https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbQy6ZDoxzY
“…I would like to take a moment to speak to our soldiers on the streets of Britain. You are doing your duty as you have done so many times before.
I want to assure you that, under my leadership, you will only be deployed abroad when there is a clear need and only when there is a plan and you have the resources to do your job to secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace.
That is my commitment to our armed services.
This is my commitment to our country. I want the solidarity, humanity and compassion that we have seen on the streets of Manchester this week to be the values that guide our government. There can be no love of country if there is neglect or disregard for its people.
No government can prevent every terrorist attack. If an individual is determined enough and callous enough, sometimes they will get through.
But the responsibility of government is to minimise that chance, to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country, and that at home we never surrender the freedoms we have won, and that terrorists are so determined to take away.
Too often government has got it wrong on all three counts and insecurity is growing as a result. Whoever you decide should lead the next government must do better.”
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn this morning.
FIGHT!
Pic: Sky News
Meanwhile…
Ah here.
” and only when there is a plan and you have the resources to do your job to secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace. ”
Well as bad as intervention has worked out I really doubt that the intent was to secure any outcome other than peace.
Um.. Really? Might I direct you to the twin motivations of power and profit, which tend not to be too concerned with peace, and to literally any book that has ever been written on the subject of military intervention.
+1
The intent was regime change. Regime change and peace are incompatible in the Middle East. I would very much be of the opinion that the intent was malevolent whether knowingly or oblique.
I hope this is commented on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw or go onto youtube and search “General Wesley Clark explains ISIS was created by U.S. Allies”
I hope this gets posted by broadsheet and it is commented on.
.
That’s a very naive assumption on your part.
Well named, shitfer
Jeremy, me poor old skin – I see where you’re coming from, and I salute you. However, it must be said, you are too fine and honest for this world. “politics is the art of the possible”, a very wise cynic once said. Keep the faith though, this dirty world needs your example.
+1917
“…that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country.” This is the key point that should have been emboldened. All the UK’s “terror” attacks stem from this. About time they elected someone who recognizes imperialism is not without consequence (that’s “blowback” in American).
BBC newsnight had Charles Clarke, supporter of the Iraq invasion, on last night to give his views on Manchester. When the theory was put to him that British foreign policy was part of the problem he dismissed it as secondary.. From what I can see it is the key issue. ISIS aren’t bombing Switzerland!
Jungleman, no truer word. It follows as night follows day, that people who have been bombed in their homes, in the name of vague “global sh!te”, might resent it, and seek revenge.
I would encourage anyone with any wish to understand terrorism and the west’s relationship with the Middle East to start reading articles and books by Fisk and Cockburn and to stop listening to our establishment politicians..
These guys tell it as it is.
ISIS aren’t boming anywhere in Europe.
Dissaffected youths are being influenced by their ideology and ISIS take credit for basically marketing.
Yes, there are no disaffected Muslim youths in Switzerland. Rotide knows these things.
when the Manchester attack was first reported on this site you posted a comment agreeing exactly with what rotide is saying above.
you’re allowed to agree on certain matters with those not dislike. no one will think any less of you, probably more of you in fact.
Think that through again, Harold. I said that western military policy towards the ME had nothing to do with it? Are you sure?
Actually Moyest first comment about the manchester attacks was a ‘watch how everyone will blame muslims when it’s probably going to turn out it was a white male’
LOL! It wasn’t that either. I can see why you two get along.
Oh this Moyest fellow sounds like he is VERY naughty
But ISIS were born of the conflict, and that extremist ideology is spread in the context of that conflict. That ISIS have a marketing and media strategy to spread their ideology internationally is a feature of the modern world and modern terrorism, not a bug.
All you have in response is pedantry.
+101%
The aims of the Neocons were the opposite of imperialism. Simply put they said that with the end of the cold war the days of supporting dictators and despots was over so efforts should be made to replace them with democrats. Unfortunately intent and result diverged.
Is that why they always support the Saudi regime?
