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Six Bomb Blasts Around Central London
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."
It's 7 for now.
Source
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!
BBC News have reports on Spiegel Online that is displaying the text that Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for today's attacks in London.
(translation)
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
London Underground - ALL suspended until further notice (not likely to be today) It is advised NOT to travel into London Marylebone, Cannon Street, Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Victoria, Paddington, and Charing Cross are all closed until further notice Thameslink Rail services are not running AT ALL. Brighton and East Croydon stations are closed due to a security alert. According to National Rail Enquiries, Southern trains services are running "normal" services OUT OF LONDON only. Gatwick Express is still running but terminating at Clapham Junction. Heathrow Express has been terminated until further notice. It seems trains are running as far as Clapham Junction. Stations are being periodically closed and re-opened after they have been security checked so do call National Rail enquiries to check your journey first. Trains are of course going to be delayed by varying amounts as a result. Checking your journey by calling national rail enquiries is of course recommended - 08457 484950 option 2 Websites - http://www.networkrail.co.uk/ and particularly http://nrekb.com/london_underground.html
Vodafone and others have warned that emergency services will have priority on the GSM networks. Expect congestion and unreachable people if you try to join them on their cell phones.
Londoners have been warned to stay at home. Commuters have been warned to avoid London.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
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
Dont you /. fuckers realize this isnt some joke, and you arent in your shitty MMORPGs? Get a life and mourn like the rest of us dont make comments like that
For those of you interested, the mobile phone network has been switched to a Security Services only mode so members of the public can only make emergency 999 calls.
If there be few amongst us, our hearts be very great, and each shall have more plunder, and each shall have more plate
The latest news directly from the ad-free and registration-free BBC:
n _explosions/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2005/londo
(/. don't allow me to post anonymously...)
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
The Government switches off mobiles in London automatically in any state of emergency (terror-related or otherwise) to keep the spectrum free for the emergency services. (See, for example, the Channel 4 documentary Mark Thomas's Secret Map of Britain.)
An Al Qaeda groups has claimed responsibility already.
A lot of experts have also pointed to the attack being "typical of Al Qaeda".
Been following this for the last 3 hours.
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.
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
And as I was listening to BBS World service in the car this morning on the way to work; there were witnesses that say there are quite a few more than that.
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.
We can be pretty well assured that there will be more than two deaths. The London Underground will have been jam-packed.
In London when there is a problem with the tube, connecting buses are brought in to substitute.It appears that the terrorist attack was carefully organized so that people being moved from the tube onto buses would also be moved into danger. If it is AQ, I'm scared that all of the heavy anti-terrorist legislation appears to have had no effect; if it's not AQ I'm even more scared.
The GP's comment was obviously tongue-in-cheek. Notice his .sig as well as his comment history.
Central London is completely Blocked.My brother is at his office and the roads are cordoned off even for pedestrians.
,when they did their worst in London , spared the innocent, they would phone in before the explosions to let the area be evacuated. The Dirty Bastards.
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
Wanted : A Signature.
I heard on CNN that the same explosions were being reported by multiple stations due to the fact that they exploded on trains between tube stations.
Physics: Making the universe open source.
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.
Capacity being diverted to emergency services, too.
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.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Londoners are well aware of terrorist attacks, for a long while a lot of you yanks were funding this little organisation that called itself the IRA.
Wikipedia article up already, good work Wiki editors
Torrent here.
Wanted : A Signature.
Some moblog photos from the time of the event.
4 618,-0.120592&spn=0.035216,0.083822&hl=en
http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=77571
http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=77554
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/
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
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
"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.
7 bombs and 2 deaths, the BBC web site has got this wrong. The bus in Russel Square was a double decker, packed with people leaving the tube and it was completely destroyed, these busses hold around 90 people when packed. The aAldgate explosion looked very bad an eyewitnesses were talking of 20 deaths. They are still cutting people from the tube at Russel square and there any many abulances at King Cross.
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.
Any terrorist attack on any soil is a tragedy. The meaningless death of innocent people is a horrible and cowardly act. I really appreciate everyone posting news here and other useful information. I am not British, but that does not lessen the sorrow I feel for those who will have lost friends and family because of this act.
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.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
There's already an excellent Wikipedia article on the bombs here -- it's being continually updated, contains emergency phone numbers, and seems to be a good accurate summary of what we know so far.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
In the wake of this morning's tragedy in London, someone on Flickr already set up a photo pool. So far, it appears that the photos are generally just screen grabs of the TV news, perhaps those who were there, and those who operate security cameras in the stations could post their photos from before the attacks, and try to identify the perpetrators. A warning - the pictures don't appear graphic as yet, but as the day progresses, I expect that they will get to be so.
(Cross posted at Mindjack and Swerdloff (dot com).
The bus had its entire roof blown off, only the front half of the top floor seats seemed intact, so I'd be surprised if it wasn't more just in the bus.
