It is not impossible that without the Schengen open borders, the man responsible for this atrocity would not have been there.
Horsecrap.
He was a Moroccan who had lived in Belgium for some time, and was a welder in Luik . He had recently been under a 5 year sentence for cannabis dealing and weapons possession (sentenced in 2008). He had no links to terrorist groups.
"Schengen" was not a factor in this, he did not cross any "open borders" to carry out his attack. He was resident here, had been for years.
Sorry, Cape, but don't use events like what happened today to try and further the cause. You just shot yourself in the foot by saying what you did, so stop trying to dig yourself out of the hole you have put yourself in.
hellsbrink : I haven't dug myself into a hole simply because you (and others) disagree with me. He was a Moroccan who had lived in Belgium for some time, and was a welder in Luik . I wasn't aware of that when I made the comment : It is not impossible that without the Schengen open borders, the man responsible for this atrocity would not have been there.
Had he been an itinerant illegal free to move within the Schengen area, like many, my comment would have been valid. As it happens, he wasn't, so my comment in this specific case was not valid, but as a generalisation it is valid.
Quote:
BBC News - Italian man kills two Senegalese traders in Florence
Can we blame this on Schengen too? Shurely not.
Why not? People are reacting against the influx and free movement that these people have, the crime and other problems that they bring with them, and perhaps this man's patience snapped. He was a member of a far-right organisation, many of which have grown in strength and significance as more and more illegal aliens flood into Europe.
It is very easy to support Schengen on the basis that it makes it easier for people like you and me to move freely from Portugal to Poland or from Iceland to Italy, whilst overlooking the negative side of this same freedom of movement when abused.
I think we should fill our half of that tunnel in, just our half, we would not wish to cause a international incident, they could still use their half if they wished, that would really piss em orf.
[quote] He was a Moroccan who had lived in Belgium for some time, and was a welder in Luik . He had recently been under a 5 year sentence for cannabis dealing and weapons possession (sentenced in 2008). He had no links to terrorist groups.
Whatever, the manure will hit the fan..............Morocco is not EU, his sentence was for 56 months, he was released early , he should have been deported for firearm and drug offences. This will cause a big backlash.....................
Had he been an itinerant illegal free to move within the Schengen area, like many, my comment would have been valid. As it happens, he wasn't, so my comment in this specific case was not valid, but as a generalisation it is valid.
He wasn't, so by using this case your "generalisation" is completely invalid.
Quote:
Morocco is not EU, his sentence was for 56 months, he was released early , he should have been deported for firearm and drug offences. This will cause a big backlash
What should have happened in the UK and what happens here are two different things. Also, when they say "Moroccan" here they also mean "of Moroccan descent". That means that he could be a Belgian born citizen. How do you deport him then?
None of you know the facts around this, nobody knows the full facts, and using the tragic events in Luik to try and score points is absolutely disgraceful.
The source said Amrani, who came from a North African immigrant background
That mean he wasn't the immigrant, but was born here. How did "Schengen" have anything to do with the tragedy and how can you deport him. Now pull your necks in
I don't think anyone has to pull their necks in. This forum is about expressing opinions which anyone is free to do within the normal confines. You may disagree, it would be a dull place if we all agreed with each other all the time.
Nor is anyone trying to 'score points', just trying to make some of you see the danger of uncontrolled, or poorly controlled, immigration and freedom of movement.
The shooting in Italy is also a tragedy, because those two Senegalese men who may have been harmless traders trying to make a living lost their lives, but someone felt they shouldn't be there, and understandably so.
It's going to keep happening, it's going to get worse, the right wing resistance is going to become an increasing danger to everybody, until governments listen to what the original inhabitants of their countries want, and don't bend over and it take it up the backside to appease the left wing contingents and the immigrant pressure groups.
I believe 50% of all babies born in Belgium are Muslims. Does that tell you something? Is that a cause for concern?
I wish I could adequately convey the intensity of the anti-British feeling in the European Parliament. In today's debate on last week's Brussels summit, speaker after speaker rose to denounce our entire nation as selfish, narrow-minded and arrogant. These were not speeches from backbenchers: they came from the spokesmen of the big three parties which, among them, account for three quarters of all MEPs.
