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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.Johnson pressured on jail terms after London Bridge attack
By Costas Pitas and Guy Faulconbridge LONDON©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
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CrazyJoe
Why on earth would a “convicted terrorist” ever be released from prison?
Those brave guys who tackled this creep should get whatever national honor is presented by the British government to civilians. These men are true heroes. It takes real guts to do what they did.
u_s__reamer
Terrorists and longer sentences are catnip to campaigning politicians. They and their unreflecting supporters irately turn a deaf ear to Noam Chomsky's voice in the wilderness: “Everyone's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's really an easy way: Stop participating in it.” The only problem with this sage advice is that war and meddling in other countries' conflicts means jobs and big profits for some while the tab is picked up by others.
Mr Kipling
Those convicted should serve their full sentence then be repatriated to country of origin.
Which if we are going to be honest is Pakistan.
Toasted Heretic
Be honest? Alright, let's try that approach. The killer Usman Khan was born in Stoke-on-Trent. He's British.
The knee jerk reaction of longer sentences for "terrorists" isn't going to work and in the case of the GFA/peace process, would be disastrous.
Johnson is capitalizing on this attack.
*Hours ahead of Johnson announcing his hardline changes to sentencing, Jack’s father, David Merritt, posted a Twitter appeal urging politicians not to use his son’s death as a pretext for severe action. “My son Jack would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily,” he wrote.*
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/30/boris-johnson-london-bridge-terror-attack-hardline-reforms
Jimizo
Why “terrorists” and not just terrorists?
kurisupisu
I’m against the death penalty but surely partial lobotomisation is the answer here?
Jimizo
I don’t think there is an easy answer. Not getting involved in pointless wars in ungovernable countries is certainly a good start to reduce anger but there are those who see it as their duty to drag countries like the UK back into the Stone Age. Their attitudes towards women, freedom of speech and conscience, jurisprudence and homosexuality to name a few were not created by wars.
These bad ideas are common in varying degrees across the Muslim world including those whose countries haven’t been attacked.
u_s__reamer
Their attitudes towards women, freedom of speech and conscience, jurisprudence and homosexuality to name a few were not created by wars.
No argument, but sadly the above is not why politicians who run USAUK go to war. "Blowback" is very real and by now an established concept among political "scientists". In a nutshell, the terrorist mentality is best explained as a conflation of personal inadequacies, like low self-esteem and identity issues with their projection onto REAL injustices and horrific violence perpetrated by governments "not in their name". The proxy eye of the internet enables anyone to view these atrocities and read the commentariat. The only way for terrorists to escape their unbearable psychological suffering is by an act of symbolic violence that can repair their damaged sense of self, as they experience, "crushed by society", even if it means throwing away their own life in a Samsonesque gesture of defiance.
Jonathan Prin
Solution : life prison on an island.
So far, easy life for convicted terrorists.
Crush the cockroaches.
kurisupisu
The Tories have to answer for extremiststaping knives to their hands to go on a murder spree of innocent people....really?
goldorak
I wish it were that clear & simple tbh. Imo most of the nuttas who were born & bred in the uk, neth, fra, ger, oz etc and are willing to blow themselves up for 'the cause' just hate us (locals) what we like, stand for, our values etc. They don't want us to be happy, drink, sh#g, have fun/a punt on the races or footy etc. Don't think they really care about history, politics or israel tbh. Just pure hatred, possibly jealousy, imo.
commanteer
Well, one of those "heroes" was also on early day release from prison. He strangled a special needs girl in the woods, slashed her throat and left her to die - for no particular reason. Most people would say he should not have been walking the streets either. And yet he was, to some benefit.
I don't think it's fair to the family of the girl he murdered to offer him too much praise though. Maybe if he keeps it up the rest of his life, he can make up at least partially for his own horrible crime.
mmwkdw
Watching the online Video about the London Bridge event, I have to wonder whether it'd be simpler to shoot all Terrorists rather than keeping them in Prison. Would save money & Lives..... but then, this is the way some people would wish us to think.
albaleo
It might be simpler to shoot, but who gets to decide who is a terrorist?
I'm not really comfortable with the term "terrorist". Shooting someone who is posing an immediate threat to public safety possibly makes sense. That could cover all kinds of acts that probably don't fit the "terrorist" category. "Real" terrorists don't usually put themselves in a position where they can be shot. Are we not talking about mentally unstable people, whether they are shouting Islamic slogans or just loonies who are intent on shooting up the local school or whatever? I don't think there's a simple answer.
Toasted Heretic
There's an old saying - one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
This is undeniably true in the case of, say, someone like Mandela.
It is open to interpretation with Irish "freedom fighters/terrorists". Especially in the context of the terms of the GFA. Hence the punctuation marks.
Toasted Heretic
By "us", what do you mean?
They are locals, too. And they have killed other locals. Something has gone very wrong in their lives, for sure, but to dismiss them as "other" only exacerbates division.
Toasted Heretic
And that's how the circle of violence and hate is guaranteed to continue. By reducing people to the status of animals and vermin.
Thus, the terrorists win.
Jimizo
Yes, I know.
So do you think jihadis butchering people are freedom fighters?
Jimizo
The IRA were terrorists who killed innocent men, women and children.
Scum. Terrorists.
Same goes for the loyalists who did the same.
Same goes for jihadis.
kurisupisu
And what about the soldiers who have fought wars on completely false pretenses in Iraq, for example?
Strangerland
Grey area of morality. Every person who joins the military takes on some responsibility for the wars they fight in. If they didn't join, they would not be fighting.
That said, they are also are ordered to go where they go, and do what they do. In that regards, there is also a huge responsibility for the higher ups, particularly the ones that pushed for war. No one should ever be pushing for war unless they are absolutely certain the intel they have is correct. When people war, innocents die. That's as certain as death and taxes. Pushing for a situation in which innocents will die, based on faulty intel is a moral black mark, even if one thought they were acting in good faith. With the consequences being that innocents will die, being wrong is not an acceptable position, even when one has acted in good faith.
Those who ordered and/or supported the invasion and destruction of Iraq were wrong. Simple as that. They deserve condemnation, and in some circumstances, prosecution, for supporting the invasion of a sovereign nation that had not attacked the US, and was complying with UN demands for unfettered access to the country to look for WMDs. Little Bush and his cronies (with support from the Democrats), did what America does; got annoyed with the rules, and decided to ignore them and do what it wants. So they unilaterally decided to invade Iraq, without support from the UN. And they were wrong. That part of it all is simple.
They were wrong.