The truth about Ken Bigley

[Cian]

British nationals get barbarically killed all the time. Just the media doesn't usually get the chance to leech off them for weeks before hand. No matter what, he was one person out of tens in the *same situation* and only he gets a minutes silence. Not right at all - all (which would be overkill) or none. Let it be down to each team to decide at the worst - don't make it a forced decision.

 

[SK1NT]

Without wishing to cause offence we had a traumatic barbaric death locally recently - no minues silence nationally, what's the difference ?

true, i stand corrected. i just feel sorry for the family!

 

[Gwylan]

Well put Gulliver

I don't think it's too much to call him a 'commercial mercenary' either.

We have friends who have two children and the husband works for a Telecoms company in Iraq, putting up the cables.

They are SO more interested in the money (beacuse it will pay off their mortgage) rather than the implications of having to tell their children that their Dad has been killed by a bunch of pychopathic murderers.

I'm not saying the Ken Bigley got what was coming - no-one deserves that - but those people are out there because they get paid extrordinary amounts of money, not because they are a bunch of humanitarian saints.

I know a couple of people who haved worked on the North Sea oil rigs. By your definition they are also 'commericial mercenaries', a phrase that has some unpleasant connotations. They were ordinary guys trying to earn some extra money - just the same as Ken Bigley was.

I agree that it seems ludicrous to claim, as his family did, that he was going there for humitarian reasons, and he was some kind of aid worker - that's complete nonsense. But nor do I think that what he was doing was wrong; someone has to restore the infrastructure that we wiped out - or would you rather the Iraqis lived without any utilities or communications?
Ideally, of course, it would be Iraqis themselves earning the money, but something tells me that their protection would be even more non-existent; that's a reflection of the whole sorry situation.

But I agree with the sentiment that a minute's silence is excessive, but it was inevitable. It's a shame that no-one thinks to hold a minute silence for the dozens of Iraqis killed this week,

 

[Lord Bracknell]

My father, who served in the Royal Navy during the war and lost friends and comrades in action (torpedoed twice), always objected to what he saw as the sanctimonious nature of the minute's silence on Remembrance Sunday.

He died 22 years ago. I'm certain that he would not support the form that organised national grief now takes and the political agenda that lies behind it.

Let "remembrance" be a private thing for people who have real memories. Not a public event to satisfy the media or the politicians.

Out of respect for my old man, I always make a point of absenting myself from whatever is organised for 11am on 11th November.

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

Well said, LB. Maybe we should bring these spiralling, media-inspired, embarrassment-inducing public silence-fests into one. And save them for New Labour's no doubt soon-to-be-announced National Emoting Day.

Footnote: I see that Liverpool says this is its saddest day since Hillsborough. Have they forgotten the Jamie Bulger case already? (Er, yes. Possibly because his killers were locals...)

 

[Albion Rob]

I've often wondered what the cut-off (excuse the turn of phrase) point is for a minute's silence and to be fair the boundaries do seem to be expanding.

It's like the question, When does a murder become and assasination?

I held my minute's sielnce in my car on the way home on Friday when his death was announced and I thought about the terror of knowing your fate and the sadness of his family.

That was enough for me.

 

[Trish]

I was really puzzled why the football matches had a minutes silence for him.

If it was a football related death, a member of a club or even someone in royalty or parliament then I could have understood it but why him?

Am I being callous or, like was said on here a few weeks back, it is devaluing the respect of a minute's silence by having it for all and sundry?

Although I wasn't timing the silence at Old Trafford yesterday, I didn't think it lasted a minute, and it certainly wasn't silent.

 

[caz99]

I know a couple of people who haved worked on the North Sea oil rigs. By your definition they are also 'commericial mercenaries', a phrase that has some unpleasant connotations. They were ordinary guys trying to earn some extra money - just the same as Ken Bigley was.