Some spoke vaguely but menacingly of retribution, of making us feel the consequences of our isolation. Others were more specific. Joseph Daul, the Alsatian leader of the EPP, gave us a timely reminder of why David Cameron was right to pull out of that bloc with his demand that, simply as a first step, the UK rebate be removed. (To remind you, our net contribution rose by 74 per cent last year; and, since we joined in 1973, we have been the second-largest net donor – a contribution which, far from eliciting gratitude, invariably prompts hectoring demands for more.)
The Liberal leader, Guy Verhofstadt – who, as this clip reminds us, has a long history of making anti-British speeches – made a point of not speaking in English as he normally does, declaring that it would be inappropriate to the occasion. Since Britain wasn't at the table, he said, it would instead be on the menu.
I could quote dozens of similar comments, but, written down, they fail to conjure the ambience. You needed to be present, to hear the yowling and shrieking and desk-banging that accompanied every Anglophobic utterance. To get a sense of what it was like, I should perhaps do better to cite a famous passage from the beginning of Nineteen Eighty-Four:
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.
What do I conclude from the new mood? First, and most obviously, that Britain cannot back down without a national humiliation unprecedented since Suez – possibly since the fall of Singapore. Lib Dems keep talking hopefully about letting the eurozone 26 use the EU Treaties, but that would be the worst of all worlds: we would have attracted all the opprobrium and then given way on the thing we had vetoed.
Second, as I argued yesterday, the EU will now wilfully and deliberately set out to maim the City. This was, of course, going to happen anyway. Friday's veto has simply removed any pretence that the damage to our financial services would be incidental or unintended. Now we know that it will be malicious.
Third, the British Government will need to take unilateral action to defend its interests. This will mean amending the 1972 European Communities Act to provide that EU Directives and Regulations should be treated as advisory pending a specific implementing decision by Parliament. Which will, in turn, mean a renegotiation of our status within the EU – something that is in any case now unavoidable unless we intend to climb down entirely.
Fourth, since Eurocrats no longer bother to disguise their contempt for Britain, let's ask the question that has been hovering at the edge of our consiousness all along. Why do we submit to government from people who plainly detest us?
speaker after speaker rose to denounce (Britain) as selfish, narrow-minded and arrogant.
That's rich coming from the French, in particular, but setting that aside, it rather implies resentment that Britain has decided to move towards self-determination rather than continued rule from Brussels. So the EU is throwing its toys out of the pram because naughty old Dave won't play follow my leader.
Watching askance, I sympathize with UK's plight. Usually the US is the target of rage from these people, and the Guardianistas. The upshot is that you must be right in your position to generate the wrath of the desperate.
Hang in there. UK is not alone as some would incline you to believe. Millions of sane Europeans, along with Americans like me, support your government's gatekeeping.
Since Britain wasn't at the table, he said, it would instead be on the menu.
Perhaps the EU would be best reminded of a certain analogy:
"Suppose that every day 10 men go to a restaurant for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to €100. If it was paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four men would pay nothing; the fifth would pay €1; the sixth would pay €3; the seventh €7; the eighth €12; the ninth €18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay €59."
The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by €20." Now dinner for the 10 only costs €80. The first four are unaffected. They still eat for free. Can you figure out how to divvy up the €20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share? The men realize that €20 divided by 6 is €3.33, but if they subtract that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.
The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, being sure to give each a break, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so now the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in €2, the seventh paid €5, the eighth paid €9, the ninth paid €12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of €52 instead of €59.
Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the €20," complained the sixth man, pointing to the tenth, "and he got €7!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a Euro, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"
"That's true," shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get €7 back when I got only €2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all." Then, the nine men surrounded the tenth man (the richest one, paying the most) and beat him up. The next night the richest man didn't show up for dinner, so now the nine men sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were €52 short!
