Six Bomb Blasts Around Central London 3468
M3rk1n_Muffl3y writes "There were six explosions around London this morning. Information is still emerging, but looks like there were bombs detonated on a bus near Russel Square and several others on the Underground around the City and King's Cross. It's been difficult to reach people on their mobiles."
7 bombs (Score:1, Informative)
Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
A previously unknown group calling itself "Secret Organisation al Qaeda in Europe" said it carried out the attacks.
My thoughts go out to everyone in London!
Responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
(translation [spiegel.de])
travel updates for Southern england (Score:5, Informative)
Re:7 bombs (Score:5, Informative)
That could make things interesting.
FYI... (Score:5, Informative)
Londoners have been warned to stay at home. Commuters have been warned to avoid London.
Seven explosions (Score:2, Informative)
The mobile network gives priority to specially enabled phones for use by the emergency services in circumstances such as this.
I think I can speak for everyone when i say
FUCK THE TERRORISTS
Very Sad (Score:0, Informative)
Mobile phone net (Score:4, Informative)
Get the latest from BBC (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2005/londo
(/. don't allow me to post anonymously...)
Re:Mobiles (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of experts have also pointed to the attack being "typical of Al Qaeda".
As it breaks... (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently the Army are now on the streets of london, trying to help EMTs get to the injured, there's a train full of people still stuck underground. Public transport hs been shutdown in London and people are being advised to stay where they are and not go into the city.
Reports are that there were 6 bombs, 3 on buses and 3 on subway trains.
Tony Blair is on his way back to London from the G8 summit in Edinburgh
Allegedly, al Qa'eda are claiming responsibility, but i haven't been able to find a definite source on this.
BBC.co.uk has been swamped, but news.bbc.co.uk is still available (last i checked)
This pisses me off royally... London was set to celebrate getting the Olympics today, huge open air celebrations, but that's all been cancelled. With all the humanitarian work that's been happening in the last weeks, you'd think that malcontents would be a little less belligerent. Progress is being made.
Now the British (who have masses of experience dealing with terrorists) will be pissed off, and the Americans have an excuse to throw their weight around even more...
Also, from talking to people in a few places, everyone seems to be thinking "Are we next?". Yes the British went into Iraq and Afghanistan, but they're been fairly well controlled for the most part. This is extremism at its worst. I don't want to kill the people who did this, i want to slap them in the face and tell them to cop themselves on... this is exactly the opposite of progress.
Re:More details (Score:2, Informative)
Some details (Score:5, Informative)
I was in the midst of this when it happened. The Metropolitan line was halted, then the Jubilee. The train driver announced a "power surge on the combine", which is probably a prearranged message to prevent panic in an emergency. Trains were then brought into the nearest station and the passengers requested to evacuate. The tube staff were very calm and efficient, and I didn't see any panic. There was defnitely a sense that something unusual had happened, and people were mostly silent as we filed out to the sound of recorded evacuation messages.
Anyone trying to contact friends and relatives, please don't panic if you cannot get through. the cellphone networks are being taking in and out of public service so that the emergency services can use them reliably. Same may be true for regular phone lines.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Terrible. (Score:4, Informative)
At the moment (Score:2, Informative)
The Police have just confirmed that there are a number of fatalities at Edgware road which along with Aldwych was the most seriously affected.The eyewitness reports and pictures from Tavistock Square suggest that there must be serious casualties.
Even the IRA
Maybe 4 bombs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mobile Phones: No contact. (Score:3, Informative)
It's thought that the bombs were detonated by mobile devices.
No, the phones were switched off to prevent overloading of the networks as they are used by the emergency services as well as the public. It's unlikely (impossible actually) that mobile phones were used to trigger the underground blasts as there's no signal down there.
Re:Mobile network switched off... (Score:5, Informative)
It's really not surprising the phones have gone down - it seems to go pretty far afield. For instance, I told a colleague in Brussels what had happened, and she understandably tried getting hold of friends in London. Everyone's fine, fortunately, but it seems anyone working or living in London is being inundated with calls right now.
The asynchronous nature of stuff like SMSes and email might be an advantage if you're trying to get hold of someone - it's not like a phone call which needs to connect immediately. Alternatively, try phoning a (non-London) friend or relative of the person you're trying to contact, in case they've heard already.
Re:Fucking Animals (Score:3, Informative)
Re:At the moment (Score:5, Informative)
Large article on Wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
Re:travel updates for Southern england (Score:0, Informative)
Typically, it's raining. The office here has gone into it's planned security routine i.e. away from windows, no one out unless nedessary, checking that everyone is able to get home etc.
It's going to be madness once everyone is let out of the offices round here. Everyone commuting in from North and North East is going to have no chance of getting home because Liverpool St. is the primary station for that. Apparently Waterloo is still open for the South and South West services so people going that way are already moving.
It's odd to see today's papers full of the joy of winning the Olympic bid and knowing that tomorrow's will be full of the horror of today's attacks.
Re:Mobiles (Score:3, Informative)
Torrent here [uknova.com].
