Letters: Suicide bombing
No military fix for the insanity of suicide bombing
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
Three young British Asians have been convicted of plotting to blow up airliners in a suicide bombing campaign. It is easy to applaud the locking up of men who plotted to kill hundreds of innocent civilians. It is not so easy to answer the question as to what breeds a suicide bomber.
In the case of these men, it seems it was a belief that their Asian homelands had been occupied unlawfully by a military campaign, led by the US and UK, that had itself killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. In their minds, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was based on lies and those responsible for ordering the deaths of innocents are still free and beyond accountability. There is a war going on, not a war on terror any more, but a guerrilla war of insurgency versus military occupation.
The commanders of troops in Afghanistan are only now realising that prolonged military engagement is fuelling the radicalisation of young people and the end of conflict can only come through working with people, not fighting against them.
The shock to the civilised world when the airliners hit the Twin Towers in 2001 was like nothing our post- Second World War generation had ever felt. And anyone who witnessed the terrifying images of the bombing of Baghdad must have felt a numbing certainty that human civilisation is not as civilised as it tries to make out.
If al-Qaeda decided that a jihad on the west required the suicide of martyrs and the death of innocent thousands, then the world cannot tolerate such violent insanity. But the question remains, what breeds a suicide bomber? If the answer includes feelings of fear, hatred, resentment, suffering, anger, frustration, loss, victimisation and hopelessness, then there is no "quick fix" that any pummelling by bombs can bring.
We now live in an age in which resource wars for water, fuel, land and food will cause ever-increasing conflict. If suicide bombers are an aberration of human civilisation we must ask our leaders to remove the aberrant causes that breed them and not be smug in having put three of them behind bars.
Richard Thomas
Porthcawl
Eric Joyce MP is to be applauded for following his conscience and speaking out on Afghanistan.
If Gordon Brown is saying that three-quarters of terrorist plots have originated from this area, would that be during the time that we have been fighting there? If that is the case, where is the argument for saying that this fighting keeps us safe?
Jackie Fearnley
Goathland, North Yorkshire
Expose the BNP on television
If Nick Griffin wants to go on BBC's Question Time, bring it on. If the panel do their jobs properly they will expose the fact that the BNP is a one-trick pony that really only wants to see a much whiter Britain, and stokes up anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiment to further its aims.
Nick Griffin will no doubt deny that their policies are racist, preferring the term "ethno-nationalist". It doesn't matter what you call it, the apparent principle – that you can't be non-white and British – is just as obnoxious, as is the major objective of returning non-whites and their descendants back to "their country of origin".
Francis Kirkham
Crediton, Devon
The BBC deserves credit for planning to include the British National Party in a future programme of Question Time. It remains to be seen who is willing to share a platform with Nick Griffin, but as a public body it is only right that the BBC allows a voice to all sides of the political spectrum.
The British public now has an opportunity to show just how out of touch the views of the BNP are, by exercising the same freedom that has been extended to Nick Griffin and his colleagues. I would urge all viewers of Question Time not to watch a programme that includes a representative of the BNP. The BNP might have the right to express its hateful views in a free society – but equally we have the right not to listen.
Ben Barkow
Director, The Wiener Library
London W1
Your editorial (7 September) argues that the BNP should be allowed on Question Time because their obnoxious views must be challenged. Philip Hensher disagrees. Both miss the point. Nick Griffin will not care that his views are destroyed in debate. It is the legitimacy of appearing in the debate that he craves.
Keith Flett
London N17
Before Nick Griffin is allowed to grace the panel of Question Time, I suggest that he volunteer for another BBC1 programme, Who Do You Think You Are? That way we can see just how far his own claim to be an indigenous Caucasian stretches back.
Stan Broadwell
Bristol
Apparently a BBC cameraman has stumbled upon a new species of giant rat in the jungle of Papua New Guinea. Will they invite the vermin on to Question Time?
Sasha Simic
London N16
Fathers of the underclass
Oh how wonderfully provocative Bruce Anderson can be!
