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The Lounge => Media and Inspiration => Topic started by: RPGObjects_chuck on December 24, 2006, 07:43:56 PM

Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: RPGObjects_chuck on December 24, 2006, 07:43:56 PM
Quote
   Last week Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police, described 'the threat of another terrorist attempt' as 'ever present' adding that 'Christmas is a period when that might happen'.

    'It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War,' he said. 'It's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism.'

In the words of George Carlin, this is just fucking stupid.

My father fought in WWII in the British Army and I have to say, this borders on insulting to the people who died in the blitz.

I believe 40-60 THOUSAND British civilians lost their lives in WWII? And the French casualties approximately four TIMES that.

I hear Americans all the time say the threat from terrorism today is a greater threat to the US than the Soviet Union (which is also insane) but a greater threat to civilian life that WWII?

Has everyone lost their damn minds?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1978642,00.html
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: GRIM on December 24, 2006, 08:04:18 PM
Yes they have.

Still, relatively speaking we're sane over here.

Not that that says a lot.
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: Akrasia on December 25, 2006, 12:57:32 AM
I think you're overreacting to some poorly considered hyperbolic remarks.  Relax.
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: Hastur T. Fannon on December 25, 2006, 05:16:26 AM
The thing is, he's at least partially right.  The Provo's got smart, started hitting economic targets rather than civilian ones and bombed us to the negociating table within a year.  Fortunately their goals were limited and we were pretty much ready to give  them a pointless talking shop disguised as a power-sharing assembly.  The current goals  of Islamic terrorism and less easily defined and less easy to fulfil

What I still don't understand (and trying to figure it out sends me in the direction of conspiracy theory which I hate), is why Al-Q aren't using the same tactics.  My current idea is that Iraq and Afganistan are acting as "terror sinks" attracting the majority of violently-inclined Muslims.  The current policy of allowing them to shoot each other rather than us will work until someone declares himself the Mahdi.  At that point all bets are off and we have a WWIII on our hands.  As Winston Churchill put it, World War IV will be fought with rocks
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: RPGObjects_chuck on December 25, 2006, 08:00:39 AM
While I agree with Akrasia that this is just one guy, the fact is that this sort of talk seems to percolate among high level Bush administration officials on a fairly regular basis.

So while this is just one British example, it's a high ranking official and the mindset that we are in some epic clash of civilizations seems to be spreading across the waves.

But in the US, there is far from one isolated example of this rhetoric- we are told all the time by the right wing that this is an existential threat to western civilization.

The 9-11 attacks are compared to Pearl Harbor... the GWOT (already a grandiose name) is compared to, or openly called WWIII. The first several times it happened, my reaction was like Akrasia's- laugh it off.

But while I was laughing, the idea was taking root and spreading.

We are ruled by people who (apparently) have no idea how serious WWII and the Cold War actually were or (more likely and more disturbing) are just willing to throw this shit out there to keep the far right wing base equal measures of angry and scared to death.

It's not good, and this sort of big lie ignorance peddling needs to be confronted wherever we find it.

Chuck
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: RPGPundit on December 25, 2006, 10:37:53 AM
Lots of guys have declared themselves the Mahdi before.  This whole problem is not new to anyone who knows British Imperial history, for ex.

Anyways, its really hard to do and end up coming to anything. Its like declaring yourself the messiah in western culture. You'd damn well better do some pretty impressive shit to back it up.

RPGPundit
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: Akrasia on December 25, 2006, 01:08:14 PM
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon
The current goals  of Islamic terrorism and less easily defined and less easy to fulfil


They're completely incoherent.  Al-Qaida would like a big ass fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate stretching from Pakistan to Spain, but the fact that they have such an aim just shows how completely detached from reality they are.  The demands of other Islamic extremists are more limited (e.g. destroying Israel; driving the U.S. out of the Middle-East).  We're hardly talking about a unified movement with a specific aim here (unlike Western 'nationalist' terrorist groups like the IRA or ETA).

