TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Tell the Japanese about phantom terrorists, remember the cult who let off Sarin gas on their underground?

Ever been on the receiving end of anything done by terrorists?
I have, and it makes you think

Tony

||VaNDaL||

been on the recieving end of more than you could possibly guess or imagine tony.

"terrorism" is still more a useful tool for our politicians to get you to agree to giving them more power than is safe and to remove our traditional "british freedom" we are now under the very real situation of being able to be "interned" for dissent without conviction - the Home Office's own statistics for arrests and convictions of suspected terrorists since September 11 2001. Of the 664 people detained up to the end of last month, only 17 have been found guilty. Of these, the majority were Irish Republicans, Sikh militants or members of other groups with no connection to Islamist terrorism. Nobody has been convicted who is a proven member of al-Qaida.


over to you Tone

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Mr "X" is arrested, but nothing can be proven that he has links to any terrorist organisation so he is released..... 3 days later Mr "X" blows up a pub with 100 people in it, killing them all.....

So, do you let Mr "X" go, or do you detain them on suspision.....

I see that most people still havnt got this thing about terrorists or terrorism, you only have to do it once in some cases, and you can be the nicest, sweetest person in the world, until you kill that is......
You see, the trouble is, is that you dont know 100%, there is always that nagging doubt, unless you have worked in the security forces/intelligence agencies, you wont know this, so is it better to detain due to a doubt, or find out later that your wrong, along with alot of dead people?

Over to you....

Tony

||VaNDaL||

great theory but if you or a member of your family is regarded as "Mr X" should you be locked up????

be a bummer if you are innocent, aint it (but at least we know you wont be commiting any "terrorism" cos


lets just lock up everyone HUH????

gsm1

No, we know all about terrorism but we're not suckers.

kob999

So you are suggesting we arrest people for the possibility that they might do something in the future because we have a nagging doubt about them.

||VaNDaL||

Tony feels it's safer that way, so why not??

maybe lock up arabs, blacks, people over 6 ft tall, welshmen, people called trevor etc. they may all be dodgy

gsm1

There were a few dodgy people in my village. We rounded them up, stuck weights on them and chucked them in a lake. Turned out they were innocent cos they all drowned but you can never tell.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

See, thats the thing, you only get one chance, now just think, someone does make a mistake and lets a terrorist go, they blow your wife/kids/mates/girlfriend/mother/father/sister/brother up.....
You only get one chance or else you get dead people......
Would you rather that they let everyone off? or if there is a chance that one or more of the people are terrorists or potential terrorists, just let them go?


gsm1...
Really??
So what precautions do you take against terrorist attacks?

Zero i bet.

And the reason?

Because others out there are looking after our interests so we dont have to.

Now, do you REALLY know about terrorism? or just what you see on tv?

Tony

the moose

Leslie

I understand your stance, but think you're being more than a little naive. All wars are political, and although service personnel state that their allegiance is to the Queen, they are clearly stating, inter alia, their allegiance to the government. The Queen certainly exists, but every statement she makes is as a mouthpiece of the government,

In short, as a soldier, you work for the political leaders rather than the monarchy. It may not say it on the piece of paper, but that really is the truth.

Does your ire at Blair extend also to Saint Margaret of Thatcher, the woman whose Foreign Office was so inept that it failed to spot that the Argentinians were about to occupy the islands? The subsequent dispatch of the Task Force was nothing more than political show(wo)manship, and enabled her to get re-election without a problem; to me Blair and Thatcher are equally culpable for the deaths of troops, but unlike you I'm neither shocked nor appalled that politicians act in a political manner.

They always have, they always will, and when you look back in history, the kings and queens did exactly the same. The deployment of the armed forces is nothing more than the ultimate expression of political power, and those who believe otherwise are short-sighted in the extreme.