He says (7 September) that the mothers of Britain's underclass are on benefits, so we can force them to obey their betters, who hold the purse strings. And are these children the product of virgin birth? Are we going to acknowledge that these children have fathers, who are in truth responsible for whatever kind of male role-model their children may experience?
Perhaps we should make the fathers "sign a contract which would oblige them to bring their child up decently", as he proposes we should make the mothers do?
Alyson King
Borth, Ceredigion
Bruce Anderson displays wilful ignorance of human rights legislation. If the Government wished to intervene in failing families to try and break the cycle of crime, deprivation, and welfare dependency, the Human Rights Act would support such action.
The European Convention on Human Rights, on which our domestic legislation is based, forbids state interference in family life except, among other reasons, "for the protection of health or morals". I can think of few instances where the protection of health or morals is more welcome than in the raising of children.
Andrew T Barnes
Bristol
I am, I suggest, exactly the sort of person Bruce Anderson is suggesting should turn to social work, having had a successful business career, raised three eloquent and model children within a stable and happy marriage and retired much too early at 53. Yet nothing is further from my mind!
Steve Parker
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Show respect for Bali victims
I have just returned home from my first visit to England since 1987. I enjoyed my time in London, but for one incident.
As someone who lost a loved one in the 2002 Bali bombings, I went to see the memorial on Horse Guards Parade at the back of the Foreign Office. The memorial consists of a ball with doves of peace carved into it, each representing one of the 202 victims. There is a wall behind the sculpture with the names of all those who were killed.
Tourists were coming up and having their photo taken trying to "push" the ball. Most stopped when they realised that this was a memorial and they showed respect by pausing to read the tribute.
Sadly, three young men and a woman appeared to have no respect for the memorial. I was disgusted when, after reading what the memorial was, one of them proceeded to take a run up and tried leaping on to the top of the ball. When his three attempts failed, his two mates helped him by grabbing his arms and pulling him up and on to the top.
He then stood there with his arms in a jubilant "Rocky" pose while his friends took numerous photos of him. Their female friend stood by, giggling.
I would like to ask those young men how they would feel if I went to their mosque or temple and behaved as disrespectfully as they did on that afternoon.
F McKenzie
Adelaide, South Australia
Restore power to the regions
I congratulate you on your editorial on local government (2 September). As a councillor of some 22 years, and having served at county, district and parish level, I know the problems facing us. The centralisation of government in England and Wales predates Thatcher. Many of us think that the rot set in after the Second World War.
It is vital to give real powers to local government, but it is equally vital to make local government more understandable and more accountable. The problem is that most citizens have only the vaguest idea of what service each tier of local government provides.
Some areas have already become unitary, usually by abolishing district councils. This concept, originally recommended, I believe, by the Redcliffe-Maud review in the late 1960s, gained more converts in the 1990s following the Banham review. It needs to spread to all areas.
With unitary and parish councils throughout England the door might then be open for proper regional government, not the watered-down version offered a few years ago by John Prescott. Federalism works in North America, Australia and many states in Europe, so why not in the British Isles?
Cllr John Marriott
Lincoln
Bankers and their bonuses
If Governments are determined to interfere with banking, then here is an idea. Bankers are rewarded up to the ceiling determined by government and the extra money they would have been awarded is put into an escrow account (untaxed). After, say, two years, the reserved amount will start to be paid out over say, another two years. The escrow account would count towards the banks' reserves.
Bill Halkett
Ormskirk, Lancashire
The French, German and British governments are apparently agreed (report, 3 September) to claw back bankers' bonuses "after three or four years if they were not justified by performance". Can there be any other industry where someone is paid a bonus before they have demonstrably earned it?
Mike Phillips
Hilton, Cambridgeshire
As Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have scuppered proposals for a cap on bankers' bonuses, perhaps their party should adopt a new slogan: "New Labour: soft on obscene inequality; soft on the causes of obscene inequality."
Pete Dorey
Reader in British Politics
Cardiff University
Briefly...
