupy 60 countries that harbor these whackos.

The only answer is a steady appeal to the moderate Muslims to police their own culture. When enough sane fathers report their crazy sons AND WE TAKE IT SERIOUSLY , maybe then this firnge will decay like our own KKK over a number of decades.
**********This is the only proven method that I have seen work in my lifetime.***********

Unfortueately it seems that the homegrown USA terrorists in the form of armed tea baggers, anti abortionists and Xeno racephobes with an arsenal and enough ammunition to kill a town, are being spurred on by a segment of mass media. Even one top level assasination could send this country into a sprial of violence and terrorism that the Muslim countries have found themselves in for generations.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:12 AM

Some people say that what is most frightening is that we are so much alike, and not the fact we are so different.
I understand this. IF you say you have never harbored the emotions and mechanations of REVENGE, you are a liar, or you are lieing to yourself.

The difference between people who can forgive or at least seek legal judicial solutions, and the people who act in violent revenge, is a thin line.
Perhaps that fine line is strengthened by education and opportunity in society, perhaps not. Perhaps that line breaks in cases where sanity or maturity is frail, perhaps not.

Whatever the reason, those of us who seek rational and peaceful justice instead of blind revenge, end up making fewer victims than those who only create more violence and revenge.

The cycle of victimhood needs to be stopped. Whatever policies that make this happened should be pursued ceaselessly.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:30 AM

All good points, except the refernce to education, opportunity in society,maturity, etc.
This one was from a very privileged background and highly educated.
The ones who tried to incinerate all the people in Glasgow Airport were doctors and medical professionals.
They claim victimhood, but you have to suspect that they seek Jihad not revenge.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:31 AM

Donuel

I suspect a good case of who is right and who is wrong can be made by those on either side of the issue.

We kill (and put fright into) their ciizens through high tech bombs...using our best advantage, sometimes from afar. They kill (and put fright into) ours using our best advantage, through low technology(taking advantage of our lifestyles) We favour (and often prop up) governments that reinforce our society and beliefs, they favour (and would prop up) one that reinforces their needs and beliefs. We demonize their perspectives and techniques. They demonize ours. Isn't that what conflict is all about?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:55 AM

I hope they do not prevail Ed.
Is hoping enough?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 12:01 PM

"He was accompagnied by a 55 year old man of Indian/Pakistani appearence who helped the kid get on the plane despite the fact the kid DID NOT HAVE A PASSPORT. Apparently a manager at the airport allowed this to happen."

Actually the Michigan couple who saw this man said only that he was a well dressed older man who asked to get the younger man on board without a passport. The agent referred him to a manager.
23 is hardly a kid. So far, I have seen no official confirmation of their story. They may have mistaken someone else, given the circumstances. It can't be difficult to confirm whether or not he had a passport. Wouldn't he have needed it to get through US Customs?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 12:02 PM

How did that stuff get through airport screening? Don't we already have enough security measures in place to prevent something like that from happening?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 12:07 PM

And the solution to the problem is for the US to end it's quest for empire and get the hell out of everyone else's countries. Our imperialism is what's causing the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 12:22 PM

Dropping bombs on people who very likely have no responsibility for this is what "every element of our national power" sounds ominously as if it might mean. I hope that in this instance Obama, while using the required rhetoric, is too smart to be actually thinking in those terms.

That kind of response would do nothing to reduce the likelihood of this happening again - in fact the reverse.

On the other hand working out a range of sensible precautions and sticking to them does reduce the danger.

In this instance it is very evident that if the people responsible for the safety of travellers had been doing their job the man would never have made it on to the plane.   That is the priority.

Cutting down on all kinds of luggage would make a lot of sense, Expecting people to travel light and buy or rent what they need at the other end makes sense, especially on long distance flights.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: mg
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 12:36 PM

All of it.

And the cabinet member I have the most qualms about is Napiltano. Put her in charge of immigration or something but does she have the qualifications to be in charge of HS? I haven't heard so. mg

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 12:57 PM

The cycle of victimhood needs to be stopped. Whatever policies that make this happen should be pursued ceaselessly.



In about 200 years (if we are lucky) the radicalized muslims will have died out or forgotten the atrocities commited by all sides.

Afterall here in the US no one is still sore over the civil war and emmancipation.


...except for the Sons of the Confederacy, kkk, white power thugs, tea baggers, "real Americans", neo Republicans and the silent bigots.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 01:02 PM

When I take short haul flights of an hour or two, I am amazed with all the stuff people carry on. Do they actually feel they need this stuff at arms length? I suspect it's only to save a few minute wait at the terminal for checked luggage.

It's surprising to hear the complaints when security tells folks thsy cannot carry on liquids? Why would anynone need to carry on item s like hair jell anyway? Don't they realize the purpose is to make their lives more secure?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 01:21 PM

Religious, political and economic reaons be damned!

The problem is in ourselves. It is a problem Psychologic, or as we say in English a psychological problem.

The crazy kid posted on the interent from 1995 about how lonely he was. Whatever sense of community he may have felt lacking was finally filled by thugs who took advantage of his psychological problem for their own sick acts to satisfy their sick psychological problems. Sure go ahead and say "Awww he was lonely".
All the same;
We are both private and social animals.
George Carlin says he likes people on an individual basis (for short periods) but hated groups and mobs in general. I know what he means.
On a private level some people may individually become psychotic but that is realtively rare.
Things often tend to go terribly wrong in mobs or groups, even those that have the 'best of intentions'. (the title of my book)

This sickness needs a worldwide name. It has had many names already like holocaust and World War and intolerence. It certainly should not be called a "war on __________"
This sickness needs a simple and esperanto type name.
I submit I am at a loss for he best name.

After we acknowledge the illness we can begin to fight the illness and not just repond to individual symptoms.

If there is a God, I am sure you would not prefer 'his/her' 2012 cure.
It is up to us to see the disease, help others to understand the disease, and do the most healing treatments we can while there is time.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 01:44 PM

I admit that treating war as a disase of hate and suspicion that can be cured is a utopian idea. In my heart I believe differently.
From an omnicient point of view, from Mt Olympus or the beyond heaven's gate, the whole idea of hate and war are reduced to insignificance. From a godly point of view all the worst evil and terrible acts of war are but only a survival trait that is neither good or bad...it just is.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 01:45 PM

I do not think we can cure the world of psychological problems, and there seems to be a ready supply of willing victims of the "thugs."
The overwhelming view here is that the existance of the thugs is an inevitable consequence of US and Western foreign policy. We just need to stop what we are doing and they will stop attempting indiscriminate mass slaughter of people and children after about 200 years.
Some people beyond Mudcat think that we are seeing a Jihad whose only goal is a global Caliphate. Whatever we do they will continue until stopped.
I hope Mudcat is right on this one.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 02:12 PM

I'd say Ed T hit it right on in his post above @ Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:31 AM.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 02:31 PM

If you think EdT hit it on the head...why stop there> ?????????


How to have an enjoyable International or short flight:

Do not travel alone.
Do not bring liquids or powders or anything in tin foil.
Do not appear nervous or frustrated.
Do not have a thousand yard stare expression.
Do not be seen looking at a map.
Do not say hello to anyone named Jack.
Do not say Yeah man.
Do not discuss that pilots now earn as much as $15,000 a year.
Do not have a name with the consecutive letters AL, AR or MO
Do not wear a tampon.
Do not wear Depends.
Do not use talcum powder.
Do not feel uncomfortable as TSA employees titter and point at your Xray.
Do not go to bathroom on the plane in the final hour of a flight.
Do not use blanket or pillow.
Do not say anything other than thank you to any flight attendent.
Do not say anything other than thank you to a strip cavity search.
Do not take pictures, but smile (only slightly) at all cameras on you.
Do not stare out the plane window.

Do NOT COMPLAIN or ASK for anything (including Orange Juice) even if;
you are on the wrong flight, with a load of poop in your pants from the vaseline strip search, cold as hell because you had to check your bags with your medicine, do not look scared that your cell phone and lap top were left on in your luggage and will catch fire again, see a suspicious guy lighting his underwear on fire (he might just be trying to dry his pants from having peed), appear calm even if your arms and legs go numb, or your in flight snack crawls away on its own.


Do's;


Have a good quiet relaxing time while sitting unmoving with your palms upward and empty, neither staring or appearing tired, in pain or agitated. The airline will assist you by turning down the oxygen to minimal life support levels and allowing exhaust to fill the plane.
Remember the 3 s's
Submit, surrender and sit.

Helpful hint: Appear happy and amused when your luggage is lost.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Alice
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 02:44 PM

Back in the 1980's, I flew to visit a friend in San Diego. I brought a wrapped birthday gift with me, a stack of bathroom towels with a matching color plastic clock for her bathroom on the top of the stack.

When I arrived, we had to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait at luggage claim. Everyone stood around for a long time until the luggage from our flight finally showed up. When I got to my friends house, I noticed very slight change to the tape holding the gift wrap together. Then I realized, my gift with the small clock in it must have been searched as a possible bomb. Doh!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 02:45 PM

Who knows. maybe people will prefer flying if everyone is required to be naked and sedated.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 03:28 PM

Strip the passengers naked, do a body cavity search of each one, sedate them, pile them in like cordwood, and revive them at their destination (you don't get your own clothes back).

Secure travel, and the airlines make a LOT of profit since they won't have conscious passengers to deal with. And if a few don't awaken, well, that's the way it goes.

Sorry folks -- I flew from BWI to Salt Lake City yesterday. I felt no more secure than I have since, oh, 1978 or so....

Perhaps I know too much or have too good an imagination (or both). We should have realized as long ago as 1900 that suicide in the cause of religion or other fanaticism would continue to be used as a weapon -- e.g., the kamikazes of WW2.

But we don't learn from history, and the military and our "security" forces just fight the last war over and over -- and that way costs many, many lives before we learn and THEN we apply the lessons we learned to the current war, and the cycle goes ever onward, panicked reactions and all.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 03:35 PM

In the 70s, Alice, I triggered a full blown terrorist alarm at Buffalo Airport. In my carry on, my brother had packed some special sonar paper used on fishing boats to track fish underwater. It was for my father.Eight rolls of metallic finished paper in a box in my carry on. I went through the checkpoint and when the security agent saw they x-ray he pushed an alarm. Armed men with rifles appeared from nowhere while I babbled "It's sonar paper." DOH!


Donuel,
Hyperbole aside. We have a very serious problem that has to be addressed by the president NOW. What do we do today to make our airplanes safe for travellers and those living near airports? If one inexperienced and confused young man can manage to get on board a flight with a bomb large enough to bring it down, it is not unreasonable to think in terms of multiple flights landing around the same time in various cities across the US and Britain and anywhere else with bombs on board. Another September 11 size massacre.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 03:36 PM

By the way...I expect that the US will be attacked by some sort of nuclear device within the next ten or so years. I also expect biological and chemical attacks. These will almost certainly be directed against one of the large port cities, such as San Diego, LA, SF, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Mobile, etc. Further deponent saith not.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,Lizzie Cornish
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 03:39 PM

Well, I'm normally a peaceful person....but.....it's about time we came to our senses and started shooting some of these poisonous people, because this world is fast getting to the state where soon, no-one will be able to do anything.

I don't give a toss about making them martyrs. I don't give a toss about what kind of childhood they had. I don't give a toss about who brain-washed them, or why.   It's not rocket science to know that blowing up hundreds of innocent people, bringing tragedy to so many families, is NOT a good thing to do.....

And those Seven Virgins will sure be mad as hell!

I am so not into million dollar trials, or loads of social workers, prison reformers, all trying to make them better....just take 'em out and shoot 'em...although to be honest, even that's too damned good.

Some things are just plain evil..and we have allowed Evil to walk in because of being way too lily livered with folks who don't give a shit about shit...and who have no compassion, empathy, guilt or social conscience.

If my dog attacked someone, he'd be put down immediately...

I am so f*cking angry about these people...

The whole damn world is being held to ransom because of a tiny minority who KNOW that we've all become so darn nambypamby!

Geez...if my children were onboard a flight that was blown up, I'd not rest until I'd taken revenge on every single bastard who'd organised it!

We have so lost the plot.

People who do evil, in my opinion, deserve no compassion whatsoever..

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 03:49 PM

Here at Darpa we have a computer simulator that started as a climate modeling computer. We use it to simulate where the next likly attack will occur and when. Its a bit like playing Clue.

Rapaire, could you give us a specific date for our simulator to work on? We also have a little betting pool we call the market, so a little insider trading info could really help me cash in. Frankly, Flint Michigan wasn't even on our radar this time around.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 04:00 PM

"Who knows. maybe people will prefer flying if everyone is required to be naked and sedated".

This may add significant #s to the mile high club?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 04:44 PM

Rapaire, I expect it much sooner than that as do many "experts". Recently, a TV program aired with a dirty bomb going off in Old Port -downtown Portland, ME. Keep in mind that Maine has oil tankers coming in and out every day. The theory is that a smaller city with a port will be a better target causing a complete shutdown of the city, panic re: radiation and yet still provide huge casualty numbers.

They keep stressing that the the radioactive threat is more pyschological than actual. I hope they're right.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 04:48 PM

Some info:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/how-to-survive-a-dirty-bomb-attack/

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: bankley
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 05:14 PM

Archie Bunker said that all airline passengers should carry guns...

forever and ever, Yemen..

