Verbal

I think his name is Jason Burke, who's spent a lot of time reporting from Pakistan. The Pakistan Taliban itself isn't really a lot of different groups - it's dominated by one clan and is a merger of essentially two groups. The Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, were the same people who shot Malala Yusufzai and her schoolfriend, and are the same people who bombed and/or demolished schools (especially girls' schools) in Malala's home region of Swat Valley. I was in Swat a few weeks before it was overrun by the Pakistani Taliban in 2007 and the sharp rise in the political temperature - a real, overwhelming sense of fear - was unmissable on the streets. What actually happened was even worse than the worst of those fears, with ISIS-style murders and torture and destruction. Aside from the human cost, Swat Valley, which is in an important sense the birthplace of Buddhism, lost many stupas which I'd seen lining the tops of the lush hills and mountains, as well as the prince's former palace and a rather nice ski resort. Most of all, though, it lost all those schools. So why do the Pakistani Taliban target schools and schoolchildren so regularly? The answer lies in government policy, manipulated by the Saudis. In the 1980s, the Pakistani military dictator Zia Al-Huq accepted billions of dollars to start a network of madrassas in the country. This was part of a process he called "Islamisation", but was actually more accurately described as "Wahhabification". The Saudis' aim was to create a Wahhabi hinterland across from the Arabian gulf, and Zia did their bidding - cutting investment in state (secular) schools and allowing the Saudis to pay for the madrassas. Three decades later, now that the children from those 'schools' have graduated, Pakistanis are reaping the whirlwind. Remember: madrassas 'teach' one thing and one thing only: the literal word of the Koran, rote-learned in a language that Pakistani children do not even understand. So alongside the ability to recite the phonetic sounds, but minus the ability to understand anything at all, madrassa children are also spoon-fed Wahhabi conspiracy theories about the evils they must confront. These evils are not even primarily the West. They are the 'wayward' practices of non-Wahhabi Islam or of any form of secularism - and teaching a child mathematics, or biology, is tantamount to a capital offence, both for the teacher and the child. This is why the sadists who attacked the school outside Peshawar reserved their most vicious attack for the headmistress, who was burned alive in front of her pupils. The Pakistani Taliban could be wiped out with relative ease - they are not embedded with centuries of tradition but rather are just three decades old. They are unpopular among the populations they hide within. The only real sustenance they've received in the recent was from the ISI (Pakistani military intelligence). If only the three critical power blocs in Pakistani politics - the government, the army and the ISI - could agree a common plan, the Pakistani Taliban will be gone. Unless there is such a common plan, you can be sure that someone within the Pakistani power elites wants them to continue. The longer term solution is to rebuild the state school structure and starve the madrassas of pupils. If only Western aid contributed to that, rather than weapons for a deeply corrupt and greedy military establishment, you'd see a huge difference. It sounds like bad taste to want something good to come out of such an appalling tragedy - but there is a chance that the Pakistani Taliban, who, as you'd expect from their schooling, are as thick as bricks, have just brought about their own downfall.

