Woolwich Islamic Terrorist Attack

[whitey]

I was in Ireland right after September 11 as well, I found people to be very sympathetic to the U.S. Unfortunately the U.S government squandered the good will away pretty quickly within the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more. What surprised me however was the number of people who qualified their condolences with a "you had it coming" type comment

[FL/MAYO]

I was in Ireland right after September 11 as well, I found people to be very sympathetic to the U.S. Unfortunately the U.S government squandered the good will away pretty quickly within the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more. What surprised me however was the number of people who qualified their condolences with a "you had it coming" type comment

I didn't get that response thankfully.

[lawnseed]

I was in Ireland right after September 11 as well, I found people to be very sympathetic to the U.S. Unfortunately the U.S government squandered the good will away pretty quickly within the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more. What surprised me however was the number of people who qualified their condolences with a "you had it coming" type comment

So, people in Ireland were very sympathetic towards those who lost their lives and their loved ones but at the same time recognised the reasons why such an attack took place?

Fair enough from the Irish IMO.

irish people did take exception to cromwell when he started beheading them and impaling them. which is good shows they have feelings like other nationalities

[whitey]

I presume Whitey is a WUM.
If not he's a serious thicko 

Actually Rossfan I am very well informed and am dead serious about what I said.

You didn't repudiate what I said-all you could do is hurl a few insults

Read the link about the Marathon bomber on welfare, staying at home while his wife was out working 80 hours a week.

His younger brother was flunking out of most of his classes at UMASS while being subsidized by the taxpayer.


http://abcnews.go.com/news/t/blogEntry?id=19030814

The reason everyone in Ireland said the yanks asked for "9/11" - should be 11/9 by the way  - due to their non critical support for the rogue Israeli State is because it's true.
Nothing to do with some Dagestani immigrants to the US living on welfare.
We have 400,000 unemployed in the 26 Cos and many thousands more in the North not to mention the 300,000 young people who left -  Are they all just a bunch of layabouts?
Grand way of avoiding the real causes of "terrorism" - "ah they're all layabouts"
Ignore the disgusting US/Brit and other less enthusiastic Western support for Israel, the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan, the countless thousands dead in Iraq due to the US/Brit illegal immoral invasion of that Country, the selective support for rebel movements ( in Syria/Libya) while conttinuing to support despotic Islamist regimes ( Bahrain, Saudi) etc etc.
Much easier to home in on one event (Boston) and declare that all opposed to US/Brit latter day Crusades are just layabouts.

Now fcuk off back the land of B movies where the goodies wear the white hats and the baddies wear the black hats and leave us adults to our discussion.
By the way it's SUBSIDISED 


I thought up of a good one this afternoon.....whey don't we call the Ballagh Rossies the Ballastinians.

They're oppressed, their land was stolen, their young are brainwashed, they're forced to bow down to a superior power, their border crossings are restricted, history has abandoned them etc.

[seafoid]

I was in Ireland right after September 11 as well, I found people to be very sympathetic to the U.S. Unfortunately the U.S government squandered the good will away pretty quickly within the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more. What surprised me however was the number of people who qualified their condolences with a "you had it coming" type comment

So, people in Ireland were very sympathetic towards those who lost their lives and their loved ones but at the same time recognised the reasons why such an attack took place?

Fair enough from the Irish IMO.

irish people did take exception to cromwell when he started beheading them and impaling them. which is good shows they have feelings like other nationalities

They took the famine very badly as well.

[Myles Na G.]

I was in Ireland right after September 11 as well, I found people to be very sympathetic to the U.S. Unfortunately the U.S government squandered the good will away pretty quickly within the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more. What surprised me however was the number of people who qualified their condolences with a "you had it coming" type comment

So, people in Ireland were very sympathetic towards those who lost their lives and their loved ones but at the same time recognised the reasons why such an attack took place?

Fair enough from the Irish IMO.

irish people did take exception to cromwell when he started beheading them and impaling them. which is good shows they have feelings like other nationalities

Watched a programme on the other Cromwell last night, Thomas, Henry VIII's 'enforcer'.  Interesting stuff. Touched upon tortures carried out by the State, people being burned at the stake or hung drawn and quartered because of their religious beliefs, monasteries being destroyed, etc. Oddly enough, you don't hear many English people talking about this, or referring to it as if it still had some relevance to their lives. Only in Ireland do you hear people referencing events that happened 400-500 years ago as if they still counted for something.

[macdanger2]

Wonder what "terrorism" charges this guy is being held on?? Has he actually done anything? Or are we back in the seventies???

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0525/452535-man-held-on-terrorism-charges-after-bbc-interview/

[seafoid]

I was in Ireland right after September 11 as well, I found people to be very sympathetic to the U.S. Unfortunately the U.S government squandered the good will away pretty quickly within the next couple of years.

Couldn't agree more. What surprised me however was the number of people who qualified their condolences with a "you had it coming" type comment

So, people in Ireland were very sympathetic towards those who lost their lives and their loved ones but at the same time recognised the reasons why such an attack took place?

