Subject: There's an interesting anecdote about b).
Author:
Posted on: 2016-09-12 10:37:00 UTC
Specifically: the BBC interviewed the Met's commissioner after 7/7; he was surprised that the terrorists did not phone ahead to warn that they have planted a bomb.
Two pillars to Heaven, caught aflame. A nation, shaken. A decade and a half of war and crisis, heralded.
There is no complete erasing the pain, the sadness, the tragedy. Even after so many years, there is still the memory of the lives lost, the world shattered. Now, after all this time, the best we all can do is move forward, and hope. Hope for our children, and their children, and an uncertain future.
But we can never forget that day, exactly a decade and a half ago.
The day when the Twin Towers fell.
*salutes*
I was there last year's spring break, and I don't remember Luxor beams.
Look up "Tribute in Light".
To all those who died on that day, in the weeks following, from medical complications in the following years, and as a result of the international strife and violence that those acts of terror began.
Anyway: I apologise for the thorny tone and pointed words.
(Warning: politics ahead.)
There are two things I meant by this:
a) It... angers? Saddens me? That it took something like this for some people in the US to notice that yes, Islamic terrorism is dangerous, and yes, it's dangerous to everybody.
b) People today still think negotiations with Islamic terrorists like Hamas, Daesh and Hizballah are a good idea, despite their track record.
But yeah. I definitely could've said that in a better way. I apologise.
Re. a) There is still a distressing tendency to ignore or downplay anything that happens outside countries where people... wait, I can do this by quoting Pocahontas: "You think the only people who are people/Are the people who look and think like you..." Yeah, the number of '20,000 people were killed in a disaster today, and three of them were British!' headlines we still see is just depressing.
Re. b) In the UK at least, our perception of the terrorism issues in the Middle East are coloured by our experience with Northern Ireland. Bearing a) in mind, 'we had religious arguments turn into armed violence, and we managed to achieve [mostly] peace, so they can too!'. The fact that the violence is far more ingrained, wider-spread, and destructive in the Middle East is kind of brushed off.
Which it shouldn't be, because the two are almost entirely non-comparable. But we are humans; we're very good at seeing superficial similarities and ignoring the rest.
hS
Specifically: the BBC interviewed the Met's commissioner after 7/7; he was surprised that the terrorists did not phone ahead to warn that they have planted a bomb.
But he probably did mention that the IRA would have.
Because they did! The point of the IRA's bombing campaigns at that point wasn't to kill people, any more than a firefighters' strike is intended to let all the houses burn. The point was to make sure we couldn't just ignore them. Keep making a fuss until we give in, basically.
There was one incident where a series of bombs were set off by the IRA without the customary warning (purportedly because the phone box was in use); the police and the terrorists were both upset by that.
Yeah, we had a rather more genteel class of terrorism over here. Rule Britannia, or something.
hS
Point is, of course, people like Corbyn who think that Israel should holds talks with Hizballah, which calls for the destruction of Israel (and isn't the Lebanese government anyway) are either naive, stupid or for Israel's destruction.
'Holding talks with people who want your country to stop existing' is why Northern Ireland is at relative peace, why North and South Korea aren't shooting each other too much, why, in some senses, there's no Soviet Union any more. But I acknowledge that there are far more places where it hasn't worked, so I'll modify my statement and go with 'hopelessly optimistic'.
I was going to say something about the alternative being to kill 'em all, but that's unfair. The example of Libya and Iraq, and to some extent the attempt on ISIL or whatever they're calling themselves this week, shows that 'kill the leaders and crush their willingness to carry on' is viewed as a valid method.
Honest question, and changing the subject slightly: is there another conflict that's comparable to the Israeli situation? You've got religion, ethnicity, historical 'land rights', and the will of superpowers all mixed up together, and I can't think of another case of such a massive collision.
hS
Y'know, the one centred around the brief and sad existence of the Republic of Biafra. =[
You can probably draw parallels to other conflicts, but no two conflicts are the same. Even today's Israeli-Palestinian Conflict isn't yesteryear's; it isn't even like three months ago's.