Twenty-two people innocent people were mercilessly slaughtered by a bomber on Monday in Manchester. There is wall-to-wall coverage in the media. Each victim’s photograph, name and age is reverently publicised. We all personally feel angry and outraged by this appalling attack.
We must certainly mourn the innocent victims of bombings.
But not these innocent victims:
Who cares? Total silence. We kill. Just business as usual…
As UK commentator Tariq Ali recently said about the Manchester attack:
‘There was an initial report saying that they knew his identity and knew who he was, but nothing more has been said. The fact that he is of Libyan descent, was born in this country, and his parents were Libyan exiles, can’t be kept unlinked to the war that was waged on Libya, the six-month bombing carried out by NATO, the fact that that country now is totally wrecked. I mean, we have a pattern: This atrocity happens, we all denounce it, everyone says 95, 96 percent of the Muslim community is opposed to all this—which is all true. Then people like myself and a few others from the antiwar movement say this is not unrelated to the war on terror that has been going on now since 2001. Every Arab country that’s occupied, wrecked, has a consequence in Europe.
So it’s—we’re part of a sort of really vicious, now, cycle, where the wars go on, and terror attacks, carried out usually by tiny jihadi groups or by individuals, as appears to be in this case, goes on. Very little attention now is paid to the foreign policy link with these things, Amy. And that is a bit worrying, because these things started happening in Europe, the United States, after the involvement of the West, in quite a brutal way, in what is going on in the Arab world.’
Categories: Extremism, Life in the West, News, Terrorism
Blogging Theology 
Where are christians 👀?
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busy loving their enemies
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Excellent post!!
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This is a helpful post and an issue I have been thinking about myself.
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FORMER BRITISH PRIME Minister Tony Blair has yet to say anything about Monday’s heinous, nihilistic suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. According to current reporting, the attack has been claimed by ISIS and was carried out by a 22-year-old man born in Manchester to Libyan refugees.
But when Blair does speak, we can be certain he won’t mention one key fact: Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the U.S. and U.K., he was forcefully and repeatedly warned by Britain’s intelligence services that it would lead to exactly this type of terrorist attack — and he concealed these warnings from the British people, instead claiming the war would reduce the risk of terrorism.
We know this because of the Chilcot Report, the seven-year-long British investigation of the Iraq War released in 2016. The report declassifies numerous internal government documents that illustrate the yawning chasm between what Blair was being told in private and his claims in public as he pushed for war.
On February 10, 2003, one month before the war began, the U.K.’s Joint Intelligence Committee — the key advisory body for the British Prime Minister on intelligence matters — issued a white paper titled “International Terrorism: War With Iraq.”
It began:
The threat from Al Qaida will increase at the onset of any military action against Iraq. They will target Coalition forces and other Western interests in the Middle East. Attacks against Western interests elsewhere are also likely, especially in the US and UK, for maximum impact. The worldwide threat from other Islamist terrorist groups and individuals will increase significantly.
And it concluded much the same way:
Al Qaida and associated groups will continue to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests, and that threat will be heightened by military action against Iraq. The broader threat from Islamist terrorists will also increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the West. [emphasis added in both cases]
The same report concluded that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq “would aspire to conduct terrorist attacks against Coalition interests” only in the event of an invasion. Moreover, “authoritative reporting suggests that Iraqi Intelligence (DGI) has little reach or [terrorism] capability outside Iraq.”
Specifically regarding WMD terrorism, the JIC elsewhere judged that Iraq “would be unlikely to undertake or sponsor such terrorist attacks,” that the threat of it if Iraq were not invaded was “slight,” and that there was no “credible evidence of covert transfers of WMD-related technology and expertise to terrorist groups.”
Tony Blair’s case for war, as most clearly expressed in his March 18, 2003 remarks in the House of Commons, essentially turned all of this on its head. The possibility, Blair said, of terrorist groups obtaining WMD from a state like Iraq was “a real and present danger to Britain and its national security.”