You’ve taken a very specific point I was making about the Arab sources of Western science (and against the view of a 'different' Arab logic) and wafted in a bunch of historical/faux social evolutionary generalisations about ‘faith’ and (by implication) mindset. Firstly, the ‘Arab world’ is not some undifferentiated mass. Try visiting the Levant – Beirut, say, or, in quieter times, coastal Syria. Cultures there are distinctly Mediterranean, outward-looking, secular and modern. Beirut in particular – the ‘Paris of the East’ before the ruinous civil wars and Israeli invasions – has a remarkable capacity for reinvention. It is cosmopolitan, tolerant (surprisingly so, given its recent past) and technologically inventive. On the other hand, try a visit to Dubai or Qatar or Jeddah and you’ll see the dull, baleful dominance of petrodollar wealth, beneath which lies – well, nothing, really. The Arabian Peninsular is culturally as different from Beirut as it is from London. In Dubai, the illusion is in full swing – the ultimate emperor with no clothes. Once its oil-rich neighbours run out of the black stuff or miscalculate the West’s supposedly insatiable appetite for oil, Dubai will follow them into ghost town status. The religious culture of the peninsula is overwhelmingly Wahhabi. The religious culture of Beirut is a mix of Christian and various sects of mostly liberal Shia-ism including the Druze. (Hezbollah fit into this in interesting ways but it’s outside the scope of this thread). Secondly, Arab science flourished by standing on the shoulders of ‘Western’ giants – which underscores how integrated it was into the ‘logic’ of science itself. Ibn al-Haytham resolved, for example, the contradictory positions of Aristotle and Euclid on theories of light and the human eye. Euclid believed that the world was visible as a result of rays projected from the eye (the theory of emission), while Aristotle thought that we saw the world as a result of light reflecting on the apparatus of the eye (the theory of intromission). Al-Haytham resolved the issue in favour of intromission with a brilliant mathematical proof which was then further proven by him experimentally. He also gave the first mathematical expression of the camera obscura – an object credited by some with the linear precision of Vermeer’s work, but which had first been developed by the ancient Chinese. The broader point here is that there is no such thing as an Arab mindset, which could account the brutality of ISIS. Never has been, never will. Nor can such assertions account for any lack of development in the Arab world. Things are far more complicated than that. You cite the Chinese as some sort of contrast – presumably because of their industrial progress – but you seem to have forgotten that they went through a Communist revolution, with collectivisation, Five Year Plans and the Cultural Revolution, all of which were designed to force through – at phenomenal human cost – an Industrial Revolution. The Maoists were merely following the path set out by Stalin, whose brutality, in terms of lives lost, was aimed predominantly at the kulaks (peasant smallholders) because they were the ‘enemies of history’ (ie industrial development). The Ottoman Empire, by contrast, never had an industrial revolution. The Turks – rulers of what was by some distance the longest lasting of the Muslim empires – were and are not Arabs! The Turks ruled large swathes of the Arab world until the First World War, and only finally collapsed in 1923. If you want to grasp something of the complexities as to why an industrial revolution didn’t happen in the Ottoman Empire, try Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’. It’s also worth reflecting on the fact that Lawrence of Arabia, and the British government, chose to arm and fight with what were, a century ago, the ISIS of the Arab peninsula. And when you factor in the British and French colonial influence, however brief, on Arab affairs, as well as post-colonial Western support and encouragement to the most brutal of pan-nationalist dictators (yes, we really are responsible for their longevity), you’re looking at some pretty gargantuan obstacles if you think the end-game is Western-style liberal democracy. There is, though, in all this a connection between religion and under-development. Fundamentalism has always been associated with extremes of under-development, and the Peninsula, and Saudi Arabia in particular, is only able to mask that by its vast oil fields. This connection of religious power and underdevelopment can be found in the Christian world too. You can be sure that where the Catholic Church is not separated clearly from the state, as in some Latin American countries. The Arab Spring has been evidence of the secular, democratic impulse at work – revolting against religious oppression and military tyranny. Too many people seem to think that the Arab Spring is over, but it’s far, far too early to call a result. Much depends on, for example, whether the Green Revolution in Iran can regain momentum. But in any case, we’ll just have to wait and see – if you’d called the result of the Communist uprising in Russia on the 1905 revolution you’d have missed a pretty big picture! As for torture, no one – including, presumably, you – is making the argument for the serial incidents of torture in the CIA and in the US and British Armies being part of a broader ‘cultural/religious failure’ of the West. The tortures resorted to by ISIS, the Assad regime and the CIA are all pretty indistinguishable, both in gruesome technique and in the low desire to humiliate and destroy. They are also, regrettably, sourced in a powerful belief in the cultural/religious inferiority of the victims. So I think a little less of the ‘Arabs don’t think like us’ attitude – so reminiscent of the ‘Vietnamese don’t value human life the way we (Americans) do’ – would be a good thing. At least it would undercut the torturers’ self-serving rationalisations.

