Strategically, Turkey has always been very important to the US, ever since the beginning of the Cold War. No less so now.
The point is that the armed forces of USA, UK, etc are welcomed into Turkey as allies and fellow-members of NATO. If Turkey was not in NATO that would not necessarily be the case.
Saudi Arabia's history of hypocrisy we choose to ignore - Middle East - World - The Independent I'm happy to see this on the front page of the internet Independent. No idea if it reflects their printed front page. Perhaps someone can tell me. I like it when louder voices than my own barely audible warble tell it like it is.
I don't see that NATO is going to be relevant or much good at resolving anything in the current state of affairs. After all, look at what occurred in Bosnia / Jugoslavia when they were there as peace keepers. This might make mores sense if it becomes reality. Troops could return to UK to fight copycat attacks after Charlie Hebdo massacre | Daily Mail Online But it adds to what I posted a few days ago. "30 minutes to respond"?? 'Terrorists' would be long gone by the time anyone got to the scene.
Precisely my point: so his is how the Independent should have started its report. It was poor editing, especially so with the paper's early mention of "White supremacist slogans" being shouted by the attacker, presumably to deride and implicate the host community
I wasn't criticising you for posting it was I? I was having a go at the Indy - for which I have worked many times - for poor editing. Keep up please. Really sorry for anyone who's wrongly targeted and anyone who gets hurt for any reason. I don't like pain and I don't expect anyone else does either. I'm a pacifist. But that doesn't stop me thinking that some people will only come round to that view if they are forced to abandon their own violent ways. And yes, fire has to be fought with fire sometimes, as it is when the Australian bush catches fire.
How brave of that Newsagent. Not only to sell the magazine but to have her identity revealed in that way. Sky News yesterday, by way of loose comparison, apologised for merely showing an inadvertent glimpse of Mags's front cover. Credit to her.
France is getting tougher on the fanatics. How long before we do too? Four years for defending the shootings while drunkenly resisting arrest. Here, Ched Evans only got a year more for rape.
It always makes me smile when politicians here say they are not going to allow terrorists is to 'win' by letting them force the population into changing the way it lives its life then clamp down on civil liberties and institute draconian airport check in controls, for example. How's that not a win for them? I appreciate that both had to be done, but we need to look for a better, long-term solution. Citizenship tests are a start. But America makes immigrants swear an oath of allegiance, and even that hasn't kept it totally safe from home-grown terrorists who look to bite the hands that feeds them. Maybe we need to look at other options, such as better education for immigrants. And I for one would ban ALL schools that do not follow the national curriculum to a tee. That should weed out the nutty religious schools while leaving the good ones untouched.
The UK government has again shown that it is an absolute joke....... Yesterday, Theresa May confirms that the UK Security Status is at 'An attack highly likely'. Today, 'Ministers are examining plans to have ‘high-readiness’ battalions stationed across the country to respond to a terror attack within minutes.' This is because back-up to the police (does that mean armed police?) for an outside London incident may take longer than 30 minutes to arrive. The UK Security Status has been at 'An attack highly likely' for several months IIRC; so what the hell has government been doing apart from fiddling their expenses and taking selfies? Bunch of prats.
View attachment 41425 And this is what we are up against in a 'democratic' Muslim country. Ruling politicians accusing newspapers of sedition when they flout the faith's rules by publishing a few cartoons. http://on.ft.com/1BZRIva for subscribers.
How about not letting them in in the first place? The UK as a whole already has 700 people per square mile and England is rapidly approaching 1100. We're not exactly rattling around in an empty wilderness short of staff. And where we do require immigrant labour there are things called visas. We don't need to hand out instant citizenship and passports to all and sundry on arrival and we certainly don't need to import entire cities of people who sit around on benefits dreaming of taking over their adoptive country by murdering their hosts and procreating with their first cousins.
I could not agree more. But while we are in the EU, we have no choice but to permit immigration from member states. While that's the case, we should perhaps end ALL immigration from outside the Union. But it seems the electorate has no inclination to vote for a party that would do that. You only have to look at the posts on this and other forums to see that many feel quite happy, or are at the very least unmoved by the current mess. But things will get really out of hand for everyone, I fear, if/when Turkey and the N African countries join the EU. But our political masters must have a grip on that, surely, as they did with immigration from Eastern Europe!!!! If I recall correctly, when fears over numbers were initially raised, we were told around 100,000 Poles would come here when restrictions on them coming to the UK were lifted early in the debate because we decided not to join the moratorium put in place by other EU members. What was the eventual total. Many, many times that figure. A colleague has an email from a prominent politician making the 100,000 claim - but none by way of an apology for getting it wrong when ten times that number flooded in. I know that experiences across the country differ. But I believe that all immigration policy needs to be re-examined, particularly in the light of recent events - and soon, before the fabric of our society and traditional British values of tolerance suffer.
Because it's part of Europe and jihadists are targeting every country in a bud to soften up the region.
I'm going to be accused of racism, I know. The immigration debate keeps focusing on the EU. I don't know why this is. I seem to remember the figure of 40% of immigrants coming from the EU, which leaves 60% coming from elsewhere. Bearing in mind that it's the 60% that tend to come from cultures which are hard to assimilate into the British way of life, is seems odd to ignore them. You've got more chance of integrating Christian Poles than you have of integrating Muslim Africans. Skin colour and race has nothing to do with it. Indians? No problem, but do you really want more Pakistanis, if they can't and won't speak the language and have no intention of integrating at all? French-speaking Switzerland is awash with Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards. Who cares? It's all fine by me. They speak the language, and you wouldn't know that their kids aren't native Swiss. It's a bit more complicated with the Albanians and Kosovaars who seem to have an unhealthy love affair with the knife. But they do make up most of the Swiss national football team...
So is there a minimum entry requirement that could be both fair and non-discriminatory? Like: Must speak the host nation's language. Must have means with which to support themselves. Mustn't be intent upon murdering citizens of the host nation. Does this sound reasonable? Or am I being racist/bigoted/unfairly discriminatory?
So all the Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians and Lithuanians will be able to meet those requirements fairly easily; no problem then. It's people from the remoter and more backwards areas of Pakistan and Bangladesh who won't.
