Bernie is correct as to the terrorists, can't win.

Here is the thing, they have been promised eternal damnation by their all powerful god if they don't do his bidding, in this case killing.
They have been promised eternal salvation and riches if they do his bidding.

How do you compete with that?

Also consider a terrorist is acting like a child in the "terrible twos" simply throwing a tantrum until you give up and give them what you want. How do you deal with that child?

Why you can't win is the same reason the child's tantrum works some of the time.

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But isn't that all powerful god the same one that is worshiped by the jews and christians.

I thought they all had to study the Quran, if the had then they would have come across the People of the Book

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One of the three left a wife & two children. Probably believed that Allah would provide for their spiritual substance. In the meantime, they will be sustained by the benefits system of the West he died hating. Ironic or what!

What this country needs is more eyes and ears on the streets, and local knowledge.

It is being reported that one of the three had been reported to the authorities for his extremist views. Hope this turns out not to be true.

Also the police confirmed that 50 shots had been fired and a member of the public injured by a police bullet.

Seems the "shoot to kill" was a little over the top.

It will however increase the armed police presence and we will probably have to get used to most police being armed as it does seem to have helped in this case.

We WILL win, we simply HAVE to win, to preserve our way of life against those that would thwart it.

Have to win? Well yes we think so, but they, have to win for exactly the same reason.

I very much doubt you or I will see the end of this, we may see freedoms curtailed and less free speech, but this is not an easily won conflict.

I was wondering about those 50 shots - from eight separate police weapons - too. But under the circumstances of last night: three perpetrators, all three carrying large bladed weapons, and all three visibly wearing what appeared to be suicide belts, I hope it'll be adjudged appropriate force - even though the suicide belts were found to be inert after the event. It seems (unless something as yet unknown is found during the enquiry) to be a clear case of 'suicide by cop', and they got what they must have expected. It also seems that by the time the shots were fired, bystanders were already sheltering inside buildings or running away: the attackers were - judging by where the bodies were filmed - out on the street, and reasonably well isolated from the general public. A single third-party wounding, however regrettable, is a better outcome than might have been the case.

But it's a vivid demonstration of the firepower authorised for the police, let alone the army, under current circumstances. I still wonder if that's wise. Imagine at the concert two weeks ago: indoors (covered foyer), single attacker, concealed bomb. At what point would armed police (if present) have decided that his demographic, his apparel, his demeanour, justified summary execution? Yet if armed police had chosen to drop him without danger to the parents and children sharing the public space, would we have judged that action appropriate, too? In the end, it might have saved more lives than were lost last night.

It's very, very difficult. As I said last time, I don't think we can beat the terrorists unless we 'win smart': if we simply uprate the hardware without re-writing the manual, I don't think the outcome would be a win.

But it's a vivid demonstration of the firepower authorised for the police, let alone the army, under current circumstances. I still wonder if that's wise.

Read the threads on American Police to see where it leads.

There is no "win" What you must do is educate and make sure everyone feels needed.

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I very much doubt you or I will see the end of this, we may see freedoms curtailed and less free speech, but this is not an easily won conflict.

Yes, report to the strip search station at the end of the block to be sealed into your conveyance to your destination. You will have previously given all your passwords to the authorities so that all your communications can be accessed. All your bank records will be scanned real time.

What's this? You wrote a letter of protest because someone is throwing out stinky trash at the police station. Terrorism alert!

When are you all going to wake up? If you react to it, they won!

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Seems the "shoot to kill" was a little over the top.

On who's scale, do you remember the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege and the terrorist on the stairs. He was shot about 50 times IIRC.

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All these sad happenings in the UK or anywhere else will not stop me from travelling. Thanks to my local tourguides, I have been to the London Bridge/ The Bourough Market. We will all die someday. I just don't want it cut short because of regilious fanatics(?).
We survived the Irish terrorists, Bader Meinhoff (very close to me)

Unfortunally(?) Mr Trumps Familly cames from Kallstadt. Just 15 miles from my home.
The Heinz Family does too.

Has all this affected me yet? NO, but then again I have not tried to travel oveseas in 2017.

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Pluto will always be a planet to me.

One of the three left a wife & two children. Probably believed that Allah would provide for their spiritual substance. In the meantime, they will be sustained by the benefits system of the West he died hating. Ironic or what!

It is possible that his wife and children are not to blame for what the man did, so why should they be penalised or vilified just because they have the same religion.

Missed the point again, as usual. Maybe this will clarify It for you: - ""He had just stepped outside the bar for a second and a man ran up to him and said 'this is for my family, this is for Islam' and put a knife in him," she said."

He may have said that he was doing it for his family, but did his family previously agree to that? Or indeed, now afterwards, do they back the actions that he took? Cut and pasting media clips with lack of background information is not intellectual comment.

