Students win appeal against cyberjihad convictions Five British muslim students jailed for downloading extremist material from the internet were released today, after the Appeal Court ruled their convictions were unsafe. The Lord Chief Justice said that although the evidence was clear that the five had accessed the jihadi websites and literature there was no proof of any …
I think I'm going to have a day off from giving a shit about civil liberties and just wish they'd kept the stupid little wankers banged up forever, not least on the grounds that angst ridden hormonal teenage outbursts should be reserved for drinking too much and getting laid, not indiscriminate slaughter and tedious piety.
Paris, cos she'd be with me on this one.
Seems hard to figure...
Germany alone had about 1,600 thousand tons of bombs(1) from 39-45 dropped on it by the USAAF and RAF; and the latter needed over 300,000 sorties.
Forget the coat - flying overalls for me.
1)War In The Air 1939–1945; the US Strategic Bombing Survey gives 2,700,000 tons
but the fact is that a hard and fast definition will not cover it. With a definition of not striking civilian targets, the Iranian embassy siege is not terrorism, but bombing a capital city in the middle of a war definitely is. If you stick by the definition then you need to stick to it with all examples.
It is widely known that wealthy US citizens funded the IRA up until 9/11, and the US has (as admitted by various people) funded terrorism in South America (which has resulted in the deaths of civilian targets), and, of course, Afghanistan.
I definitely don't condone terrorism of any sort, and while I have real sympathy for Palestine, Hamas aren't really doing them any favours. On the other hand, the Israelis have also targeted non-military targets on more than one occasion to make a point.
As for the French Resistance, if there was a group in the UK blowing up bridges (let's also, for the sake of argument, say that they are Islamic extremists) do you honestly think the government would say, well they're just blowing up bridges, they're not terrorists? Or do you think they would bring the full weight of the terrorism act on them? And how do you think that the media would portray them?
Words are purely subjective. Their definition comes after common usage determines what they mean. At the moment, terrorism is very much a fear word, that means anything someone else, who has strongly differing views to us, does to us is terrorism.
anon: "...What some of you seem to be conveniently neglecting is that there is a big difference between specifically targetting members of an occuping army, and setting out to indescrimately kill as many people as you can to create fear / prove a point..."
and, as other before me have pointed out, what a lot of you armchair generals seem to be conveniently ignoring is the fact that the US and UK [& other countries] for decades adopted the policy of deliberately dropping bombs from aircraft onto civillian population centres for, killing hundreds of thousands of times more 'innocent' people than the most rabid jihadist could dream of.
anon: "...Exactly when in the last 60 years has a city been carpet bombed, fire bombed, or nuked?..."
but we've stopped now, so it doesn't count anymore, is that it?
whilst i'd acknowledge that the UK/US may not actively use carpet-bombing anymore, i seem to remember during the invasion of iraq seeing footage released by the US of cruise missile attacks on various government buildings, bridges and television and radio stations. presumably the various canteen staff, cleaners, visitors and general passers-through in those various locations when the bombs hit were 'legitimate targets'
Susan Ottwell: "...Ok, people, it's not that difficult. A freedom fighter fights against military and/or government targets. A terrorist targets civilians to cause, well, terror in the general populace..."
sigh! - see above!
Matt Bryant: "...So, given Malik's nice little condition of "innocent people", whom exactly do you think these kids thought they were going to go "fight"?..."
the optimum word being 'thought'. they didn't actually go to fight anyone. all they did was download some crap off the internet and indulge in some spotty adolescent fantasising about it. hence the reason people are making references to 'thought crime'. if you're going to start convicting them [or anyone else] for every illegal act we've idly fantasised about since puberty struck, we might as well just build a cell wall round the entire country!
/Paris to match your intellectual capabilities.
... and exceed yours, obviously!
Stuart Van Onselen: " ...If your definition of terrorism includes reading web-sites, your definition is wrong, and you're a fascist..."
spot on!
the problem with 'terrorism' is that [like 'democracy' and 'freedom'] it is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. we've been used to hearing US governments over the years spouting this kind of meaningless drivel, but when the supposedly pragmatic british start adopting a similar non-vocabulary we might as well give up. for all the concrete defineable meaning phrases like 'terrorist', 'enemy of democracy' and 'enemy of freedom' have the government really might as well just define the world in terms of 'goodies' and 'baddies' and have done with it. it makes just as much sense and it's quicker to type!
