The Charlie Hebdo Killers Were Not Muslims

 General, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jan 102015
 

(Stolen from a Facebook posting)

Sounds daft doesn’t it? Because the killers themselves would have claimed they were doing it for islam. And of course there are plenty of feeble-minded bigots who are now attacking muslims and islamic places of worship.

Now don’t get me wrong: I have no patience with organised religion and think anyone who believes in an imaginary infectious friend in the sky needs their head examining. But they have a right to believe anything they want.

They just don’t have the right to inflict it on the rest of us.

Within any community (religious or otherwise), there are two sorts of people, and yes I’m being overly simplistic here. There are the majority who go along with the community and obey the dictates if they are not too inconvenient. And there are the zealots who take it to the extremes. And amongst the zealots there is a deranged minority who want to inflict the standards of their community on everyone. Some of them use violence to do so.

Now there was some idiot on the news today who claimed that despite Charlie Hebdo publishing a cartoon insulting to christians, that it wasn’t christians shooting journalists. True enough, but it there are christians murdering abortion doctors and harassing those entering abortion clinics, so it is not as if there are no christian terrorists.

Now comes a bit of a leap of faith: These terrorists whatever their faith, have more in common with each other than their co-religionists. They all espouse an extreme form of their faith, are compelled to inflict it on everyone, and resort to violence to pursue their goals.

Their most significant attribute is terrorism and not their religion. Their crimes overwhelm their faith and make their religion irrelevant.

An alternative way of looking at it is a quantitative approach. There were 3 killers involved in the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket. The number of muslims in France is not known precisely, but a figure of about 3 million seems a reasonable approximation for this sort of calculation, which if you work it out makes the number of killers in this incident just 0.0001% of the muslim population of France.

So why were there only three killers? Because muslims as a whole are not terrorists.

Besides which, there is nothing we could do to annoy the killers more than to deny their islamic nature.

Are We Living In A Police State?

 Politics  No Responses »
Aug 192013
 

No.

Anyone who thinks so needs to read a bit of history on what life was like in real police states.

But on a day when news of an incident where a journalist was detained for 9 hours and his electronic media confiscated, we do have to ask ourselves whether we are headed in that direction. And whether we really want to go in that direction.

David Miranda was held under anti-terrorist legislation – specifically schedule 7 – in what was clearly an attempt at harassment for publishing stories embarrassing the UK and US governments. Now the victim here is clearly a journalist, and whilst it is possible for a journalist to be involved in terrorism, I really rather doubt this one has time to be particularly active at this time. This is a high profile case, but how many of the 61,145 other suspects detained under schedule 7 last year were detained for non-terrorism purposes?

Anti-terrorism legislation is very powerful, and whilst it may be justified to tackle terrorism, it certainly must not be used for other purposes. And in this case it was.

And undoubtedly we will have some sort of review of the case, a lot of noise, and very little action. It’s almost certain that the police who detained David Miranda will escape scot free, or with a notional slap on the wrist, and not with a prison sentence that they deserve.

Prevent – Unfairly Targetting Muslims?

 Politics  1 Response »
Mar 302010
 

The UK government’s Prevent scheme has been accused of unfairly targeting the UK’s Muslim community. Except for the “unfair” bit, it is fair to say it does exactly that – and that is what it was setup to do. Specifically to counteract those on the fringes of the Muslim community who target young Muslims and attempt to “radicalise” them in the hopes that they can be recruited into terrorism.

Young people tend to be passionate about what they care about, and that includes politics. They often want to see change at a faster rate than is realistic, which makes them vulnerable to extremists who want to use violence to achieve their ends. Imagine if an initiative such as Prevent were underway at the beginnings of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland  in the 1960s – would the terrorism have lasted as long as it did ? Well we obviously don’t know, but it is a shame that it wasn’t tried.

The fact is that young Muslims are more likely to end up as terrorists than any other particular group of young people. Radical Christians might end up bellowing out that we all sinners, but that is just irritating and bad manners. Young hedonists may end up making a mess on the pavement at peculiar times of the night; whilst we might disapprove, it hardly compares to a suicide load of explosives.

Now of course most young Muslims are not going to wind up blowing themselves and lots of innocent people up; they are not even going to take a trip to the kind of summer camp where you learn how an AK47 works. But some are at risk of becoming radicalised and becoming terrorists.

