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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."
I'm surprised it's taken Slashdot so long to get this. There have been 2 confirmed deaths, which is both terrible, but on the other hand somewhat better than many (including myself) expected from early reports.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
No, ass hole. 6 coordinated attacks planned in 24 hours? Right...
I think I'll hold off on the jokes until I know whether or not this is serious. I'd hope most people would do the same.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
I think it was not so much that the mobile network was switched off rather that it could not handle the load,
I'm amazed at how /.ers make jokes about everything, including people dying in terrorist attacks. We didn't find it very funny when someone crashed planes into our skyscrapers but when Europeans die it's a joke?
/.ers are U.S., i'm sure we have lots of British readers here.
Let's be a little bit considerate. Not all
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
We stand and mourn with you today. I am truly sorry for the losses you have incurred and weep with you in this terrible moment.
I hope someday my children will understand terrorism as a savage relic of the past but I do not hold much hope for that.
Be strong people of England.
To preface, we here in the US are certainly sending our thoughts and prayers to the UK today. However, I am disappointed to hear that the stock markets are selling off just because of terrorism. This sort of mindless panic is exactly what they are trying to achieve. To truly defeat terrorism, we have to learn to chin up and plod onward with our lives. If we cower in fear and panic, we allow them to win.
I'm 20 miles out but many friends work in London. it's taken several hours to confirm they're all safe
My closest friends were 10 minutes late on the train.. and missed the aldgate bomb by 10 minutes as a result
All the stupid people who thought war could make us safer are to blame for this. Thank you, Tony Blair. You stopped the IRA bombing london then started al Qaida doing it. Sheer fucking genius.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Funny. That's exactly what the terrorists say about those they attack.
The war on terror is exactly why these things happen in the first place. It started with us.
I'm from London and I appreciated it. Stop trying to stamp out humour just because of a few explosions.
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
My web domain.
The "War on Terror" is a meaningless phrase used to justify anything that the US feels like doing in another country.
If you were less keen on wiping people out who disagree with you, there might be less people who disagreed with you.
And Londeners have known about terrorism for decades due to the bombing activities of the IRA - partly funded by American donations. Go figure.
-- I would have got out of bed earlier...but I was asleep.
Londoners and all UK residents have been learning this lesson for over 30 years.
This was well planned, and has - so far - had exactly the result the terrorists wanted, London has ground to a standstill with public transport closed for fear of further attacks. London's stock exchange has taken a bit of a tumble, and according to the BBC it has disrupted the G8 summit.
Not a bad return on the investment in explosives, and I'm sure you could've covered that by betting on the effect on the markets.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
I'm quite sure by the time they have cleaned up the mess underground, there will be more dead... the numbers always start low, because the emergency services are kinda too busy trying to help the living ones - body counts can wait until everyone still alive is cared for.
If a bomb of any real size blows up in an enclosed subway car during a rush hour... I can't see how there could be no deaths next to it. And if the count of 6 blasts in subways is true, that means the body count is definitely going to rise a lot. '2 dead' would mean that four of those blasts didn't kill anyone. With hundreds of wounded already in hospitals... And we know that one bomb was strong enough to blow off the whole roof of a london bus, so it was no firecracker...
Mind you, it's not much of a difference from the days when terrorists would go to dinners at the White House, to fundraise, and use the hundreds of thousands of dollars given by misguided "Irish" Americans to buy guns and bombs to kill innocent UK civilians in pubs, bars, shops, and town centres.
Seems to have gone out of favour after 11th Sept 01. Funny how it's not funny when it starts happening to you, isn't it?
Get your own free personal location tracker
This is obviously meant to coincide with G8 - you don't arrange something like this so quickly in response to London's surprise winning of the Olympics.
Given that it's
- a co-ordinated series of attacks on transport infrastructure
- there were no warnings
- there are reports of a suicide bomber on the bus
it looks fairly obvious that it's an Al-Qaeda-inspired attack based on the Madrid model.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
Let's see, blowing up the London underground in 6 places, during peak hour. Over a hundred injured.
Sound like a "hippy 'peaceful protest' attack" to you?
The German news are saying it is Al-Qada, but in a new form. In the old days cells were formed and these people lived together and raised mayhem throughout the life of the cell. These days individuals come together as "specialist teams" and plan one attack. After the attack they disband.
The news casters were saying that it is a war tactic of the old Beduin where people would come out of the dust, attack and disappear into the dust. These "specialist teams" have specialist keywords and work on their own. In other words they develop unique behavior patterns for each attack making them nearly impossible to track.
What bugs me is that the G8 might have actually talked about African aid, farm subsidies, and global warming. At least that was the agenda by Blair. Now, well the terrorists are playing right into the hands of George Bush!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I think I can speak for everyone when i say
FUCK THE TERRORISTS
I have to say I agree, there's really no better way to put it.
What I personally will never, ever get around is how someone can become so sick that they believe they are doing the Right Thing when participating in terror acts such as this. Things like this always have me wondering if humanity will end up distroying itself sooner rather than later. Yet I hope that world peace can some day be a reality. Without hope there's not much left, is there?
.: Max Romantschuk
I may be terribly cynical, but the first thing I thought was:
1. This distracts the world from Karl's outing the CIA agent.
If that's the first thing you though, then you're in pretty bad shape. Do you think "the world" gives a rat's ass about Valerie Plame's job at the CIA and which reporter(s) knew about it? It sure as hell isn't the sort of issue that makes it much past the US talking head circles in terms of real import.
Regardless, the first thing I thought was that the local terrorist cell(s) that did this learned a lot from their last attempt in Madrid, and got their timing better. Further, that they've joined philosophical sides with the people who think smashing out the windows at a Starbucks whenever there's a "global" summit in town will somehow make things better for poor people and for bored, anarchist-minded college students without a clue. And whatever people think about this event, where they're really going to feel it is in their wallet. The stock markets across the world just took a huge hit, and that portion of the economy that depends upon a smoothly operating London has ground to a halt. This will cost billions upon billions of dollars, and the people that think that not enough is being done for the poor should understand that a huge amount of resources just evaporated in several clouds of smoke, courtesy of Islamist fundamentalist wack jobs (note that an Al Queda cell is already claiming responsibility for this event).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Jokes after tragedy are in order on /.. The joke itself doesn't matter, but the intent of that joke. I'd say most here are simply trying to make a few people laugh in light of such serious events. In fact, many may be mourning in this way (not everyone wears black and gets depressed for a week).
So far, the mods have done a good job modding down anything over the top and kept the good humored jokes up.
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
My personal belief is that the "al-qaeda network" is no more than a figment of western imagination, created to give terrorism a face that really isn't there. The network of the 9-11 bombers has been destroyed, most of Bin Laden's chums have been killed or captured.
Indeed. What they will fail to say, is just like 9/11, all a more stringent ID program would do is result in burnt bodies with the addition of burnt identification cards.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Y'know, I do wonder whether they did. The 'Secret Organisation of Al Qaeda in Europe'? That doesn't ring true. Besides, at the moment there are relatively few casualties in relation to the size of the attack, it was timed after the peak of the rush hour, the London transport network is effectively crippled and all in the week that masses of anarchist organisations happen to be in the country? Hmmm. Let's not jump to conclusions people.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
You say that like there were no terrorist attacks before Iraq! What about Bali (punishment for Aussies helping the UN in East Timor)? What about 9/11 (punishment for not invading Iraq and taking the alternative of long-term sanctions)? What about the attack on the USS Cole (no retaliation for that IIRC, looks like the "violence begets violence" crowd forgot to congratulate the USA on that, and the terrorists forgot to take notice)? The French convicted several terrorists who planned to attack Strasbourg in 2000 -- and they didn't want anything to do with attacking Iraq. They'd even stopped enforcing the no fly zone and called for an end to sanctions on Iraq!
Canada is also on the Al-Qaeda hit list, and they opposed Iraq. Their crime was to help get rid of the Taliban. Elsewhere, Russia, Thailand, Phillipines, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon are just some of the countries facing Islamic terror right now. You'd have to be pretty naive to think all of those countries are being attacked over Iraq.
No doubt the terrorists will mention Iraq when they claim this attack. It is propaganda, and all the people who feel so clever because they don't believe Bush's "they hate our freedom" explanations should also be smart enough not to believe that jihad terror began with Iraq and is related only to that.
I beg your BLOODY PARDON! are you an idiot???!!!
Bush & Blair are as much to blame for the deaths of poor innocents in their countries as the idiot terrorists.
The only people to blame for these deaths are the people that perpetrated these attacks.
I do not condone Iraq, and protested heavily against it, but this comment is downright STUPID.
In WWII, Stalin deliberately had German commanders assassinated if they were too easy on the native population. If a commander committed atrocities, Stalin reckoned that it would only let people rally against the Germans. So he let the atrocious commanders live, just to keep the atmosphere of conflict going. It's the same thing here, and it's been going in the Middle East for years.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
I look at it this way, I have no problem with those who want to disagree with me, and I'm even willing to work with those who dislike me, but I have no proclivity to negotiate or understand anyone who wants to kill me.
And for those who want to say that other countries started the terrorists up, just remember that nobody did anything to provoke fundamental islamics that forced them to blow up buddhist religious artifacts.
Then again, we need to realize this: Anything with the word "fundamental" in it is a nice way of saying "completely nuts".
Fundamental muslim = nut Fundamental christian = nut with a different religion working towards a similar goal
But that's just me
The more desparate you make the people in Iraq, the more recruits are easily available for terrorist groups.
Simply 'pressing more' doesn't achieve your goals of safety, it works against it.
The only pressure that would 'kill them at the source' would be a full-scale genocide, killing everybody of a threatening (ethnical, religious, etc) group, their relatives, the relatives of relatives, their friends, relatives of their friends....
But that's not a 'good' action from anybody's viewpoint, and even that will not be enough to stop all potential terrorists.
I think now is a good time to remind people that the war on terrorism could not have prevented this.
You cannot bring about peace with war.
I understand your angry, but no, this is not the best method: you only makes them grow, actually.
And about the rights they deserve, I remind you that BEFORE one person can feely spech and defend in court, you even don't know if he is a terrorist.
Here in the Basque Country we know something about terrorism, believe me. Don't let the rage to blind you.
I'm no fan of the Iraq war (I would have been in favor of it if it hadn't happened under such false dishonest pretenses) but the posts spewing crap about "that's what you get for..." are vitriolic and ignorant.
Sept. 11 happened without Iraq, the Morocco bombings happened without Iraq (Morocco? Arab/muslim country? Hello?), the Turkish synagogue bombing happened without Iraq, the Paris bombings happaned without Iraq, and many others did as well. Get over yourselves.