Fair enough from the Irish IMO.

irish people did take exception to cromwell when he started beheading them and impaling them. which is good shows they have feelings like other nationalities

Watched a programme on the other Cromwell last night, Thomas, Henry VIII's 'enforcer'.  Interesting stuff. Touched upon tortures carried out by the State, people being burned at the stake or hung drawn and quartered because of their religious beliefs, monasteries being destroyed, etc. Oddly enough, you don't hear many English people talking about this, or referring to it as if it still had some relevance to their lives. Only in Ireland do you hear people referencing events that happened 400-500 years ago as if they still counted for something.

Yeah Myles. Nobody in England ever heard of Guy Fawkes. And those catholic kings were a great improvement.
   

[seafoid]

Wonder what "terrorism" charges this guy is being held on?? Has he actually done anything? Or are we back in the seventies???

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0525/452535-man-held-on-terrorism-charges-after-bbc-interview/

I'd say the authorities have very few leads.
The friend alleged one of the killers was tortured in Kenya

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-suspect-kenya-torture

[CitySlicker11]

Terrorism in my eyes is an attack against civilians, state symbols or buildings.

This attack is just the result of a media hyped war in the middle east.

withdraw the troops

[give her dixie]

http://www.russellbrand.tv/2013/05/woolwich/

This is a good article by russell Brand that is well worth reading.

Woolwich

May 25th, 2013

The news cycle moves so quickly now that often we learn of an event through other people's reaction to it. So it was when I arrived in Los Angeles to find my twitter feed contorted with posts of fear and confusion.

I caught up with the sad malice in Woolwich and felt compelled to tweet in casual defense of the Muslim community who were being haphazardly condemned by a few people on my time line. Perhaps a bit glibly (but what isn't glib in 140 characters) I put "That bloke is a nut. A nut who happens to be Muslim. Blaming Muslims for this is like blaming Hitler's moustache for the Holocaust".

As an analogy it is imperfect but I was frightened by how negative and incendiary the mood felt and I rushed. I'm not proposing we sit around trying to summons up cute analogies when Lee Rigby has lost his life in horrific circumstances I simply feel that it is important that our reaction is measured. Something about the arbitrary brutality, the humdrum high-street setting, the cool rhetoric of the blood stained murderer evoke a powerful and inherently irrational response. When I first heard the word "beheading" I felt the atavistic grumble that we all feel. This is inhumane, taboo, not a result of passion but of malice, ritualistic. "If this is happening to guiltless men on our streets it could happen to me" I thought.

Then I watched the mobile phone clip. In spite of his dispassionate intoning the subject is not rational, of course he's not rational, he's just murdered a stranger in the street, he says, because of a book.

In my view that man is severely mentally ill and has found a convenient conduit for his insanity, in this case the Quran. In the case of another mentally ill and desperate man, Mark Chapman, it was A Catcher In The Rye. This was the nominated text for his rationalisation of the murder of John Lennon. I've read that book and I've read some of the Quran and nothing in either of them has compelled me to do violence. Perhaps this is because I lack the other necessary ingredients for extreme anti social behaviour; mental illness and isolation; either economic, social or both.

After my Hitler tweet I got involved in a bit of back and forth with a few people who said stuff like "the murderer said himself he did it for Islam". Although I wouldn't dismiss what he's saying entirely I think he forfeited the right to have his views received unthinkingly when he murdered a stranger in the street. Someone else regarding my tweet said "Hitler's moustache didn't invent an ideology that sanctions murder". That is thankfully true but Islam when practiced by normal people is not an advocacy for violence. "People all over the world are killing in the name of Islam" someone added. This is the most tricky bit to understand.

What I think is that all over our country, all over our planet there are huge numbers of people who feel alienated and sometimes victimised by the privileged and the powerful, whether that's rich people, powerful corporations or occupying nations. They feel that their interests are not being represented and, in many cases, know that their friends and families are being murdered by foreign soldiers. I suppose people like that may look to their indigenous theology for validation and to sanctify their, to some degree understandable, feelings of rage.

Comparable, I suppose to the way that homophobes feel a prejudicial pang in their tummies then look to the bible to see if there's anything in there to justify it. There is, a piddling little bit in Leviticus. The main narrative thrust of The Bible though, like most spiritual texts, including the Quran is; be nice to each other because we're all the same.

When some football fans smash up shops and beat each other up that isn't because of football or football clubs. It's because loads of white, working class men have been culturally neglected and their powerful tribal instincts end up getting sloshed about in riotous lager carnivals. I love football, I love West Ham, I've never been involved in football violence because I don't feel that it's my only access to social power. Also I'm not that hard and I'm worried I'd get my head kicked in down the New Den.

What the English Defence League and other angry, confused people are doing and advocating now, violence against mosques, Muslims, proliferation of hateful rhetoric is exactly what that poor, sick, murderous man, blood soaked on a peaceful street, was hoping for in his desperate, muddled mind.