Moblog photos and other internet resources (Score:3, Informative)
http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=77571 [moblog.co.uk]
http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=77554 [moblog.co.uk]
And I'm wondering if germane photos will start showing up on Flickr soon. So far just shots of television screens reporting the news.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/london/ [flickr.com]
Nothing gruesome in these sources at the time of this post, but of course anything could be added later.
Google Maps focused on the area described in the news reports:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=london,+uk&ll=51.51
Re:Mobiles (Score:3, Informative)
"The Government" has no ability to shut off mobiles. The networks have reprioritised to allow calls by or to the emergency services priority over other calls. This can have the effect of preventing access by other users.
Count has to be higher (Score:5, Informative)
I am writing this from an office block over the road from Bishopsgate and there is almost nothing on the roads apart from police and emergency veicles.I got caught halfway to work this morning and had to walk the rest of the way, I wish I had walked home instead but for a long time the announcements were talking of power failure rather than bombs and everyone assumed they would get the power working again. I guess this was a way of preventing panic.
So I hope and pray the numbers are low but the thoughs of my colleages and I are with those who were caught in these awful events, as they were with the people in 9/11. I will also be going to give blood as soon as they announce where we can do this.
Re:Some details (Score:5, Informative)
I was on the central line eastbound going from oxford circus at about 09:20, and there was an announcement that due to a suspect package Bank and one other station was closed. On the next stop the driver then announced that the whole underground system was closed to a power failure and asked everybody to leave the station immediately.
Afterwards, found that my mobile did not work at all. I walked back to victoria station to try and catch a train home and found it closed off. One of the policemen there said that the mobile network had been closed in london (hence a lot of people using phone boxes), and that all public services were cancelled.
I managed to then walk down to clapham junction and catch a train home from there.
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know if an Al Qaedaish group did this or not but they are in Europe. Check PBS' Frontline episode "Al Qaeda's New Front" [pbs.org]. They're streaming the entire episode.
Thank You for Posting This Story (Score:4, Informative)
On a side note. In my opinion this is not the appropriate time to start a post flamewar about how Western society has done this or that. Any civilized person should be able to look at this kind of act and know that it is wrong to have happened. This will probably be flamebait, but I really hope people consider that there are a lot of worried people out there right now that are looking to places like this for information because friends and family may be in harms way. Having to sort through posts that say You Deserve This because blah blah blah is inappropriate and cold-hearted.
Excellent Wikipedia page on the Bombs (Score:5, Informative)
Flickr Pool (Score:3, Informative)
(Cross posted at Mindjack [mindjack.com] and Swerdloff (dot com) [swerdloff.com].
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:4, Informative)
My company is streaming Sky News on our LAN, and they seem to be changing the numbers regularly.
Re:More details (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Count has to be higher (Score:4, Informative)
news release
National Blood Service
Date: Thursday 7th July 2005
Re: Bomb blasts in London
In light of events in London today, the National Blood Service would like to reassure the public that blood stocks are currently healthy and it will meet the demand for blood from hospitals if requested.
All blood donors who are due to give blood today should keep their appointments. Anyone wishing to give blood or who would like to know where their nearest blood collection session is should call 0845 7 711 711 or log on to www.blood.co.uk.
Re:Get the latest from BBC (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:2, Informative)
So the fact that someone claims the attack in the name of al-qaeda proves -if anything- that this is not an al-qaeda attack
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] begs to differ:
Besides the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., al-Qaeda has also taken responsibility for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, and the attack on the USS Cole, as well as many attacks on people in and of other nations around the world.
Good website for information (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mobile phone net (Score:3, Informative)
Please don't repeat this sort of bullshit, and moderators - please don't pander to this knd of idiocy
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:2, Informative)
It is completely against their MO.
The IRA never seek to kill civilians, just to cause terror and as such have almost without exception issues coded warnings prior to the attacks. Currently PIRA has disarmed and it is only RIRA (Real IRA) that are active however it is unlikely that they would have the capabilities to produce such a massive and well coordinated attack.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What will the EU do? (Score:2, Informative)
Poverty doesn't "just happen". The United States could be poverty-stricken, too, if it did. Poverty comes from people who can't or won't take care of themselves. Frankly, I fail to see how you can put the blame on Westerners for doing too little to help people who haven't helped themselves. Prosperity begins at home; nobody will bring it to you on a silver platter. If you want it, you earn it. This is true whether you're a poor college drop-out or an entire nation.
Yes - 3 tubes and 1 bus (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:1, Informative)
Re:First Post (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Responsibility (Score:3, Informative)
People should check out this article: Does al-Qaeda exist? [spiked-online.com]
Re:travel updates for Southern england (Score:1, Informative)
Thames Clippers are providing free travel on all boats to and from the following London piers:
Savoy (Cleopatra's Needle)
Blackfriars
Bankside (Tate Modern)
London Bridge (south side near Hay's Galleria)
St Katharine Docks (Tower Bridge)
Canary Wharf (Canary Riverside)
Greenland (Surrey Quays)
Masthouse Terrace (Isles of Dogs)
Greenwich
Woolwich Arsenal
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
This is very much not the IRA.
