Manchester bombing

[ShotOne]

Having just observed the minutes silence, this is perhaps worth discussing. Military aviation connection? Well, for starters, the alleged perpetrators have expressly linked the atrocity to current RAF ops: "The bombs of the British airforce on the children of Raqqa and Mosul just came back to Manchester..!" It goes without saying I disagree with the sentiment, indeed if IS want us to do something, that's reason in itself to do the opposite! Then there's the Libyan connection. Has our military action there made us safer? Or not. It's hard to imagine the Gadaffi regime allowing jihadis freedom to come and go between UK and Libya as seems to have happened. Then there's information sharing. On one level the leaks just make the US intelligence community look a comedy-show of shabby amateurs. But there's a serious downside: it makes it less likely that someone with information is going to pick up the phone. And surely a block on information sharing will severely limit joint air operations over Iraq and Syria?

[Chugalug2]

Lots of questions there SO, which I'll leave others to field, other than to say that it wasn't intervention in Libya per se that was wrong. Gaddafi was about to wreak terrible revenge upon the people of Benghazi, and it was the humanitarian response to that (called for inter alia by the Arab League) that led to the intervention. As to threats to the UK, Gaddafi was instrumental in acting as quartermaster to the IRA bombing campaign.

What was wrong of course was the lack of planning for, and dealing with, the aftermath of his removal. A lesson still to be learned perhaps...

[Wander00]

Just a point - armed police all seem to have stab vests/flak jackets, but troop shown on TV marching to protect Downing Street appeared not to be so equipped. Any views?

[Danny42C]

Sorry if this may sound callous - but we've been here before. Yesterday I emailed my niece in Melbourne:

"Now another form of "war" has come to haunt us - terrorism - and it has been a rude shock. We may just have to get used to it, I fear. Do not "make a song and dance" about it and go round weeping and wailing - if we do that, the terrorist has won ! Honour the dead and march on.

Your: "there will be copycat follow up almost certainly". How true ! We watched in unbelief as a huge rally was assembled at St.Anne's Square yesterday: thousands packed together - a perfect target for the organisation (for that is clearly what it is) to take a second bite at the cherry "while the iron was hot". Do we never learn ?

Needless to say the BBC is squeezing the pips out of all this (all the announcers and announcerettes in sombre black). Troops called in (have we any left, after years of cuts to help fund the Welfare State ?) "

"C'ést la Guerre" - and that's all there is to it, I'm afraid.

[Haraka]

Just a point - armed police all seem to have stab vests/flak jackets, but troop shown on TV marching to protect Downing Street appeared not to be so equipped. Any views?

Window dressing?

[ShotOne]

Chugalug, gadaffi's IRA connection was thirty-something years ago and not by any stretch the justification for Op Ellamy. "Lesson to be learned.."+1 to that!

. "C'est la guerre?" I'd describe it as low criminality. Nothing would delight the culprits more than being acknowledged as warriors...which brings us to troops on the street. Body armour not, let's hope their deployment is both limited and temporary. What IS would most like is tanks soldiers and barbed wire all over and everything cancelled.

[Melchett01]

Just a point - armed police all seem to have stab vests/flak jackets, but troop shown on TV marching to protect Downing Street appeared not to be so equipped. Any views?

They had ECBA, so did have body armour - well at least the ones that walked past me in Whitehall did. In comparison to the bulky Osprey armour it's a lot more compact hence you might have missed it.

[MPN11]

Fmr Ambassador Bolton on Fox, regarding the naming on US Media of the bomber ... "Some people just can't keep their mouths shut."

I like "Bomber" Bolton, he tells it like it is!

[Wander00]

Just so long as they are properly protected. Thanks

[Basil]

Fmr Ambassador Bolton on Fox, regarding the naming on US Media of the bomber ... "Some people just can't keep their mouths shut."

I like "Bomber" Bolton, he tells it like it is!
I thought Lew Lukins, US Chargé d'affaires and acting Ambassador to the UK represented his country in a a very diplomatic delivery today. He managed to get himself on BBC news speaking live so no-one could subsequently misquote him.
I recently attended a dinner where he was guest speaker hoping to hear something juicy but, of course, nada; esp with two or three US VSOs also in attendance ;)
I believe President Trump has someone else in mind for the substantive appointment - pity.