What people in the West frequently fail to recognise is the fact that the Islamic world is deeply divided.  As we see in Iraq, the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other with a passion.  Muslims killing other Muslims is far more common than Muslims killing Westerners (or vice versa), whether in terrorist attacks, or in guerrilla warfare in the ME.
Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon

 At that point all bets are off and we have a WWIII on our hands.


 This is just not going to happen.  The Cold War had the Soviet Union as a coherent, organised enemy.  No such entity exists on the part of radical Islam.  

The closest we'll likely have is a major regional war involving Iran.  That could go very badly, especially ir Iran gets nukes in the very near future, but it will not be nearly as bad as would have been a full blown war between NATO and the Soviet Bloc in the 1970s or 1980s.  

Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon

As Winston Churchill put it, World War IV will be fought with rocks


I'm a huge admirer of Churchill, but I'm pretty sure that Albert Einstein said this, not Churchill.
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: Dominus Nox on December 26, 2006, 12:24:04 AM
Quote from: Akrasia
They're completely incoherent.  Al-Qaida would like a big ass fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate stretching from Pakistan to Spain, but the fact that they have such an aim just shows how completely detached from reality they are.  The demands of other Islamic extremists are more limited (e.g. destroying Israel; driving the U.S. out of the Middle-East).  We're hardly talking about a unified movement with a specific aim here (unlike Western 'nationalist' terrorist groups like the IRA or ETA).

What people in the West frequently fail to recognise is the fact that the Islamic world is deeply divided.  As we see in Iraq, the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other with a passion.  Muslims killing other Muslims is far more common than Muslims killing Westerners (or vice versa), whether in terrorist attacks, or in guerrilla warfare in the ME.


 This is just not going to happen.  The Cold War had the Soviet Union as a coherent, organised enemy.  No such entity exists on the part of radical Islam.  

The closest we'll likely have is a major regional war involving Iran.  That could go very badly, especially ir Iran gets nukes in the very near future, but it will not be nearly as bad as would have been a full blown war between NATO and the Soviet Bloc in the 1970s or 1980s.  



I'm a huge admirer of Churchill, but I'm pretty sure that Albert Einstein said this, not Churchill.


I'm pretty sure einstein stad that if there was a ww4 it would be fought with clubs.

The odd thing is that some historians are calling the 'cold war' the third world war, in that it was a war between the east and west. I'm not sure about that tho I do understand the premise.
Title: Are you stupid?
Post by: Anthrobot on January 02, 2007, 08:02:10 AM
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuck
In the words of George Carlin, this is just fucking stupid.

Has everyone lost their damn minds?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1978642,00.html


The British (plural)gone insane? Are you stupid? Can you differentiate between one fuckwit's opinion and all the diverse people of Britain? :mad:Please be more specific in your criticism, or you risk being perceived as another Dominus Noxious.
Title: In other news, the British have gone insane
Post by: joewolz on January 02, 2007, 12:24:23 PM
Quote from: Anthrobot
The British (plural)gone insane? Are you stupid? Can you differentiate between one fuckwit's opinion and all the diverse people of Britain? :mad:


As an American I ask?  You mean the British are not a homogeneous population of white people drinking tea who all have the same opinion?

That, I say is Insanity.  I mean, over here, we're all gun-toting, red staters who speak with a twang...and Bush is our king!
Title: If it tickles your fancy!
Post by: Anthrobot on January 03, 2007, 03:55:48 AM
Quote from: joewolz
As an American I ask?  You mean the British are not a homogeneous population of white people drinking tea who all have the same opinion?

That, I say is Insanity.  I mean, over here, we're all gun-toting, red staters who speak with a twang...and Bush is our king!



Apples 'n' pears guvnor! Maaarrry Porpins, strike a light guvnor! I thought you Yanks wusall livin' in New York 'n' drinkin' coffee 'n' eatin bagels, 'n' pastrami on rye! Wait'll I tell me marster!;)