It is completely against their MO.
The IRA never seek to kill civilians, just to cause terror and as such have almost without exception issues coded warnings prior to the attacks.
What are you talking about?
Just because the IRA apologizes for one attack against civilians after 30 years doesn't mean it didn't happen!
1972 - Bloody Friday (civilians targeted)
1974 - Guildford pub bombing (civilians targeted)
1974 - Birmingham pub bombing (civilians targeted)
1982 - Hyde Park (military targeted)
1983 - Harrods department store (civilians targeted)
1984 - Brighton hotel (government officials targeted)
1987 - Enniskillen (civilians targeted)
1989 - Deal Marine Band (military targeted)
1992 - Omagh (civilian contractors working for military)
1993 - Warrington (children targeted)
1993 - Bishopsgate (civilians targeted)
1993 - Belfast Fish & Chip store (civilians targeted)
1996 - Canary Wharf (civilians targeted)
1996 - Manchester office building (civilians targeted)
It is only on rare occasion that IRA attacks in England have been targeted at the military. They almost always go for civilian targets.
Re:Mobiles (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Count has to be higher (Score:3, Informative)
No it wasn't - the BBC were showing pictures from behind before lunch, and were allowed closer soon after. The roof was blown off and the handrails bent out (which I'm told you can bend by hand), but the seats were in place and the whole bottom deck intact.
Re:At the moment (Score:2, Informative)
The Omagh bomb was carried out by the "real IRA" not the PIRA.. (The real IRA is made up of former members of the PIRA who did not agree with the PIRA ceasefire and hence formed their own splinter group)
The PIRA, who carried out all of the IRA attacks on the British mainland almost always did make a warning prior to attacks against civilian targets.
I believe that they did not make any warnings when bombing those pubs because they considered them to be legitamate targets as they were frequented by soldiers, not that this twisted thinking can be justified of course.
As for Warrington, that was just a complete travesty..
correction (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:2, Informative)
I truly believe that you are short sighted. They would have no reason to exist? How about taking power in Iraq over a barely established government. Have you read anything about the Iraq security force? While there is on going training, they are certainly not up to the task of defending themselves alone yet.
The true terrorists would have no freedom fighter status in which to cloak themselves, and the nationalist insurgents would likely turn against the terrorists.
Except they would attack the democratic government that has been placed, using the same logic and only slightly altered rhetoric.
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:3, Informative)
And regarding casualties, the rescue workers have focused on the injured first, and haven't pulled the dead out of the tunnel yet. Those numbers will surely climb in the hours ahead.
View From the City Of London (Score:1, Informative)
Also, they're walking the streets in a vague echo of the tube lines; e.g. Lower Thames Street has a lot more foot traffic because it's roughly along the line of the District/Circle line for people coming into Fenchurch Street and wanting to get to other mainline stations on that line.
.
firsthand and eyewitness accounts (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the recent flickr activity can be found here. [flickr.com]
Re:This was innevitable (Score:3, Informative)
Do you believe that the USA, or indeed the entire "Western" world does? The problem is larger and deeper than the media and cetainly governments are willing to admit.
Kind Regards
Four bombs, not seven (Score:3, Informative)
The other underground bombs were at Tavistock Square (near King's Cross Station in north central London) and Edgware Road (northwest central London).
The bombed bus was near Russel Square in central London, although different media report different locations, all in the vicinity of Russel Square. Russel Square is also close to Tavistock Square.
map of locations [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:3, Informative)
This attack has the hallmarks of an Al Qeada attack, not an IRA one. For one thing, the IRA usually issues a warning along with a known codeword.
This would benefit the IRA how?
Exactly. At the current time this would be of no benefit to the IRA. The IRA are on ceasefire and are contemplating a call by Gerry Adams to move their agenda forward solely by peaceful political means.
motivation for kablooie (Score:2, Informative)
Iraq, in Gulf War 1. Though Bin Laden had no love for Saddam Hussein, he didn't take kindly to all those non-Muslim Americans stationed semi-permanently on his beloved Arabian peninsula. Though I think he also took offense to the US's puppeteering of Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, and its unconditional support of Israel, especially in the UN arena. Also, when he was a child, he had to compete with 100 siblings for his father's love.
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and that one little incident in Brighton where they tried to kill most of the entire British government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombi
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:5, Informative)
That aside, I'm sorry, but you can't just say "well, he was a bad guy, we had to do it regardless of the reason" after all of the lying and deception that this administration is guilty with. THAT is what everyone is really pissed off at. Everyone who is looking at this clusterfuck with their eyes open knows damn well that Bush didn't give a shit about the people of Iraq, but used that as his second or third reason that this "had to be done." THAT is what is evil.
PS: Kuwait was slant-drilling into Iraqi oilfields. Iraq told the US, warned that they were going to invade. We said "meh, whatever." On July 16, a meeting of OPEC ("Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries") in Geneva ended with Iraq once more threatening military force against Kuwait for exceeding production quotas and for violating the agreement on drilling rights in the Rumaila oil field, a banana shaped area spanning both sides of the common border. Iraq charged Kuwait with cheating: taking more than its fair share of the oil in the field by using slant drilling techniques. Iraq further complained that Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had refused to cancel Iraq's debts from its war with Iran.
