Vive la France!

tillson

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May 29, 2008
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I sincerely hope that this comes as a wake up call and that governments start to enforce proper controls over who enters and who is residing in their country.

For the sake of those who have been murdered, I hope that some good, in terms of a safer country, eventually prevails.
 
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Nealh

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Sad to hear but like London hard to deter, lack of proper boarder control was always going to be a problem.
 
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JohnCade

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I sincerely hope that this comes as a wake up call and that governments start to enforce proper controls over who enters and who is residing in their country.

For the sake of those who have been murdered, I hope that some good, in terms of a safer country, eventually prevails.
Just like the previous Paris attacks it will probably turn out that the attackers were born there and were French citizens. The perpetrators of the London attacks were British and born here too.
 

anotherkiwi

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Was warned last week that crossing the frontier was going to be a lot longer. Last weekend there was already a huge line of cars which doesn't bother me (I am on a pedelec...). When catching the train I will just change stations i.e. pedal across the border and catch it on the other side. As for crossing in a car I know of several unguarded mountain passes - there are local families who made their fortune running contraband during the Franco regime...

As for current events, well that is just part of modern life. We all know who to thank for it... My eldest son is often in Paris for work in high risk areas, what can a father do other than hope that nothing bad happens to his child...
 
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tillson

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Just like the previous Paris attacks it will probably turn out that the attackers were born there and were French citizens. The perpetrators of the London attacks were British and born here too.
I guess that will be the outcome the politicians will be hoping for. Its easier to wrap it all up and usher the elephant out of the room that way. Either way, they are likely have very shallow French ancestry.
 

tillson

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This is worth reading because it is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have read. The references to past history are accurate and clear. The author is a man, whose family lived in Germany until the outbreak of WW2. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism:

'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of our world had come.

My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual, prior to World War II, was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians, most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt. Yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like the Germanys, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

The Islamic way is only peaceful until the fanatics move in.

(Although I agree with every word. I can't take credit for writing this)
 
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tillson

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Sir Knob Geldhoff, Whatadick Cumberpatch and Bonio are all very quiet. I wonder if they still want to allow Migrants to live with them and their families in their homes?
 
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Crockers

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Sir Knob Geldhoff, Whatadick Cumberpatch and Bonio are all very quiet. I wonder if they still want to allow Migrants to live with them and their families in their homes?
If this is your true feelings then Da'ash have achieved their aim. To divide sentiment, to turn our views into xenophobia.
We need to clarify the differences between migrants and refugees. The former want to come here for economic reasons the latter to be safe. Most refugees don't want to live here but are forced from their homelands. To them I have great sympathy. Economic migrants , I can understand their rationale but not sure if we can absorb them.
 
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tillson

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If this is your true feelings then Da'ash have achieved their aim. To divide sentiment, to turn our views into xenophobia.
We need to clarify the differences between migrants and refugees. The former want to come here for economic reasons the latter to be safe. Most refugees don't want to live here but are forced from their homelands. To them I have great sympathy. Economic migrants , I can understand their rationale but not sure if we can absorb them.
I agree with some of what you say, but you have to question whether people who have already reached a place of safety who them embark on a perilous sea crossing, and transit through several more safe countries are actually refugees. If they don't want to live here, why are they taking all these risks to get from one safe country to another. Also, the EU is totally incapable of effectively filtering out the genuine refugees. What we have seen is mass migration without any clue whatsoever of who is entering Europe, what they are bringing with them, what their intentions are or where they are heading for. Now the EU are allowing themselves to be held to ransome by Turkey and African countries demanding billions of Euros against the threat of further migration. It's insanity.
 
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Crockers

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I sympathise with your views. I also agree that once a refugee reaches safety his decision to move on makes him an economic migrant. But Greece and Italy can't be expected to house them all. A filtering process is needed. Economic migrants returned to apply for visas. Genuine refugees shared around the EU.

All imho.
 

trex

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may be it's time for a UN charter on economic migrants.
 

JohnCade

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may be it's time for a UN charter on economic migrants.
There is a UN charter for refugees which has been in place since the war but it is widely ignored. Most of the people currently trying to get into Europe through the Balkans are from war zones and the vast majority currently from Syria. So how exactly do you define an economic migrant in these circumstances? In the media, particularly the print media which is overwhelmingly right wing, they prefer that term. But in reality these people are refugees just as the displaced of Europe after the war were refugees.

On a slightly different tack many would argue that in a globalised world it’s impossible to globalise trade and finance without also globalising labour. In the last great era of globalisation which ended with the First World War migrant labour flooded around the world in all directions unchecked and was a major driver of growth. If fact most countries did not even issue passports then. So proponents of globalisation can’t have it all ways. Although they will try.
 
