Swearing an allegiance is not limited to the likes of the Nazis, it's commonplace in a lot of countries, especially in the armed forces. Nothing wrong with a bit of pride, although I would not like to swear allegiance to the monarch now I am a bit older and wiser.

Compulsory swearing of allegiance on threat of deportation?

Yep. Dally probably thinks totalitarianism is a price worth paying if it rids our shores of Johnny Foreigner.

Fair enough – it wasn't intended as any sort of attack on you. Just that one ends up, in this sort of discussion, feeling a need for almost pedantic clarity.

I would point out that I didn't suggest it was just the Nazis or, indeed, the only symbol of a dictatorial/totalitarian state.



I would say, to clarify, that I was thinking of the civilian population and not the military.

The idea of 'pride' about where I come from always rather confuses me. I didn't do anything to be proud of. But that's not to say that I'm 'ashamed' of it either – indeed, far from it. I'm English – that's a fact – and there are things about this country and its heritage that I love and others that I don't.

My parents did the 'pride' thing. And I never could 'get it' then. It took me many years to 'find' my Englishness. And really rather like it – but 'pride'? A confusing idea when you think about it, I think.

I don't think you need to visit training camps or be a member of a larger organisation to be considered a terrorist, not in my view. I appreciate the potential ramifications but I can't see this as anything other than an act of terror.

My gut feeling is - and I don't want to be presumptuous and pretend I know how you specifically think - is that if these two men killed a soldier with a small bomb, as opposed to in the manner that they did, that there wouldn't even be a debate about their act of terrorism, it would be an open and closed case.

Even if acting on their lonesome it's still an act of terror from my point of view.

Dunno if you are still there,at South Shields,but slightly off topic and possibly not known but there is [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/roots/2003/10/arabontyne.shtmlThis History[/url and the visit of a world respected muslim to the same place to open a mosque [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/content/articles/2005/10/21/roots_ali_feature.shtmlStory[/url

If you didn't listen to Radio 4's PM programme today, it really is worth a lsiten on iPlayer. Especially the bit where Eddie Mair trots off to Woolwich and interviews some of the locals, one young lad in particular:

"Our grandfathers fouht for our freedom in the war, if they were alive today they'd be spinning in their graves"

The govt,police, security services etc are infact calling this a terrorist attack.Are you in any of those listed organisations?
if not how can you STATE it wasnt a terrorist attack!!!!
BTW it wasnt an assault either, it was a disgusting barbaric pre meditated murder.

why in your own little world is white on black racist but not black on white !!!

But I don't sound like either. Nor do the vast majority of Londoners I know.

Typical northerners. Painting everyone with the same brush [size=85(I'm being ironic, before people get the hump)[/size

Hello you. Long time no.

Do you know what, I would indeed struggle to compile a chronological list of attacks that I'm referring to as they have popped up on social media as well as mainstream journalism over the last few years. Lots are from people on facebook back home pointing out events, locally or nationally. Most of the local stuff doesn't even make the local rag. So, actually. No. I can't show you "a rise" in attacks. Also I didn't use use the sensationalist term "Massive surge". Nor did I actually say "attacks like this". So in one small para, you've misquoted or made stuff up to aid your argument. You journos can't help yourself can you?



I know that you don't dispute that there are attacks. Who would? They happen. Possibly far more often than people realise.

Things in the UK have to be addressed and people need to start talking.

Apologies if I came across patronising mintball, I was actually being polite. And apologies for typing in something quickly without thinking. You can't help yourself to feel superior can you? To belittle others. This does present you, who is obviously bright, as arrogant on occasion. There's really no need to be like that minty.

I personally, don't see this as a terrorist attack. It's appears to a hate crime, born from religion.

So first of all, you didn't choose to state, without any evidence whatsoever, on a thread about a specific type of particularly brutal murder, that such violence was rising.

Indeed, you responded to Dave O saying it was probably two random nutters by saying:



([url=http://viewtopic.php?p=17398258&tsmp=1369374445#p17398258Original post here, with the post you were responding to directly above it[/url)

So either you're posting about something different, having forgotten the context, or you're not.