The next day, July 17, Saddam threatened to use force against any Arab oil exporters who refused to abide by their production quotas. The day after this threat, July 18, Saddam massed 30,000 Iraqi troops on his border with Kuwait. The U.S. Senate voted sanctions against Iraq.
On July 25, Egypt reported that Saddam was willing to settle his differences with Kuwait peacefully. The same day, Saddam was told by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, in a meeting in Baghdad that the United States had "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydataba se/gulf_war.htm [nmhschool.org] . d _States_(1988-present) [wikipedia.org]
Some more of that in here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Unite
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:5, Informative)
Bin Laden was really upset by the presence of 'infidel' troops in Saudi Arabia. They were a bit inconveniently situated for Bin Laden's aspiration of starting a coup.
Bin Laden's primary focus has always been Saud but Al Zawahiri, often misleadingly referred to as 'Bin Laden's number 2' has been a terrorist for 30 years and his primary focus is Israel. Al Zawahiri was heavily involved in the murder of President Saddat for signing the camp David agreement. Al Zawahiri is the ideological leader of Al Qaeda.
The issue here is not what triggered the attack, the issue is why Al Qaeda was allowed to escape. The Afghan campaign should have been completed before any new military engagement was planned. Instead troops were being pulled from Afghanistan before the job was done. The result was that instead of putting NATO troops on the ground at the Torra Borra the US was withdrawing its specialist forces to prepare for the invasion of Iraq.
Even if Bush's claim that Saddam was involved in 9/11 were true (it has never been substantiated) it was a major tactical error to open a second front before the first was secure.
A second major error was trusting Musharaff, the prime funder and instigator of the Taleban. The democratically elected government of Pakistan had tried to dismiss Musharaff because he had been supporting terrorist groups in Cashmire that looked likely to start a full scale war with India.
The idea that Musharaff is seriously committed to the 'war on terror' is ridiculous. He is only providing the minimum of compliance. He depends on the support of the Islamists to remain in power.
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:2, Informative)
I'm going to disagree (Score:5, Informative)
Take the Taliban for example. In the 1980's, Henry Kissinger advised Ronald Reagan that through Afghanistan, the USA could hand the USSR "Its Viet Nam".
Thus, the "Afghan Freedom Fighters" were born.
So, at our encouragement (and provision), they bled, and died, and won their freedom. Much like China backed the Viet Cong, we backed the Afghans.
And later presidents (and congress) changed their mind. We abandoned them.
The Taliban then started pounding the drum "They played us for suckers. Are you widows and orphans (and neighbors of widows and orphans) listening?"
The cause of all this trouble was not religious bigotry - it was meddling.
Well, it was meddling, and the lack of foresight to understand that presidents change, and there are no guarantees that the new president will maintain the policies of the old president. Any country or people that cut a deal with the USA needs to understand that. Frankly, our own State Department needs to warn the principals of this, at the beginning of any scheme.
To write off their anger as incoherent religious dogma is to delude yourself. We meddled. Then we walked away, without much, if any, thanks. Those actions had consequences.
Re:Count has to be higher (Score:2, Informative)
are more updates.
As of 1345 Royal London Hospital dealt with 208 casualties, 26 of which had been admitted. At the moment 13 are being operated on and three are in intensive care.
Ignorant of History? Get Ready to Repeat It! (Score:5, Informative)
Are you familiar with what we did in Iran? [wikipedia.org]
Our awful, and bloodthirsty, actions in Iran destabilized a popular, realtively moderate (if nationalist) democracy [wikipedia.org] and installed a pro-western puppet, [wikipedia.org] who clung to power with a secret police [wikipedia.org] described by Amnesty International as the "world's worst" for their unheard-of level of barbarity and disrespect for human rights.
Result: in 1979, our CIA-backed puppet was overthrown, and a Radical, Fascist Islamic Theocracy gained power.
This is what they call a "backlash."
So let's read what you said again:
The US (and/or the West) are not responsible exclusively, or even mostly, for the situation in the mideast.
Let's all reflect on this a moment.
OK, ready to continue?
You may be right that the Middle East has its own problems, and your implied ruthless reasoning about the world's necesity for oil will no doubt resonate, but what you are dreadfully wrong about is that the American/Brittish petroleum-industry campaign of dirty tricks and military intervention works. It does not work.
Iraq will be worse than Iran; I imagine even you are realizing it now.
If you are a Ruthless American (and I imagine this country was built partly on their shoulders), you can say the problem isn't that we tried to exert influence, only that we failed. But, in light of recent history, why don't we leave a little room for alternative interpretations.
You actually believe that "people in Iraq", i.e., normal citizens of Iraq, have anything whatsoever to do with this?
