Machete Terror? '

[EK WAFFLR]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630303

[P3nT4gR4m]

Saw this on the news. What's really fucking with my head is the eyewitness interview of a guy standing, waving a cleaver and a chef's knife, covered in blood after spending the last 20 mins hacking up a soldier. The eyewitness is standing right next to him, chatting away and videoing the him on a mobile phone, instead of, yanno, running like fuck.

The phrase "asking for it" doesn't exactly trip off my tongue in general but I mean, come on? The whole scene is just fucking surreal 

[Cain]

Hmmm.  Will keep an eye on this one.

Machetes don't tend to be used much outside of Africa, though, for political violence.  I wonder if the assailants were of African origin, or are sympathetic to African Islamist groups?

[Junkenstein]

Something fucking stinks here, but I'm not yet sure where to vent ire first.

This:

Downing Street said Mr Cameron, who had been planning to stay in Paris overnight after meeting the French president, would be returning to the UK tonight.

One witness, identified only as James, said two men had attacked another man, aged about 20, who was wearing a T-shirt of military charity Help for Heroes.

"These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there," he told LBC radio.

He said after the "horrendous" attack, the two men, who were also in their 20s, stood around, waving knives and a gun, and asked people to take pictures of them "as if they wanted to be on TV or something".

Makes me think this is going to be spun to fuck regardless of whatever it was that has actually gone on. It does not seem to fit the  typical islamic extremist model. Knife crime and attacks with swords and the like is surprisngly common in the UK, there's usually a particularaly bloody story every 3-6 months. Need to know more, guessing COBRA meeting was an over-reaction due to military involvement and them being generally good at over-reacting. Need more info, but this should be amusing.

Edit - Cain, I've seen Machete and Butchers cleaver touted round so far. Still waiting on official word. It did mention the guy was black, but I'd really doubt it's a cultural thing on that front.

Double edit- Ta P3nt, will find that clip.

[Cain]

That's true, the press are usually terrible at telling a machete from any other kind of big knife, and if the guy was black, they may have just leapt to a conclusion without doing the proper research.  Kinda like what I'm doing, except I'll admit it's speculation.

One witness is saying one of the suspects had a firearm, too.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Hmmm.  Will keep an eye on this one.

Machetes don't tend to be used much outside of Africa, though, for political violence.  I wonder if the assailants were of African origin, or are sympathetic to African Islamist groups?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws_HF9qSrYI Accent sounds to me like African but been here quite a while

[Junkenstein]

EDL rioting.

Various racist shit occurring.

[Cain]

The Daily Mail and Telegraph are going to be insufferable for the next month.  In the case of the EDL, that they can only muster a hundred guys in central London suggests they are on the wane, in conjunction with other reports I've heard. 

This looks like a lone wolf attack, but I'm going to reserve judgement on that.  Here's an interesting possibility - UK residents and citizens have joined Al-Shabab before, the militant Somalian jihadist outfit.  Just putting it out there.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2013/may/23/english-defence-league-woolwich-video

the racist bullshit on some of my mates FB feeds is getting bad, apparently.

I haven't had much of it due to my hard core  "DELETE" policy in terms of racism, sexism and other crap.

[Junkenstein]

Seems the guys were known to security services prior to this event.

Any and all details sketchy. Further feeling of "Fucking stinks". 

[Cain]

Sources said reports that the men had featured in "several investigations" in recent years, but were not deemed to be planning an attack, "were not inaccurate".

They confirmed that one of the suspects was intercepted by police last year while leaving the country.

Hmm.  On the one hand, the security services are meant to be in contact with potential terrorists, it is part of doing their job.

On the other hand, this blows the theory that they were random "lone wolves" whose actions could have never been predicted right out of the water.  They were on someone's list.  Question is: why, what for, and what was missed here?

Adebolajo is a Nigerian name, also.  Boko Haram or Ansaru?  Al-Qaeda in Yemen also has some people in that part of Africa.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Yeah. It's a kinda depressing facet of human nature. When presented with something shocking and horrible the default response is to be more shocking and more horrible right back.

This whole - village for an eye - mentality makes it really difficult for society to function without constant escalation of hostility. Welcome to the talking monkey planet, where mutually assured destruction is only ever one spilled pint away 

[Cain]

Pixie, would you object if I merge this with the ongoing "Machete terror?" thread?

[Suu]

From what I have heard, they are Nigerian.

Also, this is sickening as fuck.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Pix just posted a link on FB to an interesting article. Whilst I didn't agree with most of what the journo was spouting I think he hit the nail on the head with the "reality teevee" and "social networking" aspect. The witnesses stood around interviewing the guys on their cellphone cameras ffs.

Are we witnessing the birth of something new here?