English Outsider on Manchester

 

I, the turcopolier, have made this comment by EO into a front page post so don't complain about the lack of paragraphing.  pl

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"Colonel, Manchester was as bitter as we have had. As bitter as 9/11 or the London bombings, perhaps more so because the targets were young people just setting out on the road to adulthood. That is a time of promise. It should not be a time of death. It is more bitter than most of us know. It is worse because we ourselves have contributed to the tragedy. On the one hand we have thousands upon thousands in our police forces and in our intelligence agencies straining every nerve to prevent such tragedies. On the other we are heaping fuel on the fire of fundamentalist Muslim terrorism with every day that passes. That is sometimes said too glibly. There are those who claim that we in the West are the root cause of Jihadi terrorism simply because we have intervened so much in the Middle East. Maybe that is so, for some Jihadis, but Muslim fundamentalism is such a strong growth that it needed no Western provocation to set it in motion. No, what we have done is more than that. We have not only removed or weakened the regimes that inhibited, more or less, that growth. What we have done is to encourage Jihad to flourish on an immensely greater scale. That increased scale increases its glamour and its pull for our English Muslims many times over. That increases greatly the chance that they will fall victim to that glamour. That increases greatly the probability of terrorist attacks. By chance I came across a video, just a short time before Manchester, that summed this murderous foolishness up. For all I know it may be a staged video - so many are - or compiled for PR purposes. But staged or contrived though it may be, the video sets out with grim clarity how we have contributed to, set the scene for indeed, the deaths of our own. https://freespeechdefense.net/2017/05/i-wonder-why-this-is-being-censored/ I refer to the section starting at nine minutes. It sets out what perhaps all on your site know but so few elsewhere. Western countries have been arming and training Muslim fighters knowing full well that those fighters were Jihadis, and were more than likely to join even more extreme Jihadi units. Knowing full well also that some of those Jihadis, but now trained in killing and invigorated by contact with other true believers, would return to their countries of origin and do what harm they could. Later on, in the copy of the video I have seen, we hear Jihadists, English and German nationals among them, making it clear they have the intention of doing that if they can. But if that were all then perhaps the danger would not be so great. Those thousands and thousands of our security forces at home do at least have a fighting chance of knowing who's been over there and who's come back. They know what they have to deal with even if that is a difficult task. What we fail to understand is the appeal of the Jihadi cause to our own disenchanted Muslim young at home, and how we ourselves have so greatly magnified that appeal. We fail to understand that what is to us atrocity upon atrocity in Syria is to them a great cause. We see ragged groups of thugs using, often inexpertly, the deadly equipment we give them or the supply of which we facilitate. They see a band of glorious martyrs. We see a mix of ethnic cleansing and rule by terror, covertly used by us to weaken regimes we don't like. They see only meritorious conquest leading to a cleaner and more just society. Can we wonder that to a number of our idealistic young, some of whom experience more than the rest of us the dysfunctionality of parts of Western society, the glamour of such a vision is irresistible? We, operating through our intelligence agencies and Special Forces, have presented them with the stage upon which that vision can be exhibited. And from his English home the loner or the psychotic or the idealist can see that great stage that we have set up and wish, somehow, to be part of it. It is not significant whether Manchester was the work of a homegrown loner or of an organised gang; the vision that inspired the commission of the atrocity is the vision we engineered. For there is now no doubt that the flood of foreign Jihadis that have wreaked such havoc in Syria and neighbouring countries was released by us or with our active complicity. It could not have happened but for Western assistance. We do not acknowledge it. We pretend that the tragedy of Manchester has no relation to our contribution to the tragedy in the Middle East. As here, from a BBC report - "Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said the city would "pull together", adding: "That's what we are. That's what we do. They won't win." As if, as the Mayor of London intimated recently, bomb attacks were phenomena that we just have to learn to live with. As if they were simply there, and no cause for them. Or no cause we have anything to do with. Just after the London bombing I met a journalist who worked for one of the broadsheets. He was proud of the fact, as well he might have been, that he and his colleagues went in to work the next day undaunted, as did, I believe, most Londoners. Looking back more than seventy years he conjured up the spirit of the Blitz. No matter what they throw at us we don't give in. We muddle on. "That's what we do." So he spoke. I held my peace. How could a journalist of all people, I did not say, fail to know that we had in large measure brought it upon ourselves? How could we be such fools? Police and intelligence in this country, all thousands of them, holding terrorism at bay. Their colleagues abroad creating the conditions in which it can grow; deliberately setting the scene for the deadly vision to flourish past any heights it could have achieved unaided, that deadly vision which now inspires so many of our disenchanted Muslims or Muslim converts here. We are fools in deadly truth, and it is our young who have paid for it in Manchester. "  EO

Comments

[BillWade]

The blame lies soley with our politicians. What we need to do, and what we should have done after 9-11, is to vehemently demand their resignations for their abject failures. Until we do so, it will continue.