I agree that it seems ludicrous to claim, as his family did, that he was going there for humitarian reasons, and he was some kind of aid worker - that's complete nonsense. But nor do I think that what he was doing was wrong; someone has to restore the infrastructure that we wiped out - or would you rather the Iraqis lived without any utilities or communications?
Ideally, of course, it would be Iraqis themselves earning the money, but something tells me that their protection would be even more non-existent; that's a reflection of the whole sorry situation.

But I agree with the sentiment that a minute's silence is excessive, but it was inevitable. It's a shame that no-one thinks to hold a minute silence for the dozens of Iraqis killed this week,

unfortunately i agree with what most of hiney has written. i don't wish this on any family as it must be horrendous however we must not lose sight of who ken bigley was, he did place himself in this dangerous situation and he knew the risks in fact his family asked him to come home months ago because of the tension. he must have known being british he would be an easy target for kidnappers and such like. right or wrong i have drawn my own conclusions from the fact that he was earning as much money as possible and supporting a much younger thai wife in thailand.

i think it should be up to other countries to assist the iraqis in rebuilding their infrastructure not doing the jobs for them. same situation as in starving countries they don't just want food handed to them they want assistance in providing food for themselves.

unfortunatley the media has seemingly forgotten about the aid workers that have been killed since this whole sorry affair started. some of them have also been beheaded by kidnappers. i also agree with yorkie in that i really couldnt understand why we had a minute silence on sat.

 

[CAFC Matt]

Am I being callous or, like was said on here a few weeks back, it is devaluing the respect of a minute's silence by having it for all and sundry?

I agree with you.

Royalty and members of football clubs or the footballing world deserve a minutes silence as do people invloved in major tradegies such as 9/11. However, as sad as it is Bigley did not need a minutes silence.

Besides do the family really need it all over the news, everytone knowing what happened to the detail and publicly mourning him. I don't think they do or want it to be honest.

 

[Bwian]

I agree with you.

Royalty and members of football clubs or the footballing world deserve a minutes silence as do people invloved in major tradegies such as 9/11. However, as sad as it is Bigley did not need a minutes silence.

Please explain why members of the royal family (deliberate use of lower case) deserve a minute's silence yet other people don't? That group of highly priveleged, monied inbreds are no more worthy of a minute's silence than I am. Nor you, nor any other person in the country. I will not observe any silences for any of Liz's family-I won't be disrepectful but I don't consider them worthy of my paying them respect via a minute's silence.

 

[DJ Leon]

Please explain why members of the royal family (deliberate use of lower case) deserve a minute's silence yet other people don't? That group of highly priveleged, monied inbreds are no more worthy of a minute's silence than I am. Nor you, nor any other person in the country. I will not observe any silences for any of Liz's family-I won't be disrepectful but I don't consider them worthy of my paying them respect via a minute's silence.

The Queen is our head of state?! Would you not pay a minute's respect for that alone?

 

[The Great Cornholio]

The same will happen tomorrow.

I hope Dancing Ninja doesn't see this - you'll be branded a do-gooder.

I can't believe how over the top the media went. Talksport changed their programming to cover it for 6 hours. That was one very depressing journey home from Daventry with a broken CD player and wall to wall coverage.

IMHO, it was an horrific murder - I can't imagine how he or his family must have felt. But the way the mdeia reacted was ludicrous. All stories of the 30 odd people killed in Egypt were forgotten. Thousands of people die in an earthquake and it get's a couple of minutes coverage, max.

I'm minded of the Spitting Image sketch where one Briton stubbed a toe or something which was the headline news over thousands of black people dying.

 

[Bwian]

The Queen is our head of state?! Would you not pay a minute's respect for that alone?

No-she is merely a figurehead head of state and stands for all things I detest. I don't consider her to be head of state-I never voted her in and cannot vote her out. Answer your question?

 

[fatboy]

Although I wasn't timing the silence at Old Trafford yesterday, I didn't think it lasted a minute, and it certainly wasn't silent.

I think the referee applied common sense and ended it early.

There was a lot of shouting during the minutes silence coming from near the Wales end.

And they announced before the game that both the FA and the FAW had requested a minures silence.

