Happy Face

Not following your logic old bean. Are you're saying that hacking heads off is a "way of life" somewhere? That once you allow a mosque to be built you're asking for it to happen?

Bad enough you're cheating on Andy, but hoying up a link to this other fella? Unforgiveable!

Look into what the Pentagon think causes this sort of violence... http://www.salon.com/2009/10/20/terrorism_6/ What former CIA folk think... http://barryeisler.blogspot.com.br/2013/05/dont-worry-us-imperialism-is-cost-free.html Or what British former military think... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-british-foreign-policy-role

What a pleasure it is that 8 pages of discussion on a "hot button" topic like this has been 99.9% civil and courteous btw, and when it has got silly there's been an instant apology and it's moved on. The quantity of posts on TT may have dropped of late, but the quality is much improved...as a direct result i would guess. Mentioning no names.

This has always been my question mark over the argument that we need to be run within our means. To what end? The books are balanced now, annually, but Ashley is taking out his money now (£11m last season, £18m this) in order to pay off the debt at this rate we need to be happy with this level of ambition for another decade until the club has no debt.......then what do we do? Build up the debt to chase success? No, we continue tweaking our team within our means rather than investing enough to actually push on. Fans don't see any glory in a profit making business like Ashley* does. *and Toonpack

Just to remind them... Ameobi averages less than 6 goals a season from 29 appearances in all competitions. His maximum is 11...the season we were in the championship.

A guardian article picks up this note and moves the discussion on to religious vs political motivation http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback?utm_source=feedly

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22638533 Worthy of Dr Strangelove. Check out this well put together infographic... http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/ He has less than a 2% success rate ffs

I think the first 3 words of this quote are what sway your view on the latter. You seem to be applying a stong personal anti-religious sentiment on the situation. I'm an atheist too, I see the awful things religion does. The only way to combat that is education. Developed nations continue to see dwindling belief in any of the major religions. As developing nations improve their education systems a similar pattern will follow. Of course....that will NEVER happen while those countries are war zones which we continue to bomb back to the 12th century, and people in poverty look for something to cling to. The notion that there would not be any geo-political wranglings without religion is also absurd. The National interests of the USA usurp any religious or moral spin that Dubya and Obama put on it. The response to their invasion, occupation and bombing of half a dozen (Muslim) countries, their torture, rendition and drone campaign would prompt a response from the victims on a patriotic level. The fact that all of the victims ARE muslim only adds to the resentment of what you call the brotherhood.

Aye, like Bush. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

If they switched from Kenco to PG tips would it suggest a hot beverage motivated attack?

Got done by a mobile unit on the road out of South Shields approaching the tunnel a few months back. There's a 500 yard stretch from Tyne Dock that is a 30 limit. 3 miles of road between there and Laygate is a 40 limit and the mile after it up to the Tunnel is 40. So the police park behind the bushes before the petrol station, sit back and rake in the money. The speed awareness course i did off the back of it wasn't too bad really. Worst thing was the daftess adding to the time we were there trying to justify their speeding and argue the injustice of it all.

Our normal lives where every single email, text and telephone call is now recorded, every flight includes an invasive search and the banning of water...or pop, where police that could detain without charge for 7 days before could then detain for 14 and then 28 days...with 42 days being proposed (and perhaps forced through on the back of this). Way to show the terrorists Dave.

We have a government that have been engaged in war for over a decade. Approaching twice as long as WW2. There is no exit strategy whatsoever in this war. No plan of defeating the enemy...or even any identification of the enemy, other than 'terror'. They have been remarkably succesful at keeping this war from our doorsteps. When it does visit our shores we give our leaders an excuse to ignore it when we pass it off as religious fruit loops. There is a very real problem to be solved and we should pressure our governments to come up with solutions that will take our citizens out of harms way on the rare occasions they are attacked, but moreso our soldiers who face the danger much more regularly. We owe them that for their sacrifice which is greater than ours.

Looking at motivation is not justification. Disappointed you would even think I would justify such a heinous crime. Every murder that happens is investigated from the perspective of motive. Sociopathy (which I include religious fervour in) is not assumed and any other motives ignored. I don't justify any murder the police look for a motive in, but I encourage them to find the cause.