“The real problem,” Blair proclaimed, “is that, underneath, people dispute that Iraq is a threat, dispute the link between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and dispute, in other words, the whole basis of our assertion that the two together constitute a fundamental assault on our way of life.” Blair did not mention that the people disputing this included his own intelligence services.
Then Tam Dalyell, a Labor MP from Scotland, asked Blair this key question: “What could be more calculated to act as a recruiting sergeant for a young generation throughout the Islamic and Arab world than putting 600 cruise missiles — or whatever it is — on to Baghdad and Iraq?”
Blair did not reveal the explicit warnings from the JIC that exactly this would happen. No, he told Dalyell, “Unless we take action against [Al Qaeda], they will grow. That is why we should act.” Terrorist organizations wouldn’t be motivated, as the JIC had told him, by an invasion of Iraq, because their true motivation was that “they detest the freedom, democracy and tolerance that are the hallmarks of our way of life.”
Blair’s stunningly fraudulent case for war carried the day, 412-149. The current British Prime Minister Theresa May, then a Conservative front bencher, voted for it. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn voted against.
Then exactly what the JIC had predicted occurred. Fifty-two people were killed in July 2005 when four suicide bombers — three of whom were British-born — carried out attacks on the subway and a bus in London. One of the killers taped himself stating that they were killing their fellow citizens because Western governments “continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world.” In a separate tape another said, “What have you witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq.”
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/23/british-intelligence-warned-tony-blair-of-manchester-like-terrorism-if-the-west-invaded-iraq/
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Mr. Healthciff, first let me start off by letting you know that I was against the Iraq war from the beginning so please if you are going to respond don’t respond with how wrong the Iraq war was you will just be preaching the choir lol.
But putting both of our feelings aside your position is irrelevant. Think about it, if fear of attack is a reason to stay out of war, then the UK would never have entered WW2 on the side of Poland, if fear of future attack was a concern.
So NO, the actions of a nations enemies is not the responsibility of the nation, instead it is the responsibility of those enemies that wish to do that nation harm.
To say otherwise is simply to repeat ISIS propaganda, because the very things you have said here ISIS recruiters say to their potential recruits.
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It would be most helpful if you ended your thinking and began to speak out. E.g. against your fellow australian hate preacher “Paulus”.
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Indeed!
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Yes, a very poignant post.
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Serious question what does this have to do with Manchester?
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Obtuse.
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How is the question Obtuse?
Seriously what does this article have to do with a UK citizen who was born and raised in the UK by parents from Lebanon, who blew himself up killing pre teen and teen age girls and their parents, have to do with the US allegedly killing civilians in Syria?
Can you tell me what the connection is cause I’m not seeing it.
1. The Manchester Murderer is not from Syria his parents are not from Syria he has no direct connection with Syria?
2. The murderer exploded in the UK not in the USA
So what is the connection?
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Obtuse.
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So the article is Obtuse then, its just meant to be “annoyingly insensitive”?
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🙄
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Here is another question about this “obtuse” article.
Why would the UK, US or anyone involved in the US led air strikes against ISIS, and other murderous groups be obligated to publish the names of those killed in said operations?
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🙄
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Sorry Paul your last two comments are not showing up only a empty icon.
Anyway I can only come away from this thinking that the only reason for said article is to just repeat ISIS propoganda as it is ISIS who uses such information to recruit and inspire young men like the Manchester Murderer to intentionally kill pre teen, teen age girls, and their parents.
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🙄
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Taken from the Jihad recruitment Manuel…
The manual tells recruiters to “use current events and/or horrible occasions (i.e., the siege of Gaza) to comment and explain the situation of the Muslims (according to the Islamic perspective).”
“Make most of your speech about Palestine,” the manual instructs. “This is because there is no disagreement (amongst the scholars and Muslims) about it, and it is dear to the Islamic nation. Also the rest of the arenas of Jihad have been distorted and misrepresented by the media in different percentages (i.e., the Jihad in Islamic Morocco has been greatly distorted, but the Jihad in Chechnya has been partially distorted).”
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-manual-al-qaeda-and-now-isis-use-to-brainwash-people-online-2015-7?r=US&IR=T
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