[Hangarshuffle]

We are in a spiral of violence, and all have to find something within our common humanity to break this horrible never ceasing circle.
Ask yourself questions. Are we actually giving people the excuse to attack our people, when we allow British Aerospace to export weaponry that is then used to kill civilians elsewhere in the ME? Can this be mis-interpreted by the gullible or hateful alike?
Invading Iraq... we attacked them. Launching air attacks in Libya to hasten out a regime. Was it really that helpful to us, in the great scheme? Afghanistan. Syria. We keep thinking of reasons to attack countries, fight in countries, be involved in countries and its so easily twisted to suit a response like we have just seen.
In trying to counter this violence against us, I wouldn't start from here. Many mistakes have been made. Keep being made. Spiral.
I personally cant see an end to it, not ever in my remaining lifetime and that is profoundly depressing.
I cant see a point for tit for tat killing on our side or theirs. Likewise I don't think militarily we can defeat them regardless of how many we kill, and how, because its a multi headed hydra.

Channel 4 news tonight an ex CIA spook said the sensitive information keeps being leaked to the NY Times again and again by disgruntled Govt. operators in a attempt to embarrass Trump and undermine him.
But anyway, interesting though the thread is we all know this is Prune. If its not about Chipmuncks in 1962 Yorkshire or good old days in the RAF, close it down.

[Lonewolf_50]

We are in a spiral of violence, and all have to find something within our common humanity to break this horrible never ceasing circle. ~remaining handwringing removed~ Lack of a stiff upper lip is noted.


On the professional military and aviation level, I find myself both frustrated and in concurrence with Bomber Bolton per MPN11's post.
Fmr Ambassador Bolton on Fox, regarding the naming on US Media of the bomber ... "Some people just can't keep their mouths shut."
The inability to keep mum, and the never ending leaks of political convenience (and in this case possibly damaging to our ally who just had another nasty event transpire), has become ops normal. This habit was very disturbing to me when I was still serving (00's) because it was such a change from the Cold War era that I grew up in.
I won't repeat the mini-rant I posted on JB on the general lack of discretion: Bolton concisely summed it up. Sadly, whomever needs to read or hear that valid criticism won't pay attention.
There's a TV show called Orange in the new Black. Well, indiscrete seems to be the new normal. :mad: :ugh:

[Basil]

If those people continue to prod the wasps nest then a Ferdinand and Isabella style leadership will, sooner or later, arise in Europe.

Unfortunately 'normal' Muslims are attempting to change OUR society. I was told first hand of a recent event in which a Muslim check out assistant in a major UK supermarket refused to process an alcohol sale for someone whom she thought was Muslim.
Not at all acceptable. Those people come to our land and try to take over. They must be stopped.

[Fonsini]

On reflection, never mind.

[Herod]

Nothing would delight the culprits more than being acknowledged as warriors.

Trump got it right. Call them "losers"

[Basil]

Egypt Coptic Christians killed in bus attack - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-40059307)

Gunmen have attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians in central Egypt, killing at least 26 people and wounding 25 others, state media report.
The bus was heading towards the Monastery of St Samuel the Confessor in Minya province, 220km (140 miles) south of Cairo, when it came under fire.
No group immediately said it was behind the attack.
But Islamic State (IS) militants have targeted Copts several times in recent months, and vowed to do so again.

Little by little attrition.

[[email protected]]

Perhaps the irony that whatever horrors they try to inflict in the name of their God only brings out the real christian values in those they attack will eventually defeat them.

[Pontius Navigator]

crab, 'real Christian values' ah, but which ones? 15th Century, or earlier, 11th, 12th, 13th? Or later, 16th Century?

Defeats have occurred on both sides but never absolute defeat.

What is happening now is really a continuum from the previous millennium.

[gijoe]

They had ECBA, so did have body armour - well at least the ones that walked past me in Whitehall did. In comparison to the bulky Osprey armour it's a lot more compact hence you might have missed it.

100% correct.

[[email protected]]

PN - Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition:ok:

I am in no way shape or from a God-botherer but the care and compassion shown by the people of Manchester for their fellow man/woman/child does impress and seems more powerful than any message of hate.