Sacred taste
Cadbury's chocolate is one of the great tastes of the world. I don't know about Kraft, but I do know that Nestlé have already ruined the Yorkie Bar and the Kit-Kat with their sickly-sweet recipes, and I earnestly hope that no one will get the chance to inflict the same fate on Dairy Milk and the Creme Egg. Some things are sacred.
Robert Allen
Edinburgh
Nazis' nemesis
Your summary of the key events of the Second World War (3 September) had one glaring omission. During the summer of 1943, in the largest land battle of the war the German Wehrmacht were put through a mincer in the Kursk salient. They were unable to advance again on any front. This could be viewed as the key event of the entire war.
J Sammuel
Reading, Berkshire
Surgery in France
Mr Boggis may be right about some aspects of the public health service in France (letters, 2 September), but if the French need urgent treatment their private system costs peanuts compared to ours. In 2002 my torn "skier's thumb" had to be stitched urgently. The NHS couldn't help. Two private London hospitals wanted £1,600 for same-day surgery. So I rang some French friends, flew to Lyon and paid £400 in an excellent private clinic. How do our private doctors and hospitals justify their prices?
Bob Knowles
London SW15
Young Wogan
I am confused by your story about the retirement of Terry Wogan from Radio 2 (8 September). You report that "claims have been prompted" that Chris Evans (43) is too young to host the morning Radio 2 show. Yet you state that Wogan started hosting this show in 1972, which means he was 34 at the time. Were the oldies up in arms then?
Sarah Lawson
Edinburgh
Greater Scotland?
Independence for Scotland (letters, 8 September) will have my full support, provided that Northern Ireland is included with it. The immigrant ancestry of Northern Ireland is far more Scottish than it is English, and so Scotland and Northern Ireland should go together.
John Trapp
Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
Perhaps it's time to stop asking what we've done to invite terrorist attacks and recognise that radical islamists need no more grievance to justify their murderous actions to themselves than that we offend their beliefs simply by choosing to hold other beliefs. If I follow the christian god, or the jewish god, or the buddha, or no god at all, then by implication I deny that mohammed was any prophet of god and I state that the koran is only the work of a man. So to the radical I insult islam every moment of my wicked life and I deserve to die. These people will always find a grievance, they cannot be appeased, we provoke them by existing.
Stuff like:
+ the occupation of the Arab lands, after the first world war and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by Britain and France, the arbitrary political reorganization of the area according to the interests of those countries, and the suppression, often violently, of any dissent;
+ the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews had previously been a small minority for eighteen centuries, and the consequent displacement of local residents;
+ the establishment of unpopular puppet regimes when the Brits eventually "withdrew", as in Iraq and Egypt;
+ the overthrow by the Americans and Brits of Mossadeq's government in 1954, for his temerity in nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company;
+ Suez;
+ the British battle to maintain Aden as a possession against the will of the locals, because of its strategic importance;
+ powerful western support for unpopular totalitarian rulers who take a pro-western stance (latest recruit: Libya - Gaddafi hasn't changed his spots; he's just changed allegiance, and become "our bastard");
+ subversion of popular rulers who don't take a pro-western stance;
+ constant diplomatic and economic pressure due to the strategic importance of oil;
+ stirring up of wars and conflicts to try to displace "unacceptable" governments - most recently in Somalia.
Will that do, for a start?
Before the Arabs conquered 'Palestine' the Jews were the majority. Also until the 1850's Palestine was virtually empty. Give that the Jews made up 50% of Jersualem under the 1948 Partian Plan they were not a small minority.
Supporting leaders who support you and opposing those who oppose you is called diplomacy. Leaders of countries should not expect western support if they are constantly bad mouthing to the west and actively trying to harm them.
It seems like the Muslims are just ranting over nothing. If they don't like their leaders they should try to overthrow or replace them, rather than try to destory the west.