[as a parting thought, i've long been mildly curious as to why the [shall we say] 'guerilla' is so reviled, while the proud british 'squaddie' is revered as the epitome of nobility and heroism; the first will kill you for some political end he sincerely believes in - the second will kill you simply because the government of the day asks him to.]
----
paris - coz i once fantasied about terrorising her with a cucumber and a gallon drum of swarfega and should therefore immediately be imprisoned under the sexual offences act.
"and, as other before me have pointed out, what a lot of you armchair generals seem to be conveniently ignoring is the fact that the US and UK [& other countries] for decades adopted the policy of deliberately dropping bombs from aircraft onto civillian population centres for, killing hundreds of thousands of times more 'innocent' people than the most rabid jihadist could dream of."
I think you will find that Muslims have killed hundreds of thousands of times more Muslims than the US and UK combined.
many articles believe that in Italy there was state terrorism in the 1980's, what's the phrase again? Ah yes, False Flag Terrorism
Allegedely also used to encourage people vote for Vlad.Putin in his first election, never mind GwB and TonyB-liar's & Rummy's whatever "Office of Strategic Influence" strategies. once you start looking into the historical & histerical use of securitists/terrorists/freedom-fighters, then things get murky & obfuscated. We need amanFromMars to clarify things!
is TWaT about maintaining Plutocracy? - like the phrase aCaB from my youth I'm certain that the intelligence agencies drones *really* believe aMaTerrorists.
have I earned an "eternal limbo of the control order" by reminding the blogosphere of Galdio?, people/cyberjihadees with 'bad' Google search ccock-ies could just be control ordred rather than court time wasted. remember not to believe anything that you read.
"....the Labour Party hierarchy has been hijacked by centre right elitists...." What can I say, reality's a female dog. Soon as your average Red Flag singer gets into power, he suddenly realises all that socialist/marxist/lenninist claptrap just won't work in the modern world, so they end up copying the center and the right. Please enlighten me as to which party exactly do you think is going to step up and "free the masses" and retain even a fraction of the voting population's support? You have very obviously forgotten that Labour had to move very hard away from the left to get elected at all (too much medication?).
And for all the amatuer legal eagles out there, in the UK we do have laws around preparation and intent to commit crimes, which means someone can be charged, tried and convicted without having to actually commit the act itself (innocent until proven guilty does not mean freedom to cmmit the act before arrest). In fact, our definition of an assault includes the fear that could be caused by reasonably believing that someone is going to assault you or another, hence the allowance of reasonable self-defence ("he was coming at me waving a knife, I believed he had the intent of causing me serious injury or death, m'lord, so I hit him"), which extends to the defence of others ("he approached my wife with the knife and, as I believed he was about to attack her, I attacked him"). One discussion around the Menezes killing was that, since the policeman that shot him believed he was an armed suicide bomber (note I said "believed" as, regardless of the reality, the armed police team had been given info and instructions that made them really believe Menezes was a threat that justified the use of lethal force), his legal defence if it ever went to court could be that he was acting in defence of the other commuters, and the circumstances (information leading to the belief he was a suicide bomber possibly with a manual trigger) allowed the shoot-to-kill as the only reasonable action that ensured no risk of death or serious injury to the other commuters.
It is a crime to make a statement inciting a criminal act ("kill all non-believers") or to threaten a violent act ("I'm going to beat all you nutters"), so I am assuming that despite their obvious jihadi intent, in this case the CSA could not provide proof that such a statement has been made (I can own an explosives manual, but the CSA has to prove I untended to make use of it in a criminal act either through preparation or statement). That does not mean to say that these morons won't move on to commit a criminal act either here or abroad "fighting" at a later date, especially given the lovely "innocent" qualification, so I would expect the police/MI5 to watch them until they are judged to no longer represent a possible threat to the public. In the meantime, please feel free to associate with them if you see fit (I assume they allow viitors at your hospital).
"haha you should maybe be the one to get a grip, put down the government school curriculum and read and think for yourself. You are a well indoctrinated child. Just think - what if our government don't have our best interests at heart? Wooo mind melt! I bet they didn't teach you that at school?
All the governments in the world are exactly the same as so called terrorists they use terror and fear to control the ignorant scared little sheep and their indiscriminate acts towards other races and states has bred further terror. Until they change their ways it will continue to be this way and being as intelligent as they are you would think they could learn from their mistakes."