Now you claiming that you didn't post what you quite clearly did.

And you're also claiming that this rise in violent jihadist/Islamic attacks (unless you're talking about something else, in which case you need to make that clear) has barely been reported by a media, much of which would just love to report such things. This claim that 'things' (what things?) are being "ignored" is all smoke and mirrors.



Yes: we get it. You're intent on this "more often than people realise". Nod, nod, wink wink, eh? Then produce some evidence instead of trying to pretend that your speculation and hints and suggestions are the same thing. We hardly have a mainstream media in the UK that is dominated by those who would hide such attacks, so it should be easy enough to find.



Well, indeed. But it's hardly helped by someone asserting that, in effect, they've heard on the gravevine some rumours about an increase in such attacks – yet cannot produce a shred of evidence to back up that claim.

And I don't disagree that 'something should be done' – I think that such things, that are on record, as high unemployment, particularly among young people, do not help. But I suspect that wasn't the sort of thing that you were meaning.



Irony alert.

I read a post somewhere yesterday which said that since 9/11 there have been c. 21,000 terrorist incidents worldwide (personally, I have no idea whether that figure is correct) in the name of Islam. As the poster wrote, that being the case why do people trot out the argument "it's nothing to do with Islam?"

Anyone know wether that figure is valid and where it comes from?

If it is in the correct ballpark can we really buy this "small minority", "nothing to do with us guv" stuff from the establisment and "Muslim spokespersons"?

Could the reality be, as I have always thought and I think GWB 'got', this is in effect an all out war against our culture that will only be "won" by crushing the oppositon and reducing the Islamic sphere of influence geographically speaking or else, and more liklely with present attitudes, be "won" by "Islam"?

Listened to that on the way home last night. Hilarious and depressing at the same time.

I never get the hump over stuff on here, if we had to get upset with every ill informed idiot like me, then we would hardly have any posts



Anyway, I can't waste time chatting to you, the Whippet needs a walk and the I have to get the tin bath out for the coal man.

Might be a BBC policy, when Look North interview on the streets of Hull, they always seem to pick someone who has the thickest 'ull accent and cannot string a sentence together through their missing teeth. I am sure we are not all like that here.

Because time and again, numerous Muslim clerics take time to point out that their religion does not tell them to go out and kill everyone who does not follow their religion in the same way that the IRA followed no such teachings in the Christian bible and in the same way that most Catholic Priests condemned those terrorist attacks.

Of course there is always a minority who do take extreme views and there are some clergy who also take those views and encourage them (even covertly), and I include Catholic/IRA links and for that matter Protestant/militant Loyalist links, none of which mean that the flavour of religion mentioned will actively support terrorism.

Of course Muslims would like the whole world to follow their religion, so would Catholics, so would any religion, its part of the dogma of a religion to believe that theirs is the only way forward and most of them have an ongoing mission to convert as many as they can, this still doesn't equate to terrorism though.

Making an automatic link from "Islam" to "Terrorist" is probably the biggest danger we face and our own media don't help the situation very much either.

You don't like a metaphorical mirror being held up to you mintball. How come? Don't like what you see?

You still don't see bullying on here no doubt either.

Out of interest, do religious extremists hit the spot for you with your own dealings and feelings to religion?

Who do you think you are ... Richard the feckin Lionheart?

I, for one, do not wish to be one of your cookie-cutter identikit Brits who all have the same state-and-church-issued set of "clearly defined" values (by which you presumably mean your values rather than those of anyone else).
In the UK, we have diversity of opinion, religion, skin pigmentation, taste, outlook, politics, ideology, etc etc.
It sounds like you want to roll it all back to some time gone by when everyone loved the monarch, went to church on Sunday and were definitely not brown, gay or (heaven forfend) not like you.

Well, I have to break it to you ... that time never existed and will never exist.
Not only that but it's not solely your country, it's mine too.
Even worse, I reckon you are in the minority ... so it looks like you'll have to deport yourself for being out of step with British values ... where do you have in mind?

