Sebastian Gorka joins the club

Do you have evidence to support your allegation as to the reason why she has shown no remorse? Or is it just wishful thinking’?

I have no way of knowing whether she is remorseful or not, and we will not know until she is back in the UK and been interrogated, but the dangers of retracting her views while still in the hands of the IS, either directly or because many other refugees were still IS supporters or operatives was reported in the news quite extensively at the time.

M0nica

I beeive - and have always believed that Shamima Begum should be allowed to return home.

She was only 15 when she made the decision to go ti join ISIS and we see case after case in this country where girls of that age have been lured and misled into coercive re;lationships - as in all the concern about gangs of men offering inducements then coercing girls her age and younger into sexual activity.

Except that she was lured abroad, and is of Bangladeshi origin. how does her case, in principle differ from the girls in Richdale, Oxford etc etc. What she has done since is irrelevant. she was a gullible child who did what she was told to do, she has had three pregnancies which have gone full term and the baby later died.

I do not think we should bring her back and just let her run free. I think close supervision, debriefing and education will be needed, probably a period in custody. But the fact that a (male) home secretary has made this decision is no defence of it.

If this view is unpopular, and I am pretty sure it will be, I am untroubled. Justice is often not popular.

Hear hear. I came on to say the same. Shameful the difference in judgement of white teenagers and brown.

Barleyfields

Do you have evidence to support your allegation as to the reason why she has shown no remorse? Or is it just wishful thinking’?

Well in the one interview I saw ISIS men were standing behind her holding guns. I'm not sure many of us would have the guts to criticise them in those circumstances.

Maybe I'm just a coward.

The colour of her skin is irrelevant. As is the gender of the Home Secretary who, based on the evidence available to him but not to us, decided that her British citizenship should be removed. What she has done and become since joining ISIS is very relevant to the security of each and every one of us, should she ever return.

She should be brought back to the UK, she is our responsibility and she was a fifteen year old who was groomed.

Barleyfields

The colour of her skin is irrelevant. As is the gender of the Home Secretary who, based on the evidence available to him but not to us, decided that her British citizenship should be removed. What she has done and become since joining ISIS is very relevant to the security of each and every one of us, should she ever return.

In the UK she can be monitored, abroad not so much so.

She can do damage from abroad if she chooses.

She is the UK’s responsibility.

She should be brought back to the UK - absolutely.We want to be able to talk about human rights to countries like China, we lose influence when we have a high profile case of making Shamima, a UK citizen, stateless because of a decision she made as a minor.

Barleyfields

The colour of her skin is irrelevant. As is the gender of the Home Secretary who, based on the evidence available to him but not to us, decided that her British citizenship should be removed. What she has done and become since joining ISIS is very relevant to the security of each and every one of us, should she ever return.

The colour of her skin is relevant when white teenage girls who are groomed are judged to be victims (quite rightly) but brown teenage girls who are groomed aren't. The relevance is pretty obvious.

She was a well educated girl with a stable family background, not an unwanted girl in care seeking love in the wrong place. You can’t possibly equate them.

Still fuming at the arrogant threat by Gorka: it seems to be the modus vivendi of the new Trump administration, threaten not work with, already seen with Musk.

However, I feel two things

1. She's our responsibility to sort out as foxie said above and

2. Syria as a possible emerging more moderate nation in the region needs our support

Barleyfields

She was a well educated girl with a stable family background, not an unwanted girl in care seeking love in the wrong place. You can’t possibly equate them.

Oh so all the groomed girls were unwanted in care? The parents who have been on TV saying they did everything to stop the grooming must be lying then, is that what you are saying?

Bangladeshis in Britain have the highest relative poverty rates of any ethnic group in the UK. She was hardly in a position of privilege. Her father is in Bangladesh with his second wife so not sure how stable her family background is.

How well educated is any child of 15?

I do equate them.

To be fair the white teenage girls were often not seen as victims either.

Galaxy

To be fair the white teenage girls were often not seen as victims either.

They are now though and obviously should always have been. I was lucky when I worked for the police, I worked with some great officers who certainly did their best to protect girls.

More mature prostitutes were also very good at alerting the unit to anything untowards going on.