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 05:45 PM

So, should we sit on our hands until a cloud of radioactive dust engulfs a helpless town?
And when it does, remind ourselves that the real victims are the bloodied celebrants?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 06:30 PM

Face it

Pandora's box has been opened. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
We can't put things back together they way they were before the use of atomic weapons even with all the King's troops and all the King's statesmen.

While few people actually sit on their hands, it is never a matter of never.

It is only a matter of when.

We will watch a cloud of radioactive dust engulf a helpless town.
We did it unseen in Iraq and elswhere.
And when it does so here, we will remind ourselves that the real victims are the bloodied celebrants and foolishly, but predictably blame each other back and forth while breathing in the dust of death.

Good Times
End Times
Time enough to die
If it were not so fucking predictable
we might even stop to cry.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 09:15 PM

It is the "cloud of radioactive dust" scenario that gives terrorists all the power. Dirty bombs carry minimal radioactivity. Strip, shower, get the hell away and you can avoid the worst. These are not like the huge mushroom cloud we inflicted on Japan.
By the way - ask any student what is the only country to use nuclear weapons. Then gently inform them it was us.
It astonishes me when I hear that certain nations can't be trusted with the bomb. LOL How many countries have nuclear capability? And who was the only one arrogant enough to use it?
I shake my head and sigh. mary

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:23 PM

halleluya yemen

I am watching all the scoundrels running with this terrorist attack story to advance their authority, bank accounts or simply raise the noise level to drown out the voice of reason.

The first was the R congressman from Michigan who sent out letters to get donations so that he may protect American families on Chrismas day from terrorists. Then there was Pat Buchannon screaming that the bomber who detonated the bomb should have all medication withdrawn so that the torture from his burns will make him talk. Afterall the torture was self inflicted.
Tom Ridge is outraged that this bomber is to be tried in Federal court. But he was glad to have Richard Reed the shoe bomber tried and convicted in Federal Court under Bush. Both of these bombers used the same explosive and both were stopped in the same manner, by passengers. The only real difference was who was president at the time.
Security firms with elaborate expensive devices are out to sell with a vengence.
Cable news has a new 24 7 story that doesn't have the legs or a dead body of a Michael Jackson story or a Anna Marie story but it'll do in a pinch.

Glen Beck weighs in:
I can't wait to see the video from the airport of the older accomplice to this sick muslim murderer. Who was it? BARACK OBAMA? I'm just askin. Where was he on Christmas eve anyway. Hawaii? Prove it. I doubt you can Mr. Hussein.

Last but not least to milk this story is Al Qada who are crowing about how they got explosive powder past security systems in at least three countries. This episode they hope will recruit hundreds of true believers who will burn off their penis' at the bare minumum, or best of all blow their testicles through thier brains for Allah.

Not to be crass but if you read the internet postings of the "crazy kid" you will see how if he had only gotten laid EVEN ONCE this whole episode would have never happened.

(with tongue in cheek and elsewhere)

I blame the WOMEN!

Ladies, you could have prevented this kid from going ballistic.
Comon its not just chairity, its saving lives. This is clearly a case of linking abstinence to mass murder. How hard would it have been to just give Mohamed's flying carpet a tug. Jeez Louise, people are getting way too tight assed.

This is Smokey the bare saying, "only you can prevent abstinence.
Put out the fire before the fire burns you."

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:58 PM

whew.

Now that was heavy Donuel, very heavy.

I'm definately not going to get involved in this thread.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,mark-s(on the road)
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:15 PM

And the solution to the problem is for the US to end it's quest for empire and get the hell out of everyone else's countries. Our imperialism is what's causing the problem.

Er, Muslims have been irredentist long before the US even existed, or was "discovered" in 1492 for that matter.

Charles Martel.....where are you now that we need you.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:44 PM

Er, Muslims have been irredentist long before the US even existed, or was "discovered" in 1492 for that matter.

So what? The US obviously wasn't the first empire to interfere in other peoples' lands. But it's the one that is most guilty of it now.

People need to wake up. Short of killing all Muslims in the world, there just isn't a way to ensure that no Muslim will ever strike out at countries who carry out imperialist agendas in Muslim countries except to end the imperialism. That's the only way it can be done. Protect your borders and leave the rest of the world the hell alone. That's it. That's the only way it can be done. How many more people have to be killed before people stop being so stupid?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:58 PM

SINSULL, when I was a 4-year-old, 5 of my relatives were in uniform, and another one was a prisoner of the Japanese.
Personally, I'm glad that the A-Bomb was used.
All six survived the war.
It isn't fashionable to make statements like that nowadays, is it!

It wasn't arrogance, it was common sense. It hasn't been sense to use it since, and no-one has.
I'm not American, if that matters.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 03:05 AM

I met some Russian children in summer.
A work colleague has Chernobyl children for holidays.
Their health was destroyed by a radioactive dust cloud years before their birth.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 03:08 AM

There have been horrific attacks on India and on Shias in Pakistan.
They were targetted for not being Sunni Muslims.
If that is why they hate us, appeasing them will not make them like us.
They will see it as contemptible weakness and a sure sign of their ultimate victory.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 03:17 AM

Chernobyl children 2009
http://www.chernobyl.typepad.com/

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 03:26 AM

Given that the idiot who tried to blow up the plane has already agreed by his actions that capital punishment is ok, I hope that's what he receives.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Arnie
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 03:52 AM

I'm intrigued by the report that an older man tried to get the bomber onto the plane at Amsterdam without a passport. There is no way you can travel to the States without a passport - for starters it contains your US visa. Airlines are fined thousands of dollars if they inadvertantly allow someone to travel without a passort - it just doesn't happen any more. Also, this would simply draw attention to the bomber which obviously he could do without. No doubt there is a lot of conjecture and simply wrong information doing the rounds at present. Once a full investigation has been completed, hopefully a more complete and accurate account of this bomber's journey details will emerge. Security is only as strong as it's weakest link, and unfortunately human error seems to have crept in here, both in not dealing with the intelligence and in not completing physical checks thoroughly. I see that Obama has just publicly roasted his security services - quite right given the resources at their disposal.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 04:05 AM

There have been horrific attacks on India and on Shias in Pakistan.
They were targetted for not being Sunni Muslims.
If that is why they hate us, appeasing them will not make them like us.
They will see it as contemptible weakness and a sure sign of their ultimate victory.

This makes no sense whatever. Their motivations for their actions towards India and the Shia in Pakistan are different than their motivations for their actions towards the US. Trying to link their motivations toward us to their motivations towards India and the Shia in Pakistan is a non-sequitur. It makes no sense, and the presence of their animus towards India and the Shia in Pakistan says nothing whatever about the nature of or reason for their animus towards the US.

And who cares whether or not they see anything as their ultimate victory? Are you willing to send good men and women to die just so you won't get your ego bruised?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 04:09 AM

I have a mental picture of that old man being Karl Rove. This smells to me like a psy-op to get the Neocons back in power.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 06:22 AM

seems to me that radioactive dust has already en'gulfed' a lot of places.

ever hear of depleted uranium ? nasty stuff

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 06:37 AM

Carol, how can you be sure their motivations are not just religious?
Carol, are you suggesting he scorched his crotch to help the Repubs?
Are Repubs that fanatical?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 06:59 AM

Carol, his words.
I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims will win (Allah willing) and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again.

Imperialist Carol?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 09:34 AM

Ah, folks, you are exposed to radioactive dust every day of your lives and always have been no matter how old you are. The wind and rain and other natural forces wear away the rocks, which become dust and soil and sand. These carried radioactive minerals in them and release radon gas.

By the way -- got granite countertops? If you do you're exposing yourself and your friend and family to more radon than necessary. Check it out.

You cannot escape radioactivity. Alpha, beta, gamma, and other rays penetrate you every second, before you or even you great-great-great-great-great grandparents were a gleam in their parents' eyes. You were exposed before, during, and after you conception and you're exposed now.

No, I'm not excusing Chernobyl or other unnecessary risks. But don't go thinking radioactivity doesn't affect or effect anyone else.

And this will continue even after the sun goes out and the Earth is nothing, for radioactivity pervades the Universe.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,mark-s(on the road)
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 10:00 AM

And if you sleep with a spouse or significant other, your whole body dose of radiation is about 1 millirem (using the old measure) higher than it would be if you sleep alone.
Due to the radioactive isotope of potassium (K40) component of human blood.
Hmmmmm    Better rethink those orgys!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 12:58 PM

Such miniscule doses have nothing to do with what is being discussed.
Look at the poor kids in the Chernobyl link.
We had pastures here in UK, thousands of miles away, that could not be used for years.
You would not want to be close or downwind of a dirty bomb, even though you may feel no ill effects atthe time.
Depleted uranium can be handled without any protection.You should certainly avoid breathing the dust, but the nuclides in a dirty bomb would be really nasty.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 01:14 PM

If tiny amounts of radiation don't make a difference, where do "spontaneous" mutations come from?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 01:21 PM

Keith, most Muslims just want to live their lives in peace just like most of the rest of the people in the world. al Qaeda uses the imperialism and human rights abuses of the Western world as their main recruiting tool. Even bin Laden was very clear that his actions were a response to Western imperialism in Muslim lands. Regardless of whether or not they couch their rhetoric in religious terms, it is nevertheless a response to Western imperialism in Muslim lands. They see waging a holy war for a Muslim caliphate as the only way to get the Western imperialists out of their lands and out of their hair. I think they have a point.

I don't think the would-be-bomber was motivated by a desire to get Republicans back in power, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if people with a Republican agenda made it easy for the would-be-bomber to get on that plane under the circumstances.

Personally, based on what I've heard about this guy, I think he's just a lost soul who wanted some attention and fame, and was found to be an easy mark for al Qaeda.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: pdq
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 01:41 PM

"...he's just a lost soul who wanted some attention and fame, and was found to be an easy mark for al Qaeda"

First, that fact is obvious.

Second, it does not make this fool one bit less dangerous

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 01:47 PM

No, that's true. But there are dangerous crazies all over the world who, even if they're not Muslims, find some excuse for doing what they do. Take the people who bomb abortion clinics in the US, for instance. That doesn't mean we can continue to wage our empire in other peoples' countries without suffering massive consequences, though, because we can't.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 05:06 PM

It seems pretty clear that the immediate cause for this near tragedy was that there was a clear failure of the people in charge of security to act responsibly and intelligently.

That's what needs to be addressed urgently. No point in going off into a panic spiral about all the things that haven't happened and might someday happen but very probably won't.

Remember we are all far far more likely to be killed in a road accident than by a suicide bomber. That doesn't make us all stay home to eliminate the risk, we do what we can to reduce it, but accept that there is always a risk in anything we do in this world. And if we did stay home to avoid it, that'd increase our risk of an accident in the home, which is where most of them do happen anyway.

Don't forget - "You'll never get out of this world alive".

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 06:11 PM

Well, one thing is for sure... The world's populations are threatened by right winged extremists, be they al Qeada, the Taliban or the Chrostain Right... These are the people who love war... As far as I'm concerned we oughtta round up all the Christain Right and their redneck peons and send them off to fight with their Islamic counterparts and leave the rest of us the heck alone...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 10:12 PM

==Don't forget - "You'll never get out of this world alive=== Or, as my wife used to put it McG, "Life is a sexually transmitted condition with a 100% mortality rate".

==As far as I'm concerned we oughtta round up all the Christain Right and their redneck peons and send them off to fight with their Islamic counterparts==

Great idea, Bobert. Where would you suggest this might take place? Any chance of selling tickets?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: pdq
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 10:22 PM

"Where would you suggest this might take place?"

Highway 61?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 10:25 PM

pdq, did he or did he not point with his gun?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 10:34 PM

Remember we are all far far more likely to be killed in a road accident than by a suicide bomber.

And about 48 million of us in the US are far more likely to die because of lack of access to health care than by any terrorists - 45,000 of us do die each year for that reason. That's the equivalent of fifteen 9/11 type events every year.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 10:39 PM

"As far as I'm concerned we oughtta round up all the Christain Right and their redneck peons "


Gee, do you make them sew little teabags on their clothing before you march them off to the camps?? And give them "showers"?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: open mike
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 03:39 AM

Please..can someone post a link to the original news about this?
I do not see a reference to a factual report of the incident.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,keith a
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 05:18 AM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8433178.stm

There you go Mike.
How have you avoided this stuff.
When Hitler was marching in to neighbouring countries, many appeasers then said there were far more pressing concerns to worry about nearer home.
People then were dying for lack of health care and being run over.

Of course air security should be improved, but when they can no longer get through they will change targets to mass transport etc. and always looking for a mass spectacular.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 06:17 AM

There is a significant difference of scale between a major military power with massive resources and a bunch of fanatics with box-cutters and exploding underpants.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 06:30 AM

I don't mean they aren't able to cause a lot of trouble, but in terms of international conflict even 911 was small scale. (Compare the scale of deaths caused in even a relatively minor war.)

Dealing with it is a matter of responding to criminal activity, not war, except where we make war as our way of responding.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 07:33 AM

This twat should never have got through security.
The liquid bomb plotters would have got through, and would have killed thousands in a single day.
They were thwarted by intelligence. They will have learned from the defeat and made their communications more secure.
Given time they will improve their attacks and acquire better technology.
Eventually they will get nuclear devices.
Nothing we can do will make them decommission and live in peace with the infidel.
They will go on until they are somehow stopped.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 07:41 AM

Fashions in fanaticism have a limited life span. Misjudged and panicky responses, tied in to considerations of public relations and domestic politics can extend that life span.

