Terrorism? : British Soldier killed in UK

[PAB]

Something quite surreal happened in London recently, a small group of Islamic extremists from London, purposely it seems, assassinated and butchered a British Soldier near Army Barracks. What made it surreal is that they did not run after running the man down in a car and hacking him with knives and a cleaver. Their hands covered in blood they took interviews recorded by mobile phones. 20 minutes later armed police showed up and due to aggression shot the men who i believe are now in hospital.

I mention the term "Terrorism" because i want to highlight an excellent article on the Gaurdian headlined Was the London killing of a British soldier 'terrorism'?

It's well worth reading. And is an excellent analysis in my opinion.

How can one create a definition of "terrorism" that includes Wednesday's London attack on this British soldier without including many acts of violence undertaken by the US, the UK and its allies and partners? Can that be done?

To question whether something qualifies as "terrorism" is not remotely to justify or even mitigate it. That should go without saying, though I know it doesn't.

The reason it's so crucial to ask this question is that there are few terms - if there are any - that pack the political, cultural and emotional punch that "terrorism" provides. When it comes to the actions of western governments, it is a conversation-stopper, justifying virtually anything those governments want to do. It's a term that is used to start wars, engage in sustained military action, send people to prison for decades or life, to target suspects for due-process-free execution, shield government actions behind a wall of secrecy, and instantly shape public perceptions around the world.

Put another way, the term at this point seems to have no function other than propagandistically and legally legitimizing the violence of western states against Muslims while delegitimizing any and all violence done in return to those states.

It's certainly true that Islam plays an important role in making these individuals willing to fight and die for this perceived just cause (just as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and nationalism lead some people to be willing to fight and die for their cause). But the proximate cause of these attacks are plainly political grievances: namely, the belief that engaging in violence against aggressive western nations is the only way to deter and/or avenge western violence that kills Muslim civilians.

former British soldier Joe Glenton, who served in the war in Afghanistan, writes under the headline "Woolwich attack: of course British foreign policy had a role". He explains:

"While nothing can justify the savage killing in Woolwich yesterday of a man since confirmed to have been a serving British soldier, it should not be hard to explain why the murder happened. . . . It should by now be self-evident that by attacking Muslims overseas, you will occasionally spawn twisted and, as we saw yesterday, even murderous hatred at home. We need to recognise that, given the continued role our government has chosen to play in the US imperial project in the Middle East, we are lucky that these attacks are so few and far between."

This is one of those points so glaringly obvious that it is difficult to believe that it has to be repeated.

oh and Americas real hero Michael Moore sarcastically tweeted ...which i liked..

I am outraged that we can't kill people in other counties without them trying to kill us!

 

[Prolescum]

For future reference

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</i>[tweet]https://twitter.com/MMFlint/status/337451498369851393[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MMFlint/status/337451498369851393[/tweet]

 

[malicious_bloke]

I don't really think being all introspective about the words of a crazed murderous religitard serves any real purpose.

British troops are due to start coming home from Afghanistan next year, but even if they'd been withdrawn years ago, do you seriously think these whacked out crazies would have settled down and become normal, productive members of society?

Somehow I have my doubts...

EDIT: and Michael Moore can fuck off too.

 

[PAB]

I don't really think being all introspective about the words of a crazed murderous religitard serves any real purpose.

British troops are due to start coming home from Afghanistan next year, but even if they'd been withdrawn years ago, do you seriously think these whacked out crazies would have settled down and become normal, productive members of society?

Somehow I have my doubts...

EDIT: and Michael Moore can fuck off too.

If troops were withdrawn years ago i think these individuals may not have committed this act. If troops were withdrawn earlier then the many innocent civilians in those middle eastern countries may not have been indiscriminately killed by drones or other means. The prolonged engagement the sustained invasion and subjection of violence on innocent people has consequences, we have now seen one manifestation of those consequences. I heard this described as blowback from imperialism...its quite accurate. In fact it is argued that the fundamentalist Islamic terror of modern times is the blowback of american imperialism as part of the cold war, specifically the CIA funding of the Mujahideen in afghanistan that overthrew and destroyed the secular traditions in that country.

From the same article

the same is true for the vast bulk of killings carried out by the US and its allies over the last decade, where people are killed in their homes, in their cars, at work, while asleep (in fact, the US has re-defined "militant" to mean "any military-aged male in a strike zone").

They are murders yes, religion is retarded in general i agree. But no, no they are not crazy. They did not say they killed him for Allah...they did not even say it was for bin laden...but for the murder of muslims in general from the war.

