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The Guardian reports:
At least 19 people were killed and more than 50 injured after an explosion in the foyer area of a crowded Manchester concert hall, which left hundreds of people fleeing in terror. [...] Police said they were dealing with a possible terror incident and counter-terrorism officials were assessing what caused the explosion. Investigators from the police and the domestic security service MI5 were part of the investigation.
Greater Manchester Police statement:
I can confirm the details of events tonight that we currently know. At around 10.33pm last night we received reports of an explosion at the Manchester Arena in the city centre. It was at the conclusion of an Ariana Grande concert.
Currently we have 19 people confirmed to have died and around 50 people injured.
The injured are being treated at six hospitals across Greater Manchester. My thoughts are with all those who have been affected and we are doing all we can to support them.
[...] We are currently treating this as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise. We are working closely with the national counter-terrorism policing network and UK intelligence partners.
Unnamed sources, who have not been directly quoted are widely reported as suspecting this incident was a suicide bombing.
Multiple senior U.S. law enforcement officials briefed by British authorities told NBC News that forensic evidence at the scene — including a body found at the blast site — indicated a suicide attack. British and U.S. law enforcement officials said they believed they had tentatively identified the bomber.
U.S. officials said initial reports indicated that some of the casualties might have been caused by a stampede of concert-goers.
Sky News reports:
Officers carried out a controlled explosion at nearby Cathedral Gardens shortly after 1.30am, but have since confirmed the item they found was abandoned clothing and not suspicious.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:06AM (8 children)
> Win what and for how long?
I completely agree with this sentiment, but I would use it to argue for exactly the opposite. What we should have done in Afghanistan, was build a nation. That takes decades - generations have to live in peace, a middle class has to flourish. Bush/Blair's childish, naive mistake was to expect that this would take anything less than 50 years. It was obvious even in the 90s that building a nation takes a long time.
> War is a non-solution for this problem, and perhaps even an anti-solution.
I sort of agree. War will never create peace, this is obvious. Wealth, however, will. Bringing wealth and education to the poor people in the Middle East can break the cycle of violence. Military can support this goal by providing a framework for economic growth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:00AM
Speaking of naive, what you're doing is looking at an alligator eating a chicken and talking about what the alligator should have done to help the chicken.
That's so far from what the alligator was trying to do. Go look at US Gov's track record. How many nations have they destroyed. How many have they built?
Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc are all shittier places after USA's involvement.
Syria:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-syria-wikileaks-idUSTRE73H0E720110418 [reuters.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/newly-declassified-u-s-government-documents-the-west-supported-the-creation-of-isis.html [washingtonsblog.com]
Libya:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html [telegraph.co.uk]
There's more if you bother looking. And many of these are mainstream sites not conspiracy nutjob sites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:25AM (2 children)
The Marshall plan didn't take that long. Granted, there's a difference between Germany and Afghanistan.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:29PM (1 child)
People today forget that the Nazi die-hards continued a terror campaign of resistance [wikipedia.org] after the official surrender.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:29AM
Your link says the exact opposite.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:40PM (3 children)
The history of that region would indicate it would take much, much longer than that and would have to be a much, much more severe campaign of indoctrination and identity formation than democracies generally care to undertake. The Persian Empire controlled the area for a long time, but those people never came to think of themselves as Persians nor to have Persian values or behave as Persians do. The Romans took their turn later, and those people did not give up calling themselves Jews and Assyrians and become Romans and think of themselves as such. Still later the Ottomans took over, and the tribal identities of the people they conquered did not change.
You'd really have to have a very strong system yourselves that can outlast the millenia it would take to beat the tribal out of the Middle East and form them into something else.
But, why would you bother? It's far less trouble to dump fossil fuels, which is the only thing that region has that the rest of the world wants and is the only reason why anybody from anyplace else gets involved in that clusterf*k. We don't need their falafel, because we can make our own now (we have the technology!). We don't need their, I dunno, their gaudy gold jewelry or hijabs either.
The best thing to do is walk away from the whole catastrophe, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia...the whole lot. Then dump fossil fuels for renewables to deny them the income they need to project their hatred and violence elsewhere. Then, if they persist in sending suicide bombers and the like to other parts of the world, then we glass the whole fucking place and put a sign in the middle of the wasteland for posterity: "This is What Happens to Those Who Refuse to Play Well With Others."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:09PM (1 child)
Israel would do very well without any petroleum product exports. Regardless, oil corporations in USA profit from the whole deal so they will run with it until they can't.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:21PM
If Israel can do perfectly fine without anybody else, they should. America can cease its support of that country categorically.
You are right about oil companies. Nevertheless dropping oil is the obvious solution to the problem of Middle East terror and Islamic extremism. I offer the evidence of the Janjaweed in Darfur. They're as nasty as any, but they have no oil that allows them to project their hatred elsewhere. They remain nasty, but are contained as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
So I raise the connection of oil to terror with each such attack. No oil means reducing global Islamic extremist terror to a local phenomenon. Then the people in those localities can decide if they're ever going to get sick of it and put an end to it, or put up with it the way they always seem to have done.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:52PM
> The history of that region would indicate it would take much, much longer than that and would have to be a much, much more severe campaign of indoctrination and identity formation than democracies generally care to undertake.
By the same argument, Europe (and US!) were fighting over "the tribal identities of the people" up until 20th century. It turns out that "country" is just a code word for "tribal identities of the people". The Italians have been trying to suppress the British for 2000 years! The Holy Roman Empire took over where the Romans failed! etc etc. I am trying to say that your interpretation is very superficial.