[Hangarshuffle]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/27/libya-fallout-theresa-may-failed-terror

Best article yet about the bombing outrage that I've read. PM May has a lot of thinking to do about the decisions she took, as do many.
"By bombing Libya we did not enrage or radicalise young Muslims such as Abedi: we simply gave them space to operate in".
This is why the war on terror fails time and again.

[engineer(retard)]

"The "blowback theory", which blames Islamist terrorism directly on western expeditionary warfare, is both facile and irrelevant in this case."

As we have heard from Abbott this morning, the solution to an intractable problem is to change your hairstyle.

[ShotOne]

Whichever side you take on that, to explicitly link the argument to this horrific attack while they're still mopping up the blood as Mr Corbyn did shows wicked opportunism or, at best, callously poor judgement.

As for Ms Abbot telling us she no longer supports the IRA...and she's changed her Afro hairstyle too. How much do you have to loathe Britain to hold such views then (allegedly) discard them so flippantly?

[[email protected]]

Best article yet about the bombing outrage that I've read. Really????? It starts out well and then becomes another Socialist Worker's piece.

[Danny42C]

Can we not see that all the outpouring of grief which has dominated the media over the past few days is exactly the reaction that the terrorist hoped to produce ? - and that we are doing his work for him ?

This was a terrible business. But in 2013 (the last year that I read [Wiki] "Annual road fatalities - GOV.UK"):

"1,713 people were killed in reported road traffic accidents in Great Britain, 2% (41) fewer than in 2012. This is the lowest number of fatalities since national records began in 1926".

That averages 33 per week. Are we downhearted ? - No ! And in the "Blitz" (which many of us remember) the nightly toll was far worse.

The only proper answer is to report the outrage, then to ignore it. It may sound callous, but the best thing to say is (with Clark Gable in the final words of "Gone with The Wind"): "Frankly, my dear - I don't give a damn !"

If there is no reaction, then it is pointless for them to continue doing it.

Unrelated: was it really a good idea to have that huge, packed rally in St.Anne's Square ? How did we know that No.2 or No.3 was not waiting in the wings for a second bite at the cherry ?

Danny42C.

[yellowtriumph]

Can we not see that all the outpouring of grief which has dominated the media over the past few days is exactly the reaction that the terrorist hoped to produce ? - and that we are doing his work for him ?

This was a terrible business. But in 2013 (the last year that I read [Wiki] "Annual road fatalities - GOV.UK"):

"1,713 people were killed in reported road traffic accidents in Great Britain, 2% (41) fewer than in 2012. This is the lowest number of fatalities since national records began in 1926".

That averages 33 per week. Are we downhearted ? - No ! And in the "Blitz" (which many of us remember) the nightly toll was far worse.

The only proper answer is to report the outrage, then to ignore it. It may sound callous, but the best thing to say is (with Clark Gable in the final words of "Gone with The Wind"): "Frankly, my dear - I don't give a damn !"

If there is no reaction, then it is pointless for them to continue doing it.

Unrelated: was it really a good idea to have that huge, packed rally in St.Anne's Square ? How did we know that No.2 or No.3 was not waiting in the wings for a second bite at the cherry ?

Danny42C.

For what it's worth I agree with you. We say that the best response is to carry on as normal and then do the complete opposite. I do not wish to seem heartless, I really do have nothing but immense sorrow for this tragedy because it has truly driven families to a dark and despairing place, but it is not normal to have mass rallies, mass vigils, mass balloons, mass flowers mass this, that and the other. The families should grieve in private, and neither do I think they should put themselves forward to the media.

All of this is what the terrorists want - mass anguish at their demonic work. To quote Mrs Thatcher in a previous 'war on terrorism', they should be denied the oxygen of publicity. I know this won't be a popular view, sorry about that.

[West Coast]

Can we not see that all the outpouring of grief which has dominated the media over the past few days is exactly the reaction that the terrorist hoped to produce ? - and that we are doing his work for him ?


That's asking humans to forego natural reactions to such an emotional event. An attempt to do so would also be a reaction to the event and equally obvious.

[yellowtriumph]

That's asking humans to forego natural reactions to such an emotional event. An attempt to do so would also be a reaction to the event and equally obvious.

