THEY’RE at it again. The BBC, of course. Defining the Celtic team that won the European Cup as “British” to remove any thought that anything Scottish is worth anything.

If Celtic had failed, we would only have heard “Scottish”. When Manchester United won the competition the next year, they were called “English” because that’s all success and worth, isn’t it? During their European campaign of 66-67, Celtic had to endure increasingly hysterical media hostility from their English “fellow British”. The “British” identification was useful for separating Celtic’s success from their essential Scottishness.

Hence the lovely story of one Englishman who, after the final whistle, invited himself into the Celtic dressing room, and rejoiced that “We’ve done it!”

Jock Stein looked at him and said: “What do you mean, ‘We’? Out, please.”
Ian McQueen
Dumfries

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Dropping bombs on people helps to breed terror

SO THE stock response to Corbyn’s speech is that, although the French and the Swedes were against the invasion of Iraq, they get hit by terrorists too. Leading to the conclusion that the link between the central theme of our defence policy, constant expeditionary warfare in the Middle East, is really not a contributor to our insecurity.

In my view the first iteration of the underpinnings of a refutation of this false proposition was put together by a research project run under the auspices of the United States Air Force University. It was put together over a decade ago and presented in the book Dying to Win by Dr Robert Pape.

The study incorporated a huge sociological scoping exercise which looked into the background and motivations of hundreds of suicide bombers and drew some interesting conclusions. Key amongst them is the point that extremists have and always will be amongst us, here in the West and in the Middle East.

Crucially though, very few ordinary people in the lands of the extremists listened to the extremists. Then something happened to the populaces: we invaded them.

This resulted in a significant uptick in the recruitment of the extremist groups who positioned themselves as the defenders against the invaders. Then we got out when we discovered we were up against such determined fighters and we were asymmetric war losers.

But we couldn’t let go and replaced a ground war with a more “sustainable” (media manageable) air war. According to the website Airwars, the west has dropped more than 76,000 pieces of ordnance flown in more than 21,000 sorties over Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Then we killed civilians by mistake. Not surprisingly, recruitment of enraged ordinary folk to extremist organisations went through the roof and has remained there.

In my view what this means is that we must stop the bombing. Of course the terrorism won’t stop — only an idiot could conclude that — but, over time, possibly a painfully long time, the extremist recruitment will lessen.

Lessen to an extent that a tipping point might be reached when, maybe years after we stop bombing, ordinary people’s anger lessens and they distance themselves from the extremists. Then, after even more time, the ordinary folk turn against the extremist as before — before we invaded and bombed them.
Bill Ramsay
Via email

OF the many messages of condolence that we saw at the Manchester bombing site, to me, one of the most significant was written in a child’s hand — the simple question: “Why?”

Had this atrocity been an act of god or nature, such as a landslide or a flood, then this question could be construed as a simple cry of anguish, a question without an answer. But this was not an act of god.

The bomb was made and planted by a human being. Someone with a brain and a thought process. Someone with loves and hates and someone within a group which clearly has a sense of grievance. I have seen many interviews with elders and religious leaders of the Muslim community. Respectable people who are, without doubt, worthy of respect. But these are not the people who plant bombs!

We should we should be talking to, and more importantly listening to, and trying to understand, the views of the bomb-makers and their sympathisers, no matter how abhorrent and distasteful these views might seem to mainstream society.

Only when we understand can we, if necessary, start to change existing attitudes and policies at all levels — personal, local and national — and formulate possible new policies to counter such acts of hatred.
Alex Leggatt
Edinburgh

A SUICIDE bomber blows himself up in the foyer of the concert hall in Manchester, causing many deaths and injuries. All week the media has churned out the same rhetoric, condemnation from PM and politicians alike, the same scenes on the streets of Manchester as we saw in London after the bombing there, flowers being laid in the street, people crying in front of a camera. Still no one is seriously asking, why did such evil happen?

The young man came from Libya, was that significant? Now you may not think much of Trump but he did say at the time that intervention in Libya would only lead to instability in the region, and can only end in tears (my words). When are MPs at Westminster going to stand up and be counted instead of sticking their heads in the sand over Britain’s foreign policy, a policy that lies at the heart of this atrocity in Manchester, and others around the world? Two per cent of GDP spending on Nato? Let’s instead spend two per cent of GDP on manufacturing peace not armaments: this would be a better defence policy for our country.
Walter Hamilton
St Andrews

I AM currently receiving excellent treatment in our local NHS hospital. Of the senior surgical team dealing with my case, four are not British. My dietician is from Eire, the nursing sister in the admittance ward is from Eire. In that ward and the one I am presently in, four of the nurses are non-British — two from Eire, one from India and one from Romania.

Does anyone really wonder what the Tory agenda is, supported by Labour, when they say they will deport foreign nationals when they impose their xenophobia?

I am in no doubt the destruction of the NHS is right up there!
George Greenshields
East Kilbride