Treating criminal activities as "a war on terror" has very likely had the effect of extending the ability of Al Qaeda to continue to operate effectively.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 07:43 AM

Cariol, i know most moslems just want to live their lives in peace, but in a survey of Moslem students at 12 UK universities it was found that

40 per cent support the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims
a third back the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law
40 per feel it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely
24 per cent do not think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah
a quarter have little or no respect for homosexuals.
Although 53 per cent said that killing in the name of religion was never justified, compared with 94 per cent of non-Muslims, 32 per cent said that it was. Of these, 4 per cent said killing could be justified to "promote or preserve" religion, while 28 per cent said it was acceptable if that religion were under attack.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2461830/Killing-for-religion-is-justified-say-third-of-Muslim-students.html

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Paul Burke
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:04 AM

So:

60 per cent oppose the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims
Two thirds oppose the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law
60 per feel it is acceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely
76 per cent think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah
Three quarters have much or great respect for homosexuals.

Could be better, but pretty healthy all the same!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:29 AM

As I said, most are good, tolerant people, but those are sizeable minorities.
"a third back the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law"
That is 30 000 British muslims, just counting students alone, who want to see our liberal and democratic institutions overturned.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:33 AM

...just counting UNIVERSTY students...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:38 AM

There have been enough religious conflicts over the centuries , including the present one. It seems likely that a fairly high proportion of Christians and Jews would feel that in certain circumstances killing "in the name of religion" could be justified.

It has not gone unnoticed by Muslims that Bush used then term "crusade" to refer to his "war on terror".

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 09:45 AM

Ahhhh, where to let the extremists fight it out... Last time I looked there are millions of acres of dessert... Heck, I think the rest of us could even chip in to buy them plenty of things that go "bang", water and food to keep 'um killin' one another... Maybe we could do a foriegn excahnge??? You know, have some of the our extremistssent over to the middle east and some of Osama's boys come on over here... That way, everyone wins...

Tickets??? Heck, yeah... The money could go toward keeping the extremit's in food and bullets...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 11:01 AM

It seems likely that a fairly high proportion of Christians and Jews would feel that in certain circumstances killing "in the name of religion" could be justified.

Are you sure?
We see no evidence of them actually doing it, do we?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 11:46 AM

"In the name of religion" is a form of words that can mean digerent things to different people. "In defence of our religion" might be a better way of phrasing it.

In which case examples are hardly difficult to find, even in the present or recent times. Religion as such isn't the only factor in conflicts in, for example, former Yugoslavia, Ireland, Israel, but it's a very important element.   Bombing of abortion clinics is seen by those responsible as an expression of religious conviction. Indeed much of the support for capital punishhment in the USA appears to have a religious or quasi-religious basis.

At the same time religious principles can also be the basis on which principled opposition to war and violence is built. But those who see it that way appear to be a minority among Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 12:11 PM

Ending imperialism is not the same thing as appeasement. In this particular scenario, we are the people taking the role that Hitler took in the 20th century (I'm not saying we're as bad as Hitler - I'm saying we, the US, are the aggressor country in this context). People have a right to stand up to aggression. If we stop being the aggressor country, people will stop responding to our aggression.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 12:29 PM

Of these, 4 per cent said killing could be justified to "promote or preserve" religion, while 28 per cent said it was acceptable if that religion were under attack.

Four percent is a very small percentage. I bet if a survey were taken among other religions, a similar percentage would be found. As for the 28 percent, their religion is under attack, and that's causing more and more Muslims to become radicalized who were not before. There are more than a billion Muslims in the world. Every time we drop a bomb on Muslims, we create many, many new extremists. Anyone who thinks they can get rid of extremism among Muslims this way is just plain stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 01:13 PM

Re appeasement, I just meant that it is unlikely that radical Islam would cease to be radical just because of any changes in foreign policy. They fight for a global caliphate.
Re 4 per cent said killing could be justified to "promote or preserve" religion.
I think that 4% of the highly educated intellectual elite of Muslims in this country believing that is a shockingly high percentage, and do not believe any other group here would be comparable.
I think it is complacent to underestimate the threat these fanatics present.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 01:52 PM

Western imperialism is the lifeblood of radical Islam. End the imperialism and radical Islam will largely die off from lack of nourishment.


I think that 4% of the highly educated intellectual elite of Muslims in this country believing that is a shockingly high percentage, and do not believe any other group here would be comparable.

This is, of course, speculation on your part.


I think it is complacent to underestimate the threat these fanatics present.

If you're concerned about the threat they represent, it would seem to be wise to stop creating more of them.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: robomatic
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 07:46 PM

Western imperialism is the lifeblood of radical Islam. End the imperialism and radical Islam will largely die off from lack of nourishment.


This is, of course, speculation on your part.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 08:47 PM

No, I think it's pretty much a fact.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: beardedbruce
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 08:56 PM

Since it has not yet happened, I guess I can claim you are lying about it.


WHEN it does happen, it will be a fact- UNTIL then, it cannot be called a fact, but a speculation.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 12:30 AM

Bungling anti-terror chiefs were warned five months ago that an al-


'Qaeda cell in Yemen was plotting a deadly attack using "The Nigerian".

August's alert to America's National Security Agency was one of two pieces of evidence that should have prevented the Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit.

A tip to the CIA was the second vital clue.

It came last month from the father of Nigerian Umar Abdulmutallab, who told them his son was missing in Yemen and could be associating with al-Qaeda.

Yet the US intelligence agencies failed to share the information - to put the attack alert and the name of the terrorist together - and no action was taken.

As a result, when Abdulmutallab went to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport he was able to fly on Flight 253 with a valid US visa.

The fanatic failed to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear. Had he succeeded nearly 300 lives would have been lost.

Amid the fury following the failed terror attempt US security chiefs today report back to President Barack Obama, who yesterday said: "We need to act quickly to fix flaws."

The CIA's George Little said of Abdulmutallab: "We learned of him in November when his father came to the US Embassy in Nigeria and sought help in finding him.

"We did not have his name before then."

But terror expert Richard Clarke said: "The intelligence community seems to have failed here.

"When they got information someone was planning an attack, that should have become priority number one - go out and find any shred of information related to a Nigerian in Yemen."

It also emerged yesterday that a man tried last month to board a plane in Mogadishu, Somalia, carrying chemicals, liquid and a syringe, just like Abdulmutallab.

The unnamed Somali man was arrested by police before the Daallo Airlines flight to Dubai on November 13 took off.

Somali police spokesman Abdulahi Barise said: "We don't know whether he is linked with al-Qaeda but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed."

Us agents were yesterday investigating whether Abdulmutallab, 23, may have copied his method from an al-Qaeda suicide bomber who tried to kill a Saudi prince.

Abdullah Hassan al-Asiri, 23, blew himself up in front of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef four months ago - but the Saudi counterterrorism chief survived.

Al-Asiri is also believed to have trained with regional terror cell al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular in Yemen this year and to have smuggled explosive powder through airport security in his underwear.

Yemeni security forces yesterday stormed a terror hideout in Hudaydah province and pledged to eliminate the AQAP cell.

Gordon Brown vowed yesterday security will be a "key priority" in the next decade.'

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 12:58 AM

Are the colonials in the US still fighting the Redcoats, beardedbruce?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 01:05 AM

...are the people in India still fighting the British? Are the Vietnamese still fighting the French or the US?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:35 AM

CarolC - I think you are confusing two discourses. It is true there are nationalistic Muslims who object to western presence in their countries — these are the analogues to the Redcoats, the Raj, the French in Vietnam whom you adduce in your aid.

But there is a separate, small but unavoidably upfront & prominent, hardcore, of which this Nigerian was a part, & who were responsible for 9/11 in USA, 7/7 & 21/7 in UK. the Madrid bombing &c, whose motivations are not nationalistic — they don't even claim them to be, but are quite candid about the fact that they are purely religious: based solely on the Koranic injunctions to Jihad and the Universal Caliphate.

How much support they may have from Islam in general is disputed: there are no doubt many 'mainstream' Muslims who are against them & others for, but how is one to tell in what proportions? But the point is, that it is these, and not the nationalistically motivated ones with whom you, CarolC, appear primarily concerned, that we must be aware of and turn all our attentions to frustrating. Your analogies about Redcoats, Raj, Vietnam have no validity here.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:49 AM

The analogy to the Vietnamese is valid here, because we were told all of the same things about them that we are being told about the extremist Muslims. We were told that they were the frontier of the efforts of the communists to take over the world. We were told that if we didn't fight them, they would succeed in taking over the world and we would all become communists and speak Vietnamese or Chinese. It's the exact same thing as what we are being told about the extremist Muslims, just with a different boogey man this time, and the religion being Islam instead of communism.

We were told that if we weren't victorious in Vietnam, they would follow us here to the US and we would have to fight them here. When we left Vietnam in defeat, they didn't do that, did they? No they didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 03:30 AM

I take your point Carol - I have long said that militant Islamism has replaced Marxism as the worldwide threat. But the difference is that Vietnam is a specific geographical location {the threat that, if victorious there, they would somehow sail the Pacific & overrun the American continent was patently absurd}; while the Islamist movement I refer to can, and does, move about; shifting its training camps from Pakistan to N Nigeria to Yemen [or running all simultaneously]; and the bombers are as likely to come from within, like Richard Reid the 'shoe-bomber' and the 7/7 London Underground terrorists who came from no further away than Yorkshire, as from outside. Vietnamese Marxists did not move to the USA or UK - and certainly were not born in either like some of the recent bombers - but were operative purely within their own territory, where it is indeed at least arguable as to whether USA had any right whatever to pursue the Marxists among them. The same does not apply to our own Bradford-born bombers. If you persist in regarding them as nothing but 'boogey·men' I suspect you might receive quite a nasty surprise before you are very much older,

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 05:32 AM

Dum de dum de dum, my Boston concert has just downloaded, so no need to read all this!!!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 06:57 AM

"Revolutionary Communism" was seen as a transnational and international movement in very much the same way as "militant Islamism", with the same potential to move about and in any part of the world and in any individual. More so than Islamism in fact.

There was an element of truth in that - but the reality tended to be much more one of local movements or governments pursuing nationalistic objectives. The commitment to "international revolutionary Communism" tended to be pretty subsidiary. Lip service might be paid to the notion of a worldwide International, but for the big players the reality was more pragmatic and local.

Much the same is true today in respect of our current "boogey men".

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 08:44 AM

Saw Richard Clark (rememmeber him from the 9/11 Comission) on the news a couple nights ago and he flat out stated that the problems leading up to 9/11 with intellegence sharing wasnot addressed by the Bush administration (over 7 years) nor the Obama administartion (11 months)...

Me thinks that Obama will bust some balls this year and get it done... I also think that the Bushites (here and everywhere) believe that time began on Jan. 20, 2009 and are in denial about just what a fu*ked up mess that Bush left behind to be cleaned up... Me also thinks that that thinking is ripe with hypocrisy...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 12:39 PM

MtheGM, while it may be true that the communist objectives were more location specific than we were led to believe, in my country, at least, our government saw a commie under every bush, and they even had congressional witch hunts to root them out. Many people were blacklisted and their lives and careers destroyed in the process. The communist boogey man didn't successfully infiltrate this country because the conditions weren't right for it here. People here were for the most part content with their lot. Just like with the Islamists. We don't have a significant problem with local Islamists (no more so than, for instance, right wing extremists, who are no less dangerous), because the Muslims who live in the US are pretty satisfied with their lives here. Your Islamists are less content with their lot in your country and you are experiencing a backlash for that reason. The Muslims here tend to be more well off than the average US citizen and have successfully blended in with the culture of this country (or their families have been here for centuries and they helped build the country).

The socio-economic conditions for the average Muslim in your country are very different, and you have more unrest there for that reason.

We don't have a problem of Muslims wanting to impose strict Islamic practices in this country. We don't have a problem of Muslims trying to impose their religion on others. It's just not happening here. One would expect that to happen here since we are the "Great Satan", but it's just not. If their objective was to establish a great caliphate that would include this country, that is what we would experience. Instead, what we experience is the occasional act of terrorism. The only purpose that is served by terrorist acts is to scare people. None of these acts has had the purpose of scaring us into becoming Muslim. Not even the people who planned these acts have said they are for the purpose of making us become Muslim. They have consistently said that they are for the purpose of swaying public opinion to pressure the US government to get its military out of Muslim countries and to stop meddling in the affairs of those countries.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 02:29 PM

"told them his son... could be associating with Al-Queda".   Exact source, please.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 05:29 PM

Bin Laden and his followers are using the paranoia of the western world meet their ends.
Think about this a bit:
If the pawn with the explosives in his pants had blown that plane out of the sky over Canada what would have been the result?
There would have been speculation that it may have been a terrorist bomb. There would have been an intense effort to recover debris and piece it together, inquiries and commissions would follow and after months or years it would be determined that it was probably a bomb. Instead the thing did not detonate so the knowledge and result was an immediate spiking of fear, shutting down or delaying air travel at the peak of the busiest season.
Remember that another dupe already used this tactic with the explosives in his shoe. That would not detonate either but it had every traveler removing shoes at airport security. I wonder if all did not go according to plan...................