Crawl back into your tinfoil lined survival bunker, you headcase.
Yes, Laos was bombed to high hell.
During WWII, the average load of a bomber (Lancaster etc) was a fraction of that of the B52's used during the Vietnamese War of Independence, so it stands to reason that in far fewer sorties a much higher amount of ordnance could be dropped.
One recent example of how bombing has 'advanced' (and I use that word in quotes, because only an inhuman monster would actually consider the ability to kill people more efficiently and brutally an actual advance rather than a step down the evolutionary ladder!) was the January 10th US attack on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. They dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives on 40 targets in the same area - in a single day!!! Now map that out across the whole country's conflict areas, multiply by the number of days that war has been going on and you might have an idea of the potential scale for a modern bombing campaign.
Also, to respond to some others who suggest that terrorism is simply strapping suicide vests on and going blowing up a market, I'd say they need to read the news a little more - the US/UK governments are terrorising the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis with far bigger explosives and in an even more indiscriminate way. The use of DU alone may potentially cause the deaths of millions of people over the next few thousand years in that part of the world (and will most likely the troops who were given that ammunition to use - for which there is NO protection). Watch out for upturns in premature births, birth deformities, cancers, infertility and the like... it's already begun in the US amongst the team originally charged with the task of finding a way to clean up the mess of DU ammo.
That these lads have been released is a blow for rational freedom. Innocent unless proven guilty. In fact, how can you be found guilty if you've done nothing other than commit 'thought crime'. But that's where the UK is headed - thought crime is becoming a real issue in our judicial/policing system.
"Also, to respond to some others who suggest that terrorism is simply strapping suicide vests on and going blowing up a market, I'd say they need to read the news a little more - the US/UK governments are terrorising the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis with far bigger explosives and in an even more indiscriminate way."
So, US/UK planes loiter around all day looking for pet markets to drop 1000lb bombs onto?
I don't fucking think so.
Laos was bombed in an attempt to stop the North Vietnamese bringing arms and personnel down the Ho Chi Min trail. The B52s were bombing jungle - NOT population centres.
I dislike anything that compares the Nazi reigime with anything (cept Stalin era Russia or Pol Pot in Cambodia).
As I said I disagree with all this forbidden information, as I reserve the right to read and think for myself, and no doubt will also be in serious trouble if this UK ID card shit ever goes live, cos I ain't going to carry one
@ Shakje : I agree with much of what you say, however with the French resistance (for example) can at least claim to have some morals. If the IRA (for example) had carried out such a policy there would have been a lot more people alive, any sensible proposals thay made may have actually been listened to, and the Loyalist terrorists would have almost no platform to try and justify their atrocitys.
@ AC that starts off with "I do.."
Becasue something was in the past dosn't make it right, but as far as I am aware most of the human race is trying to move foreward, perhaps you should help it by being quiet.
@ dimitrov : I think the point was that if this individual departed from this plane of existance while trying to be come a terrorist it woudn't be a great loss. Not that it was ok for him to kill others overseas
@marda : Try intended targets, no the US/UK didn't actively target cleaners unlike the terrorists, that killing some cleaners is a great victory
Guerilla can be taken both ways, with terrorist the hint is in the word terror, the intent is to cause terror in the general population. As for squaddirs I have met excellent ones and complete arses. And have seen several killed while clearing civillians during car bombings (unlike members of IRA, INLA, UDA, FARC BM, jihadists, Red Brigade, ANO, JRA, Shining Path, RUF, ETA, Tamil Tigers)
Terrorists are not in the business of progress, they are in the terror business. If they wanted to change things setting themselves on fire in public places would be much more effective. But you don't get personal power doing things like that.
I truely hope that you never live on the receiving end of terrorism, by that I mean sustained bombings, murders, torture and their assorted fundraising activitys (protection rackets, prostotution, drugs et al).
I have lived through it and therefore have a somewhat intolerant view of such activitys
Oh yes I suppose I should add an insult, but really I just hope that you never manage to polute the gene pool (or indeeed get the opportunity to attempt the process)
The ruling was not about the law being unjust, it was about the way the jury was directed by the original judge. It wasn't made clear that owning this material was not in itself a crime, but that there also needed to be a "reasonable suspicion" that the owner would use it to commit an offence.
