The Historian Mark Curtis has written an excellent, and chilling, article about the choices that governments have made in relation to their foreign policy. http://markcurtis.info/2017/05/24/th...public-threat/

The British establishment is putting our lives at risk: Our state’s key ally is a major public threat

This wave of terrorism driven by Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attack, derives from a complex infrastructure of forces, working over time. But it springs ultimately from the ideology promoted by the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, who were at least until recently funding and backing IS: they have done so to support their goal of overthrowing Assad in Syria and championing Sunni Islam in the face of rivalry with Iran. These are Britain’s allies. Whitehall has a deep, long-standing special relationship with the extremist Saudis: it is arming them, backing them, apologising for them, and supporting their regional policies. At the same time, the Saudis have been helping to create the monster that now threatens the British public. So, too, have the policies of the British government.

This is terrible, in the true sense of the term: the British establishment is putting our lives at risk in its obsessive obsequiousness in backing the Saudi state. We have to recognise that we are caught between two extremisms – that of IS and that of our own state’s priorities.

The British elite is perfectly aware of the insidious role that Saudi Arabia plays in fomenting terrorism. In October 2014, General Jonathan Shaw, a former Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff, told the Telegraph that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were primarily responsible for the rise of the extremist Islam that inspires IS terrorists.

Theresa May’s government, as previous governments, have endangered the British public by the relationship they choose to have with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. In recent months, May has signed up Britain to a new generation of special relationships with these states, based on selling more arms and providing more training of their militaries and security forces to keep the ruling families in power. All this has been done on the quiet, with scant government or media reporting. We are set for another generation of domestic tyranny in Gulf and foreign Islamist adventures, all now helped by raising the enemy of ‘Iran’ – a foreign policy agenda being set by Riyadh and recently helped by President Trump’s preposterous invocation of Iran as the major sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East.

We are in serious trouble unless this all changes. Our leaders’ policies are endangering us, and are among our major threats. The terrorism that we, ordinary people, face, derives from an ideology and infrastructure to which our leaders, claiming to protect us, have contributed. We desperately need another foreign policy entirely, one based on support for those promoting democracy and human rights – rather on than those with contempt for them.

I think it was Tony Benn who once said “the best way to defeat terrorism is to stop practising it”

Douglas Murray talks with Manchester muslim about the attack
 

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...dd&oe=59B9245C

This guys Facebook status went a little viral, thought it was a pretty interesting perspective

Funny then that educated teachers and doctors have gone over to the other side as well.
Very simple to use the same old excuses.

Man got handed extremist propaganda in Didsbury mosque
 

From Question Time.
Now we don't know if this leaflet was official or if he was handed it by an attendee but either is worrying.Bear in mind that this is the mosque that allegedly has connections to Salman Abedi's group the LIFG.

I would say that mosques need some kind of monitoring.Especially this one.

Yes, I watched this, and the denial by the lady in the audience, but she was proved wrong on the spot.:shrug:
We have to stop being terrified of standing on someone's feet and get it sorted.

That's the poisonous world of social media he's referring to, where small numbers of people can get attention by making a large number of posts, often with extreme comments.

Most people in real life do separate the religion from the extremist fringe.

Though the 'kids who have spent their whole lives being bullied...' bit does remind me of the people who made excuses for Jo Cox's killer.

It's not an excuse, these are the sort of people who are committing these extremist terrorist attacks, those who are susceptible to extremist radicalisation.

Most people do not separate the religion from the extremist fringe you have several glaring examples of that on your very own forum I sorry to say James.

Well this forum is part of the online world I was talking about, where people say things they wouldn't in real life. We've had a few people on here who thought it was okay to make jokes about the Manchester victims, sadly. :(

Although I do actually think the discussions on here are generally better and more constructive than a lot I see on Twitter (don't really know what it is like on Facebook).

That's completely untrue. It seems to be that some people confuse any discussion on religion as being some sort of racist diatribe.

Religion - The elephant in the room that exists because of how some people react to others not thinking as they are told to think. Such people only believe in controlled 'free speech'.

Apart from the part where he claimed that "people who don't like Muslims are ISIS" he makes a very strong point.

It wasn't from an attendee. He said twice on question time that the leaflet was in the official welcome pack received at the mosque on an open day.

He did indeed. It concerns me that people were not acknowledging that. What is wrong with people?

Only Islam every other religion can be held up for ridicule

Correct

ISLAM IS A PROBLEM.

it is a hate group. 100 times worse than the KKK.

Agreed - and they are getting stronger by the day. People really do need to wake up to this threat - it is real - we are no longer talking a few fanatical nut jobs but a Hugh organised religious cult who will die for their cause, at least those that are gullible young fools, of which there are many, and who are intending great harm to the West.

I wouldn't ridicule your beliefs Cherie, you are entitled to have them if you wish, I don't share them but that isn't the same as mocking them.

My main issues are that often in religion there is an element of running peoples lives in a detrimental way, like blackmailing women not to use contraceptives because the church think they should have 20 babies, or telling women they are only modest if they cover themselves from head to foot, or the more serious issues like mutilating little girls, accusing children of witchcraft, forcing unmarried mothers to give up babies, oppression of women, trying to stop them receiving education, and so on, those I object to strongly.

yeah I get that Jaxie, I think my point is that people tiptoe around Islam and accept things from that faith that they wouldn't from others. Im not even that religious im a Christmas and Easter catholic, and sometimes not even Easter..:laugh:

I agree with you re Islam. And the more people claim it's not violent and the more violence is done in it's name well it has to be coming from somewhere in the teachings. I don't think making excuses and brushing it off is the right way to deal some serious problems in the religion and interpretation.

We know it's in the teachings - we have heard the ISIS bigots quote it often enough. For me this is another way in which PC falls on its arse as it ignores the facts to pursue its agenda. It also insults the non-PC's intelligence in that the PC think if they ignore the facts - the non-PC Won't actually notice. Two strikes against it in my opinion.