9/11 did not come first. In 1993, after the first attack on the World Trade Centre, Ramzi Yousef explained his own motivation, which is very similar to those I posted above... He was a muslim too...but converted to Christianity in 2005.

Up there with lynching paedeatricians.

If you're looking to resolve the conflicts that have a religious element, do you think that a religious solution is possible, where the beligerents will accept each others god and put a stop to hostilities, irrespective of colonial concerns? Or do you think a diplomatic solution is more likely, one that sees concessions in terms of land and/or military presence?

New York Times piece by a young Yemeni writer on the impact and morality of drone-bombing his country... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/how-drones-help-al-qaeda.html?_r=1& He was invited to testify before a senate sub-committee in Washington too. His full testimony is impressive and reprinted here.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/01/ibrahim-mothana-yemen-drones-obama

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/decades-of-war/

In my opinion, the motivation for this was exactly what they said it was. No more about Islam than Obama saying "God Bless The United States of America" makes his bombing campaigns in several muslim countries about christianity. Despite what the perpetrators say, you have decided their motivation was religious, based upon your preconceived notions on the evil of Islam. The reasons they have given in the short video snippets seen correlate with the the motivation cited following the majority of attempted or successful attacks by muslims.... Attempted "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab upon pleading guilty: "I had an agreement with at least one person to attack the United States in retaliation for US support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockade of Gaza, and in retaliation for the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, most of them women, children, and noncombatants." Attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, the first Pakistani-American involved in such a plot, upon pleading guilty: "If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said, 'we will be attacking US', adding that Americans 'only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die' . . . . "As soon as he was taken into custody May 3 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, onboard a flight to Dubai, the Pakistani-born Shahzad told agents that he was motivated by opposition to US policy in the Muslim world, officials said." When he was asked by the federal judge presiding over his case how he could possibly have been willing to detonate bombs that would kill innocent children, he replied: "Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims. . . . "I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die." Attempted NYC subway bomber Najibullah Zazi, the first Afghan-American involved in such a plot, upon pleading guilty: "Your Honor, during the spring and summer of 2008, I conspired with others to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and fight against the U.S. military and its allies. . . . During the training, Al Qaeda leaders asked us to return to the United States and conduct martyrdom operation. We agreed to this plan. I did so because of my feelings about what the United States was doing in Afghanistan." Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan: "Part of his disenchantment was his deep and public opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a stance shared by some medical colleagues but shaped for him by a growing religious fervor. The strands of religion and antiwar sentiment seemed to weave together in a PowerPoint presentation he made at Walter Reed in June 2007. . . . For a master's program in public health, Major Hasan gave another presentation to his environmental health class titled 'Why The War on Terror is a War on Islam.'" etc. They do cling to religion, probably because it's impossible to reconcile such a monstrous act with fighting a just cause, so they justify it as a divine cause. It's not the clinical approach of the western war machine that allows someone in Ohio to press a button that obliterates a dozen people thousands of miles away.

Spot on. Still can't find a full transcript of what was said by them. Anyone able to steal a copy from behind the Times Paywall and hoy it up? I can only read the first few lines..... http://www.thetimes....icle3772760.ece

Said earlier I have no idea where they are from. The nature of the drone campaign and the secrecy surrounding it means the US (and us by extension) wage war in several countries without acknowledging it. There are 6 middle eastern and African countries that have been independently confirmed as being bombed. Nigeria is at least being patrolled.... http://mobile.saharareporters.com/news-page/boko-haram-drones-patrolling-nigeria%E2%80%99s-borders-niger-chad-cameroon-%E2%80%93-source

The CIA themselves have studied the causes behind terror attacks and advised that they don't hate us for our freedom or our religion but because of the hundreds of thousands of lives extinguished in Muslim countries by our forces. Why do you think they targeted a military individual? Is that not an act of war rather than terrorism?

Whitehall do not want you to consider that their foreign policy of warmongering prompts a response which puts us citizens in danger. Far better for you to take it from them that these nuts have no grievance other than a religious one. I wouldn't believe a Whitehall source over live video and eye witness statements.