The sad fact is the Eurozone is so economically fked, china isnt going to pitch in with aid to bail out the EU, so the only short term fix they can see to stave off the inevitable is to get it's hands on the city's and tax it into oblivion, which will not only kill financial and banking industry in the UK, but in the EU completely.
What they are petulantly throwing their toys out of the prtam about is that the UK wont sacrific itself on the alter of the EU for what is a religion in its death throes.
From Cityunslicker. can't put in the link as it's a bl*gspot....
Europe: A Rather Urgent 12-Point Strategy
Cameron seems to have stumbled somewhat into the current situation, so far as a mere observer can judge, with nary a sign of strategy to be seen. But as with most positions it is by no means without possibilities: and we can rectify some of the strategic deficiencies.
First, some observations:
- France may be looking for ways to follow through promptly and finish the City. C’est reparti comme en quatorze, eh ? Not so fast, frog: you’ve to defend your own banks and currency first, which’ll keep your plate full. You’ll find that several of your 25 confrères are more concerned with their banks, too – not to mention fending off Mrs Merkel and yourself
- Can’t see the 26 rushing to impose a Tobin Tax on their banks just now – and they actually needed all that money they were planning to reap from the City …
- There is, however, the possibility of a ghastly new flank opening up: Obama (he of the snide ‘British Petroleum’ comments last year) may shortly be scape-goating the City for all his woes, just as Sarkozy and several German politicians are already doing
- Treasonous UK Labour and LibDem politicians will be actively sleeping and treating with the enemy, who will be feeding them ammunition and promises: do as we say, and we guarantee you the next election - and a smooth path to re-admittance to our Top Tables
- But it isn’t as easy as all that either for LibDems (you wanna general election on this issue ?), or indeed for Labour, once the cheap points have been scored. Watch for Miliband being shredded by Cameron in Parliament - and then for Mandelson to be brought back into his inner circle
- If Cameron knows what he wants to achieve in all this (a big ‘if’, I know: let’s pray it is something worthy), in the coming months there will be opportunities for re-engagement on favourable terms with the EU, collectively and with individual member-states - including opportunities to make gains tactical and strategic gains.
However, even to identify these opportunities will require battlefield vision and generalship of Wellingtonian quality. Whom do we have of this calibre ? Cameron himself ? - apparently not (and this is not a criticism, though it is a pity). Hague ? - I don’t see it. Osborne ? - well his admirers reckon so, but isn’t he just a little, err, pre-occupied right now ?
And there’s another problem: the Civil Service is not onside – disgraceful, but true. I have never been particularly impressed by the FCO at the best of times, and they've let Cameron down badly this time. Incompetence ? or treachery ? In any event, many of them will soon be hearing seductive whispers from their European oppos, just like the Labs and Libs.
So: here are some strategic points for Cameron.
1. this is war, and you personally are one of their targets: clear the decks
2. cover the Obama flank as a first priority: and watch Salmond
3. no consolation-prizes for Clegg (and to Hell with Cable and Huhne)
4. some brutally simple 'dividing-lines' for Miliband - the sort that even Sun readers understand
5. get Farage onside (privately)
6. tell Boris that if he is caught making personal capital out of this you will have him thrown to the dogs
7. don’t treat with the Bastards, there’s no need now - they are already wetting themselves with pleasure (and they are mostly head-cases)
8. don’t feel the need to buy off Murdoch just because he comes weaseling up to you again
9. if Osborne really is your best man, take him off Treasury duties and put him on Europe, full-time
10. get some reliable heavyweight mandarins on the team who can do the staff-work and field-work properly, without running an agenda of their own
11. instant dismissal with no pension for any Civil Servant who has unauthorised dealings with European bureaucrats or politicians
12. map out the battlefield, identify your chances - and fall on the French like Wellington on Marmont at Salamanca
, he should have been deported for firearm and drug offences. This will cause a big backlash.....................
ked, china isnt going to pitch in with aid to bail out the EU, so the only short term fix they can see to stave off the inevitable is to get it's hands on the city's and tax it into oblivion, which will not only kill financial and banking industry in the UK, but in the EU completely.