 

[Jameson]

It's in the news because the terrorists are very good at their job. If he had just been assassinated on the street it would have been forgotten by now. The horrible way they effectively tortured him for weeks in front of millions makes it even more newsworthy, I'm afraid.

The minutes silence probably seemed a good idea to someone at the time but it does look odd in hindsight. Will there now be a minutes silence for the 11 year old girl who was shot and killed in Nottingham this morning? And so on....

 

[wadhurstseagull]

The death of anyone in such a callous and brutal way - regardless of their motivation for being there in the first place - is dreadful. However, the bottom line is that the whole affair has been ambushed by the media to throw crap at Blair. Why do they feel the need to do this? Simple really - we are living in a political void - Labour will win the next election as the Conservatives will not come out of their coma in time and the Liberal Democrats are unelectable under the current electoral system.. I am a Labour supporter but have to admit that I have major concerns at the lack of opposition that the current Government face. Essentially the media has taken the place of the political opposition (along with more traditional Labour MP's etc). Much the same happened towards the end of Thatchers monarchy when Labour were an ineffective opposition.

The way that politics is developing in this Country worries me - we need a strong opposition - without it the Government can basically do what it wants. I am happy to have a third Labour term BUT I would also like to see a strong opposition to balance things out - otherwise we could have a Blair dictatorship.

Ken Bigley's death should remind us all of the perils of destabalising an already unstable area for the sake of American business. It should also remind us that to be a poodle controlled by the only super power is riddled with difficulties. I believe that Blair has his heart in the right place - but on Iraq he made a serious misjudgement that was fuelled by the total lack of political oppostion (ie at Westminster) in this Country.

Until a viable opposition is found we will have to rely on the press. God help us all if this continues - I have my fears though.

Sorry

Rant over.

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

Well said, wadhurst. My thoughts entirely.

 

[fatboy]

Someone sent me a link to a website earlier containing the video. I didn't watch it but I was reading the website.

Some people have said that Kenneth Bigley was shot before he was decapitated, so he was already dead at the time.

 

[Albion Rob]

Someone sent me a link to a website earlier containing the video. I didn't watch it but I was reading the website.

Some people have said that Kenneth Bigley was shot before he was decapitated, so he was already dead at the time.

This was filed by the Press Association. Pretty clear (and graphic).

---------------------

He was seated in front of seven armed, hooded men and a banner of the group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that has carried out a string of suicide attacks and beheadings of Westerners.

Mr Bigley made a brief statement, saying: “I am not a difficult person. I am a simple man who wants to live a simple life.”

He also addressed Prime Minster Tony Blair, saying “more than ever I need your help”.

“Here I am again, Mr Blair,” Mr Bigley said.

“Very, very close to the end of my life, you do not appear to have done anything at all to help me.”

He warns the patience of his captors “is wearing thin” and again asks the premier to meet their demands and free women prisoners being held in Iraq.

One of the hooded men then says the deadline for his execution had been extended to give the coalition authorities time to meet their demand.

The speaker accused the British government of lying when it said it did not know how to contact Tawhid and Jihad.

“Because Britain is not serious in releasing our sisters, there is nothing further for this malicious Briton than the sword,” he added.

With that the speaker suddenly drew a knife from his belt as three others grabbed Mr Bigley and shoved him to the floor.

Once his head was cut off his head, the killer lifted it for viewers to see.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Britain are not holding any Iraqi women prisoners, the USA are. Shows that had no intention of ever releasing Bigley as they knew Britain could not meet their demands. Also I suppose if they did show leniancy Al Zarqawi who think he would not be taken seriously again, if he released a hostage when his impossible demands were not met. No I am afraid Ken Bigley was dead from day 1 and endured the worst fate of all 3 having to endure 3 weeks of mental torture. What that man went through we could only possibly imagine.

Thats why I don;t think anyone on here has a right to make assumptions as to why he was there and that he was only in it for the money.

There is a chance , oh cynics, that he did want to help the people of Iraqi to restore their country but most on here have written him off as a mercenary only in it for the money.