My sympathy for the poor bastards who were killed or hurt in London.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Its against my best judgement to chime in on such a thread but there really is a difference between targeting your enemy and targeting his family, friends and loved ones. If you reduce it to a fist fight analogy, someone punched a guy in the eye and he came back and punched that guys sister in the eye. We do have to keep in mind that the perpetrators of such attacks are also victims of their own propaganda. Perhaps some governments make questionable decisions about where to put troops and about giving orders but on the whole i dont believe that the average "coalition" military personal in Iraq are out to hurt innocents. I say compare apples to apples and dont justify cowardice.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
what exactly was the US doing before 9/11????
jesus fucking christ. read a book for fuck's sake. no wonder the world's fucked, with idiots like you running around hoisting the flag of the good ol' US of A whilst simultaneously invading the same countries whose inhabitants you've starved for the last ten years.
I'm from the UK (an hour from London) and can I just say something here.
I couldn't careless. The IRA did this loads of times, lots of people have died in the same situations spread out over a couple of weeks. It used to be a fact of life that this happens. 1 event isn't a huge issue.
Save the pity and shock for else where. It's not needed and hopefully we won't whore this like September 11th was.
I know this'll get marked troll but I think it's an opinion we NEED to see put out. Some of us couldn't careless, it won't stop our lives any more then seeing a giant pink elephant would.
It happened, it's over and done with, next please.
I like muppets.
Looks like they're prepping for a war on Iran.
Terrorism is inherently political. A terrorist does what he does not out of sheer spite but in order to achieve political and ideological goals.
This whole event was political from the beginning. Whether the politics in question are those of Islamic extremism, anti-G8 anarchism or Irish republicanism remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that the bombings were politically motivated.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
7 bombs on 7th of the 7th. Coincidence or not?
Tough, very tough!
It is indeed. That we haven't had a similar attack in the US yet is part luck, part vigilance, and partly, no doubt, the bad guys biding their time until they can rig up something dramatic enough to really stoke up Al Jazeera when it happens.
I'm certain it's going to happen in the US again, just like it will probably happen in Italy, Denmark, and elsewhere.
As for how (or whether) this distracts from the G8 agenda... remember: it's exactly the G8 agenda that these guys hate. They're not distracting from the agenda, they're showing their disdain for it. They hate the notion of wealthy western countries using their resources to lift poor countries up and back democracy. These punks only thrive where people are miserable and vulnerable to their medieval way of looking at things.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Tell that to the Islamic Holy Warriors
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I'm sure those bombs that went off in London today are just as much a figmant of "Westeren Imagination" as Al-Qaeda.
So now they're burrying the global warming issues and starting to talk about including new clauses for terrorism prevention. And Bush is very pleased with the resolution the G8 leaders took. It all seems so very convenient...
Be prepared to see many conspiracy-theory books in stores soon...
I came up with this tag first!
/fredu
How often did the IRA fail to issue a warning? It was the policy of the IRA to always issue a coded warning.
This would benefit the IRA how?
People were starting to empathise with them, starting to move forward from Sept 11 and requesting removing troops from the middle east. Now they go around killing people all over again.
Actually, that is probably why they attacked. It is much harder to recruit impressionable teens into your organization when there is no polarizing force (read: military occupation) in place. Terrorist groups rely on continued escalation by US/UK as a selling point for joining their organization. The terrorists thrive on this scenario:
1) Attack civilians
2) Wait for retaliation
3) Use collateral damage as a rallying point to increase membership
4) GOTO 1
I truly believe that if we left Iraq tomorrow, the insurgency would collapse in a short time because they'd have no real reason to exist. The true terrorists would have no freedom fighter status in which to cloak themselves, and the nationalist insurgents would likely turn against the terrorists.
We make me sick.
You mean like samuel adams when he tarred and feathered the british loyalists (civilians) and paraded them around in public?
or the insurgents (foreign-funded by the french) that fought against the legitimate british rulers?
or the guerrilla attacks that were considered "barbaric" but used because they were the only means the american rebellion had of beating the british?
i'm not trying to say our "founding fathers" were terrorists -- i'm just saying that these concepts are relative.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Everyone of who exactly ?
Do you know who is responsible ?
If so, are you sure that you are right ?
I'm all for killing every God-damned one of 'em.
That's funny, so are they. Welcome to the moral low ground.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I'm going to ask you a serious question. I'm not doing it to be confrontational. I want to ask everyone this same question.
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 (justfied w.r.t 9/11) or in Iraq (unjustified imho)?
Cause if you do then tell me why in the hell they're fucking bombing Iraqi citizens?
This is NOT about "innocent lives lost" in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere. It's about retaining power and crushing the West. Pure and simple. Just like Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. or Randal Terry and his bunch of Christian extremist wankers want to retain power, so does the extreme fundamentalist Islamic movement. They see the west as a whole as immoral and evil so they attack it. They see any Muslim who doesn't agree with thier specific brand of Islam as the enemy (blowing up police stations in Iraq for instance) and justified in dying. It's the same fucking sick morality that people in the U.S. use to shoot abortion doctors and blow up abortion clinics.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Excellent point.
I'm so glad the first Gulf War and WWII were ended by a round table discussions.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
I agree totally. However, I would like to remind people that the war on terror possibly prevented many more such incidents.
are doomed to repeat it.
Remember Neville Chamberlain? "Peace in our time?" Caving in to tyrants won't get you peace. Killing them will.
The war we fought against Germany and Japan brought us 50 years of peace.
The Islamists have the same goals as Hitler -- world domination with them in charge. Giving in to them now will only encourage them.
>>Wouldn't you rather fight them on their ground?
He didn't say we shouldn't. He pointed out that going on a rampage would only help our enemy.
Not going berserk != giving up
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Um, wow. You actually believe that "people in Iraq", i.e., normal citizens of Iraq, have anything whatsoever to do with this?
If by "people in Iraq" you mean radical Panislamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Syria, and many places OTHER than Iraq, who believe there should be a single Islamic theocracy across the whole of the mideast that is the rightful seat of government for the world, then yes, absolutely.
I find this all or nothing view - especially coming from an argument point that tends to condemn "all or nothing, black and white" views - rather disconcerting.
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? (Note: any belief that terrorist ideals or those of Panislamic radicals are "just as valid" as, e.g., Western democratic ideals is pure, unadulterated moral relativism.)
That the only logical solution is to pack up, and let the threat of Panislamic radicalism fester and grow in the mideast, and to be content to deal with brutal terrorist attacks, regardless of whether more people die from "smoking" or "car accidents" each year?
Smoking is a choice. Car accidents have the word "accident" in the name for a reason. A terrorist attack is a deliberate decision on the part of another human to kill as many people, usually innocent, in the target site as is practical or possible. Additionally, the reason why airline disasters (not referring to 9/11, here) are so heavily covered even as many more die from other reasons is because larger incidents resonate negatively with people. People don't like the idea of dozens of hundreds of people dying at once. It scares them. It shakes their being. And no, it's not an effect of "the media". It's a very natural, human reaction to mass casualty.
I suppose I don't need to remind anyone of the suffering that would occur from a massive collapse of the economies of the US and/or West stemming from an inability to obtain secure, stable supplies of reasonably priced energy sources. For better or worse, this is the nature of things.
The US (and/or the West) are not responsible exclusively, or even mostly, for the situation in the mideast. The mideast has had its own difficulties with modernization since before the US was even remotely an influence, or indeed even existed. If you're content to point the finger squarely at the US or UK or the Iraq action for these attacks, be my guest. But that's a severely and seriously wrongheaded idea.
When it becomes politically expedient, the terrorists will make no distinction between London, Washington DC, Paris, or Madrid, regardless of any nations real or perceived support or non-support of, e.g., the Iraq action. And then what will you do? Be content to placate, and eventually essentially live subservient to terrorist whim and demands?
To destroy our enemy, we have to know our enemy. We have to understand that we are facing a radical fundamentalist movement with global reach and a very specific plan. They are not just out to kill us for the sake of killing us. They want to provoke a conflict that will radicalize the people of the Muslim world, turning them against the United States and the West. And they hope to transform that anger into a force that will topple the region s governments and pave the way for a new empire, an oppressive, fundamentalist superstate stretching across a vast area from Europe to Africa, from the Middle East to Central Asia.
The American people have a right to hear the answer to a fundamental question: How are we going to win this war? What is our strategy for eliminating the terrorists, discrediting their cause, and smashing their forces so that America can actually be safer?
The jihadist movement that hates us is gaining adherents around the
Actually, advance science, stop our reliance on crude oil, and then just leave them the fuck alone.
Either that or complete all out war where we level their countries to the ground and exterminate their people (note to those about to mod as troll, this is not something I support).
The problem is western governments meddle in middle eastern affairs because they need the region to be "compliant". They don't want to get too involved, but at the same time they've spent several decades meddling (usually with disasterous side effects) and thus building up the hatred.
Of course the amount of hatred that has built up will probably take just as many decades to go way.
East Coast Brewers
If you have a gripe against the British government or establishment, then you should target the attack at them (even if there will be collateral damage to civilians).
This is where comparisons between Islamic terrorist attacks and the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan always break down. All the recent terrorist attacks have been aimed at civilians (many of whom protested against the war anyway). That is precisely what makes them "terrorist" in my eyes. [No matter what some people say, the UK/US forces have done everything possible to avoid civilians casualties.]
If they were legitimate "freedom fighters", they would be attacking the British military or government.
Read about why they did this. It was in retaliation for roles in Afghanistan partly. Sept 11 prompted the destruction of the terrorist camps there. Thousands of people in the same organizations that live to blow up innocent people were taken out. I think quite a few were stopped since obviously...they are dead.
Most importantly, I must point out talking to the terrorists would not have prevented this either. You can't explain to them that Afghanistan was prompted by the terrorists themselves and nothing was done about them for years even though governments knew about them until they killed thousands of innocent people. Leaving them alone was the worst thing to do.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Because you're still more likely to die crossing the road.
They've killed probably a few dozen people. The death toll will rise as they clear out the mess in the Underground, but I doubt it'll get up above a hundred.
Frankly - and perhaps rather callously - we can afford to lose a hundred people to terrorists every few years. It's completely insignificant compared to the whole population - the only difference here is that it's spectacular and newsworthy. Not feeling safe? You survived the Cold War, didn't you? Managed to live with the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation, but can't cope with the terrorists?
Call this war? In war people die in numbers like this every day. London has taken far worse than this in the past. You bury the dead, hunt down the killers and get on with life.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Stupid moderators who think that any controversial statement is made simply to get a rise out of someone else. They don't seem to be able to conceive of the fact that there really are different opinions and that people really do think differently than themselves, and that posting an opinion that differs from the officially sanctioned /. stance might possibly be legitimate and not an attempt to spin soneone up.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Stop being such a fucking pussy. I think it's funny, you think it's not. Fine, difference of opinion, whatever. But stop trying to pretend that you somehow have the moral high ground just because you think it's not funny. Oh, and learn the meaning of the word "racism", too.