[Eric Newhill]

EO,
Great post!

This interview between Tucker Carlson and some State Dept drone supports your points: http://video.foxnews.com/v/5445746583001/?#sp=show-clips

Our intellectuals in DC are incompetent imperialists. They don't seem to care about national security as it impacts actual citizens living within our borders (or yours).

[kooshy]

i blame western citizens, including myself, more than i blame the politicians we the western citizens put in office. IMO the policies we have are end result of our own expectations, which our elected governments formulate to keep their jobs. If we were serious, more importantly, if we collectively were concerned about the terrorism that emanates from extremist muslims, we would have demanded straight answer on two basic question from our elected western politicians/ governments.
First questions is why are they doing this? if the answer is they hate our way of life, than why some of them are western muslims. The second question is who really is supporting this bastard SOBs, ideologically or financially.

[Morongobill]

This should be required reading by all westerners, in government or not.

[Lemur]

I think its critical to note these 'home grown' Muslim bombers in the West often become explosive in reaction to the liberal mores they encounter. When one's sense of meaning is under threat (and liberalism is the ideology of consummate meaninglessness), one becomes radical, ie, returns to the radix (latin for root).

You can observe similar effects among actual natives of advanced democracies. Modernity produces two countervailing but dialectically linked responses in those who experience the hurtling descent into rootlessness, anomie, and dissolution of social forms (family, religion, ethny). The most explosive is outwardly programmatic. A combination of action and authority are deployed to permanently resolve the crisis (Fascism, Islamism, Sovietism). This is nearly always the response from people whose entry into modernity suddenly accelerated (e.g., the imposition of liberal democracy on Germany after WWI). But for Anglo-Saxons, the transition to the current state of dissolution was ever so gradual. Our senses are so now so numbed by the bread and circuses of late capitalism and the social command to 'do as thou wilt', we're really incapable of little more than being good units of consumption. We internalize the crisis; for us it is an inner death. The process is so advanced it's begun to affect basic functions like sex. Studies show millennials have less of it. Apparently the same is true for Germans as a whole. Hell, one could say the very fact the tartlette who fronted that concert is considered an 'artist' is an admission of cultural exhaustion.

Westerners just want to sit around 'tweaking' on the 24/7 stimulus fest that is now our primary goal in life. Explosions bring bad feels, but solving them would mean Serious Political Action (bad feels). What to do? Hold hands, apply a facebook filter, bandy about useless platitudes about meaningless abstractions like '#humanity'. Then get back to Britain's Got Talent and vicariously achieve immortality in front of Simon Cowell.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Her Majesty's Navy is defending England by blockading the Party of Ali in Yemen and patrolling the Persian Gulf against another bastion of Party of Ali.

[Jack]

EO

Unfortunately there will be many more Manchesters and San Bernadinos. And with each new atrocity & intelligence failure, the governments ask for and get even more power and grow even bigger their national security and surveillance apparatus. The only thing being systematically reduced is civil liberties. No matter the scale of mass surveillance, and the budgets of intelligence agencies and drone missile campaigns, these attacks by the nihilists will continue. As you point out it is becoming glamorous for western jihadists to have their tryst with virgins.

As Col. Lang pointed out, at least in the US, both the people and the politicians we elect, as well as the governmental elite, have very limited understanding of foreign cultures and history. And as a consequence of a massive IO campaign over many decades have lost the plot to our own self interest. I recall Ron Paul in his last campaign for the presidency, discuss blowback for our destabilization of the medieval culture in the ME. He was ridiculed by all those so "Serious" presidential candidates.

[Alaric]

The U.K. and are and have actively supported ISIS and AlQaida but I wonder if and when Manchester turns into an excuse to invade Syria. My guess is that the Saudis or Israelis are behind Manchester but it be authentic home grown terrorism.

