This attack occurred at the end of a concert by US popstar Ariana Grande. Staged by the promoter Live Nation this concert was being performed as part of the Dangerous Woman Tour (DWT). 22 civilians were killed in the attack and 59 were wounded.
At around 21:00 (22:00 local) yesterday (3/6/17) a low tech marauding terror attack occurred in the London Bridge area of the British capital London. Three men drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge itself before exiting the van and stabbing passers-by in the bars and restaurants in and around London Bridge.
Within 10 minutes all three attackers had been shot and killed by police. However they had succeeded in killing 7 and wounding 48 more.
Last night's attack is simply a continuation of the MENA bombing. So I could spend my Sunday cutting & pasting what I wrote about the MENA into a new post in an effort to pretend I've done some work.
Alternatively you could just read what I wrote here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-manchester-bombing.html
Here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/operation-temperer.html
And here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/state-sponsored-terrorism.html
In those posts I pointed out that although it has extremely little to do with Islam the threat of terrorism rises during the holy month of Ramadan. On this occasion I just couldn't resist.
In the five days since I wrote those posts two significant things have happened;
Firstly US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday (1/6/17) that the US is to withdraw from the so-called Paris Agreement.
As I've said Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour (DWT) had many purposes.
The primary objective was to cause Rihanna to suffer a Kanye West style psychotic break/mental health emergency in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in October 2013. This was to serve as an apology for Rihanna causing the democratic revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011. As I've said it's probably best you don't try and question the reasoning of crazy people.
Beyond that the hope was that such a dramatic event would create a culture of global anger and mistrust. That would render the COP19 Summit held in November 2013 unable to function. Particularly the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) which was tasked with drawing up a legally binding global response to climate change.
Obviously I am awesome. So none of that happened.
In 2015 the US Democratic Party and the Gulf States who fund them changed tactic. In October 2015 the US would throw away the ADP's work and replace it with a new agreement intended to block efforts to combat climate change. The Gulf States would then use terrorist attacks to intimidate nations into signing up to the Obama text abandoning the fight against climate change.
These included but are not limited to;
- The November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres in COP21 host city Paris, France. This killed 130 people and wounded 368.
- The November 20th 2015 (20/11/15) attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali. This killed 20 and wounded countless more.
- The November 24th 2015 (24/11/15) bombing of a bus in Tunis, Tunisia. This killed 12 and wounded 16.
- The December 2nd 2015 (2/12/15) marauding attack in San Bernardino, California, US. This killed 16 and wounded 24.
Now the US has withdrawn from the 12/12 Atrocity it raises the possibility that global efforts to combat climate change will resume. This obviously presents something of an existential threat to Gulf Nations who exist only to provide fossil fuels to be burnt to emit Green House Gases (ghg's).
Already Trump's announcement seems to have triggered a fresh uptick in terrorism. Particularly in west Africa.
On Thursday (1/6/17) itself two French soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack on their base in northern Mali. On Friday (2/6/17) 6 Nigerian soldiers were killed in an Islamist terror attack in Mali's neighbour Burkina Faso. Also on Friday (2/6/17) twin suicide bomb attacks killed 11 in Nigeria's neighbour Cameroon.
As developing nations particularly vulnerable to climate threats west African nations have a lot to lose for the Paris Agreement continuing and a lot to gain from it being scrapped. These attacks seem intended to intimidate similar developing nations in west Africa and beyond from speaking up in support of President Trump's decision.
Secondly on Tuesday (30/5/17) Live Nation announced that Ariana Grande will be headlining a one-off benefit concert called; "One Love Manchester." This will be taking place in Manchester today. It is being touted as the most watched concert in history.
I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this concert.
On the one hand I think that it is important that in response to the MENA bombing we show that terrorists will not force us to cower in the dark as they hope. However from experience I suspect that Live Nation's true motive is to get the currently suspended Dangerous Woman Tour back on track so they don't have to refund the tickets already sold.
However the timing of the concert seems wrong.
In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing the world's media have descended on Manchester only really leaving last weekend (27/6/17). So it is only really now that the people of Manchester have been allowed to start to forget that a tragedy has struck them. Today's concert denies them that right to start to forget.
In response to the concert Manchester Health Authority have been forced to set up a special psychological trauma counselling centre in the city centre to assist those who will find the concert psychologically triggering. I mean that in the legitimate medical sense rather than the US liberal bullsh*t sense.
The concert is also an open show of defiance and therefore challenge to the terrorists. This has the effect of painting a big target on Britain's back while the concert is taking place. Normally I'm all for that but the concert takes places the day after the UK hosted the UEFA Champions League Final.