Found any evidence for your assertions yet?

Maybe your 'off-site' book will be able to shed some light on the issue?

Even if those figures are accurate, when you consider places like Iraq and Afghanistan, those terrorist acts take place on an almost daily basis, and are often Shia/Sunni issues rather than attacks on 'our' way of life.

Even if we say that every one of those 21000 attacks was carried out by a different Muslim (which seems quite unlikely), that means that only 1.3% of all of the 1.6m Muslims on the planet have carried out a terrorist attack. This leaves a whopping 98.7% of Muslims who are not terrorists.

Edit: Apologies, I have my figures wrong. There are 1.6 billion Muslims, not 1.6 million. This means that only 0.0013% of Muslims have been involved in a terrorist attack, leaving 99.9987% who have not.

It IS a small minority, if it wasn't a small minority then this wouldn't be the first casualty of terrorism in Britain for nearly a decade. Come on, that is common bloody sense!

And it is, largely, nothing to do with Islam. The reason terrorism attacks by Muslims is so high, assuming we use the accepted western media understanding of terrorism and pretend much of our foreign policy isn't it, is because there has been an imperialist campaign and systematic oppression against much of the Muslim world for the better part of modern history.

When you systematically oppress a people then terrorism of some kind tends to follow. Similar (but certainly not the same) happened in South America when the United States waged brutal, imperialist campaigns against much of Latin America towards the tail end of last century, as well as what was effectively a war against the Catholic church, particularly in places like Colombia. Apartheid South Africa or Ireland are similar examples of terrorism happening in said scenarios.

The situations aren't the same and the response wasn't the same, granted, but they were violent and often vulgar responses non the less.

There is context to everything. The Muslim world has been under sustained economic and physical attack for a long time, that doesn't justify terrorist attacks, but it goes a long way to explaining the difference in frequency of attacks between Islamic terrorists and, say, Christian terrorists. You can't compare the figures because the situations are incomparable. Were the situations equal you might have a point, but they aren't and you don't.

Christian nations and peoples dominate the world, have done for some time. Do you think that in a society where the Islamic Middle East was the dominant power force, a society where Christian nations, people and values were under constant attack, that there would not be a marked rise in radical Christianity and terrorism committed by Christians? When Ireland was under British oppression, was there not a radical reaction? Ireland's a small place, you know. Imagine If Ireland at the time was several hundred million strong, you'd have seen a hell of a lot more terrorist attacks against Britain and its supporters then, wouldn't you?

You might not like the point, it's true non the less I'm effectively quoting American intelligence here. When Eisenhower remarked that "There's a campaign of hatred against us in the Middle East, not by governments, but by the people." It was acknowledged by the NSC who said plainly that the reason being is that there's a feeling amongst citizens in the Middle East that America is self-interested and supports status quo governments that quell development and democracy there, the reason being that the USA is only interested in the oil in the region. They went on to say that the perception is correct and that it should be correct, that there will continue to be hatred against the States because they should continue with the policy of exploiting the region. That's straight from the NSC

What reasons are there for Christians to take to the streets and attack civilians? Where are the foreign soldiers on Christian soil to be attacked? Which nations are exploiting the Christian world? There's every reason for middle eastern/north african people (and Muslims who feel some sort of affinity to their brethren) to play dirty, the actions are unjustifiable and sickening that's understood, but there's still reason.

When there's a level playing field so far as the situation of the average Christian and the average Muslim then you can start comparing numbers and find out which religion is more violent. But you can't strip away the context and expect people to take raw data as indication of anything.

It may have already been linked to, so apologies to whoever linked to it or mentioned it, if that's the case – I cannot remember – but there was an analysis somewhere that was saying that there are, in effect, two levels of 'motivation', if you will, for Islamic extremists.

One is the 'everything Western is bad and we want a global caliphate' etc. But the one that is, apparently, most usually found in radicalised young people is the 'solidarity with our Islamic brothers in countries under attack' one.

There are presently plenty of reports around of young European Muslims leaving their families and heading for Syria.

The whole post ... very well said.