The extremists on both sides have a shared agenda; cause division, distrust, anger and violence. Both sides have the same intention. We cannot allow them to distort our perception.

The establishment too is relatively happy when different groups of desperate people point the finger at each other because it prevents blame being correctly directed at them. Whenever we are looking for the solution to a problem we must identify who has power. By power I mean influence and money. The answer is not for us to move further from one another, crouched in opposing fortresses constructed from vindictive words. We need now to move closer to one another, to understand one another. If we can take anything heartening from this dreadful attack it is of course the actions of the three women, it's always women, that boldly guarded Lee Rigby's body as he lay needlessly murdered. These women looked beyond the fear and chaos and desperation and attuned instead to a higher code. One of virtue, integrity and strength.

To truly demonstrate defiance in the face of this sad violence, we must be loving and compassionate to one another. Let's look beyond our superficial and fleeting differences. The murderers want angry patriots to desecrate mosques and perpetuate violence. How futile their actions seem if we instead leave flowers at each other's places of worship. Let's reach out in the spirit of love and humanity and connect to one another, perhaps we will then see what is really behind this conflict, this division, this hatred and make that our focus.

[ziggysego]

The more of Russell I read, the more I like the man. Great post dixie.

[give her dixie]

The more of Russell I read, the more I like the man. Great post dixie.

Thanks Ziggy. He sure has a knack of hitting the nail on the head, and like yourself,
the more I read from him the more I like him.

The following piece he put together when Thatcher died was probably the best I read on her death.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher

[trileacman]

Is Brand actually writing this stuff though, I mean his stuff is excellent and it's hard to actually square it with his public image and previous appearences.

[whitey]

May 9, 2013 Statement from the Richard Family

Medical Update

Last evening, just 23 days after the bombing attack on Boston, our seven year old daughter Jane underwent her eleventh surgery.  While she has more trips to the O.R. ahead of her, last night's operation marked an important milestone, as doctors were finally able to close the wound created when the bomb took her left leg below the knee.  Part of the procedure involved preparing Jane's injured leg to eventually be fitted for a prosthesis.

By closing the wound, the incredible medical team at Boston Children's Hospital laid the groundwork for Jane to take an important step forward on the long and difficult road ahead of her.  One of the things we have learned through all of this is to not get too high or too low.  We take today's development as positive news and look ahead with guarded optimism.  If things go well, Jane could be ready to transition to the rehabilitation stage of her recovery in the next few weeks.

Getting to this point has not been easy for Jane.  In addition to all of the surgeries, she has also had to fight off infections and other complications.  After not being able to communicate with Jane for the first two weeks, she woke up with difficult questions that needed to be answered.  There are not words to describe how hard sharing this heartbreaking news was on all of us.

As for the rest of the family, Bill and Denise were discharged from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center a week after they were admitted.  While no sight has returned to Denise's injured eye, her doctors have been pleased with how she is healing from her surgeries.  Bill is healing from the shrapnel wounds and burns to his legs, and we remain hopeful there will be improvement over time from the hearing loss he suffered.  It will be several months before we know what, if any improvement Denise or Bill will experience.  Henry is back at school, which gives him a needed sense of routine and normalcy.  We will continue to stay together in the Longwood Medical Area until Jane is discharged.

Our focus as a family remains on healing from our injuries, both physical and emotional.

Thank You to the Community

We would like to take this time to also acknowledge the strength we draw from the community.  The outpouring of support from friends, family and total strangers has been incredible, and it is uplifting to our family in this most painful and difficult time.  Well-wishes reach us, and they help more than anyone can know. 

From the moment of the attack, all of us have been in the hands of well-trained people who are incredibly good at what they do.  We thank the courageous first-responders and Samaritans who stabilized and comforted us on the scene as well as the medical staff at the hospitals for quick action and life-saving care.  We particularly want to thank the people who quickly got to Jane and addressed her injury in the street because they saved her life.  We also salute those who stood guard over Martin's body so he was not alone.  Those officers will never know how comforting that was in our very darkest hour.  The doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, technicians, orderlies, volunteers and administrators at both Boston Children's Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have been incredible.  We will recover because of these dedicated and talented people.

People near and far have made loving gestures and poignant remembrances.  We are aware of tributes and vigils across the area and around the world.  Martin was a big sports fan and what has taken place across the sports world – from our local teams to our arch rivals, by teams and by individual players – reminds us why.  Martin was "Boston Strong," and now we must all be for him and for all of the victims of this senseless attack as well as their loved ones who are going through a hell we wish we never had to know.

Many of you feel an incredible need to do more, which is understandable and gracious.  We will need help, as we cannot get through this tragedy on our own.  We know how difficult it is to stand idle when something terrible happens, so we thank you for respecting our privacy and giving us space to not only recuperate and rest, but also to ensure the one thing the attack does not break is our bond as a family.

As hard as it is for us to do so, we ask for your continued patience as we work through something for which there is no roadmap, and there are no instructions.

We look forward to sharing another update when Jane leaves Children's Hospital for rehab in the coming weeks.