Neither is just placing a media or Wiki link without any comments of your own. As for vilifying one's religion, that's funny coming from one who disparages other countries while bigging up your own.

""We spoke about a particular attack that happened and, like most radicals, he had a justification for anything - everything and anything.
"And that day I realised that I need to contact the authorities," he said.
He said no action was taken.
"I did my bit... but the authorities didn't do their bit"."

Source

For years it was difficult for the authorities to gain the trust of the Muslim community. Now that they have to some measure, the above is what they get. Perception is a wonderful thing. How do you think local communities will think when every time an attack occurs, it becomes known that the attackers were known to police but no action taken?

"I did my bit... but the authorities didn't do their bit"."

At the moment, I'm taking those sorts of reports as 'he said ... he said' hearsay. We don't know exactly what phone call was made - what number was dialled, how clearly the concern was expressed. And I doubt many callers to the dedicated tip-off lines keep a careful log of their calls.

The police have said - I think referring to the Manchester bomber - that they have checked their logs and can't find any record of the calls having been made. So we're stuck, and it's too early for a similar records search to have been conducted for the possible London tip-offs. But the assertion is worrying enough that I hope there will be a proper trawl through the paperwork and a public statement made of what is found. And possibly operational changes may need to be made: I think it's possible that calls have been made and followed up, but that the follow-up wasn't visible to the caller and wasn't reported back to them. We know from complaints on this very board how discouraging it can be if bug reports aren't acknowledged and acted on: that applies in the real world too!

Meanwhile, are other people as alarmed as I am by this little snippet buried amongst all the London coverage on the BBC?

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen have cut diplomatic ties with Qatar

Another Gulf War in the making? Wannabe superpowers take sides? Another tidal wave of refugees?

That's the last thing we need right now - or ever.

Another Gulf War in the making? Wannabe superpowers take sides? Another tidal wave of refugees?

Will be a quick war then, I just read that 80 percent of the population of the 2 million inhabitants in Qatar are foreign people, they don't even have Qatari citizenship. That leaves some 400,000 citizens, not all of which can be in the military.

They say Qatar backs militant groups including so-called Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda
As do Sunnite rich folk in Saudi Arabia, but then it's all okay it seems.

So, when reading The Daily Mail article why do we need to be reminded every possible moment that one of the attackers possibly wore an Arsenal shirt? Are all wearers of Arsenal shirts automatically bad? Are all fans of Arsenal bad?

One of the men appeared to be wearing an Arsenal football shirt
He was pictured, having been shot dead by police, lying on the ground in an Arsenal shirt.
The Arsenal-shirted jihadi
Arsenal jihadi:
the man who was pictured in an Arsenal shirt
knew the killer in the Arsenal shirt

Okay, the last two could be used to point out the killer, as opposed to the other two whose shirts we don't know about. See how he went from appearing to be wearing the shirt to wearing the shirt in the course of the same article?

The owner of the Daily Mail couldn't possibly support Tottenham, could he?

(I genuinely don't know, and I don't care either)

A couple of interesting reports.

Who watches the watchers?

"Jessica Ground, a UK fund manager at Schroders, told the BBC: "It's going to be an interesting debate how you put the pressure points. It could be the money rather than the governments.""

Rules of the game has changed

Maybe matters would improve if those in power wake up to one important fact: - Terrorism is not a game!

Rules of the game has changed

Maybe matters would improve if those in power wake up to one important fact: - Terrorism is not a game!

Took me a long time to find the source, and the context of what was actually said - nearly twelve years ago - makes it sound very different. Neglecting that the tense has changed twice in two successive misquotes (BBC from BBC, and you from BBC), the passage reads:

[the Prime Minister] said British hospitality had been abused and people should know the "rules of the game are changing".

"People now understand that when we warned of the terrorist threat it wasn't scaremongering it was real, he said.

That's a direct copy'n'paste. The 'he' at the end gives the game of quotations away: it was Tony Blair.

I've played a game of quotations, but the real point is that those in power woke up to terrorism not being a game at least a decade ago - if they ever thought it was: I doubt the Conservative party members blown out of their beds by the Brighton conference bombing ever held that view (ask Norman Tebbit). To suggest otherwise is mischievous.

It would be foolish to think that MI5/6 and GCHQ were not aware of the views expressed on Boinc projects threads. When does mischievous become subversive? In the same way the American NSA are well aware of those who post in Seti politics.

Eh? So what?

We were talking about 'those in power': I very much doubt that any members of the Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet post on any SETI message boards...

I know this view will leave me out on a limb :) but I won't come down. No. And no one can make me ;)

I think we really had to stop making a hash of other people's countries a long time ago to have had a hope of winning this any time soon, no matter what "measures" we bring in. I'm also of the view that it won't be until we do stop meddling, that we'll ever have a hope of defusing the resentment it causes both there, and in our own communities with connections abroad.