[Michael Zampella]

When even an old lefty like Morrissey, singer of the Smith's has had enough it's something:

https://www.facebook.com/Morrissey/posts/1349891061714098

Celebrating my birthday in Manchester as news of the Manchester Arena bomb broke. The anger is monumental.
For what reason will this ever stop?

Theresa May says such attacks "will not break us", but her own life is lived in a bullet-proof bubble, and she evidently does not need to identify any young people today in Manchester morgues. Also, "will not break us" means that the tragedy will not break her, or her policies on immigration. The young people of Manchester are already broken - thanks all the same, Theresa. Sadiq Khan says "London is united with Manchester", but he does not condemn Islamic State - who have claimed responsibility for the bomb. The Queen receives absurd praise for her 'strong words' against the attack, yet she does not cancel today's garden party at Buckingham Palace - for which no criticism is allowed in the Britain of free press. Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an "extremist". An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?
In modern Britain everyone seems petrified to officially say what we all say in private. Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims. How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire. The people have no such protections.

Morrissey
23 May 2017.

[el sid]

Very true. The west has been diddling with radical Islam since the days of the Mujahideen in the 70s.

But let's not forget our partners in crime: Wahhabism.

It turns out that 80% of the funding for mosques in Europe and the west comes from Saudi Arabia. Who are ... Wahhabi. The central mosque in London is funded by the kind generosity of the KSA, as is the one in Madrid.

Last year a council of Sunni Imams from around the world met in the Caucus and declared Wahhabism to be a heretic sect. It might sound quaint to us in the secular west, but the Imams were mightily upset. This was not true Islam to them.

As an example of this, some months back, was reading of some nice Sunni families from Damascus arriving in Germany as refugees. Very grateful to their German hosts... BUT did not like going to the local mosque. It wasn't what their Imam in Damascus preached, and did not want to see their children proselytised by such ideas.

I realise it's just an anecdote, but one worth considering.

[tim s]

"We see ragged groups of thugs using, often inexpertly, the deadly equipment we give them or the supply of which we facilitate. They see a band of glorious martyrs. We see a mix of ethnic cleansing and rule by terror, covertly used by us to weaken regimes we don't like. They see only meritorious conquest leading to a cleaner and more just society. Can we wonder that to a number of our idealistic young, some of whom experience more than the rest of us the dysfunctionality of parts of Western society, the glamour of such a vision is irresistible"

This sounds like two groups of people who have absolutely no reason to be living together. What a mess. And after saying all of that, you refer to them as "our" idealistic young. As long as people think like this, then I will agree that you are bringing it on yourselves. Throw in the opinion that the masses are responsible for what their treasonous politicians enable (at the behest of global elites, no less), and you doubly bring it on yourselves.

The most important step in addressing a problem is to describe the problem accurately. There is no hope without this accuracy.

[Paul]

Said beautifully. I feel exactly the same but am far too bitter to speak so eloquently. Thank you.

[Tigermoth]

This "Pandora's Box" was opened in Afghanistan purely to undermine the Soviet Union. Will it be possible to close the lid and deal with the escapees? In is not in the "interests" of the MIC and others at the moment; reference Trump's ME tour and speech.

Thanks EO and well written.

[Fellow Traveler]

~70% of US voters supported Iraq II. Even those cowardly liberals weren't really arguing whether to downtown (Willy & W had been bombing infrastructure for over a decade already), but when.

Own it.

Absent any thinking, the default strategery is that we nudge this salafist era to burn over there and accept the hits we take.

You'd think after just 19 guys with minimal training and support changed the course of Western History and trolled the west into flushing trillions into lost causes that people might stop believing perfect walls could protect them.

[BraveNewWorld]

Amen

[Gene O.]

Both Fox and CNN are going full frontal on the Manchester bombing. But neither network even blinked last July when the Daeshi suiciders killed 400 Iraqis in the Baghdad bombing.