You are trying to minimize the undeniable fact that many Iraqis, not just Iranians and Syrians and Saudis, are participating in guerrilla war against the U.S. military. Many of them out of nationalism, or because of the Sunni-Shiite shuffle, or many just because a relative became American collateral damage.
Maybe even just because their wife and children were dragged outside at 2am and frisked and interrogated by 19 year olds from Kentucky on a tip provided by somebody getting paid to provide tips.
No matter how you justify invading them, being untruthful with yourself and others about the conduct and consequences of the war is dangerous, to your country, to its armed forces (which bear the brunt of the policies we advocate), and to yourself, ultimately, if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for the next bit of blowback against westerners.
Living in a safer world starts every morning with you waking up and refusing to accept a little more rhetoric, and dealing a little bit more seriously with the truth instead. You urgently need the truth. And you deserve it.
So you're saying that full scale ethnic and religious genocide is the only way to modernize and democratize the mideast, to enable a free flow of information and a free exchange of ideas, and to empower the peoples of said nations to control their own personal and collective destinies in an environment that nurtures ideals of freedom?
If we started with non-oil producers in greater need, people actually would believe that was what we were doing.
You even mix the rhetoric of spreading democracy and going after oil in the same post.
Don't you see it? Or must we still talk about it abstractly, only as "what Iraqis believe..."
Re:You're an embarrassment to your country. (Score:1, Informative)
He showed a clip of Bush being asked by a reporter about the increased level of violent attacks in Iraq.
Bush smiled and started chuckling. Laughing. In the reporters face. In all our faces.
Death is so funny. Reporters are so funny when they ask about your war and the death you cause.
Yell at the insane man in the White House.
Re:Forgetting history already? (Score:3, Informative)
There's this skill called "reading." Ever heard of it?
From your first link:
"It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience."
From your second:
"First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.
The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors."
Yup, they just attack us because our women don't wear burqas.
Re:Bound to happen, unfortunately (Score:3, Informative)
Please don't put words into my mouth. It's very rude. My post did not discuss WWII, nor did I say that "discussing ways to solve the problems" was the solution. I don't know if you invented this based on commonly held stereotypes, or what.
In any case, if I recall correctly, WWII did not end with the complete destruction of the German and Japanese peoples, nor the complete destruction of the German and Japanese military forces.. so I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. In fact, the pacific war almost ended with a conditional surrender by Japan. Do you know how you reach a conditional surrender? That's right: you discuss things. The ultimate surrender still occurred at a table on the USS Missouri.
Oh and nevermind that whole Yalta thing.. they were just hanging out and having some drinks. No discussion took place.
History, you know, kinda has a habit of repeating itself.
That's true, but there are very few, if any, parallels between WWII and the current situation. WWII was a declared war between many nation-states. The current situation, the so-called "War on Terror", is nothing like that. It's a war with an undefined enemy, and an undefined goal.
Let's try this without the typos... (Score:3, Informative)
By definition, courtesy of Merriam-Webster Online:
Anarchy - 1 a : absence of government b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government.
Anarchism - 1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.
Anarchist do not want a world of chaos run by no one. People wanting this and claiming to be anarchists are confused. These are people that are anarchist because it sounds cool. Real anarchists' one major belief is that there is no such thing as a government that is good for the people. They may be right.
In an anarchist society, you would not have chaos, mob rule, and random destruction. You would have a people governed by themselves with commitees, organizations, co-operation, and compromise. "a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government."
I don't see an anarchist society ever happening not because it's a bad idea, but because I don't have faith in people in general to not reach for more power. If you want a good example of an anarchist community, read Stephen King's 'The Stand'. In this novel, the community set up in Colorado is a perfect example of a community governed by themselves.
Anarchists would not be responsible for a bombing, only the confused people that claim to be anarchists, but have no idea what anarchism is.
Aero
Re:More details (Score:5, Informative)
You are simply flatly wrong [washingtonpost.com]
Now that we have Google there is no need to invent demonstrably false facts like this. My search terms were "number of terrorist attacks" [google.com], and I tried several permutations and got approximately the same results, so it wasn't a function of the particular terms I used. Try it sometime. Perhaps you were originally misinformed by something having to do with this [washingtonpost.com].
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:go read history (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You're an embarrassment to your country. (Score:4, Informative)
On another note:
The Preambule of the US Constitution states:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
From wikisource: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Un
Notice the last word? America.
Seriously: my condolences to those who were hurt, lost loved ones, and cheers to Londoners who need to get on with it.
Re:Bound to happen, unfortunately (Score:3, Informative)
We've already invaded two countries to "stop terrorism," and where has it gotten us? Nowhere good. The world is more dangerous now than it was four years ago. Who else should we invade? What infrastructure can we destroy that will cripple the forces against us? It's a completely bogus comparison.