I can't agree with you, in the uk at least it was rare, but not unknown, to see such public displays of emotion prior to say the death of Princess Diana 20 odd years ago. At the time the events we saw unfolding were largely unseen in the uk, a term was even coined for it at the time - 'recreational grieving'. That sounds very crass I know.

I saw a scene on the tv news a couple of nights ago, a mother and young daughter placing flowers at some Manchester memorial site. Mum places her flowers down, young daughter then places her flowers down, steps backs and looks at Mum with an expression that says - Why am I doing this Mum? A totally meaningless gesture. I'm sorry to sound so cruel, but I do not believe these things are a natural reaction, I do believe they are a modern media driven reaction.

[langleybaston]

The "mass" reactions described are, I suppose, a corollary of Andy Warhol's famous 15 minutes.

Digressing slightly, what I see as excruciatingly bad taste is the media microphone: "how does it feel to know that your ............... has been ................ ?

Does nobody say "sod off!" Or are they edited out?

And when it is a bereaved couple, why is it almost always the wife who answers, while the poor lumpen sod sits there in glum silence?

And why do all replies begin with "Well" or even "Wuh" ?

Just asking.

[Herod]

The Great Manchester Run today showed the spirit of the people. Thousands of runners and supporters, raising a metaphorical two-fingers to the "losers".

It reminds me of the lady who confronted one of the murderers of Lee Rigby with the words "You can't win, you know"

[West Coast]

I can't agree with you, in the uk at least it was rare, but not unknown, to see such public displays of emotion prior to say the death of Princess Diana 20 odd years ago. At the time the events we saw unfolding were largely unseen in the uk, a term was even coined for it at the time - 'recreational grieving'. That sounds very crass I know.

I sure seem to recall a pretty elaborate ceremony for Mountbatten's funeral. Either way, you're not going to stiff upper lip yourself out of a mass murder, especially of children. Yes life goes on, but to expect the nation to move past with little or no ceremony is unrealistic.

I saw a scene on the tv news a couple of nights ago, a mother and young daughter placing flowers at some Manchester memorial site. Mum places her flowers down, young daughter then places her flowers down, steps backs and looks at Mum with an expression that says - Why am I doing this

I'd say you're filtering that through your beliefs. The child could equally have been non verbally conveyiing she needed to use the bathroom.

[air pig]

According to NHS England there are still 19 people in critical care units in the NW of England. The majority will have undergone multiple surgeries to inspect and repack wounds until they are clean and healthy to close. The general public have no idea of the effects of an IED blast and the devastating injuries caused by all the shrapnel, once the casualties are in hospital the initial horror is forgotten.

https://www.smacc.net.au/2016/11/lessons-from-the-battlefield/

The police and ambulance crews will have attended the bombing site and been confronted by such scenes, politicians will have only been presented with a sanitised view of the situation. I did try to get a member of a political party to view this with their love is all, and not to blame certain groups. Did they watch it, did they hell, but their head was firmly pushed back into the sand.
Am I angry, damn right I am! Do I want something done, yes the time has come to deal with the situation without fear or favour.

[Heathrow Harry]

and do exactly what?

Most "Lets Do SOMETHING" plans make things worse in the long run - I'm afraid - like ETA, the IRA & FARC the only realsitic solution is to wait them out

[air pig]

HH:

Do something, how about pull all ex-pats out of certain states as they keep them functioning. Go all out to find alternative energy suppliers such as fracking and crash build nuclear whatever the costs.

But to be really radical and I'm sure there will opprobrium, all of the main nuclear nations face the same problem, all fire 1 nuclear weapon into a deserted area of the main supporter states with the warning that the next ones will hit their main cities and holy sites.

[t43562]

Can we not see that all the outpouring of grief which has dominated the media over the past few days is exactly the reaction that the terrorist hoped to produce ? - and that we are doing his work for him ?


My qualifications for disagreeing are not great - only that I lived in a Muslim country for a couple of years which doesn't mean all that much but FWIW I think it's nothing to do with making us sad.

The aim is to make everyone "pick sides."