The simple, unarguable fact is that what we call 'Western logic' derives overwhelmingly from the Arab world. Next time you look at Leonardo's Last Supper or Vermeer's Milkmaid, just keep in mind that the mathematics - the logic - of perspective in these paintings was derived directly from The Book of Optics by the Iraqi scientist al-Haytham. When his works were translated into Latin, and then into Italian, they had a tremendous impact on the Florentine Renaissance. Al-Haytham's theories of light and optics also preceded Newton and Kepler by centuries, and their remarkable works would not have been possible without a thorough grounding in Arabic scientific breakthroughs. Another 'first' for al-Haytham was that he was really the first rigorously experimental scientist (and got into some difficulty because of it). On the flip side, Edward Said has long ago settled the argument that 'Orientialism' - the view that Arabs in particular and the Orient generally have an alien logic to the West - is a byword for a persistent, pernicious racism. There really is little more to be said than that about such 'logic' arguments - they're plainly, unadulteratedly racist. What you really mean, I suspect, is that the ideology of ISIS is self-sealing. Just like a conspiracy theorist who believes and will only believe that, say, Lee Rigby and other brutally murdered or maimed victims were 'crisis actors', Jihadists have an internal logic that allows for the most illogical conclusions. There was a famous Al Qaeda missive a few years back which stated under what conditions it was permissible to murder Muslims. It turned out that so long as the killer 'believes' and is 'devout' then he may take any Muslim life, knowing that that Muslim would be transported straight to Heaven. Where do such bizarre ideas come from? Certainly not 'Arab logic'. They come from where all Salafist ideologies come from - extremist, medievalist ideas that emerged in the eighteenth century with an obscure, ultra-violent cleric called Wahaab, whose vicious nonsense only gained traction with the discovery of oil under the feet of his Saudi acolytes. Please don't be polarised into your position by the narcissistic hissy fits of someone who has turned a serious thread into yet another about himself. There really is no opposition of Western logic/Arab logic. The latter gave rise to the former and actually did all the heavy lifting for it before our own Western scientific greats could add one plus one.

Torture is mostly for the gratification of the torturers, and little to do with "information-gathering", no matter how often that pathetic rationalisation is trotted out. The two "psychologists" hired at colossal expense by the CIA - they could spend several lifetimes trying to spend $81 million, the price paid for their racked-up torture techniques - are little more than sadistic monsters, differing from "Jihadi John" only in the desire to conceal their actions. They share with ISIS murderers and torturers the desire to humiliate and glory in the pain and suffering of an "enemy combatant" (all too often a misidentified and innocent bystander). The US government does now need to widen its focus and deal with these and other atrocious abuses in the law courts. The case of Dilawar, the Afghan taxi driver killed by his US army interrogators in 2002, is well documented and absolutely horrific. He was beaten over his entire body with a level of violence that defies belief. His legs, for example, were so badly damaged in the days-long assaults that they were, in the words of the autopsy, "pulpified", and if he's survived, he'd have had to have them amputated. The US Army interrogators were court martialled: one had the charges dropped after recounting the torture in great detail, and the other, facing possibly sixteen years in jail, was merely demoted. When the Abu Ghraib photos were published by the New Yorker in 2004 there was uproar and condemnation. But condemnation of what? And of whom? Judged by the people who were prosecuted and went to jail, it was the low-grade US army personnel taking the photos and humiliating Iraqi suspects (note: not convicted terrorists) who were to blame. This was despite the fact that some of the photos featured dead Iraqis, killed by their CIA interrogators. What was the fate of these interrogators? Total exoneration and immunity from prosecution in 2012 by Obama's Attorney Eric Holder. Holder did this because, in his words, "it would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department." The precise meaning of that sentence is horrifically chilling, and should be revisited after the Senate Intelligence Committee's report. In the light of the publication of the Senate report, these immunity certificates need to be withdrawn and the CIA interrogators prosecuted. When they, if found guilty, are jailed, the US government needs to prosecute those in the DoJ and the White House who, in Holder's own accidental admission, sanctioned all of this, and profited from it, in the first place.