The question then is this: why do we blame political leaders for acting in this way? Virtually no wars are fought on an entirely good:evil basis, and fighting a war for economic interests seems to me to be, in all honesty, to be a very good reason. If we're in Iraq will this mean that we get a bigger slice of the pie, in terms of guaranteed oil or better trade terms? If so, then cynically, I'd have to say that to trade some lives for the national interest may well be a good option; though no politician would ever admit to this, it's undoubtedly true that there's a sliding scale of acceptable casualties, which very much varies according to the prize on offer.

kob999

This sort of system is never going to happen in Britain.

In fact the only sort of places that spring to mind where this sort of policing was allowed are
**** Germany
Stalinist Russia
Iraq under Sadam

and various other dictatorships.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Too late, we already did it.....
Concentration camps.... it wasnt the germans who invented these.....
Kerfews, internment..... we did this as well (and not that long ago either).

Though its not like we have a KGB style police force (should be interesting )

Tony

||VaNDaL||

tony, seriously speaking - you scare me.

you honestly believe that you are correct and reasonable ??(the terrorists have won then)

to think that you are representative of a section of british people who believe that the spectre of what might happen makes any action no matter how extreme justified.

lock up someone just in case they might one day do something?????
well a lot of us here drive scoobies (whilst we are free to do so) - should we fine them and ban them from driving because they may drive their cars at 150 mph into a school child?????

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Really?
Take the blinkers off and see the world for what it really is.....

Back in the late 80's i was working with another lad, we were on a covert guard job in belfast, not the nicest places, especially where we were.
We needed to hand some bits back in to the UDR (Ulster defence regiment) who where sending someone to collect these few things that we had.
Our pick up wasnt for another 15 mins or so (unfortunately he was delayed and took another 1hr 30 but having a uniformed guy coming up to you and compromising you in the middle of not one of the friendliest parts of belfast really brings it home to you, considering that everyone is dressed in civilian clothes, not knowing if there is an informant or a terrorist among them, wondering if you have been compromised and wondering if you can get your 9mm pistol out of your trousers quick enough......
That was the longest moment (or 1hr 45) of my life....
Not knowing if we had been compromised, not knowing if someone was going to drive past, bundle you into a vehicle and shoot you.....
This wasnt long after the 2 signal guys died in belfast btw....

You havnt seen what ive seen, you havnt been in a position to really feel what its like, wondering......
You think im paranoid? scary?
Oh you dont know the half of it, look at it from the perspective that you dont know if the guy you think has been arrested and put up in jail is guilty or innocent, he/she should be let free because its injust of the government to do this?
Or the fact that a terrorist could walk past you in the street, look exactly the same as the next person, and you wouldnt know?
Take those blinkers off, you really do need to, you dont know what the intelligence services have on any of the people locked up, yes some could be innocent, but are you willing to take the risk until you can prove it 100%?

Tony

gsm1

I wear my combat pants and kevlar jacket on Tuesdays and Thursdays and sit in my garden bunker as they're the high terrorist alert days, as advised by my great leader.

||VaNDaL||

does watching 2 of your mates taken (March 1988), then watching it all on tv for weeks count???

blinkers are off

I still believe that the present "climate of fear" is still more a political game than real - and don't believe i'm speaking from a state of "ignorant bliss" and I do know more than half of it

the moose

These are the same intelligence services who told us there were WMD in Iraq, right?

Sorry, I don't believe them. They had their chance, and they were found wanting. It'll take a long time to earn the collective trust of the British nation.

sumo

We all know there were WMD's in iraq, or did those thousands of Curds(sp?)
die of flu ?

kob999

That had nothing to do with military intelligence and more with accounting. All they had to do was pull up the invoices from the various US weapons companies that sold the weapons to him.


No one disputed that Saddam was in possesion of chemical agents at one time the argument was whether he still had them which has been shown to be incorrect.

WMD's as presented by the US government as meaning Nuclear weaponry he never had.

In fact it has been shown that not only did he not have WMD's he had very little conventional weapons either hence one of the reasons the Iraqi army dissolved at the first sign of attack

bigJoe

There is no doubt that Iraq had WMD programs underway and some were more progressed than others.