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 11:44 PM

CarolC - This all started with 9·11, remember; which happened there, not here or anywhere else but NY & DC. It is suspected the 9·11 bombers, on arrival, must have had some help from indigenous US Muslims, tho as all are dead there has been no way of establishing that. If those you refer to, here or elsewhere, began to show any glimmer of potential success with their 'Jihad', supposedly Koranically-enjoined, in establishing their 'Caliphate', do you think every Muslim in USA would be so content with his lot that not a single one would rejoice or leap on the 'Caliphate-bandwagon', Stateswide? Do you think that if a small group of our dissidents from Bradford or Luton came over there to have a go at another '9·11', they wouldn't be primed with a list of 'safe houses' of like-thinking US Muslims where they could go & put finishing touches to their plans becoz not a single US Muslim, being all so prosperous and content, would dream of joining in such a 'Universal·Caliphate' project? Remember that the point of such subversive activities as these needs only be very, very small: half-a-dozen like-minded Muslims in the whole of NYC would be plenty for their purposes - do you really think no such exists whatever?

Forgive me if I say that it seems to me that, in saying as you appear to be, that it's all our problem not yours, and that it couldn't happen there becoz you have such happy Muslims that not a single one would dream of joining in, you are being unbelievably complacent in the face of what is a real threat — to all of you over there as much as to anyone else in the world. I say again: persist in that thinking if you like; but I think you are in for a rude shock before too many days will have passed.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:16 AM

MtheGM, your practice of putting words in my mouth does nothing to forward whatever argument you are trying to make.

I did not say that not a single Muslim in this country would participate in an act of terrorism against the US. I did say that we don't have any more significant problem with that than we do with our right wing wackos. We have had quite a few bombings and similar acts of terrorism in this country, only two of which were committed by Muslims, none of whom were permanent residents in this country.

And as I said, acts of terrorism are for the purpose of scaring people into doing what the terrorists want them to do. The people responsible for these acts have consistently said that they are for the purpose of ending US imperialism in Muslim countries. We are not having a problem here with Muslims trying to impose their religion on others. They are not trying to get Sharia law imposed on anyone here. They aren't even trying to get Sharia law allowed for Muslims.

Your notion that acts of terrorism could possibly have the effect of creating a global caliphate, or that the Islamists could possibly think such is one of the more absurd ideas that I can think of. I guess you think as soon as a bomb goes off in Manhattan, everyone here is going to immediately convert to Islam and beg Osama to come over and be our Imam. Or maybe you think that's what all of those dirty rag-heads think.

I'm beginning to think that your attitude towards Muslims is a tad racist.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:17 AM

And it did not begin with 9/11.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:49 AM

By the way, we have groups of Christians committing terrorist attacks in this country, and there are groups of Christians who have openly declared their intent to abolish our government, installing the church in its place. Shall we look askance at all Christians because of the actions of those groups of Christians?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:18 AM

CarolC - answer to your last question first - no, of course not; but do at least be aware of their existence as a potential source of trouble.

I have not put a single 'word into your mouth'; every interpretation I have put on what you have said seems to me a reasonable one derived precisely from your own statements — I leave it to others to judge between us as to whether or not this is so.

Ah ha — I have been waiting agog to see how long it would take you to fling the word 'racist' as your get-out when you run out of rational arguments.

I am not racist as regards Muslims: but I am scared of 'Islamists', who are no more representative of all Muslims than the Christian·terrorists you refer to in your last paragraph are representative of all Christians. You know right well that it was only this minute but vocal, active and dangerous minority I was referring to, & not to Islam in general; so you would do well to avoid accusations of "racism", if you don't want to incur accusations of disingenuous, dishonest, pusillanimous, bad-faith defamation right back — & you know it's so, whatever you may pretend.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 02:09 AM

MtheGM you were the only one between the two of us who used words like "every Muslim" and "not a single Muslim", while I used the phrase "not a significant problem". If I were you, I wouldn't be depending on others to back you up on your claim to not be putting words in my mouth.

On the subject of racism, please correct me if I am wrong, but the message I am getting from your posts is that you think we should treat all Muslims as though they might be terrorists, even though you admit that only a small number of them actually are. If that is the case, then I stand by what I said about your attitude towards Muslims. If not, then I stand corrected.

I am no more in for any rude shocks because of Muslims than I am because of any other group with members residing in this country. We have extremists and terrorists here from many groups. Our second worst terrorist attack was committed by someone who was raised Catholic and who professed that science was his religion. He was of European ancestry, and had served in the US armed forces. He killed 168 people, including children who were in the building's day care center.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 02:44 AM

==do you think every Muslim in USA would be so content with his lot that not a single one would rejoice or leap on the 'Caliphate-bandwagon?==

The words, Carol, that you accuse me of 'putting into your mouth' were in the above context, which it will be noted occurred in a question of mine, not in any supposed statement of yours. Who, I would simply ask therefore, is putting words into whose mouth?

I can find nothing I have said to imply that I think we should treat all Muslims with suspicion because of the activities of a minute but threatening number among them [often, as in this present instance indeed, no more than a single individual], any more than I imagine you to be anti-Christian or anti-science because of the professions of those you mentioned above as Christian·subversives, or of the Alabama Bomber, whom you, predictably but not altogether relevantly IMO, adduce — so I must once again express myself aggrieved at unjustified accusations of racism.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:28 AM

I draw this to your attention, MtheGM, from your 01 Jan 10 - 11:44 PM post...

Forgive me if I say that it seems to me that, in saying as you appear to be, that it's all our problem not yours, and that it couldn't happen there becoz you have such happy Muslims that not a single one would dream of joining in

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:36 AM

BTW, which Alabama bomber are you talking about? The bomber I referenced specifically committed his act in Oklahoma City.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:46 AM

This followed, Carol, immediately on the series of questions I ref'd to above, so must surely be construed as being similarly interrogatve - part of the same discursive series. The words 'as you appear to be' seem to me to make the point speculative, predicated on the supposition that the answers to my questions might be affirmative; so the point was conditional (i.e. "if that is what you mean then it could perhaps be interpreted as") rather than putting any actual words in your mouth.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:54 AM

Well, if you can weasel like that, I guess I can too. I only said I was beginning to think your attitude towards Muslims is a tad racist. This is hardly the same thing as calling you a racist. At least not by the standards you are using about what words mean.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:55 AM

& of course I meant Oklahoma - don't know what made me write 'Alabama'!: is there a football or baseball or basketball team called "Alabama bombers' or some such with whom I must have got mnemonically confused? We both meant Mr McVeigh anyhow, did we not?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 04:05 AM

Carol - re 'weasel'

This standard-form reply, held in my word-processor memory, is the only response I propose to make to your recent post:—

It is my principle to make no further answer than this to merely abusive posts addressed to me

No further correspondence will be entered into.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 04:09 AM

Sounds good to me.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 06:34 AM

"I think that 4% of the highly educated intellectual elite of Muslims in this country believing that is a shockingly high percentage, and do not believe any other group here would be comparable.

This is, of course, speculation on your part."

Not entirely Carol
As a Christian I notice that Jesus and Christianity is often the butt of jokes on TV.
I accept that I have no right never to be offended.
Jerry Springer The Opera offended many Christians and there were large demonstrations here, especially when BBC put it out. It portrayed Christ in nappies and was very blaphemous.
But no one was killed or even threatened.
A cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb appeared in a Danish paper, and many were killed in worldwide riots. They are still trying to kill the artist years later.
Salman Rushdie still needs protection.
How can anyone doubt that Muslims are more violent than Christians or any other religion when their religion is perceived to be insulted.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/record.christian.complaints.rejected.as.bbcs.springer.show.is.cleared/2839.htm

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 09:46 AM

When the mullahs of Iran placed a price on the head of Salman Rushdie,I remember Canadian Muslim leaders defending the action on national TV. I was rather appalled at the time that anyone could see merit in it, but one stated that it was the duty of the faithful to carry it out. However, I never believed that to be the desire of all Muslims. The problem as I see it is religious leaders of all faiths educating their followers with dogma that should have been thrown to the shitpile of history! Freedom of thought and expression of non-believers should not be suppressed for fear that challenging dogma may offend believers. That in turn is every bit as offensive to those being stifled!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 09:54 AM

It is not the desire of all Muslims, as I keep saying.
There is a tiny minority, which in UK amounts to many thousand, who regard it as right and a duty to take life in the name of Islam.
That makes them very dangerous.
Other religions just do not have that murderous fringe.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 10:02 AM

Two points of clarification:

(a) Islam is a religion & has followers from many different ethnic groups; accusations of 'racism' are thus not helpful or accurate

(b) Jerry Springer The Opera satirised TV talk shows and fundamentalist extremism (of the Christian variety); it was not aimed at religion per se.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 10:07 AM

This entire struggle between the extremes is filled with "isms"... "Isms", ya see, are the cornerstone of terror... One extreme group feels threatned by another and brands that group an "ism" and then you have the push back from the other group with "counter-isms" and meanwhile everyone else get caught up in the crossfire...

This is exactly what we have going on now...

And Carol is 100% correct about the radical right in the US... It is a terrorist group that uses hate and fear as it's tools for recrutment... Sound familiar??? It should because that what we always hear and read about the Islamis extremists...

I mean, to a homosexual who is abducted, tied with a rope behind a pickup truck and draged down country roads to his death the terror is no less great than that of a CIA agent getting blown up... Might of fact, I think that the terror is probably greater to be pulled behind a truck then to just be blown up... Either way, it's terrorism carried out by the extreme right wing...

BTW, the Islamic torrorists are not lefties here... They, too, represent the right wing...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 10:15 AM

Also, the homosexual has done nothing wrong whereas the CIA person has done nothing right.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 10:37 AM

Smedley, whatever the aims of the Springer Opera, Jesus was portrayed in a way that no one would dare portray Mohammed.
Does anyone deny that fundamental difference?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 10:41 AM

Mohammed wasn't in the story, so who knows how the show's writers/directors might have depicted him ?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 11:05 AM

I `ad that Mo`ammed in my cab the other day. `e looked like `e`d got all the troubles of the world on `is shoulders and `is turban was coming all un-done. `e`d just come back fom one of those big parties they `ave in Mecca with all the mullahs and muftis.
I said, "Where to, Mo?"
`e said, " Wootton Bassett to that march that my lot`s `olding. They`re wasting their time there. I wanna get `em all marching around Pakistan. The carnage them El Quaeda are doing out there makes the U.N. Coalition look like a Boy Scouts` outing!!"

Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 11:56 AM

Smedley, witness the cartoons in a newspaper read by no one outside Denmark.
Innocuous in comparison to the portrayal of Jesus in the Springer Opera.
Many died, and they still try to kill the artist.
And that is just one example.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:11 PM

Keith, I'm not unaware of those examples.

But I am also aware of the Christian fanatics who bomb abortion clinics in the USA.

Different targets, same mindset.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:25 PM

Keith, you have provided a handful of very selective anecdotal examples and expect that to serve as proof of something. I'm sorry to have to inform you that such "evidence" does not prove anything at all.

And you said that 4 percent said they believe it would be ok to kill to protect or preserve their religion. You did not say they said they believe it would be ok to kill if their religion was insulted. The article about the study does not provide a figure for the percentage of students at UK universities who believe it is acceptable to kill if their religion is being insulted.

There have been cases in which Christians and also members of other religions have killed and/or threatened to kill people for insulting their religion. I expect that a survey of how many people of other religions believe that it is ok to kill for their religion has never been taken. So you can't use the absence of such a survey as proof that there wouldn't be similar numbers if one were to be taken.

As I said before, your assertion is pure speculation. In the absence of any hard figures it will never be anything but speculation.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:31 PM

And Keith, there are Christians in the US who have killed in the name of their religion, and they remain a serious threat to people here in this country, and in other countries.

And some of the right wing Christian private contractors who have served in Iraq have openly admitted that they see our being in that country as a new crusade and they have said that part of their purpose in being over there is to kill as many Muslims as possible. These are people killing people for not being Christians.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:34 PM

(a) Islam is a religion & has followers from many different ethnic groups; accusations of 'racism' are thus not helpful or accurate


Actually, the term 'racism' can apply to members of any group, including religions:

b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:43 PM

Surely then Carol, Webster`s definition of a race (shared interests) could refer to Manchester United supporters or any other football team`s followers. Or anglers, petrol heads, folk music enthusiasts, etc.etc.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 12:53 PM

Possibly so, John. But hating people or feeling superior to them (or applying different standards to them than to one's own group) because of the group they belong to is no less destructive if the group is a religion than if it is because they have a different color of skin.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:04 PM

Carol, that 4% (3600)of UK University students believed it right to kill to "preserve or promote" Islam.
I am not impressed by your supposed examples of Christians killing to promote Christianity.
If there is a percentage, it is well below 4%and nearer 0%

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:17 PM

Keith, you simply don't know that. You have not produced any numbers from a similar study taken among people of other religions. You are speculating.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:25 PM

Aso, the study only included Muslims at UK universities. The results of that study can't be generalized to the entire Muslim population of the world. Nor could a study that only included students at UK universities belonging to other religions.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: pdq
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:35 PM

Just for the record, there have been 6 deaths attributed to anti-abortion activists the US and Canada since 1977.

Three abortion doctors, two receptionists and one security guard.

A seventh man, a doctor, was shot to death in a burglery in Mobile, Alabama. His death is attributed to activists by some, but since burglery is not connected to other abortion clinic attacks, it is a matter of speculation.

Now, as far as Islamic radicals, last week they blew up a volleyball tournament in Pakistan: 75 innocent people killed.

In Iraq they bombed a market: 25 dead.

Today they launched rockets at the president of Pakistan. No one killed, but they tried.