Some Americans have described the Champions League Final as being like the Super Bowl. The truth is it is a far bigger deal than that. It is followed by roughly 1/7th of the entire population of the planet.
Hosting the Champions League Final allows a nation to show of its expertise in providing security for this type of large public event. It certainly gives all other UEFA nations the opportunity to annoy the host with stupid questions about security.
For example I think the Principality Stadium in Cardiff which hosted this year's final is the only stadium in Europe to have a closable roof.
Long before events in Manchester there was lots of questions about whether that roof should be closed during the match to prevent terrorists using commercial drones to drop bombs on the crowd. However I think that owed more to Lady Gaga's use of drones during the 2017 Super Bowl then any legitimate security concern.
Therefore I can't help but think this One Love Manchester concert is something the UK security services could have done without. However I am mindful of the fact that Ariana Grande is not only a real person but also technically one of the survivors of the MENA bombing.
Even before Saturday evening's events in London Bridge Qatar's ruling al-Thani family had been having a particularly active day.
In the US they staged another round of Arab Spring style protest marches against President Trump.
These were almost identical to January's Women's/Sister Marches except that they took place under the banner of "March For Truth." Feeding directly into the US Democrat's Congressional campaign the claim being that there is some hidden link between President Trump and Russia.
In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing Qatari leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of course boasted that at his behest the Muslim Brotherhood would soon succeed in using these tactics to overthrow the American government.
As I've said before if Americans continue to act as enemy combatants on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood they should expect to be treated as enemy combatants.
Also yesterday the hackers that Qatar blamed for releasing Tamim al-Thani's speech leaked emails of UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba. The main thrust of these emails was that they linked the UAE to Israel via the al-Otaiba and the US think-tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD).
Sadly politics in Muslim nations is often a contest of who can be the most anti-Semitic. So there's is no greater insult one Muslim nation can throw at another Muslim nation than accusing it of being linked to Israel.
This is something that voters in London actually have some of experience of.
During the 2016 campaign for London Mayor the Labour Party kept trotting Ken Livingstone out to make increasingly bizarre anti-Semitic statements. This was part of a deliberate strategy by the Labour Party to have their candidate Sadiq Khan elected. Alongside saying non-Muslims should not have the right to vote Labour was trying to show Muslim voters that the party shares their most delusional and hateful views.
The al-Thani's animosity towards the UAE seems driven in part by the fact that the One Love Manchester concert will be taking place at the Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
When staging an event of this scale in the UK the police draw up a security plan. They then hand the bill for that security plan to the venue who have no choice other than to pay it.
I suspect that the One Love Manchester concert will result in the UAE happily paying a highly inflated security bill without question or argument. Even if I think the bill should be handed directly to Live Nation.
Following the MENA bombing the UK government of course raised the terror threat from "Severe" to "Critical." The highest level. However they then lowered it again to Severe last Saturday (27/5/17). In light of last night's events that decision is obviously going to be called into question.
The terror threat level only really relates to things like making sure hospitals have enough blood in stock and trauma specialists available. Keeping the terror threat at Critical would not have meant that there would've been the van full of police officers on every street corner needed to prevent last night's attack.
Although they may not feel like it at the moment British people don't want to live in a society where there are vans full of police officers on every street corner. They certainly don't want to have to pay for it.
Personally I would never have raised the threat level to Critical in the first place. However once it had been done I wouldn't have lowered it certainly until after this weekend and probably until after Thursday (8/6/17) General Election.
On the election the UK is seriously having an election debate every two days. Like Prime Minister Theresa May I actually have an interest in politics so haven't wasted my time with them. However I did catch a little bit of Friday's (2/6/17) debate.
There the Conservative Party are trying to portray Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as being weak on security by saying that he would never launch Britain's nuclear weapons. Corbyn tries to squirm out of those questions by saying the use of nuclear weapons would mean the end of the World. That is simply not true.
Seeming to ignore the two nuclear weapons used against Japan in 1945 Corbyn's thinking still seems stuck in the Cold War. That involved two super powers with vast nuclear arsenal's and second strike capability squaring off against each other. If they'd both used all of their nuclear weapons that would probably mean the end of the World.
However a nuclear armed nation using a couple of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation or non-state actor would be almost entirely without consequence for the nuclear nation.
For example Britain could launch a nuclear strike against Qatar today.
That would result in nothing more than Qatar getting destroyed followed by a short argument over who gets the al-Thani's stuff.
12:25 on 4/6/17 (UK date).
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