But do you want to wait until it is known that they defiantly had, say nuclear weapons? (yes the program was underway) By the time we knew about it they could already be in the hands of terrorists, sold to supplement SH’s income from oil for food – that’s really is too big a risk to take

And you know what, if 200, 000 people die in Iraq when all is said and done, it would still be nothing in world wide terms against a nuclear device (or even biological device) being detonated in a world capital (from Beijing to Washington). The security and stability of the world is on whole different level, even form that of Iraq.

The stakes are just too high to loose the war on terror

gsm1

What a load of tosh..and the rest of it. Complete and utter fiction.

22BUK

History lesson (for our younger viewers)...

Back in the good/bad old days, when the Labour party's creed was "What about the workers?", the American president - Lyndon Johnson - asked our Prime Minister - Harold Wilson - to send British troops to "help out" in Vietnam.
Mr Wilson's reply was "It's your war. You fight it yourself."

What's Blair's excuse?


PS I bet Psser Lewis remembers Harold Wilson- I wonder if he used to vote for him then?

bigJoe

It’s not tosh, they (weapons inspectors - no less) found missiles with an extended (illeagal) range just before the war. They also found (and subsequently lost) some of the apparatus that’s used in nuclear weapons programs. You only have to watch the highly unbiased (like the BBC and the Guardian ) media channels to see that – you can’t have your cake and eat it too, you know.

Taff107

Yet again gsm spouts off about something he knows fvck all about.
As usual, you and Moses sit at your computer in your cosy little world, attacking the government and slagging off the British Army. All your wise knowledge is gained through the media, or by speaking to a 'friend of a friend' etc
If it pains you so much - leave. It's that simple. Or even better, go and help the poor, innocent Iraqiis that we have made 'victims'.
I know the British soldier that you are talking about and the circumstances of her death - don't comment on something you know nothing about - idiot.

bigJoe

This time it's everone's war East, West, left, right, it makes no differnce when dealing with the likes OBL

unclebuck

Shouldn't that read 'steaks'?

Hey, gimme some curley fries with that good ol' bulls**t....

pslewis

Finally some sense is being talked by those who actually know things ........

The fact is that some are called upon to stand up and fight for our long term security, for our safety, for our quality of life ............ these are called soldiers ..... employed by a company called The Army ..... Managing Director is Mr Tony Blair (to whom the British people in a democratic vote have given the job to)

These soldiers were able to become painters, brickies, plumbers, engineers but they chose to become trained killers ...... knowing that they too could be injured or killed - thats how it is, they are the facts.

Like I said above, 10 people have died on the roads today - accidents? Maybe the Scooby driver was speeding and wiped out a family of 5? Maybe the driver was drunk and killed another family of 5?

Is the Speeding Scooby driver less guilty of murder than a suicide bomber? Don't give me any crap about one planning it and the other not, either! The bomber is planning his/her drive - in the SAME way that a speeding driver PLANS to speed (they plan to speed because their car is equiped with detectors to stop them getting caught as they have every intention of speeding and putting innocent lives at risk!) - the driver KNOWS that their stupidity may result in death!

So lets stop the self pity crap!

Pete

George W. Bush

Good to see my True Brit buddy Mr PSLewis tell it like it is. Good on ya my fine friend.

GWB

bigJoe

What do Steak and curley fries have to with the war on terror ?

Or are you talking aobut freedom fries? still though

Jerome

Here we go again. Quite how you can compare a speeding driver to a suicide bomber is beyond me, but here goes anway.

A speeding driver does not intend to kill someone. Someone may speed every day of their driving career and never kill anyone. In fact, only a tiny percentage of speeding results in death.

A suicide bomber has the sole intent of killing as many people as possible. How is that the same as speeding?

And will people please actually get it through their heads that no-one is saying that they weren't expecting to be exposed to danger because of their chosen profession. The whole point of this thread is that they were exposed to additional and unnecessary danger because they were moved north for, what seems to be to many, political reasons. Some oppositions MPs are already calling into question the motives for moving such a small number of troops for such a short length of time.