Re:Maybe 4 bombs (Score:2, Informative)
i don't have to go back twenty years. and you know what? you don't want to look at we do to the people in the middle east? then look at what they did to rachel corrie. Read her letters home - then bitch at me about my ignorance. http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ [rachelcorrie.org] better yet - here is one of them - "You just can't imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done. As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in Rafah: a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60% of whom are refugees - many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your name?". Something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously - occasionally shouting and also occasionally waving - many forced to be here, many just agressive - shooting into the houses as we wander away." btw - she was an american ran over by an israeli bulldozer in broad daylight when she refused to move away from a FAMILIES house
Ok so then to follow your logic "the jews are the reason." That's the same thing that Hitler was saying and the reason he murdered 6 million of them. You sir are a Nazi! Tell me why women in muslim countries are treated like dogs. Is that also the fault of the Jews? Blame violence on the violent! You jew hating nazi scum.
not saying that we should leave them to rot. What I am saying is that instead of complaining about how they have no morals (the terrorist) - perhaps we should look at what sort of image we are painting for ourselves over there AND THEN pick our course of action.
do you hate women?
wtf? no i don't hate women anymore than i "hate" Jews. I left them out of that statement because they are not caught in the crossfire or wrongly targeted as hostiles nearly as often as males are.
bin Laden was very clear about the motivation for the 9/11 attacks. His primary motivation is to remove American troops from the "Land of the Two Holy Shrines". That is, Saudi Arabia. While he does mention the Israeli occupation of Palestine, that was not his primary motivation, and reducing U.S. support for Israel will not appease him.
that may be but when i spoke of people being killed 20 or 10 or hell 2 3 1 5 4 years ago - i was speaking of iraq and iran as well
Bombs not as lethal as you might think (Score:3, Informative)
If there isn't a lot of fragmentation, and/or if there is another person between you and the blast, you will probably survive.
The follow-on effects are more dangerous - structural collapse, fire, smoke, trampling etc. In a bus, I would expect very few of these to play any real part, and so would expect outright fatalities to be small.
DG
Re:Propaganda (Score:3, Informative)
You haven't stated what you believe his TRUE ulterior motives are. Power in Saudi Arabia? Control of the entire Middle East? He was already very powerful from an economic standpoint (family money from their Saudi-based construction company), so I'm assuming you think his true goals must be pretty lofty...
Re:More details (Score:4, Informative)
Simple fact is - no, terrorist attacks have not been on the decline.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/005946.php [jihadwatch.org]
They tripled in 2004 alone.
You can't sweet talk terrorists into being nice people.
I don't have a link, but in Saudi Arabia, they had a program where when a jihadi was captured, they were given the opportunity to debate with a muslim cleric, on the justification in Isalam for external jihad (Jihad waged as a physical war of violence against infidels, as opposed to the more accepted definition of an internal war within the believer to defeat a non-believing self). The conditions of the debate were; if the jihadi wins, he goes free. If the cleric wins, the jihadi goes to prison, and when released, must join in the effort to convince other jihadis that violence is wrong, and not an acceptible part of Islam. Each and every jihadi that went through this program (in 2002, when I read about it) was converted from radicalism. So yes, you CAN "sweet-talk" terrorists into being nice people, if you can accept the notion that not all muslims are radical. On the other hand, if you prefer to paint all muslims with the same broad brush, then perhaps you require some sweet-talking yourself.
Re:Read the Koran (Score:5, Informative)
KJV - Exodus [32:27] And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
KJV - Jeremiah [18:21] Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.
KJV - Ephesians [5:5] For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
All sorts of religious texts have been used throughout history to justify abhorrent acts. Nothing new. In my book, if they initiate force against the innocent, they're bad guys.
Re:go read history, not spin (Score:3, Informative)
be even more devestating than the World Trade Center.
The only link, prior to the USAs March 2003 invasion of Iraq, between Saddam Hussein and terrorism was the $25K USD bounty he offered to the family of each martyred suicide bomber that blew up Israelis. But now that we are there, we are considered infidel occupiers and interlopers who have despoiled Iraq. That makes us as much a target there in Iraq as our military and military-industrial complex has been as infidels on Saudi soil.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he also massed his troops on the border of Saudi Arabia, provoking a response from the USA and the Arab coalition Bush senior formed. Osama bin Laden had offered the Saudi royal family the use of Al-Queda's "militia" to drive out Saddam, which the royals refused.
But the Saudi royal family has been playing a dupliciuos game for the past 40 years -- they support the Wah'habbist sect as their "state religion", and the Wah'habbist religious police help keep the Saudi royal family in power. The Saudi royal family spends hundreds of millions of the West's oil money to spread the Wah'habbist jihad against the West throughout the world. They build (ugly) mosques and religious schools and fill them with Wah'habbist evangelists spreading their hateful bile. Osama bin Laden and his Al-Queda can more properly be thought of as the military arm of the Wah'habbist sect, rather than the "independent terrorist group" they are played up as in the press.
Osama bin Laden is now fighting the infidel USAs' troops occupying Iraq, just as they were fighting the USA on Saudi soil -- the military and the military-industrial complex that was "fouling" Islamic Saudi soil. The Wah'habbist sect's goal is to reconquor all territory once held by Islam. If you check a 15th century map of Europe, the Mediterranean would be an Islamic sea, and the Islamists would hold the Iberian Penninsula, and southern France all the way north to the gates of Vienna, and most of Russia all the way east to the Great Wall of China. That is also Osama bin Laden's goal.