This isn't Law Lords "fighting the Government" and it does not mean others will not be convicted under this law, it just means the original judge cocked it up.
Quote: "One recent example of how bombing has 'advanced' (and I use that word in quotes, because only an inhuman monster would actually consider the ability to kill people more efficiently and brutally an actual advance rather than a step down the evolutionary ladder!) was the January 10th US attack on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. They dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives on 40 targets in the same area - in a single day!!! "
But that's only 1 or 2 bombs for each of the 40 targets.
In WWII they would typically have dropped at least 500,000 pounds on just 1 target - and STILL wouldn't have got more than 5% of the bombs within 1000ft of the aiming point.
Oh, and how many of those 40 Baghdad targets were schools, hospitals, or mosques etc?
Malik said: "As I said when I was arrested, I do not, have not and will not support terrorism in any form against innocent people."
Depends on the definition of innocent. For example, for the average Islamic terrorist, it could go like this ( but this can be applied to any extremist group, not just religious ones, I use Islamists as a topical example, or Government, cause, political faction, etc ).
Non-Muslims are guilty of not being Muslim. So only Muslims are innocent, and non-muslims are legitimate targets.
However, Muslims who live in the west are guilty of living in the west. So non-western muslims are innocent, and the Western Muslims are legitimate targets.
Now, the banner of Islam flies over at least 2 well known divisions. So for sake of argument, any muslim who is not, say, Sunni, is guilty of not being a Sunni, so are legitimate targets.
Now any Sunni who doesn't think and believe our version of Sunni Islam, is guilty of not beliving like we do, and so are legitimate targets.
Any Sunni who doesn't belong to my group, is guilty of not belonging to my group, so is a legitamate target.
And anyone in my group who doesn't believe that the rest of the human race is a legitamate target and we should be bombing and killing and maiming it because it shows how wonderful and honorable and worthy our chosen Diety / Cause / Belief is, well, being off my Christmas card list is the least of their problems.
An interesting conundrum , how do you prevent a crime prior to execution ?
1/ Eliminate all peoples common law rights and allow the all police forces free and unfettered rights to bully without penalty , issue secret shoot to kill laws , when accidents and the innocent are murdered by the armed police in public view white wash that crime sweep it under the carpet and promote the idiots responsible !
To the public create the illusion of safety but at the same time you allow a new and more evil group of people in uniform to terrorize the entire population in the name of officialdom (Germans in 1933 called them Gestapo, or Tony Blair's out of control UK Armed Police Force post 9/11 take your pick there is no real difference between them now )
2/ Create a honey trap and draw in the flies !
The problem with that one is nine hundred and ninety times out of a thousand the victims will be innocent and the curious seeking the other persons point of view !
(back to the drawing board)
3/ Select a group of people call them radical wankers as the their leader is either an outspoken open critic of all your evil policies of torture , no rights , prisoner abuse to obtain questionable confessions under duress , guilt before innocence and so on or a desire to create something you do not like and freedom with another style of heavy hand at the helm within the country !
Having done that you send in your plant with the right equipment to stir the pot , now that is a crime in itself ! Oh well back to the drawing board !
I seem to recall that during the troubled times in Ireland the English had applied the variations of the above themes for well over one hundred years with very limited success , but try as they might they could never extinguish the idea that one day the people would obtain real self determination no matter how brutal or ruthless the use of force was applied to suppress and abuse the local population short of total genocide which looks really bad on the Prime Ministers resume !
An interesting conundrum indeed , and yet it is also an interesting message the Law Lords are sending to the Judges at the same time to be very aware the so called guardians employed to enforce the laws of the land are equally guilty of the same crimes but remained unpunished by rendering the verdict unsafe !
What price freedom when we are being governed by only idiots and morons with hidden big business agenda's ?
Paris , because even she has more brain cells then the entire current house of commons from the Prime Minister down to the last back bencher put together !
Firstly, to anyone saying word definitions don't matter.. if we take a long trek back for a second to the story we're actually commenting on, its about what many call thought crime. I should hope that if anyone were actually horrible or stupid enough to condone the existence of thought crime then they'd at least have the decency to get their definitions straight so those among us who know how to use a dictionary have some chance of not being arrested for saying the wrong thing.
It is a a slippery slope to let a words meaning be determined by peoples feelings towards current events. The first example that comes to mind is communism.. surely considered a dirty word in the US yet its origins are innocent enough. Imagine arresting people for going to websites promoting communism.. what would be next? a crackdown on anarchists? granted communism and anarchy don't promote murder but if its that we're worried about why not arrest people for watching TV.
