Terrorist attack in London

I wish that the victim
had shot them, before he was decapitated.

Hope it was painful.

But this is the case in point.

About 250 EDL members gathered at Woolwich Arsenal station last night and threw bottles at police, with skirmishes across the public square.

Essex police last night held a 43-year-old man on suspicion of suspected arson after he allegedly entered a mosque in Braintree with a knife and “incendiary device”.

Police in Kent arrested a man on suspicion of racially-aggravated criminal damage after being called to a mosque in Gillingham at about 8.40pm. Street patrols were increased as a result.

Sikander Saleemy, secretary of the Braintree mosque, said it felt like it was a “revenge attack”. Mr Saleemy said: “We absolutely condemn what happened in Woolwich, but it had nothing to do with us.

“It was an appalling act of terror - but it wasn’t ‘Islamic’ in any way. I wish it wasn’t described like that, because sadly people will now start to blame Muslims.”

Today Julie Siddiqi, of the Islamic Society of Britain, said it was important to prevent the far Right using the Woolwich attack as a way of setting communities against one another.

She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “The people who did this act yesterday do not speak in my name, do not speak for my community or the rest of the country. We have to come out with the strongest condemnation, which is what I’m seeing this morning.

“All of the Muslim organisations have come out with the strongest possible terms to say there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever, no justification for anything like this.”

The Muslim Council of Britain called for vigilance and solidarity between “all our communities, Muslim and non-Muslim”, and for police to “calm tensions”.

“This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly,” it said in a statement. “Muslims have long served in this country’s Armed Forces, proudly and with honour. This attack on a member of the Armed Forces is dishonourable, and no cause justifies this murder.”

Fiyaz Mughal, director of the charity Faith Matters, said: “We must come together, isolate those who believe that extremism and violence are acceptable, and work to ensure that they meet the full force of the law.

“We must send a clear message to anyone that an attack on a serving soldier going about their daily activities is something that must be utterly condemned.”

This woman is either crazy or incredibly brave (or both)

The warning signs that a soldier would one day be targeted on the streets of Britain can be found in the heart of al-Qaeda's violent ideology and how that has been interpreted by followers in the UK and other Western nations.

The mindset of violent jihadists is influenced by many different factors - but one common factor among those who have been involved in acts of politically-motivated violence is the basic principle that they oppose a Western presence in the Islamic world.

Sometimes when purely political Islamists refer to this presence, they mean cultural pollution - the arrival of influences that they don't particularly want to see. Think scantily-clad pop stars beamed around the world on satellite TV.

But for jihadists, it really comes down to the presence of soldiers - and an entire framework of belief that sees those personnel, whatever role they have been given under international law, as the enemy of Islam. That argument is often backed up with graphic images online of the suffering of ordinary women and children. It's all designed to whip up anger and a sense of burning injustice - the kind of injustice that leads people to be convinced that something must be done.

Now, most people who feel a sense of injustice obviously combat it in purely peaceful means. The point about terrorism is that the sense of injustice becomes a springboard for mental somersaults in the mind of someone who thinks that indiscriminate violence can create justice.

Bilal Abdulla was the Iraqi doctor who tried to bomb London and Glasgow Airport in 2007. At his trial he spoke clearly and coherently about how he became radicalised because he perceived that the British and Americans were murdering his people, rather than liberating a country from a dictator.

Back to the main point. The UK has witnessed a series of protests by radical Islamist groups that have been organised to specifically protest against soldiers who have served in Afghanistan.

The most infamous of these was an extremely tense incident in 2009 when a now-banned organisation disrupted a homecoming parade by the Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton.

The difficulty for the security services is establishing who is simply letting off steam and who is genuinely on the road to becoming a threat to public safety. What makes that job harder is that plotters are increasingly working alone, undirected from what remains of al-Qaeda's leadership. Armed with the ideology, they're expected to just get on with whatever terrible plan they have.

So while every counter-terrorism intelligence operation starts with trying to get into the head of an "individual of interest" - it's ultimately about whether they are dangerous.

This underbelly of anger over the military's role overseas has regularly featured in major counter-terrorism prosecutions - but it has also been part of attack plans on previous occasions.

In 2007, a joint investigation by the police and MI5 apprehended a Birmingham man who wanted to kidnap a British soldier. Parviz Khan wanted to emulate jihadists in Iraq by beheading a serviceman on camera before circulating the film online. He's now serving a life sentence.