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
People are dead. Others are injured. Families are grieving. and your using this to make a political point. Perhaps our sympathy and prayers would be more appropriate right now.
The Anonymous Coward title has never been more appropriate on Slashdot. You sir, are an idiot.
It would be great if we could turn around and attack 'the terrorists.' But who are the terrorists? In 9/11, most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabian, a government that is supposedly a friend of western nations. In France, the attackers were French. We could attempt to invade Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Qatar, Yemen, Oman, Cyprus, and Lebanon, but we'd still be left with North Korea, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Russia, China, and Montana. And that wouldn't get to the root of the problem, which is that people hate the actions of our governments so much that they are willing to die to make a point. It wouldn't crush the malcontentment.
This is not WW2. Impoverishing them until they have nothing left to lose will not solve the problem. It didn't work in Israel, and it won't work for the west.
Get some perspective. You're still thousands of times more likely to die from normal homocide than you are from terrorism. You're thousands of times more likely to take your own life. Sure, we should and can do things to help prevent terrorism... stop supplying Israel with military aid, for example, and replace the silly symbolic airport screenings with something that has a chance of catching people. But ultimately there isn't a whole lot one can do to stop someone who is willing to die, once they've been driven to that point. Spend more time and money putting the west in a positive light around the world, and accept that sometimes bad things will happen.
I feel terrible for the people in London. I fear that the tragedy of this event will be followed by the tragedy of throwing away what is good about their society.
The ______ Agenda
I don't know, ask the 10s of thousands of dead people in Irak and Afganistan?
Don't they have the right to defend themsleves, because they don't do it with planes and hi-tech gear its less legitimate to defend and retaliate?
Terrorism is just a bad name for rebellion, wether you agree with the rebellion or not, if the rebels win they become revolutionaires if they lose they were terrorist, but I let you guess who looks like the empire and who looks like the rebels in this.
If fighting terrorism triggers terrorism, how do you stop it?
Give in?
That didn't work well with bullies in grade school, and it won't work with bullies now.
(Although I have to admit that all the free publicity and credibility that we give terrorism by watching every little news item about terrorist strikes, and discussing them for hours is a VERY EFFECTIVE way to encourage terrorism.)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
That is obviously true, because Islamist extremists had never blown up ANYTHING before the US invasion of Afganistan. OOoooooh wait.... Wasn't there a period of 40 years where that's exactly what they'd consistantly been doing right up until the present. Sorry, I forgot.
Also, the Russians, French, Germans, North Koreans, and African Pigmys would have already each built moon bases if it wasn't for those evil Americans.
Give it a rest.
the war on terrorism could not have prevented this.
No, but they are bored of that now anyway. It's the war on civil liberties they will try this time around.
"QUICK! Arrest some people and hold them without charge! Then introduce national ID cards."
If those measures don't eliminate the existance of bombs and make everyone happy then I don't know what will.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
What conservatives forget is that killing all the terrorists and invading country after country in the Middle East won't magically make the problem go away.
Hmm, that's why WWII ended because folks sat around tables discussing ways to solve the problems, right?
Oh wait, no.
History, you know, kinda has a habit of repeating itself.
Tell you what. Just read some of Al Queda's own press material. They explicitly refer to democracy as "evil," and refer to elections (such as those that most of the people in Iraq vigorously embraced) as contrary to Islam - making anyone who participates in them a heretic and worthy of death, blah blah.
Of course this is not the view of the average person in that part of the world. It's the mantra of the crazies that are working for groups like Al Queda, and it's the rhetoric they use to justify slaughtering civilians. Do you really think that foreigners (from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia) killing young, native Iraqi police recruits or health care workers in Iraq is about what "we" have done to "them" for the last 100 years? They are not preaching self-determination for the people in the Arab world. They are preaching the viritues of a thuggish, mysogonistic theocracy that kills women for sending their daughters school (lest they learn to think on their own). See the policies of those fine fellows and Al Queda supporters, the Taliban, for some details on how they think humanity should carry on, day to day. That philosophy is entirely antithetical to liberty, democracy, and an open culture. Freedom isn't a "gambit," it's the best way for people to live. Slaughtering people that stand up for it requires no further commentary, as it's plain what those thugs want: chaos, and a brutal environment in which their medeival way of life can come back from the grave. What they want are sheep, and sure as hell not people (including women! gasp!) who flock to the polls to elect their own government.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
True, but lets not include Iraq in "the war on terror". According to the U.S. state department, Iraq was the only county in the middle east which did NOT have any al Qaeda connections. Although I suppose they do now, so I guess we have turned it into a "war on terror". Oh yeah, and lets not forget that we could have killed al Zarqawi in the past, because we knew right where he was and we had had him cornered. This was not our agenda however, so we let him live.
I would also like to point out that a "War" is often defined as clashing armies, or states, or coilitions. Not generally civilians. You cannot have a "war" on terror. War simply spreads more terror. If a people are being oppressed (from their prespective, not ours), they will spread terror against their oppressors. A man is the most dangerous when you take away his hopes and dreams, and from their perspective this is exactly what we have done (I am sure I stole that quote from somewhere). Lets not forget that only one nation has ever used a Nuclear Bomb during warfare, and it was used on civilians, TO SPREAD TERROR!
At least the polls are starting to show that Americans have started to figure out that Bush is evil, however it is too bad it took this long! Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
The more desparate you make the people in Iraq, the more recruits are easily available for terrorist groups.
Simply 'pressing more' doesn't achieve your goals of safety, it works against it.
The people of Iraq are being terrorized by a small number of Sunni Baathist "deadenders" and a larger number of radical Jihadis from all over the middle east. The insurgency does not draw heavily from the Iraqi populus. The insurgency is bad, in the short term, for the stability of Iraq. But good in the long term because all of the rats are in one trap. The Jihadis are being killed in droves every day. They can't have a meeting above ground for fear of being disintegrated by a 2000 pound bomb. 'Pressing more' has been entirely effective. Are you really suggesting that the Allies capitulate and leave the new Iraqi democracy to its fate? Do you really think that this will placate the Jihadis and keep them terrorising the west? Do you want to see new and more powerful Taliban regime in Iraq?
an ill wind that blows no good
You're conflating the current "War on Terrorism" with opposition to terrorism. The two aren't the same. There are many of us who feel that terrorist need to be opposed but that the current approach is precisely the least effective way to accomplish it.
Good point. I just wish people wouldn't think that their country's past was sqeaky-clean.
Also, at some point the civilians hold some responsibility. White civilians in the south that supported the racist government, for instance, in the U.S.
but, again, i don't support civilian death regardless of your reasons. i do support public and governmental pressure to force our governments act justly, however, regardless of the political cost. (and that, of course, means that i support awareness programs that make the public understand the political games and also understand things from a less myopic perspective.)
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Violence begets violence, that's how terrorist movements generally get started, they don't appear out of a vacuum. Usually starts when some state or government abuses/oppresses/kills people. Some are directly effected (lose family members etc) and others are just made damn angry and filled with hatred for those associated with their oppressors. The more unstable of these are then ripe for recruitment into terrorist movements. Happens all the time, every empire or occupier has to deal with resistence/terrorism. And it's always the innocent who pay the price. British forces were originally sent to Northern Ireland to protect Irish Catholics from violent Unionist/Protestant groups (who thought their privileged status in Northern Ireland was threatened (it was). But they were then used to oppress and kill Irish Catholics (e.g. Bloody Sunday). This resulted in the Catholics turning against the British Army (which was originally welcomed) and spawned/invigorated terrorist groups like the Provisional IRA who then went on to commit various horrible atrocities against the British.
They don't hate us for meddling. They hate us for being infidels. Don't you listen to what the people who want to kill you are saying?
I remember watching bombs exploding in Iraq and couldn't help but imagine mothers, fathers, sons and daughters thinking the same thing. Did the "Coalition of the Willing" pilots think they were "doing the right thing" or just following orders?
Lesson to be learned here: what we describe as terrorism (and this was terrorist activity) is justified in someone else's mind. Question is how do you deal with it? Do we continue bombing entire countries, thereby creating new terrorist recruiting grounds?
Sympathy yes, but what we need is less prayer and more thought.
thanks to us.
this is the war our leaders chose to have. why do we act surprised when the people we are killing choose to fight back?
Leaving them alone was the worst thing to do.
no- i disagree. Invading Iraq (no connections to 9/11, Al-Quada) was the worst thing to do. This administration losing focus on afghanistan and Bush telling the nation that he didn't care about Osama Bin Laden was the worst thing to do. Spreading our military so thin to fight a pointless war in Iraq that destabilized the entire region, and let Iraq become an open border den of terrorist activity, with extremists pouring in from nearly every country in the region was the worst thing to do.
claiming a "war on terror" with no tangible goal, no exit strategy, no fundamental way to achieve victory was the worst thing to do.
And we never really left "them" alone. Who is "them" anyway? Every single militant group who threatens us? there's probably tens of thousands of "those". Al Zarquawi had NO ties to Al-Quada untill we invaded Iraq... we are creating enemies faster than we can kill them.
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
"Just the right kind of attitude to keep the cycle of hatred going and going."
No, it isn't. If anything, the grandparent poster was apathetic. Apathy doesn't keep the cycle of hatred going. The thing that keeps the cycle of hatred going is blind rage. "HOW COULD THEY DO SUCH A THING???" If anything, apathy acts to help halt the cycle of hatred.
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
Having read the statement, I'd have to say there's a couple of problems.
1) "Secret Organisation al Qaeda in Europe"? That's a hastily made-up name if I ever saw one. It's against 'normal' Al Qaeda's modus operandi to go claiming responsibility so quickly, so why the new 'secret' version would be so forthcoming baffles me.
More seriously,
2) The actual statement talks about how Britain is trembling in fear 'to the North, South, East and West'. Well, having heard from people who have a bus in mangled bits RIGHT OUTSIDE THEIR FECKING WINDOW, they've failed in that one. Everyone is just pissed off they've got several miles to walk home, because there's no public transport.
We did terrorism for years, thanks to the IRA (funded by certain Americans, but we don't care as we can tell the difference between individuals and states, unlike Al "smash the Infidel by blowing up a bunch of random people" Qaeda). We got bored and went back to work before these little wankers even started.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
He also says he's a Christian, so I don't think there's much point in listening to what he says rather than watching what he does.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
america's astoundingly arrogant foreign policy?
It's doesn't rely on escalation. It relies on restraint by the West. Think to yourself, how would Genghis Khan, or the Romans have handled a similar situation. They rely on our compassion and faith in their ability to reason, and the apathy of their neighbors to protect them. But, see the Indian Wars, there's just a point where we don't care any more, and their lives (however innocent) simply aren't worth the inconvienence.
What they want is power and attention. The first we can't allow, and the second, free societies can't stop.
Nuke a few of their cities, and wait to see if a Chief Joseph shows up. If not, rinse, lather, repeat.