History is going through something of a publishing boom at the moment and there's plenty to choose from. My own personal favourite is the extraordinary Third Reich trilogy by Richard Evans. If you only buy one of the three, I'd suggest starting at the beginning with The Coming of the Third Reich - but all three would be a terrific present. Richard Evans' scholarship and fluency in German gives him access to much original materials and so his books read as 'as it happens' stories, and are the best page-turners I've read in a while. (Evans was also the leading historical consultant for Martin Amis's Zone of Interest, a terrifying 'inside' account of lives in a death camp, and was the lead expert witness in the legal demolition of the Holocaust denier and falsifier David Irving.)

Excellent points, all well made. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/24/cameronmustgo-twitter-users-decry-david-camerons-record

Is this thread an excerpt from The Fast Show?

He may be a little abrupt for your taste but he's also right on this. Your objections are painful to read, because you don't see that you're rather preciously imposing your own view of the experience of trench warfare (when you actually have none) which is every bit as partial as the one represented in the ad. If you go and listen to the extensive archive of sound and vision recordings of first-hand testimony lodged at the Imperial War Museum, you'll hear a much richer view from those who actually fought and survived. It includes testimony about incidents like the one in the ad, and others, such as the long periods of incredible boredom, even when the enemy were a stone's throw away. And then there are the bursts the indescribable horror - the kind of horror which even a news broadcast today (or then) cannot show. Notably the truly hellish accounts of the effects of gas warfare, and the effects of shelling. So instead of imagining the war and imposing your imagination on the ad (and remember, any sensible viewer knows that ads are not and do not claim to be contributors to the historical canon), go and have a listen to these records. As someone who's contributed recordings to the museum (interviews conducted with survivors of the Burma railway), I can tell you that if you take the time to listen, you'll learn a lot... Wars are horrible, but they are not reducible to the horror.

The picture would have been a virtual work of art worthy of Martin Parr if she'd only managed to include the van/house owner in the shot.

How do you get the message from that commercial that we can ‘all forget the horrors of the Great War’? Nothing in it says anything of the sort. Is anyone but the most hopelessly naïve under the impression that the Christmas football match was anything other than a brief respite? If so, where are these gullible people? Or are they figments of your imagination? Does the commercial really suggest anything other than that war was hell before and after? Is it really propagating some alternate version of the war in which everyone sat down and enjoyed themselves for four whole years? That’s what all those grim trenches and the rendition of no-man’s land were all about? Was the war fought in the trenches between bad people rather than good? You have to believe all that to conclude that the commercial is therefore a ‘lie’. It’s not ‘the truth’ either – in that it compressed several incidents over the early years of the war into one. But, Jesus H Christ, do you have to believe an awful lot of nonsense to reach the conclusion that it was some kind of Orwellian ‘lie’ in which war is peace and peace is war, and which droves of (imaginary) Brits are in danger of accepting as historical ‘fact’. Because that's how they learn our history - watching TV ads. It’s not a great commercial – the bouncing bomb one (which also attracted exactly the same sad-eyed moaning) was much better. But with all this hand- wringing anyone would think we’d witnessed the second coming of Goebbels – all over what is basically an unremarkable but quite well produced ad.

It doesn't seem that 'excellent' to me though. What it does indicate is that moral outrage can be taken to mean that reasoned argument is superfluous. For example, "the bizarre outcome is Sainsbury's giving us the perverse Christmas message that chocolate makes war OK" sounds a good rabble-rousing slogan...if it were true. But it isn't. The ad is about an incident that happened outside of the more usual conduct of war (and almost certainly against standing orders about fraternising with the enemy). The chocolate bar was exchanged as a surprise gift from one enemy combatant to another. How exactly is that 'making war ok'? Is the argument only sensible from the sanctimonious point of view of a high horse? By all means disagree with the sentiments in the ad, or complain about the state of affairs where a war victims' charity depends on a supermarket. But I can't but feel it would help if the more voluble critics were able to dial down the emote control so we can hear what they're actually saying.