There is no eqivalence here. Two of the US abortion killers were certified mental patients.

Also, there is no part of Christian scripture that calls for the murder of people who follow other religions. Christians are taught to respect others. Not so with Islam.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:43 PM

Carol, all I wanted to show by way of the survey was that although the great majority of Muslims are good peaceful people, there is a small but significant number who are not.

"Just under a third of Muslim students polled (32%) said killing in the name of religion can be justified – the majority of these said killing could be justified if the religion was under attack, and 4% of all respondents supported killing in order to promote and preserve that religion.
- 60% of active members of campus Islamic societies said killing in the name of religion can be justified. By contrast, only 2% of non-Muslims agreed."http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1231525079_2.pdf

I cited also the fact that Muslims react more violently to perceived insults to their religion.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:48 PM

...a class or kind of people unified by shared interests.

I've never thought that Mudcatters could be termed "a race"...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 01:56 PM

Nice one, MgGrath!!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:36 PM

PDQ, you're citing examples in the US and Canada only for Christian terrorism, and you're using the whole world as your example for Muslim terrorism. That doesn't wash. Also, it's not just Christians and Muslims under consideration. There are Jewish terrorists, and Hindu terrorists, and Buddhist terrorists, and Atheistic terrorists, and terrorists from other religions and traditions as well as terrorists of no particular tradition/religion.

And we need to also consider the numbers of Muslims who have been killed by the armed forces and covert forces of self-professed "Judeo-Christian" countries, like the US, and at the behest of self-professed Christian leaders.

You're being very selective in the examples you're willing to recognize.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:39 PM

Nevertheless, McGrath, the term "race" is widely accepted when used to refer to a broader range of groups than just Blacks, Asians, and Whites. Personally, I would not use it to refer to Mudcatters. But I do consider it racism when people discriminate against Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:47 PM

Re the example of the handful of extremists who attack abortion clinics, "choice" abortions are haram under sharia, and the penalty for doctor and patient is death.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:47 PM

I cited also the fact that Muslims react more violently to perceived insults to their religion.

This is not something we can say with any certainty. For one thing, we can't attribute the backlash to the cartoons as being entirely a response to an insult to Islam or the Prophet. There are many socio-economic factors that also have to be taken into consideration. A big part of the backlash was a response to perceived discrimination against Muslims in that context, and it still is. Secondly, I have seen reports of other religions reacting violently to perceived insults to their religion. There are numerous cases of a violent backlash among extremist Jews because of perceived insults to the Jewish religion, as well as death threats and even the Jewish equivalent of a fatwah. And I have seen cases of Christians doing the same. Hindus have also committed numerous acts of violence against non-Hindus, and I don't think we can say with any certainty that none of them were a response to perceived insult to their religion. The only difference is that when these things are committed by groups other than Muslims, we just don't hear about it very often. Our media tend to put a lot more effort into publicizing violent acts by Muslims than they do into publicizing violent acts committed by other groups.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 03:49 PM

Re the example of the handful of extremists who attack abortion clinics, "choice" abortions are haram under sharia, and the penalty for doctor and patient is death.

Nevertheless, the murders of abortion workers in the US have been committed by Christians and not Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 05:06 PM

A handful of the 159 million Christians in USA are so extreme anti abortionists that they can match sharia law in its intolerance.

What would happen to an abortion clinic in an Islamic Republic Carol?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 08:41 PM

the point seems to be that Islamic terrorists are better at it than Christian terrorists. But who's keeping score...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 01:14 AM

A handful of the 159 million Christians in USA are so extreme anti abortionists that they can match sharia law in its intolerance.

What would happen to an abortion clinic in an Islamic Republic Carol?

I don't know. But we are talking about terrorism in this thread, not repressive political regimes. If you want to change the subject and talk about that, we will have to include other examples than the people who murder abortion workers.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 01:17 AM

*other than the people in the US who murder abortion workers...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 01:21 AM

For instance, we could talk about the Christian government in Uganda that wants to pass a law making homosexuality a capital crime. This initiative, by the way, was instigated by some of our intolerant religious crazies in this country who have been evangelizing over there in Uganda lately. Some of these people are members of our government here.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 03:12 PM

". But we are talking about terrorism in this thread, not repressive political regimes. If you want to change the subject and talk about that, we will have to include other examples than the people who murder abortion workers."

Others raised the issue of the murder of abortion workers.
I just showed that it was not a good argument that Christians are as violent and intolerant as Muslims.
That tiny handful out of 159 million US Christians are still not quite as extreme as MAINSTREAM Islam.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 03:45 PM

George W. Bush: So-called born-again Christain who said that he gets his directions from God...

Deaths in Iraq from George W. Bush's apparent directions from God: 1,000,000...

I mean, let's get real here... What we have are a bunch of right winged extremists (Taliban/al qeada v. Christain Right) locked into struggle to out-right the other and the rest of the world is caught into their crossfire...

Let's get real here, Part B... When Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, tried to blow up and airplane it was out of the news cycles in two days... Why??? Because the Christain Right didn't want their boy, George W. Bush, to have to squirm...

Let's get real here, Part c... Now that the Cristain Right and their right-wing extreist mouthpieces and media outlets are out of power they will keep this story going as if it is worse than 9/11 itself... This is just a poorlu disguised attempt to cover their own asses over the decade of terror in which they, the Christain Right, were major players...

Let's get real here, Part D: If the Christain Right wanted the American people to be safer then they would shut the fuck up and become part of the solution rather than creat more partisan shit that only keeps their little ballgame goind with their Taliban/al qeada counterparts... But don't look for that to happen...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:24 PM

Keith, I think you don't have any idea whatever what mainstream Islam is. I think you have a concept of it that is based on your own prejudices but it does not in any way match up with reality. For instance, if abortion is against the law in a country with a Muslim government, it isn't necessarily true that violators of that law will be met with any more violence than violators of laws in the US, for instance. You are just making stuff up as you go along to try to promote your own prejudices about Muslims. You really have no idea what you are talking about. You are shooting from the hip.

The abortion murders weren't carried out by a government. They are examples of acts of terrorism carried out by Christians. They are hardly the only examples in the world of acts of terrorism being carried out by Christians and other non-Muslims. They are a small fraction of it. And if we are going to talk about repressive regimes, we need to talk about all repressive regimes around the world and compare the abuses committed by all of them. You only acknowledge acts of terrorism and abusive regimes when they are committed by Muslims, and you completely gloss over the many that are committed by people who are not Muslims. You've got one of those score cards that only has a place to put negative marks for the groups you hate, and only a place to put positive marks for everyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:25 PM

Considering that in the recent troubles far more Muslims have been killed by Muslims, I think we are participating in a Muslim civil war on a grand scale, more or less their version of the Thirty Years War that bloodied Europe.

Islam is a much younger religion than Christianity and is experiencing its own internal 'rightist' or 'fundamentalist' movement attempting to reverse the move into a secular globalized world. Since the globalized secular world comes for the most part from the West, this fundamentalist group attacked the West using their own open-ness and technology as their weapons.

Just as their are interfaces within the spectrum of the Islamic world which incorporate different views from secular to preservationist to fundamentalist, so the secular world has its own spectrum of attitudes to bring to the party. There are secular anti-globalists who may find within the Islamic insurgency something to admire, there may be Christian fundamentalists who are one to one in agreement with the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood (if they bothered to research it), but will fight them to the death in the real world in the NAME of their particular belief set.

The ultimate trial is between the open society and the closed society. Each has its own particular advantages and weaknesses, Each comprises a bit of the soul of the other.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:29 PM

It almost pains to to have to say this, robomatic, but that was very well put.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:35 PM

Having said that, I will also say that I don't agree that the terrorism against the US is a symptom of the civil war between the various factions of Muslims. That is a product the warmongering and imperialism of those factions in the US who are working to spread their empire around the globe (a kind of closed society in that a small ruling elite decide the fates of most of the people in the world, as opposed to respecting the right of all peoples to self-determination).

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:55 PM

CarolC you have left me speechless. I'm gonna have to spend a few minutes to grok that! The truth is however that whatever we say to each other it is not my goal to put you in pain!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 12:01 AM

This is not addressed directly to CarolC for reasons predicated above —

But haven't you all noticed how much she is enjoying her self-appointed role of uninvited spokesperson in the defence of Militant Islamism [AlQaeda & 9/11 & 7/7 & MadridBombers & the lot of them] as being o-so-misunderstood, poor darlings!?. So they are not homicidal religious nuts with a Jihad-cum-GlobalCaliphate·as·supposedly·Koranically·enjoined after all, but just a group of maybe·misguided·but·would·be·universal·benefactors defending us all from wicked US Global Imperialism. (Contradict this view and you may just be 'a tad racist').

I suggest you all just stop responding to her absurdities and leave her to commune with herself till she gets fed up — she is IMO fast ascending to FULL TROLL STATUS — don't feed her any further!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 12:33 AM

Please show me where I have defended militant Islamism, MtheGM. Also, I think you need to look up the definition of the word, "troll". It doesn't mean "people who say things MtheGM doesn't like".

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:36 AM

Amendment:—

delete - "TROLL";

read instead "Person determined at all costs to avoid main point at issue, the danger posed by small but determined group of Militant Islamists who themselves admit they are not concerned with American Imperialism, but declare themselves Koranically enjoined to impose by Jihad the Universal Caliphate".

But remember my warning that, if you attempt to argue this point in any sort of philosophical or semantic detail, you will be liable to be accused of (a) being 'a tad racist'; and (b) of 'weaselling'!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:41 AM

Ok, let's look at that small group, MtheGM. What do you think is the solution to the problem of that small group?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:50 AM

Also, please explain to me their thinking behind their methods. In what way do they expect that blowing up a few planes and things on the other side of the world is going to help them spread their "global caliphate"?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:56 AM

CarolC - now that you appear again ready to engage me in rational discourse, I am happy to respond with like courtesy.

My answer is, I wish I knew — I would run for World President if I did. But thank you, at least, for the admission implied in your question that the group exists, and is separate from the anti-US-imperialism group you postulate - whose existence I, in my turn, do not deny. It seems to me, if I may say so, that the error you have been making thruout is to suggest that the existence of what I might call the 'your-motivated group' precludes the existence of the 'my-motivated group'. They are not in any way mutually exclusive -

& while there may be a solution [cessation of interference on part of US - oh if only!] to the problem posed by yours, I freely admit that I have no idea what, in the short or medium term, is to be done about the one that worries me -

Which is a 'back to square one' situation as ever was....

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 03:02 AM

Please provide some documentation for this assertion:

small but determined group of Militant Islamists who themselves admit they are not concerned with American Imperialism, but declare themselves Koranically enjoined to impose by Jihad the Universal Caliphate"

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 03:04 AM

Oh, no. I don't imply that the group exists. At least not in the form you are saying it does. I am humoring you for the sake of argument.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 03:18 AM

It was notoriously what was declared by Osama bin Laden after 9/11 — which, you must admit, was an occasion of some effectiveness to draw attention to the main group involved, El Qaeda, who in their turn have frequently declared it as the aim of all their training camps in Pakistan, Yemen, N Nigeria [where the individual the original subject of this thread originated]. I think if you google something like 'El Qaeda, declared aims' you will find what I say well documented.

e.g. "The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East. Bin Laden has also said that he wishes to unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs."

You will note the aims postulated by both of us are present in this statement of Osama's which I just found online in an 'Infoplease entry on Al-Qaeda.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 03:56 AM

Carol, Sharia IS mainstream Islam.
If 40 % of British Muslim university students wish to be governed by it, the proportion among Muslims in general must be much higher, and most do live by it anyway.
It is forbidden to abort a healthy pregnancy.
The penalty is death for both abortionist and abortee.

African culture is hostile to gays, so please do not blame christians for that.
Some countries already execute gays, and they are not christian countries are they.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 04:24 AM

Moreover, Carol, you are ignoring the ever-present proviso of all such groups that Israel's destruction is a sine qua non - see my above quote in my last post.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:21 AM

Well, I don't doubt the exixtence of extreme groups that have differing agendas... Right here in the good 'ol US of A if you were tyo get all the Christain Right extreists together in one big tent you'd find that after a couple of days they would break up into slpinter groups with each their own agendas... Pluralism just ain't as pure as some folks would like it to be... Or think it is, for that matter..

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:55 AM

MtheGM, you said this:

small but determined group of Militant Islamists who themselves admit they are not concerned with American Imperialism, but declare themselves Koranically enjoined to impose by Jihad the Universal Caliphate"

I think that you have yourself proved my point. Clearly you are wrong to say they are not concerned with American Imperialism. bin Laden himself has said that they are (as I have repeatedly said in this thread, for which you have said I am not being rational). Even in the quote you have provided, bin Laden didn't say anything about a global caliphate. He was talking specifically about a caliphate uniting Muslims. He didn't say his aims were to convert anyone to Islam. He said uniting Musims, not creating new ones.

The quote you provided proves that al Qaeda's actions in the US are for the purpose of ending US imperialism in Muslim lands and nothing else. Their actions in Muslim lands may be for the purpose of uniting Muslims under a global caliphate, but not their actions in the US or other Western countries.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:00 AM

Sharia is not mainstream Islam in all parts of the world, Keith. For instance, it's not mainstream among Muslims in the US. And there isn't only one way to interpret Sharia law. During the Ottoman Empire, for instance, the only punishment for adultery was a fine, and four eyewitnesses had to testify that the adultery took place, which meant that it was very difficult to establish guilt. There is no uniformity among Muslim governments about how Sharia is applied. As I said before, you really have no idea what you are talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:07 AM

MtheGM, the Islamists see the regime in Israel as a Western colonial occupier. They don't want to kill the Israelis. They want the regime in Israel to end in the same way that the apartheid regime in South Africa ended and the Soviet regime in Russia ended. This is not proof of Islam being a violent religion. Quite the opposite.