There will be more, and more spectacular, terrorist attacks within the USA. The Bush administration has failed to secure our borders, to inspect all cargo entering our seaports, or to throw out the 28 million illegal aliens now in the USA. Terrorism is not Bush's primary focus, nor is defense of the homeland -- it is political advantage gained by favoring Hispanic minority interests, and the downward spiral of American wages through outsourcing and insourcing, which his corporate business interests (and primary campaign contributors) want. War is big business to government contractors big and small, and no war the USA has ever been involved in has provided as much opportunity for contractors to make that quick buck.
Re:Read the Koran (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Those who forget history... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, it was the last legal war.
Congress has the authority to declare war, not the president. The last time that Congress declared war was WWII.
My 2 pence... (Score:3, Informative)
I went through a couple of the affected stations on Tuesday, almost exactly 48 hours before the bombs went off. I can tell you from first hand experience that there is no-one on the tube in London at that time that deserves to be hurt, and also that there are a lot of muslims using the tube in London.
There are people reading the paper, looking at a book, listening to an iPod, or staring out a window. They are human, and they are innocent.
We stood by our friends the US, and for that we have paid. If we have to, we will stand by the US again.
Anyone that thinks that blowing us up will change our minds does not understand who we are. This will not change us. This will not terrorise us. World war 2 did not beat us. The IRA bombing us for years did not break us.
We will do three things. We will clear up. We will grieve quietly, and then we will carry on, the same as before. They gain nothing, and they certainly do not terrorise us.
Thanks very much to everyone that has posted friendly messages, I'm sure I can speak for the majority of British
I'll finish with a quote from BBC news - it's paraphrased I'm afraid, but it's this: "The emergency services exuded an air of control and professionalism that sucked the terror from terrorism". I think in Britain today we can be very proud, of all our countrymen in London, and especially of our Emergency services. I hope that you folks abroad will agree.
Re:Before I read anything, I'd like to say (Score:2, Informative)
The fact is that AQ was around well before 9-11. The name was used in the media thruout the 90's. Christ the planning for 9-11 started back in 1996 (as far back as can be traced), and they tried to blow up 11 trans-Pacific airliners in 1995.
To say AQ didn't exist until after 9/11 is simply ridiculous.
Re:As usual (Score:3, Informative)
Crack open a history book Mr. Self Righteous Athiest.
Firstly, neither the word 'atheism' nor 'religion' appears anywhere in the Wikipedia articles for the Bolsheviks or Jacobins. This is not surprising, because these were political organizations. Even if their support of an atheist state wasn't peripheral to their cause, the deaths they were responsible for were motivated by politics and power, not because of their personal passion for atheism.
Secondly, you can call me "self-righteous" all you like, but the fact remains that I can demonstrate why my science- and logic-derived beliefs are correct while the nonsense- and ignorance-fueled beliefs of religious fanatics are wrong.
Outstanding Coverage by Wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Another Londoner's thoughts... (Score:1, Informative)
Luckily, I missed the blasts (despite travelling via Kings Cross to Moorgate - I work near Liverpool Street, too. Does somebody have something against me?!) but got caught up in the ensuing chaos, which didn't really last too long.
From what I can see, the police have done (and continue to do) a great job in calming people down and providing what information they can. Whatever panic there was is now over - it's more annoyance at the inconvenience.
What rankles me is the fact that attacking London is to attack one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world. Watching the TV in a shop at lunchtime, it was the Arab businessman next to me who seemed most upset by the events. He was shaking his head as if to say, "what idiots".
Like me, he probably marched against the war in Iraq. Like me, he's probably never harboured the idea of hating a nation or a religion. Like me, he probably doesn't see the point of indiscriminate killings.
Re:As usual (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Al Qaeda group claims responsibility (Score:3, Informative)
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1993 WTC Bombing [wikipedia.org]. Was Ramzi Yusuf an Al Qaeda member? As you said, Al Qaeda may not have existed in 1993 Did we ever find out his motive? February 26, the date of the bombing, was the 2 year anniversary of the day the first Gulf War was won. Terrorists like to strike on anniversaries; that seems the most likely conclusion. The Gulf war left a lot of disgruntled people, sanctions, civilian casualties, etc. and I imagine they wanted to get revenge. Who knows what made them do it, maybe they thought they could play Robin Hood.
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NYC Landmark bomb plot [wikipedia.org] - Well, an Israeli ambassador was targeted, along with a Jewish senator. Sounds like they had a specific goal.
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Operation Bojinka [wikipedia.org]- Attacking the Pope was both a diversion and probably some sort of attack on the "Crusaders" as ludicrous as that sounds. Blowing up planes, that appears to be aimed at making the US stop intervening in the Phillipines. Targeting the CIA headquarters, does that even need explanation? The CIA has been blamed for and admitted to overthrowing the PM of Iran, giving Saddam Hussein money and weapons, giving Iran money and weapons, aiding in the Gulf War (and reinstating the dictator of Kuwait). Any one of those things could be their cause for retaliation (and this is a short list, it goes on even longer for South America). In fact, the CIA is widely feared in much of the globe.