The people I stayed with and met had had to live with terrorism all their lives and their attitude is an intolerance that is more bitter, if anything, than I notice in the UK. I was associating with engineers and middle-ish class people like myself who were both kind and unkind, decent and grasping in the same proportions you'd find in the UK. Such people are biased a little towards reason but propaganda works on them too in the end especially if someone can make them scared of being victimised. They should be our allies and someone wants them not to be.

The point of terror is to activate a response and provoke an overreaction which will make reasonable people on "the other side" feel less reasonable and so start a spiral.

It's an attempt to generate support.

[Pontius Navigator]

Or weaken the resolve of your opponent.

The weak point of a dictatorship is the leader. Of a Western power it is the public abhorrence of terror, hence the exhortation for business as usual. Initially business as usual will work so the level of terror is ramped up.

[Danny42C]

West Coast (#31),

Mountbatten's Funeral was a State Occasion, and apart from the family, few would've been emotionally concerned. Diana's was admittedly a special case; it was the first time when something close to an unhealthy mass hysteria gripped the British people.

"Recreational Grieving" - what a good expression ! - is a comparitively new phenomenon, but now seems to becoming the norm here. I can only recall one occasion when a similar tragedy evoked such grief on a national scale: the Aberfan Disaster of 1966, where a colliery waste tip landslide buried alive 116 children and 28 adults in slurry.

"Either way, you're not going to stiff upper lip yourself out of a mass murder, especially of children". True, but you have to consider what lay behind it. "Don't get mad - Get even ", should be our watchword.

ISIL make no bones about it, they consider us "infidels", and as such wish to kill us. Unable to do so on any scale, they determine to terrify us out of our normal lives, to disrupt them in order to break our morale. This Hitler attempted, and failed. This our War Cabinet attempted (it is shameful to try to shuffle it off onto Harris) on the Third Reich - and failed. ISIL must also fail - and be seen to fail.

They openly declare a Holy War on us, very well, "C'ést la Guerre". If their "terrorism" interrupts our normal concerns to any extent, then they will have succeeded - they have "won" - and are emboldened to try again and again. On the contrary, if we merely report their attack, and then make no song-and-dance about it, but just get on with our normal lives, then their "terror" has achieved nothing. If we continue in that way, they may very well give up, as "the game is no longer worth the candle".

Danny42C.

[West Coast]

Either way, you're not going to stiff upper lip yourself out of a mass murder, especially of children". True, but you have to consider what lay behind it. "Don't get mad - Get even ", should be our watchword.

I have no issue with that.

Trying to suppress the emotions associated with a Manchester type event simply isn't going to happen. I have my doubts that pre Diana that the public was devoid of emotion, the difference being the 24 hour news cycle with lots of air time to fill that the viewer is inundated with coverage they didn't have 25 years ago.

[Cazalet33]

Gaddafi was instrumental in acting as quartermaster to the IRA bombing campaign.

Yes, but that was subsequent to, and a consequence of, British complicity in the murderous bombings of the two principal cities of his country and the attempted assassination of the de facto Head of State of a Sovereign country and the actual murder of his very young adopted daughter.

His subsequent support for the Republicans, augmenting much more massive financial and materiel support from the US, together with his financial support for the NUM in its struggle to overthrow Thatcher, is just another example of the splashback from our aggression against some Middle Eastern countries.

[engineer(retard)]

Which of course was preceded by the murder of Yvonne Fletcher, the Libyan support to the Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades and the nightclub bombing in Berlin.

[Cazalet33]

The red army faction really wasn't very big in Britain. Neither was the red brigades.

The IRA was pretty big in the UK. So was the NUM, albeit in a very different way.

It was the murderous bombing of Libya by The Empire, from imperial 'owned' airbases in England that triggered Gaddaffi's support for the Republicans and that union. Prior to, and subsequent to that support, the principal support for Republican terrorism came from the US.

The LaBelle disco thing was nothing to do with Britain, or Libya for that matter. It killed a Black NCO and a couple of Turkish hookers, but that was done by Syria, not Libya.

[cyflyer]

There appears to be another aviation link to the Manchester bombing network.

Sussex police arrest man on suspicion of terror offences | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4551346/Man-23-16th-suspect-arrested-terror-attack.html)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/28/arrest-made-police-investigating-manchester-atrocity2/