As some have pointed out and others seem to have missed.. terrorism is all about causing terror. The most common use of the word is all about whether the target of killing is the victim or the impact their death will have on a population. As questionable as the actions of countries such as the US are, not all of their atrocities come close to being a candidate for terrorism.
The key ingredient they are missing is intent, it is certain that wars cause terror in civilian life especially when using civilian unfriendly methods such as less than surgical use of powerful bombs. There is a big difference between killing civilians because you're careless or callus and targeting them to cause terror however.
It could be argued that the US when bombing the Japanese in WWII were using terrorism as it has the key ingredient of intent. There is no doubt as to the US' intent to create fear and force the Japanese to surrender rather than any military impact the bombings had.
To contrast this with an example from James Anderson who commented on the use of torture by the US, the intent of any torture would be to gain information or because the people involved are sadistic morons who want to punish prisoners. If anything the US are doing their best to keep any torture secret, secrets aren't very fear inducing.
Another point brought up was political sanctions being terrorism.. I would argue that although sanctions effect civilians more than anyone their intent is not to cause fear or terror.
As much as I can say I don't condone terrorism I have no influence over so called terrorists. I am supposed to however have influence in our democracy (ha ha) and as such feel more strongly about the actions of our government than those of complete strangers from another culture. Personally I would rather risk being the victim of a terrorist attack than have anyone be the victim of our government.
Well, I don't know what it's called in the UK, but it's the Revolutionary War. After throwing the tea in the drink, and the red coats coming over to teach us a lesson, there was a concerted effort by the separatists to attack, damage, steal, and kill those who were seen as "royalists" and loyal to the Crown. In other words, terrorize them. Done by those very heroes and the men that we venerate today.
Then you have our Civil War, and the stuff the North and South did to each other was absurd. Beyond the plans for assassination and destruction of supply lines and morale, both sides, but especially the South, took to dropping "coal" bombs into the bins used by steamers up and down the Mississippi. Some were military vessels, patrolling for contraband and South sympathizers, but since those "bombs" were placed in any old coal dump on a port, a steamer carrying passengers could take it on instead. In fact, there are atrocities involving steamers that killed thousands of civilians, numbers that would make 9/11 seem like child's play. There was also research by both sides in biological warfare and chemical warfare, as well as missiles that could reach population centers. The intent was not to strike a specific location, but just anywhere, to scare and terrorize the people living there. Sounds similar.
Today's "terrorists" are only different in that they don't usually have a nationalistic goal, but instead an ideological one. And that is what scares people, more than any weapon could. It's a battle of thought, and the West's reaction seems to be to ban thought. Though, to be fair, the evangelicals of America and the anti-science crazies were hard at work on that before the Bushies came in to power and the "Islamic" terrorists started on their grand scheme.
So, there we have it. What's that phrase, "History is written by the winners?" If the Brits had supressed the rebellion in the US Colonies, they would have looked to George Washington as a terrorist leader, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence would have been seen as rabble-rousers and threats to a cohesive society, and put to death. It's not a matter of relativism, but the simple fact that we don't like it when our tactics are used against us. That doesn't make it any better when you are on the side being attacked, and yes we should put a stop to it, but the current plan is certainly not working.
... someone with different political/religious opinions to yourself who is prepared to kill innocent people to force his opinions on the remainder.
A freedom fighter is someone who shares your political/religious beliefs and is fighting an oppressive enemy no matter how much 'collateral' damage is involved.
And someone reading about it on the internet is neither.
For the umpteenth time: Depleted Uranium is DEPLETED!!!!!
That is, it has a trifling amount of radioactivity. The radioactive isotopes have been 99% removed, to be in nuclear weapons or power stations. If there were enough radioactive atoms left in a pile of DU to be dangerous, there would also be enough to be worth the effort extracting it. Just like you won't find significant quantities of gold in a lead bullet, even if the lead were mined from a gold-bearing ore.
However, uranium is flammable, and it is a heavy metal (just like lead or gold) so yes, it is toxic in large doses. But there will be no cases of cancer or deformities associated it.
Damnit! I really hate the ignorance that believes that anything to do with radiation is bad, and that a gruesome death awaits anyone who comes within 100 miles of it.
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