East Coast Brewers
DEBKAfile was always incisive, accurate, and very up-to-date during the Iraq and Afghan wars and September 11, so I'll trust their reporting on this story!
Don't try to hide behind "poverty happens" either
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.
The current info seems to be 1 near Liverpool Street (people leaving via Liverpool Street, Aldgate, Aldgate East and Moorgate (There may have been a semi-related collision between 2 trains here too), 1 between Kings X and Russell Square, and one by Edgeware Road (that's the subsurface edgeware road, I think) Then there was 1 bomb on a bus by Tavistock Square, rumoured to be a suicide attack. 2 confirmed deaths at Liverpool Street (but no info for ages), 10 deaths reported from the bus (unofficial but reliable source; someone from the British Medical Association who helped at the scene) and no accurate numbers from the other 2 sites. 200-odd people in hospital in total.
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
You do know that SKY is the UK end of the FOX network, right?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Me too, however dialing/receiving calls was very intermittent.
four attacks - three on the tube and one on a bus.
--
i'll show you my gun. my uzi weighs a ton because i'm public enemy number one.
I work near The Monunent, and the strange thing is that there are currently loads more people on the street than you would normally see. Obviously, it's because the tube is shut, but it's still quite a sight.
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.
.
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
Also, the recent flickr activity can be found here.
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." -- Salvador Dali
"Do you HONESTLY believe that Al-Quaeda gives two shakes about the lives of innocent civilians that died as a result of military operations in Afghanistan..."
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
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
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
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.
"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
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.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
The US (and/or the West) are not responsible exclusively, or even mostly, for the situation in the mideast.
Are you familiar with what we did in Iran?
Our awful, and bloodthirsty, actions in Iran destabilized a popular, realtively moderate (if nationalist) democracy and installed a pro-western puppet, who clung to power with a secret police 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..."
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I was watching the "Daily Show" with John Stewart last night.
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.
Have you forgotten Bin Laden's 1996 fatwah or his 1998 fatwah? Not a damned thing about Iraq in those calls to arms.
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.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Hmm, that's why WWII ended because folks sat around tables discussing ways to solve the problems, right?
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.
No.
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
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
Simple fact is that after attacking Afghanistan after 9/11 and going after terrorists aggressively for a change, the number of terrorist attacks has not risen from normal even during the "jihad against all involved" claims.
You are simply flatly wrong
Now that we have Google there is no need to invent demonstrably false facts like this. My search terms were "number of terrorist attacks", 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.
You probably don't live near London. From what I've read they have some of the most congested roads anywhere and don't have room to expand highways as we can in the US.
We when 8 years between the first al-qeada attack on American soil and the second. Don't get comfortable just yet.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
I'm French, and I found it funny... Although I would add that the French would have been about 6 months late and would had scaled back to just 1 small bomb.
i ted_States_of_America
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.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Oh for Christ's sake, you can't compare WWII with the current situation. WWII was a conflict between countries. Each country could end the conflict at any time by having a small group of people agree to surrender. There were armies, navies, military targets, and for the most part clear lines between civilians and military folk. None of that is true of the "war on terror."
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.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Oddly, bombs are nowhere near as lethal as you might think. If a bomb goes off in a crowded space, you get a lot of injuries, but typically only the people immediately near the blast are killed - and even then, pure blast effects are usually survivable.
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
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
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...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
Simple fact is that after attacking Afghanistan after 9/11 and going after terrorists aggressively for a change, the number of terrorist attacks has not risen from normal even during the "jihad against all involved" claims.
Simple fact is - no, terrorist attacks have not been on the decline.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/005946.php
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.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
There have not been any new deaths due to terrorism in the USA after 9/11/2001 only because Osama bin Laden plans carefully. As you yourself stated, 8 years passed between the first attack on the World Trade Center, and the second one. I would expect that the next attack on the USA will
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.
Traditional Muslim teaching is that all peoples "of the book" (Jews and Christians) are given a protected status since they believe in the same god. IIRC, those people are guaranteed civil rights and other such protections in a Muslim state. I cannot recall the whole status as it has been a few years since my Middle East gen ed.
Yeah, 'cause WWII was the last war the US was involved in...
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.
Place sig here.
Pretty much anything I say here will be rightly marked redundant - it's all been said above, but as a British citizen I feel I want to publish my view somewhere.
/. readers when I say they are appreciated.
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.
Wiki. Now there is a definitive source only slightly more accurate than Slashdot.
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.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Never heard of Bolsheviks? Never heard of the Jacobins? Never heard of the turn-of-the-century anarchists?
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.
Wikipedia's coverage of the London Transport Explosions is very thorough and very-well organized.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
I live just above Russell Square tube station. Current problem: my apartment is cordoned off, and I'm not sure when I'm going to be let back in.
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.
"With or without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -- Dr. Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, Physics
Well, that is kind of what Saddam did
;) ). Getting into the reasons behind that would take a discussion all of its own.
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
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Thanks for the support & prays (which ever god they are directed to).
Wow, I should not post when knackered.