I've lived in a number of countries where acts of terrorism were very much part of daily life. Where armed soldiers and armed police routinely patrolled the streets, with cordons and roadblocks popping up then disappearing again. These things don't make everyone feel safer. That comfortable glow is always more dependent on how you look, rather than what you might have done or be intending to do. That in itself fuels further resentment, a slow burning recruitment drive that becomes harder and harder to deal with.

Consider how many terrorist groups have (since their beginnings) risen to political power through democratic means at the ballot box (that many people around the world approved of at the time). You can't do that unless the resentments and grievances those individuals held dear resonated with many more others than just those at the core earning the label terrorist. Could Daesh ever progress to that? Their message resonates just as badly to the vast majority of Muslims (who make up most of their victims) as it does to us, so I have my doubts. But the phenomenon that is Daesh wouldn't be able to take root to the extent it has without the perception (at least) of a legitimate grievance from which to grow. That it is able to flourish to any degree with such appalling consequences from the corrupted teachings of just a few, makes me ashamed that we still continue to wave our flags from the safety (however relative we perceive that to be) of our shores in support of our actions abroad (whether they be arms deals or bombing campaigns) that simply seem to fuel misery, and mayhem in their wake. What future are we investing in? We still have a generation of children from Yemen (just one example of far too many) to grow up. If they can. How fertile will their "perceived" grievance be to radicalisation about our contribution to their present suffering? Or do we just hope that they'll be too sick of violence to participate in it, and that the next generation will respect them for that.

Polls of course can be notoriously skewed, but one that asked how the British feel about the victims of terrorist attacks in other non-western communities (including Russia) the sample suggested we were a pretty hard-hearted bunch who seemed to think that some communities were somehow more deserving. than we are or suffered less when their loved ones got blown to bits :( Looking at last Saturday for instance - several suicide bombers detonated themselves at a funeral in Afghanistan. It barely made the BBC news. Some would say that's perfectly understandable. I'm not sure it is in an age where news is almost instant and where we're giving out so many other mixed messages as it is, but that is just my opinion and I accept it may have no bearing on what contributes to the process of becoming radicalised. I just wonder sometimes if it would help if #Kabul or #Baghdad flashed round the globe like #Paris (etc) did. Perhaps it would make our politicians feel more awkward about pursuing some of the foreign policies they do if they realised that violence, death and destruction is as unwelcome to us to learn of it happening abroad, as it is to us at home.

If it hadn't been such a grave development, I might have fallen about laughing to hear Saudi Arabia accuse Qatar of promoting terrorism, and then at how Bahrain etc fell immediately into line... and all so soon after the Saudi's secured themselves an arsenal of weapons from Britain and America. We REALLY shouldn't be taking any role in the "choose your terrorist and then arm them" fiasco being played out everywhere, not while claiming to be civilised nations anyway, and not while trying to eradicate extremism from our communities. Young people don't like double standards, and to be honest, I'm not much of a fan of them myself :)

£441 million is to be sent to Pakistan this year in overseas aid.

Erm... Sirius! Hello :) I haven't read that book by the way. It's on a list somewhere of stuff to do though :)

When it comes to foreign aid, it's sometimes useful to look at what else is packaged with it. Many come with the kind of private lucrative contracts that take out more revenue from those economies than they put in. I haven't looked at this particular one - I'm just observing what is generally the case. They also constitutes landgrabs, mining rights, zero taxation rates etc that appear to promise much in investment/compensation, but deliver barely a fraction if anything, in actuality, and often poisoned environments too for local people. I can't remember now what multiple the net income stream was (that went out from Africa to foreign owned companies) from aid packages provided to the continent a few years ago by western governments, but it looked a lot like plunder to me :/ So I'm not sure it would be any different in Pakistan to be honest. So don't worry :) some people here at home will get it back for um... us... or some of it anyway... if they pay their taxes here...

Anyway - just a few floating thoughts from my head :)

LOL, it's good to see that no one on his team has taken away his Twitter privileges yet, so he can make an absolute fool of himself:
Donal Trump wrote:

People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!
The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.
In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!

"It clearly shows his intent," the Maryland Democrat told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day" Monday. "His lawyers try to justify it by saying it wasn't a travel ban, but it was extreme vetting. The President made that clear. It is a travel ban."

Oops?

Nothing said about his bullying of Mayor Khan of London.
Apparently no one has dared tell him yet that all of the attacks that happened in the UK these past months, were done by people who were born there or have lived there for a lot of years. Which has happened with the last couple of terrorist shootings and bombings in the USA as well. And will probably happen again.

In any case, a travel ban from a couple of countries - and not Saudi Arabia, the foremost exporter of terrorists - isn't going to help much. But hey, it'll give Trump something to shout about and the rest of the world to laugh him under the table.

Great post. Be a tad careful though lassie, otherwise you'd might end up being labelled an anarchistic foreigner :-)