Rayvin

That seems to be what the press thinks but I reckon he'll get the Hull game. If he loses there, there's literally no point in keeping him.

Yeah, tribalism in politics might get them over the line anyway. It's a really interesting one and I'd actually like to see the MPs deal with it.

I don't see how calling it what it is, as you have done, and which I agree with, means we can't also look at the underlying causes though? Let's say they are deranged and brainwashed - because they are - how do people end up in that state? You can't just go up to a sane and well adjusted person and brainwash them. These people will be angry and hateful anyway. HF cited the Pentagon earlier for one thing, and they make points that support the idea that it's more complicated than just ideology. You'd think they'd know what they're talking about.

Yes, let's hope not. Labour are nowhere near ready for that. That said, Labour could ride the wave of the Remainers vote if they play it correctly. It could become a single issue GE. Fucking hell, it'd be an absolute bloodbath...

Well said.

In theory, that's what it sounds like, although you'd have to have quite a show of support from the public for that many MPs to countenance doing such a thing. The good thing is it'll give them nowhere to hide. So if, as people think, Corbyn voted out of the EU, he'll do so again here.

It was just before i started posting actively, so while I have some memory of Leazes, I think I missed the 'final solution' aspect of his time here. One thing you have to say for him though is that he's too stubborn (fortunately) to do a Thompers. He could get back on if he really wanted to - he just won't do it. What was Renton's role in it anyway? The figurehead of the anti-Leazes movement?

Yeah that's true as well, you certainly can't say it's only the West who suffer these people. I'm sure aimaad has pointed out before that Islamic countries suffer far more terrorism than we do (which does make it seem political once again...) Anyway we seem to have concluded this discussion on a point of relative agreement.

Was it Renton who got Leazes banned?

I haven't mentioned suicide bombers in this conversation I don't think, although I agreed with HF about the factors involved being more complicated than simple ideology. Where we seem to disagree in all of this, is the relative importance we both place on Western intervention. I think that without it, we wouldn't be facing the scale of attacks that we're seeing, and that are own actions have demonstrably endangered our populaces. You think, I assume, that we'd be facing this anyway?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/03/parliament-must-trigger-brexit-high-court-rules The High Court may have come to our rescue...

Agreed but you can only argue the points in front of you.

I'm actually pretty confused now... I think the semantics are what we're stumbling over. Let's break it down further in the hope of resolving this because I'm now 99% certain that we agree. ISIS were established by someone who believes in Islamic supremacy. I agree. However, ISIS would have gotten nowhere near power or influence though, if we hadn't barged into Iraq under false pretenses and wiped out everything that was stopping them develop. So when you say we didn't create ISIS, you mean that a Jihadist nutjob created ISIS. And when I say we did, I mean they would never have come to be had we not given them the exact conditions they required to start seizing power, and that if we hadn't done this, we wouldn't now be having to deal with them - even though the guy who established them would still have had his views. Do we agree on that? Yes we should. Or rather, we should continue to let them be oppressively ruled if all we're going to do is open the door to something worse by failing to finish the job we started. If a foreign power invaded our country, took out all forms of government and otherwise bombed us back to the stone age, we'd probably all be at the mercy of the right wing neo-nazis. I don't think the Arab experience is a unique one based on their culture. I don't even know why you'd want me to say they aren't ready for democracy... it's no odds to me whether they're ready for it or not. The point is, they don't have it now, and their situation is worse than when we invaded. I'm not wedded to the idea of democracy being the one true way of governance though, so maybe I'm abnormal in this respect.

Imagine if something similar had happened with us and the mackems. They'd be incandescent with rage to this day. Maybe Spurs are just the London mackems

This is fair. I'm not sure it's the be all and end all of the issue, but I can see why these points would be serious issues for many Muslims.

I'm saying that you can't create meaningful political change in a country by charging in and wiping out all established power structures, and then running away before establishing anything close to an organised system of governance.

That's great and all, but I'm talking about ISIS - the current and most established political force behind jihadi terrorism. That was born out of Al Qaeda in Iraq. I know that they didn't start jihadism, but my initial point was that 1) we didn't start it, and 2) we made it a lot worse. By creating ISIS. You're trying to argue something I'm not arguing. I'm arguing that our foreign policy made jihadism worse, and enabled them much greater political clout and control, and that ISIS proves this. You're trying to make it sound like I'm saying ISIS were the first on the scene in terrorism; I'm not.

How is that different to what I said? Unless you mean the bit about us creating ISIS. We did. ISIS isn't the ideology, they're just an armed political movement. We absolutely did not create the ideology, but our negligence absolutely did create ISIS, the organised and armed wing of the ideology - which would have never have gotten off the ground had we left certain dictators to it.

I think HF covered that pretty well above. I'm very happy to call it exactly what it is - the massacring of innocent civilians. I'm not trying to justify it. You can't justify it. What you can do though, is look at the underlying factors. You seem to think religion alone is enough to persuade otherwise sane people to blow themselves and other people up. That just doesn't wash for me. If that was all it took, we'd have a fuckton more suicide bombings.

I'm gonna press this, sorry - you know that we created ISIS, right? They filled the power vacuum we left behind following our destructive middle eastern foreign policy. So can we agree on the following - i) these people who hate us on principle do exist and they exist irrespective of what we do or say and ii) they wouldn't have anywhere near as much ammunition against us, as many people in support, and as much operational freedom in the MIddle East, without our disastrous foreign policy? Surely on a rational level, we can all agree on this point? I mean, it's not like we've been fending off terrorism in this country for the centuries that Islam has been in place, is it? It's very much only in the last 20 years, isn't it?

And how did ISIS come to be...? I'm not disagreeing with any of the above, just saying that they wouldn't be in the position they are without everything we did leading up to it.

Cultural Marxism has a lot to answer for in distracting the left from the more important aspects of its political awareness. I suspect Parky would agree here since the term also encompasses feminism. Anyway I basically agree with the caveat that it is actually the West's fault, IMO, that these people are in our countries and blowing us up, and that they'd likely be content to hate us from afar if we weren't meddling. That doesn't mean I hate the West. It just means I think we have the capacity for extreme stupidity in our international politics.

Aye, that's the trajectory exactly. Brilliant. Although it was probably the same on here. Or would have been if Pardew was someone we ever thought could improve players.

Ok thanks, was just gonna post a fairly confused response. I thought your other point about Islam and democracy was interesting though; Indonesia is the closest we get. Although they're technically secular, they have a very large Muslim majority. That's probably something all Islamic countries could aspire to over time.