""We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

"We must fight them. I apologise that women had to witness this today. But in our land, our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you.

"You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start bussin' our guns? You think politicians are going to die? No it's going to be the average guy, like you, and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so you can all live in peace."

....which part is the crazy part ?

I have spoken to islamic fundementalists on the streets of east london in fact, whilst selling a socialist paper and discussed many things. The ideas they are hold are antagonistic to the sort of society we live in today and to the sort of society i wish to build for, but they are not necessarily crazy, extreme yes, dangerous yes but not always. And it will take alot of work especially with muslim communities themselves to bring these people in. The continued wars only add fuel to the fire only exacerbate the problem and help to produce more extremists and push help justify in their minds horrific violence of the kind we have already seen and may yet see more.

 

[malicious_bloke]

If troops were withdrawn years ago i think these individuals may not have committed this act.

Possibly true but not exactly what I was getting at. These are people who deemed it somehow acceptable to take a meat clever to a complete stranger in broad daylight. Whether or not you agree with the political cause they've chosen to nail their colours to is largely irrelevant. The act itself should serve as an indicator of something wrong with the person's mental wiring. My point is that even in the absence of a political cause to act as a thin justification for their actions, these people would eventually have done something equally atrocious.

If this was really all about Britain's part in the Iraq and Afghanistan fiasco and all that waffly stuff, why wait TWELVE FUCKING YEARS until the government had already started making plans to withdraw troops from foreign occupations, and at a time where public opinion had already swayed decisively against the war.

[sarcasm]Yeah I'm going to go behead someone in broad daylight to turn people against something they're already against...that's a fantastic plan[/sarcasm] ^_^.

 

[PAB]

....These are people who deemed it somehow acceptable to take a meat clever to a complete stranger in broad daylight. Whether or not you agree with the political cause they've chosen to nail their colours to is largely irrelevant. The act itself should serve as an indicator of something wrong with the person's mental wiring. My point is that even in the absence of a political cause to act as a thin justification for their actions, these people would eventually have done something equally atrocious.

If this was really all about Britain's part in the Iraq and Afghanistan fiasco and all that waffly stuff, why wait TWELVE FUCKING YEARS until the government had already started making plans to withdraw troops from foreign occupations, and at a time where public opinion had already swayed decisively against the war.

[sarcasm]Yeah I'm going to go behead someone in broad daylight to turn people against something they're already against...that's a fantastic plan[/sarcasm] ^_^.

Hmmm...well the thing is it wasn't just some random stranger. It was a British serving soldier, and as it stands it is thought that these people may have targeted him specifically for being a soldier. This makes this act qualitatively different to acts of terrorism that we have seen before...it wasn't an indiscriminate attack on the civilian population.

Don't get me wrong i have no agreement with these people politically but its important to see this act in political context, because to see as only some crazy violence by deranged individuals would be fundamentally incorrect, and would prevent an understanding of why this occurred.

To see these people as flawed individuals, "something wrong with..mental wiring","..would eventually have done something equally atrocious.." is i believe mistaken. The same could be said for criminals in general fatalistically they are doomed to be degenerates. (Four Lions, the film, is worth watching about English fundamentalist Muslims who want to commit a terrorist act...the leader is not a nut job no on the contrary he argues and kicks out the nut job).

Why would they wait twelve years: 12 years ago these men may have been teenagers, they probably wouldn't be fundamentalists. Not really aware of whats really going on. What happens is a process of radicalization, firstly from fundamentalist sects of Islam that lead to indoctrination and then you have the atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan which only reinforces the fundamentalism.

Second, the aim of the attack is unclear. Did they kill a soldier in order to push the UK government out of the middle east? maybe in a way. I don't think this was their way of campaigning for the UK public against the war, this was really overspill of the war itself. Instead of going to the middle east to fight, these homegrown extremists took action against the UK military in the UK itself. Was this therefore crazy because the UK is going to withdraw troops gradually, well from their perspective the war is still on going ... and it is still on going.

 

[PAB]

Regards comments by Malicious Bloke,
There is a government strategy to prevent radicalization called Prevent.
And watching BBC news, there was interview with Muslim based youth centers as a part of this scheme which aims to tackle extremist and terrorist ideas influencing muslim youth. There having trouble due to austerity ...cuts in their funding. But they state they have been successful in the past in preventing the spread and indoctrination of young Muslims in extremism. It isn't about simply preventing crazy Muslims adopting crazy ideas, but preventing radicalization towards extreme actions pushed by extremist groups. It appears to be a battle within the Muslim communities.