If we can target those who are at greater risk of becoming radicalised and somehow persuade them that it is a bad idea, we can both protect ourselves and those young people. Those who say this is unfairly targeting the Muslim community are ignoring the fact that this benefits the Muslim community as much as it benefits the rest of us.

Perhaps they should ask the parents of those young people who have been killed whether persuading their sons and daughters to take another path is unfair.

Just Butt Out Mr FBI Man

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Aug 232009
 

Seems that by releasing the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, the Scottish government has annoyed the chief of the FBI Robert Mueller who has indicated his disgust at the decision. Ordinarily an opinionated statement from someone from the US on UK policy can be irritating, but is perfectly fine – there is such a thing as free speech. However Robert Mueller is not a private citizen; he is a member of the US government machinery. Perhaps he should remind himself that his organisation’s role is domestic law enforcement so he should really not be making statements about the justice systems of foreign countries.

After all the UK is not a US state. The right thing to do in terms of foreign policy over this matter would be for the US authorities responsible for foreign relations to issue a note to the UK Embassy indicating disquiet over the decision and not to trumpet the details in the press. Condemning one of your oldest allies in the press is the sort of behaviour that is indicative of US arrogance that is so irritating throughout the world.

Just to correct one misconception that the US press seems to have made – he was not leading the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing. Not unless he was working for the Dumfries and Galloway police force at the time. I am sure that he was involved in the investigation but the US Justice Department was merely assisting the Dumfries and Galloway police with the investigation. I am sure the Scottish police were grateful for the assistance which would have been very helpful considering the airline involved (Pan Am) was a US company. But it was still a Scottish investigation and when the conviction was made, the justice handed down to the guilty party was Scottish.

Quoting from Mueller’s statement :-

… because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of ‘compassion.’

Well perhaps ‘compassion’ is not part of the US justice system, but it is part of the Scottish justice system. Keeping a man in prison far from his home and family when he is dying is inhumane – whatever his crime. And at least this UK citizen feels outraged that the Scottish government is being criticised for being humane.

A further quote :-

… as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law.

Well firstly if you find the concept of ‘compassion’ inexplicable, then perhaps you should sign up for a course on humanity, because whether you agree with compassion or not, it is fairly easy to see the reason behind the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds.

As to the rest of the statement, the bomber was given a fair trial, found guilty, and sentenced to a term in prison. The rule of law has been served, as the guilty has been found and treated appropriately. As to justice being served, well the guilty party did serve 8 years in prison which is not enough, but is not a minor punishment by itself. And the bomber won’t serve much longer even if we did not release him on compassionate grounds; he is dying slowly and painfully, and will shortly be dead (those who believe in such things might think that God wants a quiet word with him).

Lastly :-

… gives comfort to terrorists around the world …

Which is just ridiculous. What normal person is going to risk 8 years in prison ? Whatever punishment you hand out to terrorists, terrorists will attack if their beliefs lead them to think that they are doing the right thing. Nobody is going to attack UK targets because we release terrorists who are dying whilst the US cruelly keeps them in prison.

Although I have no sympathy for the Lockerbie bomber, I am proud that I live in a country that will release a dying prisoner on compassionate grounds.

Afghanistan War Aims

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Jul 252009
 

Sometimes I really do not understand some comments that crop up from time to time in the media. Apparently there are many people who do not understand why we are fighting a war in Afghanistan.

Well I guess some people are so dumb they need reminding to keep breathing.

Or are so uninterested in what is going on that they never listen to media discussions on the war.

It is not as if the reasons have not been discussed many times. And it is not as if the aims are particularly difficult to understand – we’re there to establish a stable government that is not going to let Afghanistan be used as a solid base for terrorism. Sure, things start to get a little more detailed and confused when you dig down into more precisely how that will be done especially when combating the opium/heroin trade gets mixed in.

The terrorists in Afghanistan use the heroin trade to raise funds for their activities, so it is perfectly reasonable to try to stop the funds, but it needs to be done in such a way that it does not irritate the opium farmers whose livelihood depends on the trade. As I have suggested before, the simplest way of dealing with this, is to simply buy the opium for a fair price ourselves.

So the next time someone complains that they do not know why we are fighting in Afghanistan, remember that whilst it is perfectly reasonable to object to the war for all sorts of reasons, objecting because you do not understand the aims is just indefensible.

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