The original comment which you took offence to was: "Maybe someone's mad they didn't get to host the Olympics?? Sheesh."
:( :(" and assumed they were making fun of the victims. You are a hypersensitive whiner.
In what way does this make fun of the bombing victims? I don't see any thing along the lines of "haha, they got blown up". Here's my point: the original post was making fun of the people who did the bombing, not the victims. So in what way is it offensive to the victims of the bombings? But, hey, I don't think you actually bothered to, you know, read the fuckin' comment before you took offence. No, you just saw someone making a comment that wasn't "oh no this is a tragedy this is all blair's fault
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
You know, terrorists are pretty stupid people. No really, they have to be some of the dumbest folks I've ever known. Let's examine the facts, shall we?
...I didn't know the terrorist objective was to make things harder for themselves. Idiots.
1. The populace might be scared, but the powers-that-be aren't. Blowing up a subway, though tragic for the citizens, does nothing to effect the British military...which is now further in action due to an angry government. Good job.
2. What, in all domains of intelligence and common sense, would make a terrorist think that the British would yeild to this kind of action? For starters, the British are known for being some of the most stubborn people in Europe!
3. Scare tactics and violence don't effect the British. If suffering massive casualties and leveling their cities is the terrorist's plan for getting the British to listen, someone needs to point them to the nearest WWII documentery.
4. Blowing up a subway and a bus, will hardly do anything to make the British back down. If anything, it will only achieve making the British tighten their security, heighten their awareness, and step-up their efforts against the terrorists.
So, though I am not British nor am I in the UK, I say have a good day, put the kettle on, and get a broom. Hopefully one day the terrorist dorks will get a clue.
Um, wow. You actually believe that "people in Iraq", i.e., normal citizens of Iraq, have anything whatsoever to do with this?
True, but how many of their relatives can one kill before they get involved?
Why do people not count Hussein as a terrorist? How many hundreds of thousands of murders do you have to commit before people think you're a bad guy these days? Chemical weapons, torture, murder, mass graves, invading a neighboring country then burning the oil fields as he left...the list goes on and on. He was a terrorist.
And if the polls are showing people thinking Bush is "evil" I'm losing faith in the mindset of the left even more than ever. Just because you're not under attack on home ground and don't hear people running and screaming is no reason to get so content that you call the guy who kept the attacks from happening for 4 years evil.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
It was never supposed to stop terrorists in London, but you miss the point, the idea is that if you remove fundamentalism, dictatorships, and spread democracy you will eventually dry out the beds that breed terrorism... Remember terrorism is not any particular belief - it is a symptom. It's about freeing peoples minds, which will take years. But mayhap in 2 generations, our efforts will pay off.
Absolute rubbish.
Muslims here in the UK have been inciting against western secularism for *years* prior to 9/11.
The idea that these attacks are "punishment" for our behaviour is absurd and insulting.
It took this morning's attacks for me to see that pacifism and hopes for "dialogue" is naive to the point of insanity. These subhuman-filth with their murderous prehistoric superstitions simply have no place in Europe.
The sooner people realise this, the fewer lives will be lost to their barbarism.
> The US (and/or the West) are not responsible exclusively, or even mostly, for
i sm
> the situation in the mideast. The mideast has had its own difficulties with
> modernization since before the US was even remotely an influence, or indeed
> even existed.
The difficulties in the Middle East aren't to do with `modernization`, whatever that means. You need to study the history of the region again, with open eyes, this time. It's been a western plaything for some time now. Pay particular attention to western oil companies.
> A terrorist attack is a deliberate decision on the part of another human to
> kill as many people, usually innocent, in the target site as is practical or
> possible
Look at the definition of terrorism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terror
It applies to both the actions of `terrorist groups` and 'democratic' regimes such as in the US, UK etc. The bombs in London today were planned to occur at the same time as the G8 summit, where the heads of countries such as the US, UK etc are gathered.
> When it becomes politically expedient, the terrorists will make no
> distinction between London, Washington DC, Paris, or Madrid, regardless of
> any nations real or perceived support or non-support of, e.g., the Iraq
> action. And then what will you do? Be content to placate, and eventually
> essentially live subservient to terrorist whim and demands?
These attacks are in revenge for actions against groups that have long been persecuted by those who would take their countries natural resources just to make a quick buck. You can deny this if you like, but you'll have to wake up sooner or later.
Oh please, then what triggered 9/11?
Do you really, really, believe that Bin Laden decided to spend several years planning the 9/11 attack, sacrifice several people, kill thousand of innocent people just because he wanted, without a reason? Do you really be that terrorist are the "bad guy" that decides to kill random people
Man, you have seen too many too many hollywood movies or listened (and believed) too many George Bush speeches. OF COURSE there's something which triggered the 9/11 attack. Terrorist don't act randomly and kill people without a reason, why would they? They're not stupid. I don't agree that killing people is the correct way to answer to what EEUU did, but terrorist think that it is, or they have a different vision from what EEUU with respect some military event
Go read some history. I hate how some EEUU citiziens think that EEUU is always "right" just because of their collaboration in the WWII. Yes, there was something that EEUU did that triggered the 9/11, go and learn some history, you'll find that the collaboration in the WWII doesn't neccesarily means that EEUU is always the "good guy"
>>I'm still wondering whether it's some IRA faction, personally. These don't seem to have been really big bombs - we're seeing lots of wounded, not many dead. Umm, that's because the dead are having a real tough time trying to walk along the rail lines and up to street level.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
War. The US attacked places bin Laden cared about. It doesn't justify his actions but it does appear to be the motivating factor.
I'm thinking hard, but who did the US ATTACK that bin Laden cared about?
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Nice straw man. Where did anyone mention surrendering?
Peace != Surrender
You can plan for months and decide to execute (or not) in minutes. See D-Day, Pearl Harbour, 9/11, etc.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
I agree totally
I totally disagree. Have you stopped to consider that the UK probably wasn't even on the Al-Quada (sp?) radar until the US/UK invaded Iraq and made it a hot bed of terrorist activity where none previously existed???
One could argue that the (badly applied) war on terror (i.e. Sadam is a bad man) was actually the catalyst for this attack. This is a prime example of how the 'War on Terror' has made citizens of civilized countries less safe.
All your base are belong to us!
Our foreign policies have killed hundreds of millions through starvation, arms sales, wars. If, as an athiest there is even one religious concept I have come to believe in, it's karma. You don't fuck up people's lives without something coming back to haunt you.
Do I agree with terrorist tactics? No but I do recognise the desire for revenge. Against innocent civilians? The innocent civilians are the ones paying the subsidies and the military. For every right there are responsibilities, for every action there are consequences.
Deleted
Heya, a Londoner here. Thank you for your kind thoughts.
But please realise that it is perfectly possible to like America as a country while simultaneously disagreeing vigorously with the policies of the current American government.
Some people say the war in Iraq is a part of the war on terrorism but it's actually something else. It has mainly helped terrorists by pissing off more people and providing an unstable country which can be used as a base.
The war in Afganistan and internal security measures can be helpful against terrorism, and I don't remember any large attacks in retaliation for that.
Unless the people discussing it are rescue workers standing around instead of doing their job, the discussion will have no effect on the dead, the survivors, or the grieving.
It seems to me that you're trying to use shame/guilt to silence a free discussion.
It depends on who you think cast the first stone. Based on bin Laden's fatwa, I'd say that his greviances are genuine and meritable, but the action taken was not in proportion to the damage done.
The problem is that you'd have to go back to the days of Babylon in order to find out "who started it". I'd say its the fault of all parties involved for letting this situation go on for as long as it has. The West needs to quit using vassal states to do its bidding and the Middle East needs to get away from blowing up innocent people in order to achieve their political goals.
"Oh please, then what triggered 9/11?"
maybe our support of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? we have given the Israeli's millions of dollars AND weapons and aircraft. what have we given the people whos land we took to give to them? several hundred thousand dollars and no protection from a military who has killed thousands of palistinian children.
think about it - if 10 or 20 years ago an american hellicopter came in and blew up your dad or your uncle or your brother or your friend you'd be pissed wouldn't you. Lucky for you, you're American. You will most likely never have to experience someone coming onto your soil and accidentally killing your friends and/or family because they had to shove their nose where it didnt belong. Unfortunately, this new "war on terror" in a nation that never once supported bin laden (in fact, bin laden HATED hussein) and who never once threatened or attacked any US citizen outside of their own country - is creating the next generation of terrorist. Look at the children you see in the news footage now - we are killing their big brothers, fathers and uncles, and because of it - your child may be stuck fighting them in the next war.
I'm not saying that they are right in what they do . All I'm saying is that perhaps we should pick the stick from our own eye before we attempt to pick the splinter from theirs.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
I just can't believe some of the comments I'm reading about this. Someone saying the people responsible for this should be killed is rated "Troll" or "Flamebait"? Others saying that WE are responsible for these bombings because of the war on terror? Others saying the people who did this should be slapped because they don't want to kill them. Do you really think a slap will stop their murders? It won't. Nothing will stop them until they are dead. I'm sick of everyone saying how we just need to understand these people, we need to treat them better, we need to stop offending them. How about if they just treat us better. How about if they stop offending us? How about if they stop murdering us? With the Islamic group that posted on their web site that they are responsible for this, arrest every member. They just admitted they are guilty of murder.
But why is the rum gone?
While you are throwing out "facts" BigDogCH, don't forget that Clinton had a wonderful opportunity to kill or capture bin Laden and passed on it out of fear of what it would do to his reputation. There's plenty of blame to go around. Please stop asking for my sympathy and understanding for the individuals who are committing these acts.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
If you believe that, then you are naive. The insurgents that operate in Al Anbar, Fallujah, Baghdad et all are just as much of a Sunni nationalist army as they are a resistanece against the Americans. Right now, they do not directly fight Al Sadr and others, simply because Al Sadr was a thorn in the Americans side, but if the Americans left, then the exact same forces would now start fighting with the Kurds over Kirkuk, and the Shiites over Baghdad and surrounding areas.
The rank and file of the insurgency is not "America haters" or Al-Qaeda or whatever, they are run of the mill Sunnis whose status has declined after Saddam. Even if they do not hate Shiites per se, they do hate the fact that they lost prestige and their cushy jobs that they had under Saddam. When people lose their jobs and go hungry, people do crazy things (think Germany in the 20s and 30s), and often will fight to get back their way of life.
That way of life will not magically return if the Americans leave. Its just if that happens, they will have to deal with well organized Kurdish and Shiite militias, hell bent on making sure that they won't lose what little they have gained after Saddam's removal.
Frankly, what this all makes me think is that the whole idea of keeping Iraq one cohesive nation is just plain dumb.
