Posted on 01/12/2015 2:21:12 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
The train passengers’ calm consumption of crisps and bored checking of emails on the 11.43am to Birmingham suggested they hadn’t heard the news. Their destination, a city of more than a million people, had shockingly become Britain’s first caliphate and a no-go zone for non-Muslims – at least, according to an “expert” on Rupert Murdoch’s US-based Fox News channel.
“There are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in,” Steve Emerson, a commentator on terrorism, told millions of viewers on Sunday.
Raja Mohammed Ishtiaq, co-owner of the Raja Brothers grocery set up in 1977 by Pakistani immigrants, said Emerson’s comments were embarrassing and insulting. “We are not in cuckoo land,” he said. “There are lots of Muslims here but this is a multicultural society and there are beautiful links between the different religions. How can they say this? Birmingham is one of the stable communities.”
A few doors down, the Lahore restaurant – specialising in cuisine from Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled north-west frontier region – welcomes a mixed crowd. Sitting beneath a picture of the Pakistani cricketer turned politician Imran Khan, a white 31-year-old civil servant who asked not to be named said he came here daily for lunch, and sometimes dinner too.
As he polished off his kebab, his message was simple: “It is not a no-go area and there’s nothing to suggest it is becoming one.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I don’t rely on Fox news any more than you do.
I spend an average of 2-3 months in the UK training your military pilots.
Yes, England is not France. Yet.
Oooh, interesting, where in UK?.
I didn’t realise we still had an airforce, lol.
All over, really. I’ve bombed bits of the Scottish countryside more than Syria, albeit with cement bombs.
But yes, you do have fantastic air forces. Some of the bravest men I’ve ever met.
Marginal equipment and a propensity to include a thermos of tea in a jumpseat-equiped aircraft, which is amazingly ill-advised.
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