Para 2: No idea where you get the idea that Jews were a majority in Palestine prior to the Islamic conquest from the south in the seventh century. The Emperor Hadrian expelled all Jews from Jerusalem (which he largely demolished, rebuilt, and renamed Aelia Capitolina) and its surrounding area after the failure of bar Kochba's rebellion on 135 AD, when, incidentally, he invented the term "Palestine" by renaming the old province of Judaea "Syria Palaestina". Of course, the expulsion of the Jews didn't entirely work, but they became an uninfluential minority thereafter. Just before the Islamic invasion, there seem to have been just over 40 identifiably Jewish communities remaining in an area from the coast to the east of the Jordan, and from Galilee to the Negev. Not an insubstantial minority, but a minority nevertheless. By that time, Jerusalem was a largely Christian city.
The idea that Palestine was "virtually empty" before the mid-19th century which marked the beginnings of the Zionist movement and the consequent but growing trickle of Jewish immigration from elsewhere is one of the Zionist myths that have been propagated. It was that migration which made the proportion of Jewish residents in Jerusalem by 1948 as high as it was - but still, by your admission, not a majority.
Para 3 & 4: Quite. But diplomacy works the same for each side. Why should "Arab" countries in the middle east support western nations who, by their perception, "are constantly bad mouthing ... and actively trying to harm them"? Some of their popular leaders have been overthrown by the plottings and machinations of western governments, and some of their unpopular ones are kept in power by western support, money and arms. As they can never match the military strength of the western nations, those who don't like it fight with what they have - people who are "willing to die for the cause", whether over there or over here.
I'm not defending it. But it just seems to me that your line is the mirror image of theirs. We give them shit, and they return it in kind.
Technically Jerusalem was a Jewish city before it became a Christian city, which was before it was invaded by the Muslims (though I see your point). Nevertheless just because one religion has been the majority in a vast area for a long time does not automatically mean that they deserve the whole region any more than a small minority who has lived their for an equal or longer amount of time. Many ethnic groups in Eastern Europe had not had their own country for centuries until after WW1.
If it was a myth that Palestine was virtually empty then why did British and French sources also claim Palestine was empty? Also while Jewish migration did increase the number of Jews after 1918 the Arabs forced the British to introduce a cap on Jewish immigration and allow unlimited Arab migration to prevent the Jews from being a majority. While the Jews would not have been in the majority under the Partisian Plan the Arabs were also not a majority. Finally the major Jewish immigration from Arab states to Israel occured after Israel was formed because almost all the Arab nations expelled their Jews.
Unless the Arab nations are prepared to destroy the Western nations they shouldn't try to fight them at all. As long as the West has superior military abilities if they annoy the west too much they will be invaded and their leaders will be killed (Afghanistan, Iraq). When negociating with someone in a superior position you can't expect them to treat you as an equal; you either play along and get what you can, or suffer the consequences.
Politicians and diplomats with that mindset towards one of their own were hardly likely to take local ideas or wishes seriously, so they thought it would be fine draw boundaries without reference to tribe, religion or ethnicity, and to import a foreign, Sunni, Hashemite king to rule a mainly Shia area. It's hard enough to get people in Britain to swallow that sort of top-down decision-making by their own distant officials, as witnessed by the resistance to our local government reorganization in 1974. Much more unrealistic to expect Middle Easterners to do so, not least when the decision-makers come at with with lordly superiority and a "white man's mission" mentality.
The comparison that you make with the Austrian Empire is a fair one, but the difference, I think, is that this Empire was in Europe, and western diplomats - then better than now, indeed - knew the history and the politics. And of course there were modern nationalist movements in these parts of the empire promoting their cause, actively advocated and supported by the Russians until they became preoccupied with their own revolution. On the other hand, the western nations had dealt with the Ottoman Empire as the political unit in the near east since the middle ages, and had no real knowledge of the ins and outs of societies whose cohesion was based more on tribe and clan than on a sense of nationhood. That ignorance nevertheless seems in no way to have diminished their convoction that they had the right to decide. Churchill argued for the carpet bombing of Iraq when the locals resisted.
