I see, i know what happened, i skipped over those comments (i was broswing on other tabs too)
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Today, in a show on French national radio, there’s been a nice hommage to the Manchester victims. It’s a comedy show about news, and they didn’t want to go the usual one minute of silence, replacing it with one minute of music, an excerpt from Whatever by Oasis. I found it unexpectedly effective.
You’ve got that backwards, the Falklands war was setup by the military dictatorship that was in charge of Argentina at the time as a distraction from the civil unrest caused by the awful economic situation the country was in. The Falklands War was entirely justified from the British point-of-view in terms of international law, and the right of self determination, for a territory that Argentina had no legal, historical or natural right to, it just happened to be close by.
Carrington resigned because he realised he was at fault (along with the Defence Secretary), ignoring the warnings from the Navy and the Governor about Argentina’s intentions. Remember, never attribute to malice what can be easily explained by incompetence.
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What could be more important than killing people to control a rock on the other side of the world.
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So the only response to violence is indifference? Presumably you believe ISIS should be just allowed to have their caliphate as well? It’s only a desert in the middle east, who cares about the people who live there?
The IRA did not regularly target schools, they once bombed an elite boarding school (Harrow), but didn’t place the bomb in a position to cause fatalities and gave a warning, no-one was injured. I’m not aware of any other attacks (and certainly not one where there were any fatalities). I’m not sure about the PLO, though I wouldn’t have thought that was true of them either.
Not denying the IRA were scum, but the current crop of Islamist extremists are on a whole other level to them.
One of the neat things about the UK is a rather phlegmatic response to things going badly wrong. After the initial running around and screaming they just knuckle down to organising things and helping. When overseas observers looked at the bystander response to the Kegworth Air Disaster, they asked whether UK residents are trained to respond to disasters as a public health measure. 
(They aren’t.)
When I was a kid PLO attacks on children were in the news all the time. From memory, some of the worst were Scorpion Pass, Avivim School Bus, Kiryat Shmona, and the Netiv Meir Elementary School.
As the IRA considered themselves soldiers, not terrorists, they favored targeted attacks instead of blowing up schoolbuses and malls, but over 600 civilians - many children - got caught in the crossfire. It’s hard to give them a pass here.
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The NHS has been underfunded for decades now, and psychiatric care funds tends to get get diverted to treat more media friendly conditions.
I know one of the psychiatrists who came up with Care in the Community, as a way to treat milder mental illnesses in outpatient clinics. Then Maggie got her hands on it and cut the outpatient funding which resulted in people not getting treatment. It should go without saying that he is not a fan of the Conservatives.
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Not a pass, but perhaps a mitigation.
“Slaughtering civilians carelessly is better than doing it deliberately” is a large part of the West’s claim of moral superiority over non-state users of violence.
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Yeah, that’s probably right, especially w/r to children. Even when they shot school bus drivers, they weren’t out to get the kids on the bus. However, their definition of “enemy combatant” (as opposed to “civilian”) was maybe a little more inclusive than yours or mine might be.
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You probably know a psychiatrist who is very, very sad. 
I lived a block away from a psychiatric hospital when ‘disgorge into the community’ came in. We suddenly had burnt out institutionalised schizophrenics entirely unsuited for community care shuffling around the suburb because they knew of nowhere else to go.
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Also spare a thought for Ariana Grande. It must be a horrific burden to know that you were the reason those kids were all there.
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I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion that I was attempting to give anyone a pass, but clearly the two organisations are not morally equivalent. Being less terrible than one of the most terrible things ever isn’t much of an accomplishment. This is the first time they’ve deliberately targeted children in the west, but just to take a single example from Pakistan, the Peshawar school attack of 2014 (which was the Taliban, but pretty similar ideology) - where around 130 children were killed, it’s clear we’re not comparing like with like. For these people the intentional killing of children is justifiable, and they can point to scripture to back that up, this is a totally different class of crazy.
Her fans are responding in a lovely and supportive way. Their Twitter hashtag #ThisIsNotYourFaultAriana sums it up.
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Agreed.
##Fear begets anger, anger begets hatred, hatred begets violence.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
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As Breivik quoted Christian scripture in his manifesto in 2011 before shooting up a summer camp, and Haganah and its offshoots (Irgun, Stern Gang) claimed to be doing God’s work when they blew up markets and movie theaters. Daesh, al Qaeda, and the Taliban didn’t invent this stuff.
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I wouldn’t characterize candles, flowers, dolls, and hashtags as “indifference”, now, would you??
If only Obama were still in office we could send James Taylor over to Manchester to sing “You’ve Got A Friend” but you know Jim’ll never do it for combover boy.
Racing out to a meeting so I don’t have time to look for it, but earlier today I read an open letter from a former terrorist victim to the media, pointing out that public support (like candles, flowers, dolls, and hashtags, along with celebrity appearances to perform for the victims) can be helpful, but being hounded by the media to give them a story, on the other hand, intensifies PTSD and is the exactly opposite of helpful.
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