Aztec Performance Ltd

iTrader: (234)

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yeah right!

Aztec Performance Ltd

iTrader: (234)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4433709.stm

Poison plot

unclebuck

Suresh

I agree. Madrid last year was simply a cruel invention by the International press.

Seriously though, we just had a case in the Netherlands where a young man
(Samir A.) was found with blueprints of the Dutch parliament, Schiphol airport and weapons and bomb-making equipment in his house. He also had connections to the murderer of Theo van Gogh and other known extremists.

Note that the weak Dutch terror laws meant that he served just 3 months for illegal posession of firearms and was then set free last week (and promptly assaulted a photographer outside the prison). The court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove the charge of terrorist intent. What could he have been doing with blueprints of such public buildings that might actually have been innocent?

In the UK this would not have happened, as the burden of proof has moved. Think about it. IS the threat real or not? I say yea.

Suresh

Aztec Performance Ltd

iTrader: (234)

You say yea?

Our security must be extraordinary to detect and prevent all planned terror attacks on the country. Afterall it just takes one person to cause an act of terror from start to finish.

A shame we couldnt stop the IRA with the same detection and prevention rates when we WERE under attack.

Bob

Suresh

Bob, that's a pretty weak argument that could have been applied in Spain too before 11th March. If you had been spouting such naiive tripe before that attack, you be looking pretty stupid now, right?

Besides that, other Governments in Europe seem to agree about such a probable conspiracy and the proliferation of sleeper cells. How is it that you have better information? Care to reveal your sources?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4441763.stm

Agree it's a shame we didn't go after the IRA with any vigour. I personally experienced two of their attacks at close quarters when I worked in the City and would have loved to have seen our peace-loving Irish cousins feel the heat a little. Don't even get me started on U.S. sponsorship of terrorists via Noraid...

Suresh


P.S. The innocent cherub Samir A. was arrested for assault this afternoon. Good.

Aztec Performance Ltd

iTrader: (234)

are you naive enough to think we can detect and prevent 100% of terror attacks?

Any plank could do it without detection.

Bob

Jye

If someone wants something badly enough they will find a way to get it. The more of these extremists our security services catch the more fragmented and thus harder to detect they will become. Catching a few of them is not and never will be a deterrent.

Suresh

Because you can't catch 100% of them you suggest to do nothing???
It's pissing down where I am, I hope the weather on planet appeasement is better

Suresh

P.S. CWE is back!

r32

At some point in the future there WILL be another 9/11. Who knows where it will happen. We'll all be saying what threat then.

brihoppy

i just wanted to chip in a little here...

the current 'T.W.A.T.' (The War Against Terror) ;-) is incomparable to the conflict in ulster in so many ways...since the 70s, the british government has had the manpower, intelligence and resources to wipe out irish terrorism overnight...the problem has always been the links with america and the pressure from the various administrations over the years not to take a hardline approach to the problem...so hundreds of servicemen and innocent civilians were killed and injured, just so the government didnt upset the yanks...

since global terrorism i.e. attacks against mainland america by foreigners, and their subsequent response to those attacks, they can no longer justify their pressure on the british to treat the irish problem with kid gloves...although there has been a ceasefire in the province for several years now, it is no coincidence that most paramilitary activity against the armed forces has ceased...

i personally think we have seen the end of irish terrorism directed at the british as they know that should they take up arms against us again, they wont be able to hide behind their american shield...

Chris L

I think the problem here is the level of 'fear, uncertainty and doubt' (oldest sales trick in thw world) that is being spun out by the present government. I too worked in the City during the height of the IRA campaign and missed the London Bridge Station bomb by 5 mins (I was standing on the platform where the bomb exploded).

Even then, there wasn't this determination to make us believe that there was a constant threat (despite the threat then, being much more real and tangible).

There are bigger political issues at stake here. The perceived threat allows governments to get away with a huge amount civil liberty infringement (pursue wars, unseat governments etc etc the US has been doing it for decades). The justification is always 'international terrorism'.

How much of a threat this Algerian guy actually was we'll never know. I am hugely cynical about a lot of the stories and statements that are currently being pumped out by our government.

damian666

This stinks to high heaven of the US elections, where the OBL tape was released just prior to GWB being reelected.

brihoppy

its politics at the expense of peoples lives...

unclebuck

damian666

Guzzit

Extract from the BBC article...

"Cyanide poison

Anti-terrorist squad officers found a suspected chemical weapons laboratory when they raided a flat in Wood Green, north London, in January 2003."


My cynical take on this is that they found a kitchen at the flat. Our kitchen also looks like a chemical weapons lab when the kids have helped to cook the dinner.

ozzy

No one is saying we're not under any threat. What we should do is be sensible and reasonable and not go screaming through the streets that every johnny foreigner is going to poison or blow us up.

Like anything in life there is an actual level of threat and a perceived one.

You can't stop 100% of attacks. It's simple logic. The British agencies aren't doing nothing and you're a fool to think they are. Don't base their activities on what you read in the paper or what the Government tells you. They have their own agendas.

Suresh,

Madrid wasn't made up, but what do you suggest we do to stop 100% of all train bombings in the World ?? I'd love to know as you'll solve every terrorist threat overnight.

Ok, so there was a possible Ricin plot. We arrested those involved, brought them to court and only had evidence to convict one man and that was for the murder of a Special Branch officer.

We should all be on our guard, but let's not get carried away and start witch hunting again

celticpilgrim

You mean to say that the governments of the day had the wherewithall to wipe out the IRA, but failed to do so, and all because of the americans?