Osama bin Laden took a hating to the US when the Saudi Royal family allowed US forces into Saudi Arabia to fight Hussein in round 1 of the Gulf War. The bin Laden family is like the Kennedys or Rockafellas in Saudia Arabia, and Osama is the black sheep (Osama's father reportedly described the mother as his least favorite concumbine). Osama was expelled from the Kingdom after his complaintants that the ruling family did not adhere to Wahabisim close enough. He believe them to be guilty of apostacy, a serious crime to bin Laden. Osama's fundamental gripe is that the Kingdom let infidels - including women - use the holy land as a staging ground to fight another Arab state. Till this time bin Laden and the King Saud and his handlers were strongly anti-Iraq because of the secular nature of Hussein's Baathist regime. bin Laden was not a big fan of Kuwait at all since it is heavily westernized and pro-West. Quite clearly, much of the rage against the US is on account of the intervention in the first Gulf War.
If fighting terrorism triggers terrorism, how do you stop it?
Give in?
That didn't work well with bullies in grade school, and it won't work with bullies now.
(Although I have to admit that all the free publicity and credibility that we give terrorism by watching every little news item about terrorist strikes, and discussing them for hours is a VERY EFFECTIVE way to encourage terrorism.)
When they knocked down the towers, the best thing we could have done, is built taller towers in their place.
If we can demostrate that their tactics do not successfully inspire fear (that is the point of a terrorist attack), we win. Reactionary wars, and warning systems, and the trumpeting of meassages of fear from the media, and the leadership only help the terrorists acheive their goals.
To use the bully analogy, there are options besides caving and fighting. After the bully punches you. You stand back up, stick out you chest, and look at him, waiting for him to hit you again (they seldom do). Bullies don't know how to deal with this responce. They actually prefer you swing at them...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Well, if that's true, how did it start?
One of the drivers is that Arab civilization used to be the pinnacle of education and knowledge, the center of the entire world -- heck, they're called the 'arabic' numbers. But, the center of gravity has shifted west and they've been left out of it. So, there's some sense that their rightful place in the world has been taken from them. This frustration will be magnified whenever the West does something that they disagree with. That probably includes the "retaliation" you're talking about, but probably also a lot more (maybe even including 'existing').
(Note: not claiming that all Arabs are terrorists or vice-versa.)
What US has done in the Iraq is known in the technical circles as Shooting oneself in the foot.
While Saddam Hussain is a master terroriser , he was one of the few despots in the Arab world who was active against Al Queda and its ilk.So far from reducing the hot spots that breed terrorism , invading Iraq and removing Saddam has actually increased the number of countries the terrorists could shelter in.
Remember , Saddam's Iraq was relatively Secular. In that part of the World , the tribe was dominant over the religion.
Wanted : A Signature.
Besides, just because one attack wasn't triggered by a war that means wars can never trigger attacks? Computer crashes are never caused by faulty hardware, because mine crashed today and all the hardware is fine.
I am trolling
Arab terrorists would just find another 'reason' for blowing themselves up and taking civilians, like the existance of the state of Israel, etc. Their civilization if horribly antiquated and unable to provide for their people, just look at all the unamployed muslims wandering around with nothing productive to do except turn religious fanatic and go bezerk out of frustration in light of the relative material success of the west. The worst situation arises when you combine that fanatacism with oil money and suddenly they have means to act on their hatred.
Simple, naive solutions like suggestion "just pulling out" would usher in the age of universal peace and happiness is the same old appeasement that never works with unreasonable fanatics.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The leader of a country isn't someone who isn't constantly showing up in random markets with a bomb. They may indescriminantly kill people inside their own country, but it's not to gain a political voice where they had none before (it might be to supress other political voices, but that's a different thing from ostensibly having only one option for political expression). Leaders of countries can be affected by international diplomacy, embargoes, etc... terrorists won't ever be affected at all by this kind of thing.
(yes, there are shades of gray between them, but one fundamentally already has a large amount of power that's fixed in a certain location... the other has very little power and can move anywhere... the options for dealing with them is fundementally different)
There's more to the situation.
Islam has always been a melded church and state, even more so than the Catholics ever did. For many years (up to the present) there has been essentially no difference between clerics and rulers, usually they were the same people, still are. This causes pervasive problems. Not the least of which is that those who hold the reigns of government are religiously obligated to eradicate the infidels (both the Koran and bible are very clear about converting or killing nonbelievers). Just as bad (and we see some of this in the States) is that the government feels the need to ban or repress science, as both religion and science are claiming to have the truth, and they can't both be right. This makes Theocracies third world countries, and it makes the citizens jealous of those who are not so backwards.
Theocracy and democracy cannot easily coexist, just as Communism and Capitalism have trouble. A Theocracy next to a democracy finds that many of its citizens would flow over the border to join the heathens, and those left behind would hate the outsiders for reasons related to religious dogma and jealousy. You just can't build your dreams on forcing people to strictly adhere to a set of rules if there is a beautiful country nearby without those rules. This will cause persistent conflict that cannot be eliminated without eliminating either Democracy or Theocracy, I know which one I'll pick. One way or another, Theocracy has got to go, there will be no peace until it does.
That being said, the US hasn't been terribly careful in picking its battles (literally and figuratively), but we didn't cause the problem. The problem will continue until there is a concrete change in the world dynamic, leaving them alone won't solve anything. If they were powerful enough to destroy us, they would have done so long ago. We have been powerful enough to destroy them for many years, and yet we have not done so. Fortunately, the balance of power is not likely to ever change.
FFS, if people dying shouldn't affect politics then what the hell should?
I am trolling
That's because most Americans weren't paying attention at the time. The US was giving massive amounts of aid and weapons to Israel, ticking people off. The US backed the Saudi government, which brutally represses dissent. People were pissed that the US backed the coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Algeria. I'm sure the extremists were unhappy with the first Gulf War. Whatever it was, something set them off.
I say glaze the whole fucking middle east over with some tactical nukes.
You see, when people make this sort of generalization, then all of the US allies, Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, etc. all get really uncomfortable and may just decide to stop helping us. Where do you think the US got all their intelligence on Al Qaeda from? Syria had been actively fighting them for years, and turned over huge amounts of information on them, including names and detainees, as a gesture of goodwill and assistance towards the US. Too bad the US immediately sanctioned them afterwards on behalf of Israel.
"People died, there is absolutely nothing funny"
People dying can be funny. Look at the Darwin Awards.
That said, this particular event was most certainly not funny.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Total deaths so far 43, from 4 bombs.
3 were on underground trains and 1 on a bus.
As a Londoner I've been expecting this, its inevitable, you can never have a free society and prevent every terrorist. The thing we must do is, like we did in the 70s under the threat from the IRA, is continue our lives and not let the terrorists dictate our actions and lives.
We must not let our government use this as an excuse to impose more authoritarian laws and continue to spread the message of freedom and liberty, in its social, personal, political and economic guises.
We must not give in to the terrorists and become like them. They want us to attack innocent people who just happen to be arabic or muslim, it will help swell their ranks.
Do you honestly believe bush or any of the other leaders give two shakes about the people who died in this attack, or on september 11th? People in power will always try and keep it and get more, and use any means necessary. However, I honestly believe a lot of the ground troops in Al Quaeda - probably some of the people who planted these bombs - joined up because of the innocent civilians who died in those military actions. If you stop the people they're recruiting, it won't matter what the leaders think.
I am trolling
- Mel Brooks
You talk about this like it's something new. Did you forget about 30 years of Irish terrorism, or are you just ignorant about it? When AQ cause distruption to London on a monthly or weekly basis, then it'll be something to get one's knickers in a twist over. Try getting out a bit more and spend less time listening to the propaganda from that fear-monger George Bush.
The bombers were really very considerate, if you think about it.
Great! Let's give these guys the Nobel Peace Prize then. You f***ing imbecile. They weren't considerate, they deliberately detonated the bombs during rush hour traffic, when the greatest volume of passengers would be present. Only through their own stupidity were there so few casualties.
Never fear though, originally terrorism was only about second or third priority at the G8, but guaranteed it is now first.
You sit there and say that it couldn't be Muslim extremists and then you go ahead and defend them just in case they are. Asshole.
Terrorism is a description of a methodology, as seen by the attacked.
"Al Qaeda" as a term did not exist prior to a certain (sorry) trial where a criminal termed his movement in that fashion, spinning a tale of massive worldwide organization. He got a reduced sentence, I believe.
His tale was used exclusively by Bush and the neocons after 9-11 (without crediting the source). Point is, there was no "Al Qaeda" in name or organization prior to 9-11 -- but now there is. Any radical fundie who wants to blow something up now will call himself a member of "Al Qaeda". It's a like a decentralized franchise operation.
There were quite a few operatives in this operation. It took coordination, and that takes numbers. BUT. Not that many. This could have been done by four people, total, on the low side. Grandly expanding four psychos into a worldwide "terrorist" army with which we are at war will be Blair's and Bush's instant exploitation.
This is a CRIMINAL act, not an act of war. Timothy McVeigh was not a member of the militant terrorist Michigan Militia, and that group was not at war with the U.S. What bin Laden is, is a nutjob, and he has a small cadre of nutjobs that are with him. He can't declare war. He's not a country. He's a criminal. Send police after him. SAME with these nutjobs.
OTOH, could have been Iraqis bringing the war back to Britain.
Iraq has nothing to do with the f*^&ing "war" on "terror". The people there are fighting us because we invaded and took over their country, incidentally stealing their oil and establishing a permanent military garrison. It's called an insurgency, and insurgents use guerilla tactics. The invader calls it "terrorism". Nut jobs are indeed coming in from around the world, but Bush was falsly invoking them as the cause of the insurgency from day one of the occupation; they are not the primary movers. Iraq did not harbor jihadists. He lied. Iraq NOW has pissed off citizenry that will eventually bring the war to the US and Britain. But we MADE them. They did not exist before.
What makes my fury boil is the way Bush and Blair will idiotically and unashamedly link the criminal act in London to the need to continue the "War on Terror" in Iraq, making the ears of informed people bleed from the sheer pain of listening to the exploitation of death. Iraq may very well have spawned the attacks on London, but IF the attack came from Iraq, then B&B brought it on. Bush actually said, "Bring it on!" when asked about terrorist attacks engendered by his invasion of Iraq.
Well, they've brought it on, either the nutjobs or pissed-off Iraqis. What now, you fake cowboy? Gonna keep killing "terrorists" until the world runs out of them, as you've implied?
The Americans didn't travel all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to kill Brit civilians, in an attempt to encourage them to end the unjust colonial occupation or whatnot. Small difference, there.
If I recall, Ben Franklin went across the pond to mack it with the French ladies and drum up support there, but that was about it.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
And one more thing. I've never cheered when a stray missile/bullet killed innocent Iraqis or Afghans. I've always had sympathy while still believing the war is just. But perhaps I should be more like you and argue that the Arabs deserve it since they've bred these terrorists. How's that for hateful?