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oldtom

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If this is your true feelings then Da'ash have achieved their aim. To divide sentiment, to turn our views into xenophobia.
We need to clarify the differences between migrants and refugees. The former want to come here for economic reasons the latter to be safe. Most refugees don't want to live here but are forced from their homelands. To them I have great sympathy. Economic migrants , I can understand their rationale but not sure if we can absorb them.
It's very difficult as there is a choice between hard decisions and no decision at all. Unfortunately, across Europe there is the most enormous fudge over the whole issue, inevitable when political leaders wish to be all things to all men and postpone making a decision about numbers, hoping the crisis will resolve itself and they will all emerge at the end looking like something between Mother Theresa and Henry Kissinger.

We are embroiled in WW3 but most people don't understand that fact because it's a different type of war from those we have known previously. There are no uniforms distinguishing the enemy who are already in our midst therefore Xenophobia grips the public and understandably so. I disagree with the sentence about a need to clarify; we don't need to do any such thing as the definitions are clear and unambiguous, known perfectly well at UK Visas and Immigration stations all around the country.

A lot of things must change in times of war and many freedoms need to be curtailed, among the first of which should necessitate the intensely close scrutiny of national borders to ensure nations know exactly who is coming in and who is going out. That flies in the face of the 'open borders' policy across much of the European mainland although it is now becoming clear that open conduits play into the hands of those who would seek to do harm.

The answer to the problem is unlikely to be found in forums like this so because our British politicians cannot guarantee the safety of our own people, we must sit and wait for the next atrocity before starting the next round of wailing, advocating and finger-pointing. Sad times!

Tom
 
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trex

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There is a UN charter for refugees which has been in place since the war but it is widely ignored. Most of the people currently trying to get into Europe through the Balkans are from war zones and the vast majority currently from Syria. So how exactly do you define an economic migrant in these circumstances? In the media, particularly the print media which is overwhelmingly right wing, they prefer that term. But in reality these people are refugees just as the displaced of Europe after the war were refugees.

On a slightly different tack many would argue that in a globalised world it’s impossible to globalise trade and finance without also globalising labour. In the last great era of globalisation which ended with the First World War migrant labour flooded around the world in all directions unchecked and was a major driver of growth. If fact most countries did not even issue passports then. So proponents of globalisation can’t have it all ways. Although they will try.
There is an adopted UN resolution (resolution 45/158 of 18 December 1990). I don't know if our goverment have adopted any of it into our laws.
The fact remains that maybe 100 million Africans have mobile phones but no jobs. Given half a chance, they'll be prepared to cross into Europe then the EU and we don't seem to be prepared for this.
 

Smart eBiker

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Very sad indeed and my thoughts are with the families of the victims both dead and injured and with the brave emergency services, police and military who attended the scene and had to deal with the carnage.

Unfortunately this country is going down the pan, the police are being slashed as is the military, there is no way on this earth that we could cope with a similar situation here, if anyone believes we could then they are in la la land.

Huge experience has been lost in both police and military with cuts, replaced by plastic newbies with no experience, our hospitals are over burdened and I doubt they could cope with a massive terrorist attack in the UK very easily.

Just look at how the French had so many armed personnel on the streets within minutes, then hundreds and hundreds more within hours, there is no way on this planet we could do that, we would end up with a lot of bystander bobbies frantically requesting armed back up which would not be there!

Having fought for my country I must say I am saddened at cowards running away looking for a better life while leaving women and children to suffer. We fought to give freedom to this country, brave young men gave up their lives to protect our shores, now they just come in the back of lorries or by air with little checks, or even invited, this is one massive trojan horse that IS going to bite us, and to see crocodile tears at memorial days sickens me as the treason continues!
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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For most countries there is no such thing as a secure border, it's almost impossible to achieve. Even the USA with it's huge resources has found itself impotent against the determination of economic migrants from the south, and that's with a fairly limited border length. For those countries where crossing can be from any point around the entire border, it really is impossible.

How many realise that each day 200 Syrians and a few Afghans are crossing into the EU at the border between Russia and Norway, having travelled that vast distance. They are flying into major Russian airports, then transferring onto a flight to Murmansk and from there, close to the Norwegian border, it's just a short distance. The Russians won't allow anyone to walk over a border, so some enterprising Russians have set up a bicycle sales business selling to the migrants. The migrants just ride them about 100 metres across the line and dump them on the Norwegian side, so I've no doubt those Russians nip over with a truck and fetch the bikes back for sale again to the next batch of migrants.

Again this illustrates the problems of securing borders, when even countries own populations co-operate with the migrants.
.
 

anotherkiwi

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Several days ago two days in a row bits of space junk fell on populated areas of Spain. No secure border up there either! Life is a risky business and always, 100% guaranteed, ends in death. I would prefer conking out on my bike or boat rather than under a hail of Kalashnikoff lead, but as they say inch'Allah.
 
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tillson

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May 29, 2008
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Very true. I don't know what it's like in the London, but I know some officers working on armed response in regional forces and their numbers are very few. So few, they would be totally ineffective in a terrorist situation. However, the good news is that close protection for Politicians has not been cut at all, so they are ok.

For the rest of us, I hear that Dave is going to employ 2000 new Spies to keep us safe. Which pi$$es me off because I literally only took my dinner jacket and trousers to Tree Tops Hospice charity shop yesterday afternoon.
 
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