Let us not forget that while none if us condone terrorism in any context, there are terrorist organisations on BOTH sides of the divide in N.I. and while we are talking about innocent civillians:

- it is accepted that the protestant terror groups killed more civilians than republican groups ever did ;

- it still didn't stop the government and RUC working hand in glove with the likes of the UDA to murder people with no connenction to republican terror groups - Pat Finucane & Rosemary Nelson being 2 of the more well known.

And let's not forget the innocent, unarmed civil rights protesters killed on Bloody Sunday

Before you jump in...I'm no IRA supporter, but get your facts right before putting your bigot head on!!!

ozzy

Does it really matter that one side killed more than the other? What is the acceptable body count difference between both sides?

I'd say no, and none. The point is any terrorist activity shouldn't be accepted. IRA are w@ankers, UDA are w@nkers and some elements of the RUC and British Armed Forces were w@nkers too.

It is Ironic that the Americans sold weapons to the IRA and supported them financially yet they get on their high horse about terrorism today.

celticpilgrim

I agree Ozzy, I wasn't point scoring with brihoppy, just letting him know there was more than 1 side to this...

carl

Agreed. There wasn't talk of taking away our civil liberties then, when the threat was real and demonstrable. In fact the only perceived change was the "ring of plastic" around the City.

brihoppy

i dont intend to get into a semantic arguement/debate about this...if you read the post you will see that i refer to the problem as 'irish terrorism'...you are quite right to point out that loyalist terror groups were at least as bad, if not worse than republican terror groups in some respects, and should equally have been removed, however, they did not actively target the british, and so were not a specific threat to us as were the republicans and it is/was the nationalists/republicans with whom the americans sympathised...

also, very few ends justify the means with which some of the operations were carried out but you have to remember that the armed forces had their hands tied by laws to which they largely adhered but which the terrorists did not...this is similar to what is happening in afghanistan and the gulf for instance...insurgents want to fight under no laws of warfare, but expect to be protected by such laws when captured...it is impossible fight a guerilla war under conventional rules, hence some of the more 'questionable' actions of the security forces, including the RUC, in northern ireland...

but it is fair to say that it was largely due to pressure from the US that prevented the british from tackling nationalist terrorism much sooner, whilst they had the capability to do so...

i spent 4 years in northern ireland a few years ago, before and after the ceasefire and came to understand quite alot about the troubles...

and how does that make me a bigot...?!

camk

The NI situation is/was very complex. Sure most terrorist's were known but what eactly can be done in a democratic and free country without evidence of crime being committed. The American influence was not the major factor in the approach taken by the governments.
Taking the hardline approach in these type of situations does not and for example did not work with internment, it didn't work with Shoot to kill policies. It simply just breeds a new level of resentment with those on the receiving end and is in fact a great marketing and recruitment policy.
We should remember this in our approach to global Jihad type terrorism. It won't end just by us making it hard for them, it only ends if you kill them all and all those potentially likely to become a terrorist or you make it politically possible to get a solution.

brihoppy

perhaps i shouldve made it clear that my reply was in response to post number 6 on this thread...

the point i was trying to make and which is a fact that still remains, is that the british government couldve wiped out republican terrorism overnight if theyd either really wanted to or not been obstructed by the US...

it might be a cynical viewpoint, but i might not be completely out of order to SUGGEST that perhaps sometimes it might be in a governments, not the countries i hasten to add, interest to perpetuate conflicts such as northern ireland for political and financial reasons...but thats a whole other subject...!

celticpilgrim

Briboy...that's such a 1 sided argument - were you in the military by any chance?

I cannot be arsed to argue with such a bigot

camk

Celticpilgrim,
You are showing signs of bigotry yourself. I was 5 years in the military and also spent time in Ulster. So not everyone who was there to do a job did it without thinking about it. However bottom line is that killing and maiming in any cause in a Democratic society as NI is and was is illegal and it can NEVER be allowed to force issues. There are no innocents among those who were 'involved' in Northern Ireland. There were many fools and idiots but no innocents, everyone who was involved in either side knew the score.
The US had little influence on what happened there and to say so shows lack of knowledge of the conflict. I'm not sure however there was any financial benefit to the whole NI situation to the UK, I always felt I was defending the right of the majority to stay in the UK within the boundaries of the country as it stood. The republic accepted the situation in the past so it was a legal and accepted border. The majority of the people in the 6 counties voted to remain in the UK.

celticpilgrim

That's a discussion for a different time

There's enough deliberate hostility on SN at the moment (you read Moses' and Swish?) so let's not accidentially add to it..

CrisPDuk

As first time impartial reader of this thread,I have to say the indications are that the bigotry is emanating from your posts not brihoppy's.

I'm afraid I fail to see how suggesting that successive government's failure to clamp down on irish terrorists, in order to keep the yanks sweet is a bigotted view.

By contrast, your apparent belief that the IRA's actions were somehow justified, solely on the basis of the UDA's behaviour being worse, is reprehensible.

FWIW my personal opinion is that our own press had (and still has) far to many sympathisers and appeasers within their ranks who, more than anyone else, effectively restrict the security services' operations against any form of terrorist threat, witness the outcry following the Gibraltar executions, or the alleged (and, if true, entirely justified) 'shoot to kill' policy being operated by the RUC.

CrisPDuk

PS: Back on topic, if it wasn't for all the human rights spouting, liberal fcukwit lawyers, such as the Right Dishonourable Mr Bliars wife, this ****, and all his mates, would have been sent back to where they came from immediately after their asylum applications failed