And while I do not support their methods, I do share their wish to see Israel go the way of South Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: pdq
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:58 AM

"To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable."   ~ Barry Goldwater

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:55 PM

Barry Goldwater was a hell of a guy, and a damn good photographer.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: pdq
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:10 PM

First man to take a crew through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River with a movie camera, I believe in the 1930s.

Dangerous enough without the heavy clunky camera used in those days.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:35 PM

Tell ya'll what... Today's so-called conservatives would scare the hell outta Barry Goldwater... He'd be thinkin', "Geeze, these folks are friggin' lunatics"... He sho nuff would think that...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:06 PM

That is possible. My comments were centered on him as a man, rather than as a politician. I do think his brand of Conservatism is in short supply and missed by many who do not necessarily agree with every aspect of it.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:02 PM

I'm sorry to say it, but every time I see the thread title "attempt mass murder Christmas" I visualize a bullet-riddled Santa's workshop with dead elves lying all over the place and Santa himself lying sprawled in the midst of them, clearly defunct, with grim looking FBI agents combing through the carnage and seeking evidence to find out what the hell happened...

Just thought I'd mention it, for what it's worth (which ain't much!).

Okay, that was it. Carry on without me.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 02:20 AM

Apparently Dancer & Prancer are responsible. They were seen on their MySpace pages wearing trenchcoats and listening to Marilyn Manson, and are rumoured to have taken Rudolph hostage.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:34 AM

Dancer and Prancer would probably do a far better job of running this planet at the moment...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:21 PM

What about Donner & Blitzen? You got something against Germanic-named reindeer?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 03:24 PM

Anybody notice that in the US, this is always referred to as having happened on Christmas, while the BBC and others say December 25th?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 03:39 PM

Well, another thought occured to me and that is that this guy was hired by the RNC so they could use it to rail against Obama (forever, mind you) over this and try to get this guy's lightin' his privates on fire in an airplane take health care reform off the front burner (pun intended)...

I mean, in 50 years this kid opens his American history book and there is a chapter entitled, "Burning Penis Trumps Health Care Reform"??? I donno about this country anymore... One guy tries to take down an airplane with a burning shoe and is out of the news cycle in 2 days yet another lights his dick on fire and three weeks later it's 24/7??? What's goin' on here, folks???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:45 PM

I mean, in 50 years this kid opens his American history book and there is a chapter entitled, "Burning Penis Trumps Health Care Reform"??? I donno about this country anymore... One guy tries to take down an airplane with a burning shoe and is out of the news cycle in 2 days yet another lights his dick on fire and three weeks later it's 24/7??? What's goin' on here, folks???

Are you implying that the poor dude won't be able to enjoy any of his 72 renewable virgins?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 08:00 AM

"Anybody notice that in the US, this is always referred to as having happened on Christmas, while the BBC and others say December 25th?"

Well, the BBC wouldn't want to be harangued by the PC-Loonies for using terms which might 'offend' non-Christians, would they? :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 11:18 AM

That's about it, Roboz... I mean, what a dumbass terrorist... I mean, he could have just gone in the bathroom, dumped the explosives in the sink and then the igniter and been done with the entire thing... But no??? This sumabich has to got back to his seat, cover himself up with a blanket and dump the explosives on his dick???

Me thinks that we really are making too much of al qeada in Yemen if this was how they are trainin' up their martyrs...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 12:58 PM

He had to wait until the descent over Detroit to maximise death on the ground.
He would have to be back in his seat.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 03:29 PM

I knew how to set time delayed fuses in high school with cigarettes... That's what I am saying here... The guys is smart enough to smuggle the explosives on baord but not a time delay igniter... I mean, any college chemistry major could make one with a wrist watch or wind up clock... The point is that if we are scurrying around like scared mice from these dummies then that says about as much about us as it says about them...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:05 PM

Cabin staff check the toilets before landing.
Can a chemistry major make a timing device that will pass a metal detector and not trigger toilet smoke detector?
You would make a crap terrorist Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:06 PM

200 times over.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:10 PM

Does anyone know why this guy's device failed to go off the way it was supposed to?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:35 PM

Not released yet Carol.
Maybe his syringe contained concentrated hydrogen peroxide.
If a few drops got on his trousers/pants, they would have ignited with a fierce high temperature flame.
That fits the stories told by passengers.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:44 PM

Why wouldn't the hydrogen peroxide also create an explosion when injected into the powder along with the flames from the drops?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:59 PM

See, this is where we are getting terribly bogged down... I mean, we give way too much credit to al qeada... Checked the toilets, eh??? What exactly does that mean??? Does the crew check the holding tanks??? Doubtful... Is there some kinda camera or xray machine checkin' out the stuff in the holding tanks??? Doubtful... Does the crew check under the sink??? How about in the compartment where the extra toilet paper is kept??? Or the towels??? I mean, let's get real here... If I can think of a way to assemble and leave a bomb in, what, a couple minues then al qeada must be a bunch of dummies...

Here's how dumb al qeada is... I mean, they are fixated on airplanes... What is that all about??? I can come up with a dozen homegrown ways to inflict terror on the population of the US without using airplanes.... I even listed sevceral ideas once and was warned that I might be givin' al qeada some ideas... Is that a joke, 'er what??? Face it, al qeada are not only fixated but they are also retarded...

Yet here we are with all this technology polaying a dumbass game of connect-the-dots... Which dots???

(You know, Boberdz... ***The*** dots...)

Oh, those dots...

No, I'm beginning to think that we have lowered our own intellegence down to the level of the retarded al qeada... I mean, in this infomation age we have more dots that can be connected... Might of fact, if you just take the 550,000 people on the *dot list* and then you mix in all the various variables then it's not a matter of connecting the dots because there are so many that all you have is a black screen from them... So consider the sumabichin' dots allready connected...

No, forget the dots... We are going to implode our entire treasutry and resources trying to connect them all and still be no safer than if there were no dots at all...

Ya'll want to stop al qeada??? Get some fresh thinkin' that ain't got nuthin' to do with dots... Get the heck outta Iraq... Push Isreal into making *the deal* with the Palestinians... Stop building stuff that depends on oil... Quit thinking like colonializers... Kill all the tea-baggers because they are really pissing off all of our minorities, including our Islamic citizens... No, don't kill them... That would be bad... Just tell them that this is America and if they don't like it to leave... Don't let the door hit ya' on the way out, Billy Bob...

I mean, what a joke... What, spend a trillion $$$ to make airplanes safe??? Then what, al qeada wakes up one mornin' and thinks, we'll we'll just blow up subways... Or bridges... Or... Or...

I mean, let's get real here and ignore the blow hard righties who just love war... Screw them... Didn't they get enough last century??? Their turn oughtta be up by now...

Fir sure...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 05:47 PM

It should have Carol.
Maybe he sqeezed too soon and did not penetrate the plastic holding the main charge.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 06:10 PM

Maybe he was too much or a moron, or too poorly trained by his moronic al qeada trainers, to pull this off... I mean, let's get real... 3 months worth of daily training and the guy can't do somethin' as simple as mixing apoxy...

Beam me up, Scotty... The right wing has us all convinced that al qeada are all Menza material...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:07 PM

Bobert's got it right. You want to stop Al Qaeda? Stop doing things in other people's countries that give Al Qaeda so many reasons to exist! Al Qaeda is not the cause of this conflict, they are an inevitable byproduct of it.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:00 AM

"Stop doing things in other people's countries that give Al Qaeda so many reasons to exist!"

That's a bit too simplistic, LH.

Keriste, it would take a full page to LIST terrorist organizations, let alone SAY anything about them. What is Al Queda's country? You continue to justify AQ with the same litany, and the litany isn't really true. You may see them as an organization devoted to helping the oppressed, but they are just a bunch of killers disguised as an organization. Would you have said the same of Baader-Meinhoff?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:00 AM

"Stop doing things in other people's countries that give Al Qaeda so many reasons to exist!"

That's a bit too simplistic, LH.

Keriste, it would take a full page to LIST terrorist organizations, let alone SAY anything about them. What is Al Queda's country? You continue to justify AQ with the same litany, and the litany isn't really true. You may see them as an organization devoted to helping the oppressed, but they are just a bunch of killers disguised as an organization. Would you have said the same of Baader-Meinhoff?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:05 AM

1989
Osama bin Laden founds an international group known as al-Qaeda, which in Arabic means "the base." It is formed primarily of mujahedeen, meaning holy warriors, and others fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

1993
Osama bin Laden sets up militant training camps in Sudan and begins searching for nuclear material and weapons.

Feb. 26, 1993
A 500-kilogram bomb explodes in a garage under World Trade Center in New York, killing six and injuring 1,042. Bin Laden associate Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life without parole in February 1998 for orchestrating the bombing.

Oct. 8, 1993
Al-Qaeda supporters attack UN troops in Somalia, killing 18 U.S. servicemen

June 26, 1995
Al-Qaeda tries, unsuccessfully, to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Nov. 13, 1995
Seven people, including five Americans, are killed when two bombs explode at a U.S.-Saudi military facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden is blamed for the attack.

1996
After Osama bin Laden is expelled from Sudan, al-Qaeda moves its operation to Afghanistan. Iran sponsors a re-organization of al-Qaeda with bin Laden as leader.

June 25, 1996
Bin Laden followers bomb U.S. military base near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American soldiers and wounding hundreds of Americans and Saudi Arabians.

Aug. 7, 1998
Bombs explode at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 220 people and injuring 5,000. The U.S. retaliates with air strikes against suspected training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan.

Feb. 22, 1998
Osama bin Laden calls for attacks on American citizens.

Nov. 4, 1998
A U.S. federal grand jury indicts Osama bin Laden in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa.

Oct. 12, 2000
Two suicide bombers, suspected to be associated with bin Laden, attack the navy destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors.

May 29, 2001
A U.S. District Court jury finds four of Osama bin Laden's followers guilty of conspiring to kill Americans, including those killed in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

June 19, 2001
Osama bin Laden releases a taped message, which many believe was the orders that triggered the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

August 2001
Osama bin Laden threatens attacks on U.S.

Sept. 11, 2001
Attacks on World Trade Center in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania kill close to 3,000 people. Al-Qaeda is blamed within days of the attacks.

Oct. 7, 2001
The United States launches air strikes in Afghanistan aimed at al-Qaeda training camps and Taliban bases. Osama bin Laden, in a videotaped message, praises God for Sept. 11 attacks and swears America will never "dream of security" until "the infidels' armies leave the land of Muhammad."

Oct. 9, 2001
Al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith issues a statement calling for a holy war against the United States.

Nov. 9, 2001
The Taliban flee the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Nov. 13, 2001
Northern Alliance soldiers enter Kabul.

Dec. 7, 2001
Taliban forces in Kandahar surrender to American troops.

Dec. 11, 2001
The United States files criminal charges against the alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.

Dec. 22, 2001
Shoe bomber Richard Reid tries to blow up an American Airlines jet over the Atlantic.

Mar. 18, 2002
The United States ends its sweep through the mountains of Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda, but most of the Taliban and al-Qaeda escape.

Oct. 12, 2003
Bombs in two nightclubs in Bali kill 202 people. Authorities later charges members of a local group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which has ties with al-Qaeda.

Oct. 23, 2003
Chechen rebels, believed to be loosely affilated with al-Qaeda, storm a theatre in Moscow and take audience, actors and crew as hostages.

Oct. 26, 2003
Russian special forces use gas to retake the theatre. The total death toll, from the gas and from those killed by the hostages is 128. All 41 hostage-takers are also killed.

Nov. 12, 2003
Osama bin Laden releases an audiotape praising attacks in Bali and Moscow.

Jan. 30, 2003
Shoe bomber Richard Reid sentenced to life in prison.

Mar. 1, 2003
Pakistani and U.S. agents arrest Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the suspected masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mar. 20, 2003:
The United States attacks Iraq.

May 1, 2003
U.S. President George W. Bush declares "major combat" over in Iraq.

Jan. 4, 2004
Bin Laden releases an audiotape calling on Muslims to continue "the jihad to check the conspiracies launched against the Islamic nation."

Mar.11, 2004:
Bombs on commuter trains in Madrid kill 190 people and injure more than 1,800. Spain later arrests more than a dozen suspects, many of them from Morocco and believed to have ties to al-Qaeda.

Mar. 25, 2004:
An audio tape believed to be from Ayman al-Zawahri, number two in al-Qaeda, is broadcast on al-Jazeera, calling for the overthrow of the government in Pakistan.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 12:12 AM

al Qaeda didn't just form in a vacuum 999. Osama bin Laden formed it with other people as a response to what they considered to be foreign occupation of Muslim lands.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:45 AM

But, Carol, that doesn't mean he formed it with only that one specific purpose (of getting rid of these foreign occupations) in mind, or that it has not since evolved to embrace and include and subsume other purposes. If I may say so yet again, without re-engaging in our repetitious arguments which I have forsworn to do — you strike me as an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*; appearing to believe that becoz many Islamists have one main purpose, none can hold two or more purposes in mind simultaneously, and that no others can possibly exist anywhere at all whose purposes might just differ from those of this mainstream.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:56 AM

But he has said many times that that is the reason he formed it. And he and his top people have also said many times that that is the reason for its continued existence. And I refer you, once again, to this quote from bin Laden himself...