I don't think the original poster is offtopic at all. If 100,000 innocent people in your country were killed in "collateral" damage wouldn't you be pissed? This is not to say I'm blaming Iraq, as a matter of fact they are probably the LEAST equiped to mount and organize an attack of this sort out of al the Islamic states, wether having ties to Al Q'aeda or not. (not it seems, that is untill the invasion gave them reason to have ties...) Iraq, wether ruled by a heinous dictator or not, was relatively MODERATE by Islamic fundamentalist (Al Q'aeda) standards, and as a result the general populous of Iraq was NOT largely in support of the actions of terrorists. The feelings of hoplessnes, loss and anger raised since the invasion has INCREASED popular support for terror activities in Iraq since 9/11. Although the place is in such a shambles and dealing with internal problems and mounting an "insurgency" (wouldn't you?) I doubt they had much, if anything to do with this event, but if you think the invasion of Iraq has helped quell terrorism you aren't thinking like an angry, irrational human being who's seen thier house, place of work, place of worship, etc blown up and or defaced and derided by an invading force of foreigners who can't be bothered to even learn enough of your language to tell you to "get down with your hands on your head" while arresting a memeber of your family for vauge and undefined reasons.
I'm not saying terrorism is a good response (it's not), I'm not saying it's an effective political tool (it just makes more people angry and hurt and irrational), but I'm saying people under stress do irrational things and the US and "The West" have done very little to address the (very) personal stress experienced by people in poor and/or politicaly opressive countries. Invading and dismantaling a country is NOT stress reducing. If there are drivers on the road in the USA who feel the need to rear-end people who cut them off in fits of irrational road-rage, what do you think thier unstable stress-monky counterparts are likey to do when they see hundreds of thousands of people like them (or they themselves) killed and left homeless (wether for thier long term good or not).
War of any kind breeds hate and irrational behavior. Others have mentioned the "two ways to win the win the war on terror" Kill 'em all, or get out. I think there needs to be a third idea mentioned, take some of the crazy wealth of our "Western" nations, spread it arround, with a good heaping portion of good-will and non-military aid and watch people suddenly get content and rational. Watch dictatorships and radical fundamentalism dry up as people find fewer and fewer things to be angry about. Watch them fix little problems, or things that have been on the back burner (like AIDS, Global Warming, and the Impending Energy Crisis) instead of devoting thier time to being mad the person next-door.
Never underestimate the power of a decent standard of living.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
Yeah, the people who did this are "terrorists", but the people who did something similar two days ago here in India are "militants" according to BBC and CNN, and the ones who kill innocent civilians every day in Kashmir are merely "separatists". And let's not even get started on what's happening in Russia. You people seem incredibly hypocritical when you talk about "deaths of innocent people".
We surrendered, we showed the terrorists the way to go.
Now I'm ashamed.
- Calling someone "a pussy" is sexist
...
No, it's not.
- saying that the french where behind this is racist
No, it's not.
- Anyone who as a minimum of real understanding about those two words ( this obviously dont mean you , at all ) can see what is meant in my reply.
Oh that's just lovely, someone who can barely string a coherent sentence together giving English lessons.
- There whas no joke , hence my reply and point.
Actually, there was a joke. I think everybody on Slashdot except you saw that the original post was a joke.
- The two are unrelated , one is remebering the deceased and good times and someone you knew , the other is a racist comment about people who died in a murdering action. I can make the disertion between the two , I guess you cant.
Jokes at funerals can be both in a negative context and benign, just like the original post. 99% of jokes about death in general aren't trying to be insensitive or belittle the event or even applaud it. You are creating intent when there is none there, just like you are creating racism when there is none there.
- "The French have it bad enough "
Another racist comment based on your obvious lack of education and current knowledge
I don't know what the hell you are talking about, but please shut the fuck up. It is a KNOWN FACT that the French are the butt of many jokes, particularly from the British and the Americans. I stated that fact. You called me a racist. HOW THE FUCK IS MAKING A FACTUAL OBSERVATION ABOUT CURRENT INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE RACIST?
- BTW London aint in France
Where in the hell did I say that or even imply it? You are not making any sense.
- As I said I am a Real American , from CANADA.
Where? In your sig?
- There is no morality discussion here
You were the one that started this whole moral debate about morbid humour by jerking that big knee of yours. You also needlessly went off on some racism/sexism tangent that is both irrelevant and inaccurate.
YOU ARE MAKING NO SENSE.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
What I personally will never, ever get around is how someone can become so sick that they believe they are doing the Right Thing when participating in terror acts such as this.
Any soldier who kills will say the same as his government "This is not terror this is unfortunate but necessary." Regardless of what country or faction they come from.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Are you kidding me? He's been saying this from way before we knew his name.
The point of my post, which you appearantly missed, is that stated motivations, and true motivations don't have to match, and in the case of most public figures taking public actions, they ussually don't match. The fact that he has been saying it for a long time only proves he is a good politician and is staying "on message", it says absolutly nothing about his true motivations.
Remember that he was more than happy to get help from the CIA until the '91 gulf war and the placement of western soldiers in the arabian peninsula? He certainly was not saying these things about Americans (perhaps Russians) prior to '91. So either you haven't known his name as long as some of us have, or you have a poor recollection of history. I hope it is the former...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Do you have any feelings? Are you a human being? DEATHS ARE NOT STATISTICS. 1 death is a horrible thing. If you still don't believe this fact, try going to tell the victims' families what happened.
Scott Simontis
"Oh please, then what triggered 9/11?"
maybe our support of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip?
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.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
The point of terrorism is not to inspire fear. Nobody likes fear so much that they want to go to such lengths just for that. Individual bullies, yes. Large, semi-professional organizations, no.
Terrorism is the use of fear, most commonly achieved through violence, in order to effect a political goal. Hamas's stated goal is to drive the Israelis into the sea, and make their future nation of Palestine an Arab and possibly Islamic state. Al Qaeda's stated goal is to remove the influence of the "decadent west" from Islamic lands, and halt the tide of modernization, and thence create a pan-Arab great big Muslim kingdom, sorta like they had a thousand years ago.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
"Fear is a means to an end. Bin Laden talked about using terror to incite governments to violent responses, leading to an escalating path of violence that he believes will ultimately end in a secular v. Muslim war where Islam, being backed by God, will of course triumph.
And my relatives wonder why I'm a Unitarian. "
Well I'm an American, and in the name of all that's American, I'll start a campaign to bomb the planet. Now according the logic used on this forum, I represent all Americans, and therefore all Americans should be hated, and feared.
Hmmm...here's a big clue for everyone here. Saying you are, doesn't make you one. Bin Ladin and his followers doesn't represent Islam, or any other religion. Bin Ladin represents himself, and that's it.
Maybe this forum would gain a better prespective by educating themselves about Islam (in this day and age, there's no excuse for not knowing), and listen to what the majority moderates have to say on the situation.
ok, as an american i just have to respond "seriously, nobody here has a clue about israel".
we don't know about it, we think that there's just people fussing over something and muslims arguing over israeli land, but have no idea of the real situation.
it's amazing how efficient the information blackout is, and the complete ignorance of people in america about what's actually happening in the middle east. going to europe i talked to people who actually understood that it was a complex and nuanced situation with no easy solution, talking to people here they look at you like you're some kind of communist.
f*cking amazing.
not affiliated with either side, but in an age of such complete media saturation the utter lack of unbiased information about this is shocking.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
Last year the number of terrorist attacks worldwide more than tripled, from a record of 175 in 2003 to 655 in 2004. That certainly doesn't sound like a successful "war on terror" to me.
The simple fact is that terrorists attack the US because they are seriously pissed off at our foreign policies, and if we would just quit trying to be the world's self appointed police force, terrorist attacks would decline dramatically.
what sig?
Here's yet another problem that wouldn't exist without religion.
Don't reply to tell me that "oh, most religious people don't go around blowing things up." I know that and I don't care. When was the last time you heard of a group of radical atheists throwing a hand grenade into a tour bus?
If you knew who THEM was, you could arrest THEM ahead of time.
I'm reminded of Lisa Simpson:
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I'm going to reply to this one, since it was the only one of the three so far to make some rational sense.
I honestly don't believe it's my personal fault that there are countries that haven't kept pace with the prosperity of the Western world. And while I also don't think that I am in any way immediately responsible for the birth of said prosperity, what I am responsible for is doing what I can to allow it to continue. If I were in charge, I would be more than willing to help other countries prosper, as well, but there are a few things that you'll need to keep in mind about the nature of this help:
1) It will be on my terms. If I cannot afford to continue aid, or if such aid impairs with my own well-being, then I shall not be obligated to provide you with it.
2) It will require your help. I cannot hold your hand forever; such aid is given with the expectation that it will be used towards an ultimate goal of self-sufficiency.
3) You shall not squander what I give, nor complain when what I give is not what you expect. You do not need anyone's approval to work problems out on your own. If you don't like what I have given you, then you can find your own solutions. My solutions are inevitably influenced by my world-view. Naturally, this is not necessarily your world-view. If you want solutions other than the ones that I can most readily provide, then you will find them yourself.
This is very simple, common sense. I'm not as well-versed on foreign affairs as all of the political experts here, but I imagine it follows roughly along the guidelines listed above. The impression I am getting from the posts above mine is that there are some who believe that the people of the Western world are at fault for the shortcomings of the less-prosperous. I have done nothing to actively squander the growth and development of any nation, and I'm certain that this holds for the vast majority of people in the world.
The people of these nations living on 15 cents a day are no more or less human than the rest of us. They are no more or less capable of forming solutions to their problems, as others have done throughout history. In fact, the Southwest Asian/Northern African region has historically been a hub for intellectual pursuit. There is no reason to believe that they are incapable of surviving without the support of the Western world, and by insisting that they are, you do them a disservice greater than that caused by any bomb, tariff, or ideology.
According to costofwar.com, the Iraq war has cost, so far, about $180 billion. That's a lot of money. For a comparison, the Manhattan Project cost $20 billion in modern dollars.
$180 billion buys a lot of research and infrastructure to get us off of foreign oil. To introduce efficiencies, reduce consumption and research better methods of generation. Which would do a hell of a lot more to reduce terrorism (by slowing if not stopping the flow of money to the Saudis who fund a lot of these groups) than what has turned out to be an expensively optional war. It's possible that Iraq will end up better than it was under Saddam---I certainly hope it does---but the money could have been better spent elsewhere.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Please do not link this dreadful attack with Islam or it's followers. We are as shocked by this attack as much as everyone, and whilst there will no doubt be some who take pleasure in it, most of us are horrified by it. At every location there will, almost certainly, have been Muslims who are injured or worse, Edware Road and Aldgate East have large Muslim populations for a start. We, like everyone else, have been trying to contact friends and family, Muslim and non-Muslim who may have been affected.