[Matt]

I'm in total agreement with this analysis,

the context of the Manchester bombing is that Britain is in the midst of a snap election,

the incumbent Tories, led by Theresa May who was internally appointed to 'Leader' when Cameron resigned, are pro interventionist, pro Washington, increasingly authoritarian and have just reabsorbed the Brexit lobbyist group UKIP into their membership,

the main challenger Jeremy Corbyn who has been vehemently vilified by the predominantly right wing press is somewhat of the Bernie Sanders ilk with the foriegn policy of Ron Paul, he has consistently opposed Washingtons interventions as far back as the Balkanisation of the former Yugoslavia, the main stick being used to beat him by the Murdoch Press is that he was one of the first to initiate dialogue with the IRA, paradoxically it was only dialogue and negotiations that brought the 'troubles' to an end with the Good Friday agreement,

over last weekend the Tory election campaign was literally falling apart and Corbyn was finally recieving some neutral or mildly positive coverage in the media,large numbers of youngsters have been registering to vote and some commentators have even said he might stand a chance,

lo and behold, on Monday night a suicide bomber attacks women and children leaving a major US pop star's performance with a particularily powerful and virtually smokeless suitcase bomb now compared to the ones used in Brussels,

Tuesday morning saw a Telegraph columnist tweeting for 'internment camps' and Katie Hopkins of the Daily Mail (Lord Rothermere's paper that was pro-Nazi in the 1930's) was tweeting calling for a 'final solution' to the Muslim problem,
trollsters for all the neo-nazi hate groups went into full production and the EDL (English Defence League) turned out in Manchester to protest against Muslims,
the identity of the attacker was released by US intelligence services to US media whilst the UK Police were trying to withold the information to assist their inquiries,
this morning troops are being deployed around Britain to bolster the Police,

are we in the midst of a right wing Putsch to recover a failing government triggered by a very horrible and convenient 'terrorist attack'?

I always though the Paris attack was very convenient for upstaging the imminent Paris Climate Conference, it totally shut down Paris just when it was about to be invaded by campaigners and lobbyists,

are we being 'played' or should I invest in a tinfoil hat?!

[Jackrabbit]

... our active complicity. It could not have happened but for Western assistance. [But] We do not acknowledge it. We pretend that the tragedy of Manchester has no relation to our contribution to the tragedy in the Middle East...

Who is this "We" that you speak of? I think you are referring to the political elite and their media mouthpieces.

THEY talk like its unfortunate and unexpected blow-back from upholding "our values." "Terrorism" is not a bug, it's a feature.

A fearful populace means no more Vietnam-like anti-war activism. "We" are the enemy of the elite because if "we" really knew what was going on and the cost that "we" bear for elite adventurism and control, then "we" would put a stop to it.

[Jackrabbit]

The attack occurred on the 4th anniversary of the Murder of British Soldier Lee Rigby.

The murder of Rigby was extraordinary and received a great deal of media coverage. The assailants railed against British actions in Muslim lands and urged British citizens to turn against their government saying:

You people will never be safe. Remove your governments, they don’t care about you... Do you think politicians are going to die? No, it's going to be the average guy, like you and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back … leave our lands and you will live in peace.

The potential link to the Rigby attack seems to be getting very little coverage.

[Jackrabbit]

Another Obama lie:

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

The victims in Manchester had nothing to hide but they had much to fear from the monsters created by unaccountable elites that are protected by the police state.

[eakens]

So long as the media fails to report the truth, nothing will change. After 9/11, there was a few days where I heard the question of "why" being asked, and I was optimistic that 9/11 might serve as an inflection point in our history.

Some in the media actually started citing reasons such as our support of Israel as a possible cause, and well, that was that. As soon as that started to happen, the narrative quickly changed back to their hate of our freedom and has resided their since.

Resignations are not enough. You need some event - either economic or horrific, which will cause people's lives to change such that they pause and think. On top of that you need an honest media to report the truth. A lot of stars need to line up for things to change.

The only type of events I can see that would possibly bring about this change are a military coup, the USD losing its reserve status, a horrific act of terror coupled with a release of specific demands/reasons, or a significant war with an adversary that can inflict damage here. I don't see a political road alone being able to solve this problem unfortunately.

[Laura]

Bill, That is your response? Fire the politicians? Anything else?

[Ghostship]

How ungrateful that radicalised Libyan was for bombing children in Manchester. Obama, Clinton, Cameron and Sarkozy put such a great amount of effort and so much blood (not theirs) into deposing Gaddafi so that the jihadists could take over that you'd think he would show some gratitude and go and attack the Russians at least.

[Babak Makkinejad]

"...Muslim bombers in the West often become explosive in reaction to the liberal mores they encounter..."

You cannot be serious.

They can go to Saudi Arabia any day they wish and begin living in tents.

[Tyler]

Sadly EO, this is going to keep happening until the British people decide the safety of their 8 year old daughters is more important than authentic curry.