The beehive needed whacking.
It's a fucking mess. The people that have died here today nowhere near amounts to the people that had died at the hands of the Ba'athists before the invasion in Iraq alone. It's a fraction of the dessimation in New York. This isn't to say you can quantify tragedy -- it's definately still a disaster. It makes me sick. For me, this has emboldened a line that I've mentally drawn in sand all the clearer. This is an interdependant world. If we're not living in common, and having values in common, freedoms and quality of life - the ingredients are there for radicalism to thrive. Well it's been there, and done that. It's already thrived. So now what do we do about it?
IRAQ
Does anyone honestly think for a minute that if we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and left the Israelies to their own ends that terrorism would stop? The embassies of the US and others have been bombed consecutively long beforehand.
And I'm sorry! Simply saying we shouldn't have invaded cuts the whole issue short of real debate.
There would have been fewer attacks if we hadn't.... yes, this is most likely true, but bare with me for a minute. Let's say for a minute Saddam Hussein never bothered invading Kuwait, consequently causing operation Desert Storm. Let's say the UN then didn't make his country suffer by putting them under sanctions... let's pretend that Saddam didn't steal their chance of a better life by syphoning money from the corrupt UN oil for food programme. Let's say people in Iraq actually had a quality of life as such that the mad ravings of a murderous inhuman dog like Zarqawi meant nothing. There would have been no attacks then either.
In the purely hypothetical event where we didn't have to invade Iraq, brought up so often with the benefit of hindsight: what would Iraq actually be like today? Would I be right in saying it would have remained the same mess under the same corrupt regime repeatedly displaying insubordination on the world stage? In the hypothetical timeline of events that I just described above, where everything was rainbows and gumdrop smiles, they would have had the life we WANT to give them now. The fact is, it's easier to moan about something you can vote out in 4 years than it is to moan about something you don't know much about and can't change without significant investment of money, time and lives. What if the sacrifice is worth it? We're aflood with cynics who for some reason believe Iraq will never overcome this point in it's history. And why should this even turn out to be a purely Iraq issue anyway?
ISRAEL
Israel and Palestine have been THE catalyst for this kind of radicalism. That doesn't merely go back to George Bush and Tony Blair. It goes back through decades of leaders, right up to the big tragedy of World War II. The UN toyed with both peoples and their new geography. That geography carries religious significance. It's been a time bomb, with the unfortunate ability to denotate time and time again. Then we've got all of these other countries around them with different alleigances and ideologies. Many of them are sympathetic to Palestine... and among them you've got these crazy fucking assholes that wanna reinstate an Islamic caliphate and spread it the world over. American/western feet treading on their soil is an abomination to them. They're acting outside of their own laws... they don't recognise any laws as we know them in fact. It completely baffles me that this goes on, when the mandate of a law system in any country so strongly supports finding these people and doing away with them once and for good. Whoever we would talk to - aayatolahs, Imams, moderate politicians, leaders from countries like Syria etc. It never does any good. Are we so fucking weak? We're not welcome there, yet we've been so tolerant of them here. Draw that fucking line in the sand.
THE BEEHIVE
Fuck thinking about civil liberties, fuck sovereignty, and fuck all of the other pathetic shit we get to arguing about for a second. Think about it in the simplest terms... what would you rather have calling the shots in the west? Democracy or radical Islam elements? What's so good about us that we're too good for the existence of militant Islam in our countries but these countries in the Middle East are not? Why are we so good that we will decry undemocratic activity in our countries but largely ignore it in others? You think people chose to be brought up in a climate of such strict doctrine? The Middle East IS a beehive. It's a beehive because decades of war. It's a beehive because we've been feverously whipping up oil contracts with them, battling over it at any cost. Vetoing one another on matters of international security just to keep our ties. It's a beehive because inspite of their hot commodities, people in the Middle East have a lower quality of life than they should. Wealth is distributed to their corrupt rulers, and many are conditioned to never even question it. Men talk on behalf of GOD, and that is seldom questioned either. All of this - it's left the whole area susceptible to doctrines of hate. If you don't want us to go in and free countries from the kind of regimes Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe run.. if you think people anywhere in the world should have the freedom to blow up others with differing ideologies without our interference, then WHY? As the most powerful, influential and rich in both history and funds - do we not have an obligation to do what we can for the wider world? IF you really don't think we should be getting involved in other countries affairs then be realistic. Kiss world peace goodbye. Say hello to Chemical and Nuclear proliforation and watch them try and wipe each other (especially the Jews) off the face of the Earth. It's this or isolationism. And it's gotten to the point where I'm fine with fucking either.