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Khobar towers bombing [wikipedia.org]- A No Brainer. Bin Laden wanted the US military out of the Holy Land, away from Mecca and Medina, and to stop propping up the Saudi monarchy. This and the recent series of attacks in Saudi Arabia is targeted at the Saudi government and foreigners, with the goal of driving the foreigners out and making it easy to topple the Saudi rulers.
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African US Embassy Bombings [wikipedia.org]- In a CNN interview [cnn.com], Bin Laden denied participating, but supported them. By this time, he had made his infamous fatwa declaring war on America (though Taliban leader and Bin Laden's higher-up Mullah Omar said that Bin Laden was unqualified to make fatwas). The embassies are seen by these people as a CIA tool and base to operate in each country, so they went after it as a strategic target.
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Millenium Attack plots [wikipedia.org]- Targeting Israeli and US tourists, a US airport, and a US military vessel. It seems they were trying to fight both America and Israel all at once, maybe pressure America to cut support of Israel
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USS Cole bombing [wikipedia.org]- Al Qaeda considered itself at war with the US. Having US military in their country was an act of aggression in their eyes, like having an Iraqi battleship parked in the US harbor. Many Yemenis didn't like the US loitering around like that in their country, they didn't trust them and felt concerned. Why was that boat there anyway? Was it sending a message to the Yemeni government to stay in line or something?
Al Qaeda's main purpose is supposedly to fight back at American aggession, as they see it. If you read Bin Laden's speeches, his core grievances are clear, he wants the US out of Saudi Arabia, he wants the US to stop supporting Israel, he wants Israel to stop oppressing the Palestinians (though he hasn't helped them), and he wants the US to stand aside and let the Muslims make their own political changes without US intervention or input (this includes toppling dictatorships and creating Islamic law, and doesn't want the US to get in the way)Re:Respond with more force (Score:5, Informative)
Halabja was a quarter the population of Fallujah, and by far the largest of his attacks, and didn't have anywhere near a total loss like the GGP called for. Also, while mass graves of what in many cases were brutal atrocities have been turning up, they're nowhere near the numbers that people were putting forth before the war - under 20,000 with about a third of all suspected gravesites visited (in order of estimated importance), many of those being likely killed in the Iran-Iraq war and the Shia rebellion, and few in recent years. Still war crimes, mind you, but nothing like was portrayed pre-war.
lunatics (cough.. Iran cough..)
I don't agree with a lot of Iran's policies, but portraying them as "lunatics" is unfair. They're sane (and want to live) - they just *really, really don't like us* (less than Europe, even
Are they still killing people with tanks
Misnomer. You refer to the Tiananmen Square incident with the man standing up to a tank. The man was not killed by the tank; the standoff lasted well over an hour, after which the man actually climbed *on top* of the tank so he could talk with the tank commander; concerned onlookers grabbed him off of the tank and pulled him into the crowd. The exact number of people being killed by tanks by any means is unknown, but there were no reports, at the very least, of people being run over by tanks (a common myth).
The square had long been a site of major protests (being the symbolic heart of the country, just south of the ancient Forbidden City), including in 1919, 1976, and the famous one in 1989. The ratio of protesters to deaths was about the same as at Kent State (if you only count Beijing), but the total scale of the scene was far, far larger - over 100,000 protesters in the square and 1-2 million nationwide, with between a few hundred and a few thousand protesters killed and between a few dozen and few hundred soldiers killed (a classified NSA report and the Chinese official report being low, student reports and newspaper reports being high).
Are they still promoting slave labor in their factories
What you refer to is "prisoner labor", which, while still forced labor, carries a much different connotation, as the vast majority of political prisoners were released in the Deng Xiaoping reforms and most people don't have nearly as much of a problem with murderers and rapists being forced to work as they do with the notion of "slave labor". More specifically, you refer to Laogai - "reform through labor". For both the Laogai and Tiananmen Square incidents, I suggest you read the Wikipedia articles on the subjects - they've been edited back and forth so much that all sides are pretty well represented.
Are they still leaving their baby girls in the street to die
That's not a government practice (and is somewhat of a distortion of the actual practices that lead to China's gender imbalance, which is due to a variety of male-favoring practices, not simply "exposure"). It's an individual practice, and is most common in the countryside where the government exerts less influence. The practice is rooted in Confucian tradition, and has been made worse by Chinese attempts at population control. The government has made a number of (some would claim half-hearted) attempts to stop such practices, such as banning physicians from revealing the sex of a child before it is born to the parents (to prevent sex-selective abortions) and various girl-promotional events (which have been criticized from focusing on a male-centric "what would the world be like without women" perspective).
Is that the "World Leader" country you are talking about
Even with other countries knowing all of the bad stuff China has done (and you were only getting started - China's done a whole lot more), people *still* prefer Chi
I think I can speak from all Londoners when I say: (Score:2, Informative)