"Your security is not in the hands of [Democratic presidential candidate John] Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe." -- 2004


And you strike me as a person who has a lot of difficulty articulating their argument without making it personal. If your arguments are any good, you don't need to keep attacking me personally in order to make them.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 02:59 AM

bobert, you are deluding yourself if you believe these people are just morons.
This one was described as a dream student by one of his British teachers.
He was an Engineering graduate of Universtity College London, one of our most prestigious universities, before giving it up for jihad and martyrdom.
He found and exploited a weakness in air security.
He prepared a bomb for detonation, undetected, against the fuselage of a packed US airliner over a major US city.
Only luck prevented a thousand deaths on Christmas Day.
Who knows what went wrong.
Maybe his hand shook.
That does not maqke him a moron.
I am sure that mine would too.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:03 AM

I am not attacking you personally, Carol; I should not dream of doing any such thing, and I greatly resent such an accusation as a personal attack on me and on my integrity. What I am doing is contradicting what seem to me erroneous assertions which you are making, and which nobody else is. How, please, can I do that if I do not address my responses to you? If you regard such opposition, not to you but to your arguments as "personal attacks", then I think this a kitchen you might do well to stay out of as you clearly cannot stand its heat.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:08 AM

MtheGM, you made it personal with this...

you strike me as an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*; appearing to believe that becoz many Islamists have one main purpose, none can hold two or more purposes in mind simultaneously, and that no others can possibly exist anywhere at all whose purposes might just differ from those of this mainstream

Resent my saying so if you want to, but you keep making it personal by making it about ME and not about the subject. Every time you do that, you are making a personal attack. If you can't discuss the subject without discussing me, then you must not have any valid arguments at all.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:32 AM

Very well, Carol; have it your way. Persist in your disingenuous insistence that the words of Bin Laden & his like are infinitely trustworthy; & that my failure uncritically to believe every syllable he has ever uttered, or to take your word for it that there are no others who just might be aiming for the Global Caliphate, is occasioned by no more than a desire to get at you, personally.

[I avoid the word 'paranoia'; please observe that I have not used it — but it was a near thing!].

I have done. Goodbye, and I hope it keeps fine for you.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:51 AM

MtheGM, if you can't tell the difference between this...

you strike me as an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*;

and this...

failure uncritically to believe every syllable he has ever uttered, or to take your word for it that there are no others who just might be aiming for the Global Caliphate, is occasioned by no more than a desire to get at you, personally


..then there probably is no hope for your arguments at all. But in one last attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt about your abilities, I will try one more time.

When you discuss ME, rather than the topic, you are not making valid arguments. If you use your posts to point out what you regard as my flaws, as you have been doing, you are not making arguments, you are making personal attacks. When you say things like "you strike me as", and then you follow those words with character assassinations like, "an agenda-driven gross *over-simplifier*", you are not making an argument. You are making a personal attack. If you persist in making such attacks, I will continue to point them out to you. If you don't like that, I suggest keeping your posts about the subject rather than about me.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:56 AM

We are infidels....and were long before Russia invaded. If you are not a Muslim, then basically, you're not really to be trusted. Many crackpots within Islam won't rest until they have tried to turn the entire world to Allah.

Sorry, I wouldn't put up with that crap from any religion. It stinks.

We in the West are incredibly tolerant. In the Middle East, they ain't...and it's why their way of life has stayed the same for so many centuries, because it is built on fear, lack of education and a totally male dominated society.

As I've said over and again, until the women of the Middle East themselves get into positions of power and start to change the laws, the rules, they ain't going anywhere, really. They need to rise, together...

It will happen...it's already starting to over here, with women speaking out against arranged marriages and honour killings. I watched a TV award ceremony recently, and one of the actresses came out and spoke about that very subject, saying how wrong it all was and how women were no longer going to put up with it...

Until Mrs. Bin Laden is an equal to Mr. things won't change out there, because the men have been living in this highly odd world for so long that they're not even aware of how odd it is.

Good to see Mr. Exploding Underpants has pleaded Not Guilty! Ha, I knew this would happen..Now there'll be a huge, long, highly expensive trial...and appeals...

People who deliberately choose to blow up others should lose their right to life.

Period.

Bring on the Sheikhesses!

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:02 AM

As I've said over and again, until the women of the Middle East themselves get into positions of power and start to change the laws, the rules, they ain't going anywhere, really.

Precisely so. And no amount of intervention by countries like the US and the UK will change that. That's why the women in Afghanistan are no better off today, despite our nine years of fighting there, than they were before we went in there. And the women in those countries have said over and over that they want to do that work themselves rather than having the governments of other countries attacking their countries and waging war in them.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Smedley
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:39 AM

CarolC, do you think Afghan women would have a better chance of asserting themselves and defending their interests under a Taliban regime ? Please answer that precise question and not swerve into another denunciation of US/UK intervention.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:52 AM

It should also be pointed out that women in Iraq have suffered major setbacks in gender equality as a direct result of the US and UK invasion and occupation of that country.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:54 AM

What I know is that the women of Afghanistan don't want foreign troops in their country. That's all I kneed to know or care about.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:05 AM

I should also say that the women in Afghanistan are no better off under the people the Western governments support than they were under the Taliban, and as Lizzie pointed out in another thread, they were actually better off. With the Taliban, they were kept hidden away, but they were not being raped and they were provided with some security and stability. The warlords that the Western governments are supporting are just as repressive in terms of the form of Islam they impose on the women, and they are raping the women and their children, and have no rules or laws beyond what they decide from moment to moment.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 08:50 AM

Yo, Keith-A,

Nah, I am not deluding nuthin' here... Lets do a little review here:

The guy goes to college and amjors in engineering
The guy goes to Yemen for al qeada training
The guy gets on an airplane with a 2 part explosive
The guy isn't smart enough to figure out how to make it explode in the bathroom so...
The guy goes back to his seat, pulls a blanket over him (now that's not gonna raise an suspicion, is irt???) and then...
The guy procedes to try to mix two (not 202, not 4002 but ***two***) powders together in his lap and can't even do that????

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Yeah, real Menza stuff we have here...

Friggin retard as far as I can see...

Now here's another thought... The right wing wants everyone to think that all the systems failed, that the billions of dots weren't connected because Obama is the president and all that rightie crap...

Well, the one system that did work was the folks on the plane who wrestled the dummie down and held him until the plane landed...

(But, Boberdz... That ain't a system...)

Yes it is a system... Unlike the Dick O'Burner people have since 9/11 had their awarenesses jacked way the heck up and there will be times when that awareness and courage to act will be the last line of defense... I mean, face it... You could connect every dot known to mankind and still have something happen... That is human nature... Nothin' is 100%... Not even a vacuum chamber... So, yeah, the system worked and...

...didn't even have to go thru engineering school and 6 months worth of al qeada trainin', either...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 02:36 PM

It doesn't matter whether they are stupid or not, Bobert. Sometimes stupid people get lucky. You were right that we need to remove the causes whereby such people get motivated to do what they do in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM

No good in the bathroom.
You have to return to seat before descent, and he wanted people on the ground to die too.
The trick with the blanket worked. No one suspected anything. He was left to get on with trying to detonate his bomb.
We will hear sometime what went wrong with the charge.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:16 PM

Why the charge did not go off:   It is actually not that easy to ignite it, given the conditions. Does not mean it could not be done. Just not easy to do--might need several tries.

Also, the handwringing about obvious signals missed is not justified.   All sorts of noise in intelligence operations. Sounds very like the favorite topic of some lefties that either FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance--- or it should have been detected by intelligence.   It ain't necessarily so.

I'd still like a direct quote by the father that his son would be involved in an al-Qaeda operation.    Have never seen one.   Father's main concern appears to be son hanging around with undesirables, and father wanted assistance in bringing son home.   Not a smoking gun.

Closest I've seen to smoking gun is the UK refusal to let him land there, since he was applying to a non-existent school.   Possible idea:   anybody who applies to a non-existent school should have to prove the school does exist--or lose all flying privileges anywhere in the world. This obviously would require close contact between intelligence operations of various countries.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 10:59 AM

CarolC: at the end of our last exchange a day or two ago, you said graciously that you would give me one more chance to see if I could reply to you without indulging in what you were pleased to call 'personal attacks' when I doubted the validity of some of your arguments — not, you will understand, that I unquestioningly accept your accusation that all my replies were in fact ad hominem rather than intellectually based; but thank you anyhow.

In response, let me quote the end of a report in 'The Times' this morning of the verdict in the trial of 5 Muslim demonstrators who were convicted of threatening behaviour at a parade in Luton of members of the Anglian regiment returning from a tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, all five of whom received conditional discharges from the court. —

"Outside court the defendants responded defiantly to the verdict ... under a banner held by a supporter saying, 'Islam will dominate the world. Freedom can go to Hell'..."

I simply ask, Carol - do you STILL insist that there are NO Muslims anywhere whose agenda is the Universal Caliphate, as distinct from what you assert repeatedly to be their sole objective, the desire to remove Western influences from the Muslim world - so that once these influences are removed we can all sit back and relax? I repeat - I simply ask...

Michael

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 01:49 PM

not, you will understand, that I unquestioningly accept your accusation that all my replies were in fact ad hominem rather than intellectually based

Please show me where I said that ALL of your replies were ad hominem.


And please show me where I said that there are NO Muslims who say they want a universal caliphate.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 03:25 PM

I withdraw the word 'all' - not sure how it crept in at that.

But, Carol, whenever I have pointed out that just one determined Caliphater, if just a bit more efficient than the shoe-bomber or the Xmas day underpanter, could be enough to cause a lot of damage & grief - let alone a smallish cell like the 9/11 lot, who DID! - in ♠♠♠ & can you deny it? - your response has always, consistently, been, no, once we've pulled out of their bit of the world we can stop worrying about them, they will just be marginalised. But my point is, that it is their very marginality that makes them such a threat. Can you not even come along this far with me? It isn't racism - it's just an assessment of the probabilities, in view of examples like the banner in Luton I quoted 2 posts back in support of 7 men [2 were acquitted thru lack of evidence] who had enough bottle and faith in the rightness of their "Islam will dominate the world" message to demonstrate where they knew they would not be welcome. They've got guts, I will say for them. Derived from faith in their Caliphate and a determination to bring it about. And if they have also got explosives... And if you persist that they are still no threat,and will be even less so when we are out of their hair, then it is an opinion, not meant as a personal attack, honest, if I say it seems to me you are being more than somewhat complacent.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 03:39 PM

... and furthermore {I seem to have got into a sort of Damon Runyon set of locutions for some reason — a good man for emphases, perhaps?} — why have you such faith in the bona fides of Bin Laden & his Al Quaeda followers as to believe implicitly their asseverations that 'the West out of their bit' is all they want, thank you, and when they have achieved that they will just get on with establishing their Faith in their own part of the world and leave ours alone; when the fact of our having done so will so clearly have demonstrated to them that their way of insidiously annoying us into collaboration with their will has paid off such dividends? Won't the Caliphaters among them [at least you seem now to have withdrawn your point that there are not any such] whisper into Osama's ear "Why stop there, Os-me-old-dear!"...?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 05:32 PM

There are clearly some individual Muslims who are ignorant enough, fanatical enough, and unrealistic enough to want to establish a "Universal Caliphate" on Planet Earth. ;-) Why not? There are a few complete idiots and lunatics in any cultural group of people you can name.

And so what? The ongoing conflict between Anglo-America and Islam does not have its origins in a few totally unrealistic religious fanatics who want to establish a Universal Caliphate...a completely impossible notion that can never happen.

The conflict has its origins in western intervention in the affairs of Muslim nations going right back to the colonial era and ever since. The primary western concern has been to control oil and trade and to politically and militarily dominate the regions where that oil is found.

Is there danger from a few moronic religious fanatics who wish to blow up our airplanes, etc? Yes, there is. There is far greater danger, however, to Muslim populations in general from western foreign policy as practiced by the USA, the UK, Israel, etc.

For each one of ours that dies, hundreds or thousands of Muslims die, and that is the primary issue that is sending young Muslims out to fight the West...not a scheme to create a fairy tale like a Universal Caliphate. They want us out of their societies. And why would they not want us out? We'd want "us" out if we were them!

For each Muslim lunatic who wants to establish a Universal Caliphate, you can find a fundamentalist Christian lunatic over here who believes in stuff like the Rapture and who thinks that all non-Christians are going to hell. So what? What difference does it make? There are always a few complete lunatics on both extreme ends of an issue, but they do not represent the main and essential real matters that drive the issue. They're a bunch of noise on the periphery of the issue. Are they dangerous? Yes, sometimes they are...but they are secondary symptoms of a much larger problem.

To identify your "enemy" by quoting a few utterly ignorant and unrealistic individuals who are among the ranks of your enemy is simply to avoid talking about the real issues while inflating other bizarre matters out of all proportion.

There will always be some crazy Muslim fanatics and some crazy Christian fanatics, but they are NOT the source of the Middle East conflict. Huge and longrunning pragmatic geopolitical strategies are the source of that conflict, and until those strategies are changed radically or abandoned, the conflict will go on and on.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 05:47 PM

Let me be more succinct. ;-)

The West is not sending armies into Islamic nations because we have a few ignorant religious nuts here who believe in the Rapture and the End of Days.