Bellingcat, the open-source 'citizen investigative journalists' who recently triangulated the exact location of James Foley's murder, have carried out this succinct and persuasive dismissal of the supposed shoot-down image as fakery. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2014/11/14/russian-state-television-shares-fake-images-of-mh17-being-attacked/ The claim on Russian state TV that it was sourced from Wikileaks is (unsurprisingly) false.

Exactly - and utterly, utterly depressing. The Lounge at its insinuating, weasel-worded worst. Luckily for the 'birds' (Tokyo Saint TM), verdicts are not delivered on football forums.

There are degrees of violence, from mild coercion or taking advantage of an inebriated state to murder - but not degrees of rape, which is a yes/no answer to the question of consent. You really need to consult a dictionary. Being an apologist (which from the tone of your posts you appear to be as close as damn it) does not mean 'apologising'.

That's the spirit! The best Tiny Tim Cratchit impression I've read in ages.

It may not be that Qatar has been any more or less corrupt than other bid winner in the past. The difference this time is the sheer surreal absurdity of a World Cup in the Arabian Gulf in the Summer. So a withdrawal of the FA from FIFA wouldn't be aimed at Middle Eastern interests as such, but rather at FIFA itself, which is, as has been said, an appalling banana republic which has serially damaged the interests of football in return for copious kickbacks. So I don't think it conflicts with ME investment in the Prem. Pulling out of FIFA sounds appealing, at least if it's used as a nuclear option in a determined bid to reform an organisation that, like F1, has done more than any to damage the sport. But the minute we start talking about the FA as a leader of a reform movement it all starts to sound a bit ridiculous. And my guess is FIFA knows this - it's a battle of the chronically corrupt vs the chronically hopeless.

It's not hard to figure out, is it? If, as you say, the British electorate (you excepted, of course) are, I quote, 'morons', how can they be trusted with any plebiscite decision at all? Won't the moronic sheeple do whatever the MSM tells them to do?

So how exactly do you get a reliable plebiscite from people (the British electorate) you yourself describe as 'morons'?

What are you looking for, Tim? Some rational, consistent sense? If so, you're looking in the wrong place. On the one hand, this guy wants plebiscites on issues otherwise there's no legitimacy (actually plebiscites are more the tool of '99-percent-in-favour' dictatorships than liberal democracies); on the other hand, we're all sheeple controlled by a hypnotising 'MSM' (mainstream media) which manipulates these plebiscites. If you want more sense, you're better off asking your cat.

Bits of string theory were widely discredited by M theory by adding an extra (11th) dimension. So 2-0 is still wrong.

If you calculated only using integers, this is wrong.

Great - well said Ducky., I've put you down as "Yes, I agree with Ed!!'. Stickers and window poster on the way - sent second class. Fancy some door-knocking?

When you say 'these reports' you presumably mean 'this report' - which I take for code translated: as you haven't read it. And you're fabulating to suit your inner ostrich. As for the idea that the report 'makes no allowance' for capital assets and other costs, one section of the report deals with contributions from non-EU migrants, which make significant demands on public services. Between 1995 and 2011 costing taxpayers £118 billion. Even when balanced against their contribution, they still took out more than they 'paid in' for every year during that period. Three-quarters of the net contribution - the figure widely reported - is from 'old EU' migrants (France, Italy, Germany, etc). Presumably the knee jerkers have kneed themselves in the head in their dim-witted rush to accuse the authors of bias, because there's plenty of good statistical information in the report to inform both sides of the debate.

Meaning they should change the facts to suit your opinions? Do you think they should have suppressed these facts because UKIP has some degree of popularity? And what 'subsidies' are these? (Do you mean 'subsidies'?)

Brilliant.