The most well-known comparable anti-military incident elsewhere is the Fort Hood shootings in the USA, in which 13 people were killed by an army major reportedly radicalised by an al-Qaeda cleric.

More recently, two other groups in the UK have been jailed after considering targeting soldiers.

One of these cells talked about attacking Wooton Bassett, the Wiltshire town that used to come to a standstill as the coffins of personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were repatriated.

The justification consistently deployed by extremists involved in these incidents is that the military took the war to Muslim countries - so they are now bringing it back.

"We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," said the Woolwich attacker who spoke with a London accent.

"I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same."

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I wish that the victim
had shot them, before he was decapitated.

Never seems to work that way. Rats!

This woman is either crazy or incredibly brave (or both)

But aren't we jumping to bigoted conclusions to suggest these animals are Islamists?

http://www.toledoblade.com/special-tiger-force/2003/10/22/DAY-4-Demons-of-past-stalk-Tiger-Force-veterans.html

DAY 4: Demons of past stalk Tiger Force veterans


Rion Causey, a former Tiger Force medic, says he participated in group conseling a decade after seeing the killing of villagers in Vietnam. 'I didn't condemn what was going on at the time. I was 19 years old, but I knew what they were doing was wrong.'

For Barry Bowman, the images return at night.

The elderly man praying on his knees. The officer pointing a rifle at the man's head.

The shot.

That piercing shot.

Before it's over, the old man drops to the ground - his body twitching in the blood-soaked grass.

Over and over, Mr. Bowman relives the execution of the Vietnamese villager known as Dao Hue.

Despite years of therapy, the former Tiger Force soldier is still deeply troubled by the brutal shooting he witnessed as a young medic in the Song Ve Valley.

He's not alone.

Of the 43 former platoon members interviewed by The Blade in an eight-month investigation of Tiger Force, a dozen expressed remorse for committing or failing to stop atrocities.

They share some of the same symptoms - flashbacks or nightmares - and over the past 36 years have sought counseling, they said.

Nine have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a psychiatric condition that can occur following life-threatening experiences.

To this day, they wrestle with memories of Tiger Force's rampage through more than 40 hamlets in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam in 1967.

Mr. Bowman, who was standing next to Mr. Dao when he was shot to death by a platoon leader, said he remains shaken by the unprovoked attack on the 68-year-old man as he prayed for mercy.

“It was devastating,” he said.

For many, the images never fade.

When Douglas Teeters closes his eyes, he sees villagers being shot as they wave leaflets that guaranteed their safety.

He takes anti-depressants and sleeping pills, but he can never seem to get enough rest, he said.

Mr. Teeters is among the one-in-six Vietnam veterans - about 500,000 - who have been treated for PTSD.

Most people who overcome the disorder are able to recall horrific events without feeling the trauma. The frequency of nightmares decreases while patients gain more control over their lives.

But it can be more complicated for those who committed - or failed to stop - atrocities, clinicians say.

In addition to the trauma, they are often saddled with a strong sense of guilt that can complicate the deeper feelings of fear and isolation, says Dr. Dewleen Baker, director of a PTSD research clinic in Cincinnati.

“It's another layer that needs to be addressed,” she said. “It's not that easy. How do you reconcile killing civilians? It's hard, especially when you have a core set of values.”

Sometimes, patients will vacillate between justifying their acts and condemning what they did, said Dr. David Manier, a psychology professor at the City University of New York who treats veterans for PTSD.

When the attacks on villagers are executions - not shootings in the frenzy and confusion of battle - “it makes it more difficult to make sense of things,” he said.

Mr. Teeters said he struggles with his own acts - the executions of captured soldiers - and the actions of former platoon members in the deaths of villagers.

“The killing haunts me every minute of my life,'' he said in a recent interview. “To survive, you had to say, `The killing don't mean nothing.' That's how you got through it, man. But eventually, it all catches up with you.''

Former Sgt. Ernest Moreland refuses to talk about his role in the stabbing death of a detainee near Duc Pho, saying he fears he could be charged. But he said he still tries to rationalize the killing.

“The things you did. You think back and say, `I can't believe I did that.' At the time, it seemed right,” he said. “But now, you know what you did was wrong. The killing gets to you. The nightmares get to you. You just can't escape it. You can't escape the past.”