Wyllow3

Still fuming at the arrogant threat by Gorka: it seems to be the modus vivendi of the new Trump administration, threaten not work with, already seen with Musk.

However, I feel two things

1. She's our responsibility to sort out as foxie said above and

2. Syria as a possible emerging more moderate nation in the region needs our support

Still fuming at the arrogant threat by Gorka

Can I just point out that - if the Independent is to be believed - the OP is slightly misleading.

Gorka was allegedly asked by The Times...

“Should the UK be forced to accept them back [British Isis prisoners] and put them on trial considering how volatile the situation is in northeastern Syria since the fall of Assad?”

His response was:

“Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment.”

But in a statement first published in the Daily Express, Mr Gorka said:

“I will not tell Prime Minister Keir Starmer, or any other of America’s allies what they should or should not do with their own citizens. However, protecting the innocent and fighting evil is an objective every decent person should agree with.”

Which is slightly different to the impression that the OP gives - which is that Gorka has gone full-Musk and told the UK government what it should do.

If we are going to fight the battle against lies, misinformation and skewing of facts, we have to be strictly honest, or as honest as it's possible to be.

“Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment.”
🤔

Has Gorka forgotten that the USA still has 15 prisoners remaining in Guantanamo Bay? Forgotten by the world.

Shamima Begum did not leave alone she left with two of her friends - the same age and background. The other 2 are now dead.

Can we not remember our own teenage years when a group of us together, had a life and momentum of its own, mainly, in my generation, members of pop groups and where as a group we would be prepared to do things that as individuals we would not do.

We can know nothing of what she did or did not do, ornwhether she really was a committed IS supporter, or whether she has long repented, until we get her back to the UK. What happens then will be the result of a full security debriefing.

True enough.

But GTMO was jointly operated (JTF-GTMO).

I looked it up last year because the question of the detainees came up in conversation with friends.

Can't remember where I got the information but IIRC, the unit was put under the control of the US Army.

So the US is still in control of its own prisoners, or detainees as they are politely called.

It's nearly 20 years - why are they still there? I thought Biden said he was going to close the prison...

Al Jazeera reckons it's because of party-politics, but then they would obviously.

Thanks Dickens for details of what Gorka said.

Wyllow3

Thanks Dickens for details of what Gorka said.

He is, at least, in the business of counterterrorism as an advisor and as allies we are supposed to work together. And he did qualify his response to the question he was asked.

Whereas Musk... well - you know...

Dickens

Wyllow3

Thanks Dickens for details of what Gorka said.

He is, at least, in the business of counterterrorism as an advisor and as allies we are supposed to work together. And he did qualify his response to the question he was asked.

Whereas Musk... well - you know...

I don't quite get this.

Did he, or did he not, say this:

Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment

Statements like that raise my hackles straight away. It sounds arrogant and bullying.

MaizieD

Dickens

Wyllow3

Thanks Dickens for details of what Gorka said.

He is, at least, in the business of counterterrorism as an advisor and as allies we are supposed to work together. And he did qualify his response to the question he was asked.

Whereas Musk... well - you know...

I don't quite get this.

Did he, or did he not, say this:

Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment

Statements like that raise my hackles straight away. It sounds arrogant and bullying.

Did he, or did he not, say this...

Well if the media is correct, he most certainly did.

But that wasn't my point, it was the way it was presented - as if Gorka had just suddenly popped up after his new appointment and made that declaration apropos of nothing, quite out of the blue - Musk-style.

The comments were the result of questions posed to him by The Times.

It raises my hackles too, though it was inevitable after Brexit that we would, erm, have to cement our relationship with the USA. Mostly on their terms. As Farage is discovering.

I remember him during the Brexit debate.

He gives me the creeps.

Whitewavemark2

I remember him during the Brexit debate.

He gives me the creeps.

... that scowl

Thanks, Dickens

Richard Murphy this morning is speculating that Trump may well make a bid for Scotland.

Why not? Scottish blood in his ancestry and he's be able to build golf courses wherever he pleased without any trouble from the pesky locals. And remove eyesores like wind turbines...

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/12/will-trump-go-for-scotland-next/