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Don't attack us please

Jaxe

Thinker
Jaxe
Joined
Mar 24, 2007
Messages
218
Ran across this interesting article

The British government will air ads on Pakistani television urging terrorists to not attack Britain.
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Personally i must say i'm a little shocked, it's different, i'll give it that, but will it have the desired effect? Isn't there a risk that it backfires completly? My initial reaction to it (other than disbelief) was disgust, which struck me as odd cause i really have no beef with the UK in any way.

*ETA*
The central theme of the campaign, ‘The Guardian’ said, "is to assert that there is no contradiction in being a Muslim and being British." It has four key aims, the daily reported: ‘to ensure Pakistanis realise the west is not anti-Islamic, that British society is not anti-Islam, to demonstrate the extent to which Muslims are integrated into British society and to stimulate and facilitate constructive debate on the compatibility of liberal and Muslim values’.
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Thought i'd add this quote cause the post seemed a little extreme without it.
 
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The aims of the campaign are:

The campaign has four key aims: to ensure Pakistanis realise the west is not "anti-Islamic", that British society is not "anti-Islam", to demonstrate the extent to which Muslims are integrated into British society and to stimulate and facilitate "constructive debate" on the compatibility of liberal and Muslim values.
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Can't see anything wrong with those aims.
 
If they follow the regulations they are quite welcome to advertise whatever they want on British TV if they pay for it.
 
The approach lacks any obvious pragmatic basis. The Islamic extremists (who I presume are the primary targets) will spin it in one or two of two ways:

- "Our terrorist methods are obviously working; look at the UK beg for mercy", and/or
- "It's just another trick by the great Satan of the Western world; pay it no mind".

There's nothing wrong with the intentions. Like Jaxe (unless I'm misinterpreting), I just don't see how the method will be effective.
 
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ParanoidAndroid said:
I just don't see how the method will be effective.
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Yes, what makes the belief that potential terrorists even watch television? It seems it will do nothing more than scare and demoralize a public already subjected to terrorism.

Seems to me the lazy way out in addressing the issue.
 
Alt+F4 said:
Yes, what makes the belief that potential terrorists even watch television? It seems it will do nothing more than scare and demoralize a public already subjected to terrorism.

Seems to me the lazy way out in addressing the issue.
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I'm not sure about "lazy", necessarily. At the very least it seems a lot like wishful thinking subverting strategy.

Trying to reason with extremists seems fairly futile...hope I'm wrong.
 
If I were an Islamic terrorist I would certainly see this as a sign of weakness, and redouble my efforts in the UK.

It's like Br'er Rabbit begging Br'er Fox not to throw him into the briar patch, to which Br'er Fox promptly throws Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch. Except that Br'er Rabbit actually wanted to be thrown in the briar patch. But the gist is the same - telling your enemies what you don't want them to do is likely to encourage them to do it.
 
According to ‘The Guardian’, the first three ads in the project will feature British Communities Minister Sadiq Khan, UK manager of Islamic Relief Jehangir Malik, former England Under-19 captain and promising Worcestershire allrounder Moeen Ali, and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Chaudry Abdul Rashid, a Mirpuri.
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The message seems quite clear to me: "Don't attack Britain because you might kill a fellow Muslim..."
 
BPSCG said:
The message seems quite clear to me: "Don't attack Britain because you might kill a fellow Muslim..."
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Except the problem there is that the sort of Muslim who would attack Britain is the sort of Muslim who wouldn't recognize those fellow Muslims as fellow Muslims--they're not real Muslims because they live with, and in, one of those evil great Satans.
 
Trying to improve the UK image in the Islamic world is a good idea, but I have to admit this "please don't attack us" routing is not very smart.

The message seems quite clear to me: "Don't attack Britain because you might kill a fellow Muslim..."
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There are a LOT of Moslems in pre 1967 Israel, that does not keep Hamas from lobbing rockets into Israel....
 
TragicMonkey said:
Except the problem there is that the sort of Muslim who would attack Britain is the sort of Muslim who wouldn't recognize those fellow Muslims as fellow Muslims--they're not real Muslims because they live with, and in, one of those evil great Satans.
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Good point.

dudalb said:
There are a LOT of Moslems in pre 1967 Israel, that does not keep Hamas from lobbing rockets into Israel....
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Good point 2.
 
I can only see this benefiting Islamic Jihadists. A stupid idea.
 
gumboot said:
I can only see this benefiting Islamic Jihadists. A stupid idea.
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I wonder why this was aimed at Pakistan. Is Great Britain acknolodging in a back handed manner that Pakistan is a terrorist state?
 
Texas said:
I wonder why this was aimed at Pakistan. Is Great Britain acknolodging in a back handed manner that Pakistan is a terrorist state?
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Or, you know, that there are terrorists that happen to be in Pakistan.

Much like the IRA didn't make either the UK nor Ireland a "terrorist state".
 
Texas said:
My guess would be the affect of this particular statement:

To a Jihadi that is like a red cape in the face of a bull.
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I'm still not getting it; I may just be ignorant, I don't know. I don't get how it would make them any more likely to attack anyone than they already were, or how it helps them to attack anyone.
 
Lonewulf said:
Or, you know, that there are terrorists that happen to be in Pakistan.

Much like the IRA didn't make either the UK nor Ireland a "terrorist state".
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This IRA analogy is getting a bit worn. The terrorists in the IRA were UK subjects fighting the English. Pakistan is a very large country that is the homeland of a very large Pakistani immigrant population in Great Britain.
 
Lonewulf said:
I'm still not getting it; I may just be ignorant, I don't know. I don't get how it would make them any more likely to attack anyone than they already were, or how it helps them to attack anyone.
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I don't get it either. If what you believe is true then why in the hell publish this article directed at Pakistan? If it will not change anyone's mind then why bother?
 
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