He is among nine of the veterans interviewed who said they turned to drugs or alcohol to ease their pain after returning from Vietnam.

“I drank too much. I got into a lot of fights,” said Mr. Moreland, who now lives in Florida.

It wasn't until four years ago that he sought help. “I came very close to committing suicide,'' he said.

Another platoon soldier, Sam Ybarra, often drank for days at a time, rarely leaving his trailer in Arizona, said his relatives.

While he showed classic symptoms of PTSD, with long bouts of depression, he died in 1982 before being diagnosed. In the years after the war, he expressed remorse for killing civilians, said his mother, Therlene Ramos, 78.

“He drank to forget about what he did,” she said. “He was a normal person before he went to Vietnam. When he comes back, he was an alcoholic, smoking. He was not the same person. He was alive, but dead.”

Looking the other way

takes a toll on veterans

Several veterans said that by the time they joined Tiger Force, the unit was steeped in practices that violated Army regulations and international law.

To survive, they felt they had to look the other way.

One of those was Rion Causey.

The 55-year-old nuclear engineer said he participated in group counseling a decade after witnessing the killing of villagers northwest of Chu Lai. “I was waking up at night with the sweats,” he said.

“I didn't condemn what was going on at the time,” said the former medic. “I was 19 years old, but I knew what they were doing was wrong. It was wrong.”

Two others said they are remorseful for standing by while platoon members took out their aggressions on villagers.

“I regret not reporting it,” said former medic Harold Fischer, now 54. “I was young. I didn't know any better.”

Now living in Texas, he was with Tiger Force during the military campaign near Chu Lai. He said he knew the slaughtering of civilians was morally wrong but feared retribution from platoon members for speaking up.

“We had to live with these guys in the field,” he said. “They're armed and dangerous and motivated. They have a lot of testosterone. They're young. Who knows what they would do? You get into a firefight and you may get a proverbial `To whom it may concern round.'''

Several former platoon members said they went through stages - at first disturbed by the brutality against unarmed villagers and then ignoring it. Eventually, they admitted to taking part in war crimes.

Barry Bowman, now living in Rhode Island, said he joined Tiger Force to save lives.

In one of the atrocities investigated during the Army's 41/2-year inquiry, he refused a sergeant's order to kill a wounded prisoner in the Song Ve Valley. But four months later, he said he didn't hesitate to kill an injured villager dressed in the gray robes of a Buddhist worshipper.

“It was against everything I stood for,” he recently said. “My basic mission was to save people's lives as a medic and I took it that way. But then, I could steadily see that the longer I stayed in combat, the more that was changing.''

A culture existed in Tiger Force that embraced the executions of prisoners and civilians - one encouraged by officers and sergeants.

One former sergeant now being treated for PTSD said he wanted his men to kill without hesitation.

“It didn't matter if they were civilians. If they weren't supposed to be in an area, we shot them,” said William Doyle, 70, of Missouri. “If they didn't understand fear, I taught it to them.”

He said he and others also cut off the ears of numerous dead Vietnamese to scare enemy soldiers.

Experts say body mutilations are classic symptoms of soldiers in secondary stages of PTSD in which fear turns into anger, said Dr. Baker, who treats veterans at the Cincinnati Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “They kick into a second stage - a rage mode.”

Former platoon medic Joseph Evans, who lives in Atlanta, said in a recent interview that he severed ears. “You fall into this unbelievable frustration,” said Mr. Evans, 59, who has been treated for PTSD. “You're burned and you're fried and you're scared, and you do it to make light of the burden you're underneath.”

Former soldier says

he wants to apologize

William Carpenter said before he dies, he wants to return to the Song Ve Valley.

The 54-year-old former platoon specialist wants to go to the rice paddy where Tiger Force soldiers killed four elderly farmers.

He wants to apologize to their families.

Thirty-six years later, he said the assault on 10 farmers remains a vivid memory. “I want to tell them how sorry I am that it happened,” said Mr. Carpenter, of Rayland, Ohio, who has been treated for PTSD.

Experts say one way of coming to terms with the disorder is to openly acknowledge past actions.

Mr. Carpenter said he didn't fire on the farmers but never reported the atrocity to commanders.

Like other former Tiger Force members, he said he can justify many of the aggressive acts toward villagers, but he said it's “in the middle of the night when the demons come that you remember. That you can't forget.”