Manchester bombing
 

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?

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...

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?

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.

Window dressing?

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.

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.

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!

Just so long as they are properly protected. Thanks

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.

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.

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.
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:

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.

On reflection, never mind.

Trump got it right. Call them "losers"

Egypt Coptic Christians killed in bus attack - BBC News

Little by little attrition.

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.

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.

100% correct.

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.