The Islamic populations are not striking voilently back against the Western occupiers because they have a few nuts who believe in establishing a Universal Caliphate.

Such nuts do exist. Yes. And they cause much harm. But they are not the primary source of the "War on Terror", they're merely reacting to it in various ways and getting involved in it according to their own prejudices.

Without the primary geopolitical causes of this war already being in place to drive the conflict, those few nuts on either side would find very little backing or support for their wild ideas and their influence on the situation would dwindle away to virtually nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 11:31 PM

Very reasonably and moderately argued, LH. I just wish I had your optimism as to the smallness of the 'Jihad4Caliphate' ideal: but many have pointed it out as a Koranic injunction and duty. Osama & his followers are among them. They are not a mini-group with no influence, but demonstrably [9/11 &c] determined & with the power to make good[!] on their threats. They at least are more than just one guy holding up an "Islam will dominate the world" banner in Luton.   They are also politicians, so they are not going to proclaim all their aims at once and alert us all to the ultimate ones, but go on assuring us (as CarolC so naively persists in believing — at least, she hasn't come back to me on my last query yet as to why she so determinedly takes their word for it); but are going to tell us that they just want us out & that will be it, rather than saying, what I still persist is obvious to me, that that will just be Stage 1, & then it will be time for Stage 2: Caliphate-time.

Do at least, Carol & LH, admit this as a possible scenario. I have no real personal interest in it. I am 78 and have no children & the biggie showdown is not likely in my lifetime. But you younger people, + your children & grandchildren, are the ones who are going to have to live with the consequences of, what I still see, as your resolute complacency as to the bona-fides & trustworthiness to put their whole agenda on the table at once of Osama & his like.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:18 AM

But, Carol, whenever I have pointed out that just one determined Caliphater, if just a bit more efficient than the shoe-bomber or the Xmas day underpanter, could be enough to cause a lot of damage & grief - let alone a smallish cell like the 9/11 lot, who DID! - in ♠♠♠ & can you deny it? - your response has always, consistently, been, no, once we've pulled out of their bit of the world we can stop worrying about them, they will just be marginalised.

MtheGM, I do appreciate that you have expressed the desire to discuss this issue without making it personal. I would also appreciate it if you would make an effort to know what I have said before you respond to it. If you can find any post of mine in which I have said that there are no Muslims who say they want a universal caliphate, or that there are some, but they will be marginalized, I invite you to post it for me to see.

What I have said, and if you were really familiar with my posts, you would know this, is that if there are any who are saying that they want a universal caliphate, once the Western governments cease their interference in Muslim countries, all of their energies will be focused on what is being done in the Muslim countries. It will be a whole new ballgame in the Muslim countries, and suddenly, messing with Western countries will become very boring, and those who are now zealous about spreading Islam to the West will lose interest in that, and will be far more interested in what is going on in the Muslim countries. The zealots will be more interested in trying to influence what goes on in the Muslim countries than they will be in what people on the Western countries do or don't do.


why have you such faith in the bona fides of Bin Laden & his Al Quaeda followers as to believe implicitly their asseverations that 'the West out of their bit' is all they want, thank you, and when they have achieved that they will just get on with establishing their Faith in their own part of the world and leave ours alone

Because their track record has shown that this is what they do. When bin Laden was leading the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, he said that his goal was to end Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan. After the Soviets left that country, the Mujahideen did not follow them to Russia. They accomplished their objective and turned their attentions to their next goal, which was to end Western Imperialism in Muslim countries. Once that goal is met, the next goal will be to try to influence what happens in Muslim countries in the absence of Western imperialism. They'll have a whole new world to create in their part of the globe. It's going to be a big job, and it will occupy all of their energies and attention.


when the fact of our having done so will so clearly have demonstrated to them that their way of insidiously annoying us into collaboration with their will has paid off such dividends? Won't the Caliphaters among them [at least you seem now to have withdrawn your point that there are not any such] whisper into Osama's ear "Why stop there, Os-me-old-dear!"...?

What dividends? The only dividend they will get is to be free of Western interference in their countries. They will have no incentive to waste the opportunity to get on with rebuilding their part of the world just so they can create devilment in other people's countries. That makes no sense at all.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:22 AM

And I am still interested in knowing how you think they could possibly impose their caliphate on Western countries. If you think it's such a strong likelihood, please explain to me how it would be possible. How would they do it, MtheGM? How would they impose that order on all of the people in all of the countries in the world?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: GUEST,999
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:29 AM

Excellent essay on this subject here.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:38 AM

Carol, once again, I have not said I think they COULD; I say I think they would go on trying — surely you can see that that is where the danger lies? The 'dividend' they will have got is the knowledge that their methods have worked thus far. There will surely be more than a mere insignificant minority who will wish to go on to the next stage (which, as others have pointed out above, COULD just work via chronic disruptions &c, tho I tend to agree with you here that it is not v likely to have permanent FX in the long term). How can you be so sure that there won't, but that they will all [or even significantly most] turn all their energies away from us to consolidation of their own parts of the world? & small, sideline disruptions, like the persecution of Rushdie & his publishers & the Danish cartoonist & the recent Luton demos,, which all surely part of same ultimate gestalt, will continue, will they not?, to make the world a less agreeable & more dangerous place in which to continue living — despite the efforts of their own well-intentioned majority like the Canadian fatwa-ists. I honestly can't see an end to it all.

I am glad, Carol, if you see I really didn't mean anything personal in any of my responses to you. I am truly sorry if it appeared so. But I really am alarmed at what I see as the prospect opening up.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:45 AM

MtheGM, there are all kinds of crazy people in the world who pose a danger. There are murderers, and in my country, there are Christians who want to impose their own form of extremist caliphate, there are extremists of many other religions, there are political crazies who want to spread their own political version of an extremist caliphate. I'll tell you who bothers me the most right now - the people in my country who are trying to prevent me from being able to get access to health care. That's a very real threat to my life and my husband's life. We do not currently have access to health care, and there are people in my country who are trying to keep it that way. 45,000 people in my country die every year from not having access to medical care.

Forgive me if I find that to be the far greater threat to my well being. But there is nothing that can be done to insure that there will be no crazy people who want to do harm to others, short of killing everyone. So we just have to do whatever we can to not give people an incentive to kill us, protect our borders, and hope for the best. But one thing I guarantee to you - if we continue to do things as we have been doing things, we will increase the number of people who want to kill us, no decrease it.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:57 AM

... & my opening remarks to Carol above are my response also to Mr Porteous' essay linked by 999 — the danger is not that they will succeed, but that THEY WILL GO ON TRYING - enough of them to make things exceedingly disagreeable for the foreseeable future. I mean, just as a really·quite·mini for·instance, look at all the complaints about the security involved in flying anywhere in the world right now. Do you all think this will not all increase exponentially in geometric progression if things even go on as they are now, let alone after they have gained any of their avowed purposes?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:03 AM

So I guess we have no other choice, then. We'll just have to kill all of the Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:05 AM

Now now, dear Carol - mustn't go putting words in my mouth, must we!?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:07 AM

Do you disagree, MtheGM?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 03:57 AM

Of course I disagree, Carol. I really don't want to kill anybody. I just wish they didn't either. Don't come to me for solutions: if I knew the answer I'd be President Of The World, wouldn't I? But I just don't think your [I don't mean you, personally, but all those who think as you do]
'just·take·no·notice·dear·&·perhaps·they·will·all·go·away·and·not·bother·us·after·all:let's·all·worry·about·no·Health·Care·instead;much·more·important'
solution is going to work any better.

So - a question right back to you — DO YOU?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:21 AM

Do I what?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:42 AM

Do you think the 'solution' I somewhat facetiously ascribe to some of your way of thinking would work better than the "let's not stop watching our backs, it isn't going to go away" solution which is the best which those who think like me can come up with? [As I said, if I could think of a better one I'd be President!]

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:46 AM

It's not possible to do something about all the unstable and fanatical individuals in the world who have some weird idea in their heads that makes them dangerous towards other people.

In another sense, it's not possible to make life perfectly safe for everyone... ;-) (though we keep trying to in various ways)

But it IS possible to adopt a more sensible and moral foreign policy than one that involves:

1. engineering coups with our secret service people to replace a foreign elected government with a dictator of our own choosing...as was done in Iran in the 50s...or in Chile when the Pinochet government was brought in and Allende killed.

2. attacking Afghanistan over a criminal act (allegedly) committed by 19 men who were not even FROM Afghanistan.

3. attacking Iraq over non-existent WMDs!

4. supporting corrupt dictators in places like Saudia Arabia, Egypt and various other states, because they cooperate with our geopolitical ambitions.

5. Always one-sidely backing Israel in its conflicts with the Arab world no matter what Israel does to anyone.

6. Threatening Iran over an (alleged) nuclear weapons project while not saying "boo" to Israel for actually building a couple of 100 nuclear bombs which everyone knows are there, but which no one does anything about.

Etc.....

The reason young Muslims have been radicalized to fight the West is not because they belong to a religion. It's because of terrible geopolitical and social stresses that would have caused ANY population to react in a hostile manner towards the West. The fact that there are some religious fanatics AMONG the Muslims is an issue...yes...but it is not the primary issue.

The primary issue is the aggressive, neo-colonial foreign policy of the USA and the UK and Israel (and sometimes Russia too, although Russia's been very weakened since 1989) with regards to messing around in the affairs of a whole bunch of poor nations in the Middle East. Those neo-colonial foreign policies must be changed to treat the Muslim nations decently and fairly or the conflict will simply go on and on forever...because we cannot kill all the Muslims, and they are not all going to lie down, die, and stop defending themselves either.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 09:55 AM

Indeed & indeed, LH — most cogently and admirably put and who could disagree with a word of it? Oh, if only...

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 10:28 AM

Do you think the 'solution' I somewhat facetiously ascribe to some of your way of thinking would work better than the "let's not stop watching our backs, it isn't going to go away" solution which is the best which those who think like me can come up with? [As I said, if I could think of a better one I'd be President!]

Please show me where I have advocated that we stop watching our backs.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 10:30 AM

MtheGM, I find myself wondering, yet once again, if you ever even bother to read my posts, or if you only see them as a blank space into which you project your fantasies about what you think I should be saying.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 11:19 AM

NOW who's getting 'personal', Carol?

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 11:32 AM

I think constantly mischaracterizing what I've said, and then calling it naive (among other things) is making it personal, MtheGM, and that's precisely what you have persisted in doing.

If you want to have a discussion with me on the issues, please at least have the courtesy to read what I have said and stop trying to get me to defend arguments that I have not made.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:16 PM

===I think constantly mischaracterizing what I've said, and then calling it naive (among other things) is making it personal, MtheGM, and that's precisely what you have persisted in doing.
If you want to have a discussion with me on the issues, please at least have the courtesy to read what I have said and stop trying to get me to defend arguments that I have not made.====

I read what is before me, Carol, and I evaluate it. It is a job in which I am trained and experienced. I am a graduate in English of the University of Cambridge, whose English faculty is universally considered among the leading ones of the world. I have for many years been a professional theatre critic for The Guardian, one of our leading newpapers; Plays & Players, a leading theatrical journal; Early Modern Literary Studies, the distinguished online journal of Shakespeare studies [which can be googled free online]: and a book critic also for The Times, The Educational Supplement, The Teacher, The Bookseller, Literary Review - to name just a few...

I am an experienced reader in other words, Carol. I know how to read what is before me and analyse it. It's my profession. It's my job. It's what they pay me for. Do you think these journals and organisations would have been employing me to do it all these years if I couldn't do it efficiently. It is an offensive personal attack [to adopt for a moment some of your modes of thought] to suggest as you are doing that I don't know my job.

So if someone writes something, and I carry from it, not once but repeatedly, impressions of their meanings which they say are not the ones they intended, I suspect the fault might just be in their expression of their content, not in my reading of it.

It is not, in other words, Carol, that I have failed to comprehend your arguments — it is that you have not made them efficiently and coherently. So it's no use, your constant bleating that I am making personal attacks, or denouncing you for saying things you haven't said. No I haven't. And yes you have. You might think you haven't — but you have.

I leave it to others to go back over the threads and the posts if they have a mind, to find where you have said all those things which you now say you haven't.

I now say that you are a vain, confused, opinionated person, of limited ability in self-expression, who resorts to abuse (accusations of personal attacks when none have been made — until, perhaps, this one!) when her arguments are comprehensively refuted by those who understand what they say — which, I reiterate, is not necessarily the same as what you meant them to say.

Do not rejoin in the hopes that I shall read your rejoinder. I really have done. I shall not even open this thread again to see what you might have to respond, because I don't even care. If anyone else is interested, which I doubt, then they can adjudicate between us if they have a mind.

Adieu.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:57 PM

If you find that I am frequently asking you to show me where I have said whatever thing you are accusing me of saying, and if you cannot do so (and so far, every time I have asked you that question, you have failed to provide the posts of mine that contain what you have accused me of saying), then I think you need to consider that you have consistently failed to "interpret" my meaning.

I would suggest that you spend less time "interpreting" my words for me, and more time paying attention to what I have actually said. Your credentials do you no good whatever if you are interpreting my words incorrectly, which you have consistently done.

Subject: RE: BS: attempt mass murder Christmas
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:02 PM

And by the way, since you have been so free with your opinion about me, if I were to apply a word to describe you, based especially on your last post, the word I would use is "prima donna".