If this is the work of misguided Muslims, then they have committed a major sin by the killing of innocent people, and have sullied our beutiful religion.
Other than those directly affected by these attacks, it will be the Muslims in the UK who suffer the most. And once again, we will need to prove that our religion is not one of barbarity and bloodshed, as it is often portrayed. No doubt there will be innocent Muslims who are verbally or physically assaulted because of this event. So we are not pleased by this event one bit, and we condemn those who planned and carried this out.
Please know that for every so called Muslim scholar who may appear on t.v. proclaiming there support for this attack as valid retribution for the slaughter of Muslims, there will be many many more who are not given the opportunity to condemn this. If you really want to see the Muslim reaction to this, then visit sites such as http://www.deenport.com/ or http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/.
We pray for all those affected by this terrible event, and we hope that all those responsible for it are brought to justice.
The US was involved in the very incident that began the modern Islamic revolution. That was when an Iranian revolution removed the Shah from power. We (the US) decided we liked the Shah's mode of operation, so we helped reinstall him in power in Iran. Islamic fundamentalists banded together and removed him from power again and took US hostages in the American Embassy in Tehran. Perhaps you remember that? They formed an Islamist republic after the removal the 2nd time of the Shah. Thus start the transition in the Middle East from dictatorial/monarchist countries to Islamic republics (not really republics at all, but run by the Mullahs).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_revolution
This success and embarassment of the US emboldened the radical Islamists and gave leaders in the Middle East who wanted to organize a fighting force a great way to make one, by claiming that this was a battle for Islam. A tactic we (the US) exploited well in backing Bin Laden against the USSR in Afghanistan.
Our involvement in Iran also led us to believe we had to have someone to support in the Middle East against these radicals. This led to a period of nearly unconditional backing of Israel. Israel knew we were unlikely to drop support of them and thus engaged in many nasty actions against Arab people in neighboring countries. They even attacked one of our own ships. Our backing of Israel during this brutal period didn't help us in the eyes of Bin Laden and other radical Islamists with an axe to grind.
Now all of this isn't to say that if our opponent(s) were more reasonable that things wouldn't have gone differently. But we had plenty of warning in 1978 that there were people in the Middle East using Islam as a cause who would turn their fighters against us if we only gave them a reason to do so.
Apparently we didn't think it'd be a problem. We underestimated the trouble these people could cause of us. This continues under Bush as strong as ever. And that's how we got into two wars at once without the manpower to finish either of them correctly.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I truly believe that if we left Iraq tomorrow, the insurgency would collapse in a short time because they'd have no real reason to exist. The true terrorists would have no freedom fighter status in which to cloak themselves, and the nationalist insurgents would likely turn against the terrorists.
I'd like to believe that too.
But look at History. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US funnelled money to groups like Al Qaeda, and elements of Pakistan's ISI, to aid them in fighting the Soviets. When the Soviets pulled out, there was a 10-year civil war that killed tens of thousands of civilians. Kabul was reduced to rubble. Guess who owned the country after that?
If the US pulled out of Iraq now, Iraq would become little more than a client state of Iran. Which would make countries like Saudi Arabia and Syria nervous as hell. Invading Iraq was a mistake of such huge proportion, given it's oil reserves, and the reserves of most of the nations neighboring Iraq, the end result will be effective control of a dangerously large proportion of world reserves by a single entity, should we pull out now. In other words, a major fucking disaster.
Personally, I think that the only workable option, right now, is partition. Give the Kurds a huge chunk of the north, and it's oil. Give the Shiites a chunk, and the Sunnis a chunk, including the fields borderinng with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but above all, leave the Shiites a little short on the deal, because they're going to rely on Iranian assistance anyway. The other thing the US should do, is tap into the moderate Shiites - so far largely ignored in favor of the radical shiite politicians we put into power (the Chalabi gang). That would probably give us a better outcome.
Frankly, I think that the best outcome for the war-profiteers will be to continue occupation for a couple more years, and then pull out, leaving the region in a state of constant warfare for the next 100 years until the last drop of oil is sucked out of the ground. The war-profiteers will make the most money that way, which, of course, was the whole point of this excercise in the first place.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
A lot of experts have also pointed to the attack being "typical of Al Qaeda".
Typical of a government wishing to force a change onto an unwilling populous (read ID Cards). History just repeats itself.
Innocent lives were lost in vain today. Terrorism is mindless evil, I agree. But have you ever considered the mindset of a terrorist?
Hundreds of children got orphaned in the quest for Saddam in Iraq. Here's a sample of what could be going through their minds...
"My innocent family was massacred by the US bombing. I heard the people of the US vote their leaders... and the same people couldn't prevent their leaders from doing this. Why shouldn't they be responsible for shattering my childhood? School, education, etc. isnt important for me. Revenge is."
I played soccer with someone from the towers as a kid, so take that argument somewhere else...
Ask the Brits if they think Ghandi was a pussy.
And lastly, our striking back at them is what gets them the continued support they need ot function. Muhammad 6 pack (I know, it's terrible...) doesn't think all westerners are inharantly evil. He just lost his brother/son/father/sister in an attack by US forces, and hates our foreign policy. Give him no reason to hate us, and Al Queda loses the vast majority of their esential support, and therefor loses ability to conduct operations.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
- Caused by the insane dual policy of:
- Invade the world to impose our form of society.
- Invite the world by opening the borders to all the people who want to exploit or hate us as a result.
- An excuse used by the neocons to get us to give up our freedom in exchange for their supposed "protection" against the resulting "terrorism".
- Mainly in the foreign policy interests of Israel.
?Seastead this.
*Sigh*
There were distinct reasons Iraq was chosen. I'd like to reiterate this from one of my previous messages, below. You can make arguments about North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc., as being more "appropriate" targets under various circumstances, but Iraq was picked for a reason. And no, it wasn't to "help the wealthy man".
---
It's pretty saddening that no one will confront the very real danger that is Panislamism and its radical forms, especially Europe, given its close geographic proximity. Regardless of what Europe's motivation is for ignoring this threat, the Panislamic radicals won't differentiate between Paris and Washington DC when it's time to execute attacks against the West.
As for the insurgency in Iraq, where the fuck do you think these people come from? That they're just ordinary Iraqis fighting the evil US dog occupiers? Hardly. Most of them are radicals, many not even from Iraq, who are attacking and killing their own Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters indiscriminately, in the hopes of turning them manifestly against the US forces, forcing an almost pragmatic decision: even though there will be turmoil and perhaps civil war if the US leaves, we'll keep killing you until you rise up against the US, or make it politically difficult for the US to remain. Then we'll install the radical Islamic theocracy that only 1% of Iraqis said they wanted in numerous Oxford Research studies in Iraq. And then truthout can say "Look, we told you so! The US going into Iraq just made the whole region worse; look at even Iran's recent election! See, the Republicans don't care about making the mideast a safer place or fighting terror, in fact, all they're really concerned about is the flow of oil!"
What a completely retarded view. First, all the naysayers who, disgustingly, in my opinion, invoke the US war dead in favor of their arguments also apparently don't care about Iraqis at all. Because if the US leaves, a SHITLOAD more Iraqis will die than ever would have, regardless of whether or not the US ever set foot in Iraq in 2003. That is an absolute given. So if they're out to "preserve life", that's certainly not the way to do it. Further, some people apparently can't understand the concept of sacrifice and taking risks. But I won't even get into that here. And finally, there is continuing and perpetual ignorance to the fact that we don't yet live in the utopian Star Trek-style world government where everyone is happy: there are people in the world, regardless of why (and, as I've said before, it's not due exclusively, or even mostly, to US policy), who want to see and end to the West. And no, it's not because they "hate freedom" (though, actually, they do). But the reason is irrelevant. There comes a time when you realize that there still are nation-states on this Earth, and that sometimes, they need to be defended. Proactively. Or, to say a dirty word, "preemptively". Anyone who can't see the writing on the wall with respect to energy and the mideast has their head in the sand. And frankly, the need for energy from at least quasi-friendly states in the mideast in the short term is not necessarily at odds with standing up quasi-democratic, free governments among the peoples of the mideast. (Iraq was a good place to start, because it was an easy case to make in a simplistic fashion, and was one of the MOST secular states, meaning the least likelihood of an internal Islamic backlash.)
Even Kerry got it:
To destroy our enemy, we have to know our enemy. We have to understand that we are facing a radical fundamentalist movement with global reach and a very specific plan. They are not just out to kill us for the sake of killing us. They want to provoke a conflict that will radicalize the people of the Muslim world, turning them against the United States and the West. And they hope to transform that anger into a force that will topple the region s governments and pave the way for a new empire, an oppressive, fundamentalist superstate stretching across a vast area fr
Like most things, the truth lies between these two extremes "We did something bad to deserve it" and "terrorists are insane and irrational".
Your typical terrorist does indeed usually have a rational goal in mind. These are not people who blow up stuff just for fun, or because a little voice in their head told them to do it - there is usually a very real and logical justification behind their actions.
Where things start to diverge from the typical American worldview is that things that do not matter the slightest bit to an American might matter a great deal to a terrorist - and vice versa. Plus there is often the same confusion of motive between terrorist and Americans as there is between Americans and terrorists. And finally, terrorists are by definition willing to do things considered unconciencable in the American (really, Western) value system.
For example, Western society makes a distinction between "church" and "state", and further makes a distinction between "combatant" and "civillian". Other societies may not, and in particular, the branches of Islamic fundamentalism that are causing all the problems these days do not.
The fundamental problem here is a clash of cultures with very, very different value systems. There's a lot of perfectly normal Western behaviour that to an Islamic fundamentallist of the correct flavour, would be the Western equivelant of painting pentagrams on chruch altars. Certain elements see Western civilization (and American civilization in particular) as being every bit as evil as Nazism, and they are willing to go to great lengths to attack it.
Cast in the right light, the French Resistance during WW2 was a "terrorist" organization. So too was the American Revolutionary Army, with George Washington subbing in for Bin Laden.
That might seem over the top, a sort of psudeo-Godwinesque claim, but there is an essential core truth in there. The French Resistance and George Washington tended to limit their hostillities to military targets, which is seen as "honourable" in Western circles, but that's the Western distinction between soldier and civillian talking. If your culture makes no such distinction, then attacking civillians is not de facto an unconciencable act.
So it is very much a mistake to make the assumption that terrorists are simply irrational killers and dismiss them as such. It behooves Western civilization to understand exactly what the beef the terrorists have, and to examine those complaints in the cold, hard, RATIONAL light of the truth.
Because part of that truth is that the West - and again, America in particular - is not entirely innocent. When people call you the "great Satan" there is usually a reason or two behind it.
In particular, the Israelis have been treating their Arab Palestinean population very, very badly for quite some time now - and the staunchest supporter of Isreal is the USA. That does nothing to endear the US to Arabs in the area - and when the US invades Iraq under false pretences (bringing more Arabs under American colonial rule) that starts to look a lot (from an Arab perspective) like a cultural war being waged on Islam.