Did the neocons support Saudi ?
” Senior Pentagon civilians and members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff reportedly see Saudi Arabia as an enemy. In fact, some neoconservatives believe that a U.S. invasion of Iraq and the institution of a democratic, pro-U.S. Iraqi government, which would become a major oil exporter to the West, would allow the United States to solve an even greater problem: Saudi support for radical Islamic terrorists. The reduced U.S. dependence on Saudi oil, resulting from the conquest of Iraq, neocons say, would allow the United States to finally stand up to the Saudis on the issue of terrorism. “
I don’t even know what you are quoting but there are so many insane notions contained within that quote. Do you think that it’s right that “neocons” try to shape the politics of the Middle East to their own benefit regardless of the cost in lives? Also so what if “some neocons” thought this?! Is that really the best you have to back up your point?
You’re a big Israel supporter aren’t you? I notice you regularly post comments in support of Israel.
Once again you live up to your handle, shifter.
Belfast Telegraph – idiots
“Unelectable”
Sweden isnt involved in any middle east wars and has welcomed refugees and immigrants. But was still the subject of a terrorist attack.
Well that settles it. Also; https://www.thelocal.se/20160713/sweden-set-to-double-anti-isis-troops-in-iraq
Thanks for that information Peter.
Well, yes. Those wars endanger lots of people and places not directly involved. Destabilisation and conflicts spread. That’s the problem.
Much as I loathe American foreign policy and the damage and havoc it has wrought in the world, it must and should be recognized that what we face now is the consequences of British Imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. I recall reading an interesting piece on the war in ‘Abysinnia’ as it was known, and a terse memo from the British Foreign Office to the military and the powers that were to the effect ” It might be easier to win the hearts and minds of the Arabs if we refrained from bombing their wives and children”……Puls ca change.
any excuse to blame the British again. How refreshing.
It isn’t an excuse – do a bit of reading and inform yourself scundered. Facts are facts, however unappealing.
@ Scundered
Rewriting history, because you are incapable of acknowledging the tyrannical, imperialistic barbarism, imposed worldwide, by the British, does not erase the crimes of these blood thirsty warlords……and still it continues..
What’s the foreign policy of the Yazidi people? Or the Coptic Christians? Is there fate of their own making?
Corbyn is a joke that isn’t funny anymore
**their fate**
I don’t know, Andrew. Please enlighten us.
Are you serious? You want to know what the foreign policy is of the Yazidi’s and Coptic Christians ?
The level of utter delusion on this site is staggering.
So what’s their foreign policy then?
Hang on…you ask a question, follow it with “Corbyn is a joke that isn’t funny anymore”, somebody asks you for the answer and you call them delusional?
Disgusting.
You’re crazy!
I always question what I believe. I have been reading Noam Chomsky and slowly working back through his books. You have to find the core problem to solve a problem. My quest is the need to understand what my kids are getting themselves into. I see the inequality that is in our society. I am not a socialist but I believe in the “social contract”. I believe that when the populace understands what a republic is and not what we are thought to believe that we are a democracy…it might lead to real change.
You must not blame muslims for the Manchester bomb.
However you can blame Westerners for their government’s foreign policy
I’m not denying that there is a problem with Islam. The attack was perpetrated by a Muslim.
I’m saying that the West has made itself the enemy through its foreign policy and in the process has also made it possible for this extremism to grow, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.
The West also persistently backs Sunni regimes which feed the exportation of Sunni extremism.
So when Al Bana and Qutb were writing their theses about and for the Muslim Brotherhood, which specifically advocated violence, what invasions or bombings were being perpetrated by the West ?
You seem to have completely ignored the content of my above comment.
But to address your point, Britain and France exercised dominion over much of the Middle East until the mid 1940s as a result of Sykes Picot. If you have a look through history you’ll find a common trend that people don’t like having foreign rulers.
What have the Yazidi people done?
I don’t know. What have the Yazidi people done, and what is their foreign policy??