The shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Sunday, August 21, 2005 01:05
VIEWED: 5229
PAGE 2 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Sadly, this is the inevitable fallout of terrorism. It's more or less the point of it - to get us so scared and jumpy we self-destruct.
the point of terrorism is to get us angry at our governments for the stupid things they do (I can't remember the academic studies but they say about 95% of suicide bombers quote this reason)but it usually backfires in this way
its why terrorism doesn't work - it allows the establishment carte blanche to do the stuff they wanted to but couldn't
project for new american century clearly wanted to go after saddam and couldn't but 9-11 (carried out by Saudis!!!!!) gave 'em every opportunity ('cos they told us there was a link between secular iraq and the wahabis in Saudi and the media repeated every unbelievable lie they were told )the london bombings let the blair government bring in their civil liberties attacks, id cards etc, palestinian bombers allow israeli state to curfew towns indefinitely - erect a wall cutting of people from thier land
this is why if want to stop the police being able to get away with murder we have to go on the offensive over the attack on civil liberties
smile pretty and watch your back
March for Peace and Liberty September 24th London, www.stopwar.org
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Quote:
Originally posted by Becsthebeast:
i thought i had posted this up here when we found out from the family campaign who had seen the cctv footage a couple of weeks ago
I don't recall seeing that post. But it wouldn't surprise me. I beleive that the current 'revelations' are to do with newly leaked reports from the IPCC, not solely to do with the CCTV footage.
The climate of fear is totally the problem, and scares me more than any terroists bomb.
I can see parrallels with all sorts of cautionary tales with our current polical and social climate. Can anyone say the constant wars of 1984?
Theres presedent in history too, Nazi Germany blamed the Jews and just look what the people were willing to let and HELP the Nazi regime do. Nothing says that better than this quote:
Quote:
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
It is also not only Blair who is attacking civil liberties, just look at the patriot act in America. For christ-sake any law named the patriots act has got to be bad news...
Quote:
Originally posted by Becsthebeast:
march for peace and liberty 24th September London, www.stopwar.org.uk
I was a stuanch anti-war support before Iraq, just as I am stuanchly against any-premature withdrawl now. We can't pull the troops out now. In no way could I saction my country going in, toppling the goverment and infrastructure, and then leaving the populace 'to the wolves'.
This as unnacceptable to me as the war was. Leaving now will end with an extremist religous regime taking over Iraq to fill the power vaccuum, it will not stop the bombings, as any millitants just need to point and say "see they don't care, they come in blow up women and children, and when they've gotten what they want they just leave!".
Again, look at Germany, the only country in history (that i know of) that has undergone millitary regime change and appeared as something other than a mess. We still have troops stationed there NOW, Germany was not reunited until the fall of the Berlin wall.
Given that the country and its populace was far more stable than the situation in Iraq do you really think that we can withdraw our troops now and hope for a happy ending?
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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Citizen,
My flippant and short answer is what the hell have 'we' achieved being there - there is still mass torture going on at Abu Graib and other prisons, there is still no economic or social stability and there sure as hell isn't any democracy
the longer the occupation runs the worse we make it and the angrier ordinary people get over the lack of control over their lives - most of the resistance is not made up of 'foreign religious exteremists' but of native iraqis who want the troops out
two further things
- i want to have a longer discussion but have to work now and think this is slightly (but not much off topic), so i will get back on this
- i think we are basically on the same side here the key thing i think is to remember who the real enemies are in all this
smile pretty and watch your back
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Quote:
Originally posted by Becsthebeast:
My flippant and short answer is what the hell have 'we' achieved being there - there is still mass torture going on at Abu Graib and other prisons, there is still no economic or social stability and there sure as hell isn't any democracy
I redirect you to my previous point, re. Nazi Germany... Although I understand, and freely point out that Germany after world war two is a very different situation it took a long time to rebuild Germany into a stable democracy. In contrast we've given Iraq what, two years?
Yes what we are doing in Iraq is almost counter-productive in the extreme, that does not beg the responce we should withdraw, more we should change what we are doing.
Like it or not we are there now, and leaving now will cause more problems than it will solve, if indeed it solves any. If we leave now, when, as you say there is no working goverment or infrastructure, what do we leave behind? And who is going to step in to pick up the peices?
The situation would have been infinatly more stable if George Bush hadn't been in such as rush to get in to Iraq, and the UN and Middle Eastern community could have been brought behind the action, but that is unfortunatly not the case.
Quote:
Originally posted by becsthebeast:
the longer the occupation runs the worse we make it and the angrier ordinary people get over the lack of control over their lives - most of the resistance is not made up of 'foreign religious exteremists' but of native iraqis who want the troops out
Foreign fighters are a part of the insurgency. Foriegn aid is what keeps it going.
Quote:
Many of the Arabs, according to the postings, were drawn to fight in Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the group run by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi that has taken credit for a gruesome series of beheadings, kidnappings and suicide attacks -- many of them filmed and then disseminated on the Internet in a convergence between the electronic jihad and the real-life war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005
051401270.html
The native Iraqis who comprise the insurgency are far from the majority of ordinary people. They are religous extremist, the ordinary people are, as is often the case the ones caught up between the two extrems, those trying to make the best of a bad situation by joining the police/army or goverment, or continuing to keep their shops and buissness open.
If we withdraw now who do you expect will take over the running of Iraq?
I have serious doubts that it will be the ordinary people.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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I can’t help but ask what is this freedom and democracy all these people are allegedly fighting and dying for, unless it’s the freedom to be shot in the head as the whimsy of the police dictates and the freedom to sit back and apathetically allow our civil liberties to be curtailed … talk about totalitarian regime – how long have we got ‘fore we’re living in one ourselves??
It's all very scary ... not to mention how horrific it must be if you live in Iraq! But then, hey, those people don't speak english, so that's OK ...
***************************************
Okay, I'm lost, I'm angry, and I'm
armed.
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Quote:
Originally posted by becsthebeast:
...this is why if want to stop the police being able to get away with murder we have to go on the offensive over the attack on civil liberties
Yeah, but I think it's important to remember that these people are on your side. Maybe not the PNAC, or the politicians willingly using terrorism as an excuse to expand their power, but the cops on the beat, the people investigating the bombings, even the vast majority of politicians, are doing their best to deal with the social pressure created by terrorism. I was commenting to suggest that turning us against each other in our mutual insecurity is exactly what the terrorists are trying to accomplish.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zoot:
I can’t help but ask what is this freedom and democracy all these people are allegedly fighting and dying for, unless it’s the freedom to be shot in the head as the whimsy of the police dictates and the freedom to sit back and apathetically allow our civil liberties to be curtailed … talk about totalitarian regime – how long have we got ‘fore we’re living in one ourselves??
It's all very scary ... not to mention how horrific it must be if you live in Iraq! But then, hey, those people don't speak english, so that's OK ...
***************************************
Okay, I'm lost, I'm angry, and I'm
armed.
What is your point Zoot?
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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my point is - I'm not sure who the good guys are anymore (if I ever was) ....
***************************************
Okay, I'm lost, I'm angry, and I'm
armed.
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they're are no good guys, as they're are no bad guys, they're are shades of grey, addmittedly with some grey being darker than others. At the end of the day the real bad guys are the people 'on the otherside'.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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I disagree. A policeman who orders the shooting of a suspect without clear proof of identity, he's incompetent, disgraceful, sack-worthy. But he's not evil.
Someone who orders people to be tortured for days, purely for some perceived slight, that's evil.
I'm not suggesting that we're void of them on "our side" (hello Camp X-Ray!) but they're a lot fewer in number and challenged a great deal more.
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