I agree with your second paragraph. In Ottoman days, the migration of romantic or desperate European Jews "back to Zion" seesm to have caused no problems - Palestine had long been a melting pot, and there were plenty of people originating from all around the eatern Mediterranean there already. The return of Jews only became a problem when it was politicized after the first world war by a rather murky informal and accidental coalition of ardent Zionists with closet, and sometimes even overt, European anti-semites who wanted to see Jews conveniently removed from Europe.
The interwar history of British policy in Palestine is a pretty mixed bag, with policies varying according to the attitude of whoever had the last word at Westminster at the time. There were those who sympathized with the establishment of a Jewish national home in Israel, and the idea that there was plenty of room in Palestine was promoted particularly when they had influence. When those of what later was called, in the Foreign Office, "the Arabist" outlook were taking the lead, they discouraged it, fearing the consequence would be long-term instability in the region. The Arab unrest as the number of European and US Jewish immigrants increased proved their point (as, I think, have events in our own time), and there were attempts to cap the numbers; but the policy was inconsistent throughout. The 1948 war marked the final failure of the British involvement.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The trouble is that some middle eastern Muslims - for the most part, at the moment, not Arabs - ARE trying to "destroy the western nations" - not annihilate us, which they lack the power to do, but wage a terrrist war of attrition. They can never win, but they can cause grief and destruction to soldiers and civilians for decades - as the IRA did. We can either take tatcawh's classic American style line - I'm sure he'll chide me if I have him wrong - which seems to amount to the old Rawhide notion of "don't try to understand 'em - just rope, hog-tie and brand 'em" or we can try to see where the grievance is and redress it if possible. Might not be possible, of course, but one thing about which I agree with Churchill is that "jaw-jaw"'s better than war-war. Fewer people get hurt ..
These people will always find a grievance, they cannot be appeased, we provoke them by existing.
Al qaeda's first ever terrorist attack was a failed attempt to kill american troops on their way to take part in the international famine relief effort in Somalia. You might want to think about that.
You were then distracted by the fact you were debating with agitators, students of rhetoric and sophism. Liars and bullshitters.
Thanks for your comments trotzdem.
Thanks for the encouragement!
But you can't charge much for telling someone to take some paracetamol and rest, so a private hospital, whether French or British, will tend to jump straight to selling the surgical options without giving more conservative treatment a chance - another reason why you're better off with not-for-profit socialised medicine.
Also the American military left Saudi Arabia in 2003 to go military bases in Iraq and the highjackers recieved training in Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda was based.
I speak as one whose ancestry is largely Scottish planter. But as my ancestors have been resident in this part of Ireland for 4 centuries, I have no hesitation in describing myself as Irish. Consider this - many people in Canada and the USA are descended from 18th and 19th century Scottish settlers. But they are first and foremost Canadians and Americans, not Scots. No, Mr Trapp, the real way forward is a federal all-Ireland state; federal so as to cater for the distinctive culture north of the present border.
Our primary schools are almost devoid of male influence through fear of accusations .( refer to public education of 90% of children)
After more than a dozen years of single parenting as a male who was left holding the baby, I believe single parenting men face the prejudice the single parenting women of previous decades did. The common denominator being the incompetents making the decisions haven't changed.
Similarly, not too long ago I read a letter to an "agony aunt" in the supplement of one of the serious Sunday papers. It was from the fond aunt of a young guy who was starting at university and had told her that he wanted to train as a primary school teacher after he had graduated. Because of the climate of the times in this country, she had strongly advised him not to do this, and had upset her sister and husband in so doing, as they were encouraging their son to follow his dream. The family recriminations had been so passionate that she had contacted the agony aunt for advice.
As I read down her letter, I was expecting that the agony aunt would suggest, kindly, that the aunt was being rather over-anxious. But she did not. She agreed completely with the young man's aunt - regretfully, as she said she felt this was an indictment of our current society, but quite adamantly. She too, she said, would strongly advise any young man contemplating a career working with children, given the current climate, to think again.
That says something ...