MY TAKE:
The civilised world should deliver an ultimatum: join us or die.
Move on in the world without these countries that harbor these people/attitudes if necessary. Despite the huge arsenals available to the dominant countries on this Earth - all the weapons and people we have at our disposal - it's not enough thanks to this tolerance we have for the intolerant. Again this is probably thanks to World War II. The Jews were scapegoats for relatively minor problems in 40s Europe and they were nearly wiped from the globe by the Germans. Radical Islamic militants bomb our cities and kill our people as they go about their everyday business and we sitback, and tread on eggshells so we don't offend people. People SHOULD be offended. Especially if they consider themselves British. We seem to be scared about talking about this because of political correctness! It's insane!!!
We should be saying to any country that we perceive could help: I want Zarqawi's head on my desk. I want every fucking
so called freedom fighter rounded up, I want your borders closed-- if you can't do this on your own, let us do it for you. Oh and you are absolutely forbidden from developing chemical or nuclear weapons... then we should have the fucking balls to follow those words up and punish countries when they laugh in our faces. Like Saddam Hussein did for 11 years for example.
Maybe it's time to modernise and educate people out of these destructive myopic beliefs. Osama thinks he's fucking Saladin. The biggest and best thing we can achieve is spreading our influence in the middle east. If we can get in, perhaps making an example of just Iraq alone, and create the climate for it to protect itself and prosper as it should whenever it is we will leave the country -- there's a chance it will change the world. The surrounding region, it's future generations and the world in general will look on and be able to say we did a good thing. If we leap out now, fuck off back home and forget we ever tried anything of the sort -- allow men like Zarqawi their haven -- do you really think that will do any good? There is a jihad upon the apostate rulers of the West, and sadly the innocent people they rule. People are recruited into that life because they have no real grasp of the value their own lives have. If they had better lives and learned the freedom of opinion, I honestly don't think that would be the case. It's high time we called a Jihad of our own on the tyranny of evil men and vanquished them from the world. They talk about crusades and crusaders? Give them a fucking crusade. And leave every innocent bystander besides with a better way of life.
WHAT ALTERNATIVE IS THERE? PLEASE TELL ME.
Maybe we should lower our dependance on the region for oil (which we have already started doing)... then we hit them. No aid. No trade. Accept absolutely NO asylum seekers. I'm serious. Is that what you want? What
do you want exactly? I hear all this wonderful war-hating, altruistic love all the time in these debates but I never hear any good alternative ideas.
Of course, this is just my opinion - but I believe that if we don't rectify this part of the world today, it will haunt us and our children down the line.
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Ken Livingston has said the best things I've ever read or heard anyone say after an attack like this. I can't find the full text, but here's the gist of it:
"This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners."
"Black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindus and Jews, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, class, religion whatever."
"I would like to address todays attackers. I know that you do not fear death. That is what makes you so dangerous. I know that you do fear you may fail in your long term objective: to destroy our free society. And I will show you why you will fail.
"In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railways. "
He finished by saying that people would still come to London and Britain to enjoy the life we offer here, the diversity and freedom -- our way of life.
"Nothing you do, however many of us you kill will stop that life. Where freedom is strong and people can live in harmony, whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."
These kind of things are attacks on everyone in free countries.
Think of the potential damage this could do to us. Nationalism on the rise again in the next election. Extremism begets extremism. No one likes extremists but they've got no ideas on how to fight them. I guess there's no easy answers. The line is drawn for me though as I've said earlier. I've had enough of this - I don't want to be seeing this kind of thing on the news for my whole adult life. Stamp it out now.
So they don't fear death: in that case I hope they're tortured, blinded and fucking skinned alive before we give them the mercy of death. Televise it. I don't give a toss any more. Whatever answer we come up with I hope it's one where somebody pays the price we paid in blood today. Knowing the pathetic passive mess that the West has become though, we'll probably just deal out a few house arrests.