The invasion of Iraq has to have been the biggest strategic blunder since the invasion of Poland (or perhaps the invasion of Russia, I'll accept either) by Hitler. How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.... If the US had concentrated on eliminating the terrorist cells in Afganistan, and then had Marshall Planned Afganistan, the world would be a MUCH safer place right now.
Now as far as the "no single death on American soil" argument goes... Al Quaida has NEVER had much of a presence on American soil. Prior to 9/11, the holder of the most successful terrorist attack in the US was Tim McVey and co, a group of AMERICANS upset at their own government. Al Quaida had made a couple of attempts at the WTC, but they had been dismal, almost laughable, failures. Al Quaida simply wasn't in the business of setting off random bombs at sporting events and shop
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Cuz a truck bomb can do a wee bit more than shatter windows.
It's not just capitalism at work detering suicide bombers in the US. Keep in mind that there are many types of coercion possible in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria that just aren't so easy to pull off in the US.
Looking at the daily suicide bombing in Iraq, you'd think they show a decent pool of people willing to die.
However, many of them have been shown to be handcuffed to the steering wheel of their bomb-laden car. Most of these are then detonated by someone watching.
Most disturbing are the reports that these people are often sympathetic to the new Iraqi regime. Insurgents target these people, chain them to bombs, and give them the option to drive up to the enemy + get blown up + have your family live or not drive up to the enemy + get blown up + have your family die.
It's particularly insidious but note that most foreign fighters must be brought to the US, since it can be tough to make a whole, local family disappear here. Police are just too eager and effective to let something like that slide.
In the same vein as the parent post, all of this is pretty much the direct consequence of religion (defined as religious institutions specifically). Religion has always been about creating a control structure (and all of the coercion that comes with it). People will tell you that you can't have God without religion, but I believe that to be obviously false.
You cannot have a religion without somebody in charge (they fracture into small cults, read about the Branch Davidians). In creating this structure, someone always dictates what "the greater good" wants.
Radical militant Muslim extremests are but one of the examples, but the corrosive effects of systematized social coercion can be much more insidious. I live in the Midwest US (town of less than 350,000 people) and I've known more than one person to leave a church because of serious pressure to vote a certain way.
When God dictates it, there can be no dissent. Without dissent, there can be no democracy. I don't think that anyone's God wants a totalitarian state (theocratic or otherwise). The fallacy lies in a man dictating the word of their "God".
Not that I'm so sure about the whole "God" thing...
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Fallujah and other hotbeds of terrorism should be reduced to overlapping bonb craters
It's good to know that you think we should make general practice of nuking cities the size of Pittsburgh. That'll prevent a dozen desparate loners from rising up among the 90% of the world (who would see that as brutally barbaric, stalinistic, and view America as the greatest evil of our time), and strike out at us. It's also sure to promote our interests worldwide; everyone loves to trade with nations that kill hundreds of thousands at a time. There's no better way to save a city than to destroy it. And when, as things stand today alone, China is viewed as a more appropriate world leader than America by even our allies like the Aussies, we can make everything better with a couple well-placed nuclear ICBMs on densely populated cities.
Ack, sorry! I just noticed that the Sarcasm-Lock light is glowing on my keyboard. Oh well, I'll retype this later.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
There is no reset button in life; however, there are bonus levels.
However, I honestly believe a lot of the ground troops in Al Quaeda - probably some of the people who planted these bombs - joined up because of the innocent civilians who died in those military actions. If you stop the people they're recruiting, it won't matter what the leaders think.
I think a lot of people are misinformed about what exactly al Qaeda is. They don't have ground troops, they don't have an army, and post the Afghanistan invasion they don't even have much of anything resembling an organisation anymore.
What al Qaeda are/were was essentially a venture capital firm for terrorists - they would give funding to anyone who came to them with good ideas about how to kill Americans (or other westerners). Relatively speaking they were pretty small, but they did have a fair amount of cash. Usama bin Laden didn't, as far as we can tell, mastermind the WTC and Pentagon attacks. He didn't come up with the idea, he didn't plan them. He did provide the cash to the people who did though, presumably because he thought it sounded like a good idea when they came looking for funding.
Post Afghanistan al Qaeda as a funding system for terrorists is largely destroyed - they still have money, but the means to disburse it is ridiculously curtailed. Al Qaeda were, really, quite a small group, and what little there was of them was largely captured, disbanded, or dispersed.
What we have now is, instead, disparate groups of islamist terrorists (which we've always had) who have a common name to rally behind and attribute their work to - a name happily provide and publicised by the western media. It would surprise me not in the least to find that the perpertrators of the London bombings have never met with bin Laden, or any member of al Qaeda for that matter. I fully expect they are an entirely independent unrelated group who are borrowing/using the "al Qaeda" name because it carries greater recognition. Read their name and statement again with this in mind - they sound exactly like a small group of idiots trying to pretend to be a super secret branch of an organisation they've heard plenty about and would love to join, but for the life of them can't figure out how (perhaps demonstrations of terrorist acts will do it they think).
We are not facing an army, nor a terror network, nor a grand machiavellian plot. We are facing random disjoint groups islamist radicals who now have a convenient name to ascribe to so they can have a pretend sense of "belonging".
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
"Anarchist groups haven't been involved in terrorism since the nineteenth Century and it's hard to believe they'd suddenly start now."
I'm pretty sure Anarchists were still quite active in the early 20th century. In the early twentieth century "anarchist" was the blanket condemnation applied to enemies of the state as was "communist" in the 50's and "terrorist" is today. There is something about political propaganda that mandates there be some in vogue term ending in "ist" which politicians can use to brand and denigrate all their enemies without having to think to much.
Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by someone usually refered to as an "anarchist", and in an important lesson we should learn from today, the overreaction by nation states to that act of terrorism did vastly more damage to those nation states than the act of terrorism itself. It triggered World War I, millions of casualties, the Russian Revolution, and the end of the Habsberg empire of which Ferdinand was an heir.
Kind of shows how one relatively easy to execute act can lead to widespread devestation when politicians go nuts in response.
9/11 as tragic as it was, lead to an overreaction by the U.S. that resulted in the Iraq war which has killed far more people than 9/11 did and will cost the U.S. far more than 9/11 did before its done.
The use of bombs against civilians as happened in Madrid and London is tragic. But, I'm afraid you really can't to holier than though about it when you drop bombs on civilians as the U.S., Britain and Israel have done as a matter of routine over the years. There isn't really any difference between the two acts other than the attempt by the U.S, Britain and Israel to rationalize it, the fact is the civilians are just as dead and maimed whether you use a suicide bomber or an F-16 to deliver the payload.
@de_machina
Nothing will stop them until they are dead.
You sound as if you think there's a finite list of terrorists out there, and as soon as we scratch every name off the list then the terrorism problem will be solved! Not a chance - those people were made into terrorists, they weren't born that way. It doesn't matter how many of this generation's terrorists die for their crimes, if there's another equally large generation coming right after them.
I'm not agreeing with the idea that the way to stop the creation of new terrorists from religious zealots is to "treat them better" or "stop offending them" - for all I know it may be just the opposite. But we do need to understand these people, desperately, because it's only understanding or dumb luck that's going to allow us to stop the terrorist meme, and I'm not feeling very lucky.
I admit vengeance sounds pretty nice, but I'd gladly trade it for a more scientific understanding of the sociology of violence. The question of how we make more dead terrorists isn't nearly as important as the question of how we protect more live innocents. If capital punishment for mass murderers is part of that, then fine, but don't lose sight of the goal just because one step along the way is more emotionally compelling.
At this point in time, I don't care who caused this or what could have prevented it. I just want to take this time to send my prayers out to the friends and families of those touched by this incident. I pray that nothing like this ever has to happen to anyone and I pray that God watches over all of us.
P.S. Yes that is God with a capital "G" even if this is slashdot
We were attacked first. WTC Bombings... USS Cole... Misc Embassy Bombings, and then the WTC collapse. Hey, and guess what. We were not over there at all!!!
Assuming "We" equates to the USA and "over there" equates to the Middle East you could not be more wrong. The US has been majorly messing with the govenments and politics of that region for over 60 years.
Another problem is that with the majority of these examples it's very unclear who "they" are in the first place. Conspiracy theories trumpeted by governments and corporate media are no subsitute for proper evidence.
Killing civilians is wrong and moreso dangerous because now you have just created more terrorists from the survivors--if your family is dead, it doesn't matter if it came from a car bomb or a missile, you're still going to be pissed and looking for vengence.
We need to be better than these fuckers, we need to find the ones responsible and kill them without killing everyone else around them. No negotiation, but specific targeted elimination. Carpet bombing no, a sniper's shot definitely.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Just because the IRA apologizes for one attack against civilians after 30 years doesn't mean it didn't happen!
Although your list of targets very effectively refutes one of the grandparent's points, another point was that the IRA usually gives a warning before an attack on civilians. These warnings include a code word to indicate that the warning is `official'. If nothing else, they make it easier to determine who's behind the attack. Since there was no warning today, it is less likely that this was an IRA attack.
As an aside, these warnings have often been no more than a formality, because they came too late, were unclear, or were plain wrong. And of course, despite these `humane' warnings the IRA is still a bunch of dangerous psychopaths.
I'll bring you evidence number one.
Just look at the poor lady on the left. She's half scared to death! I don't care what the situation is, having a military personnel on a public transit is NOT good! What's that you say? We're trying to STOP terrorism? Because from where I'm standing, having a soldier with a huge fucking gun pointing at people is very intimidating. If this is how the government is reacting, I'd say the terrorist's mission is accomplished.
We all want the same things. We just disagree on how to go about it. (Yes, it's true. You're being lied to about that too.)
We backed a coup in Iran primarily over oil (Soviets get honorable mention), not because it was the right thing to do. And we are prosecuting a war in Iraq primarily because of oil, not because it is the right thing to do. Certainly not all of the myriad merry-go-round of official justifications, which have been as conclusively debunked as one could ask for.
If our goal was really WMD proliferation, or "being the world's policeman," we would have gone about it very differently... for instance, the way we used to. Everyone knows it.
Bad intentions, bad planning, bad management. And yes, as you point out, now we have no acceptable exit strategy either.
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I see a lot of posts here blaming the war in Iraq for terrorist attacks. I just found this anonymous letter posted on http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/ (Harry's place) that explains who is being targetted by whom and why so elequently that I don't dare add anything myself: ...I would be interested to know how deep your knowledge or understanding is of Islamism: i.e. political islam. We haven't spoken about politics for some time, so I don't know if you have read any articles or books about the history, philosophy and politics of Islamism at all. If you have, I apologise for what follows.
/05/left_conservatism.php ] movement, yearning for an imagined golden age which it hopes to recreate.
Perhaps you think that Islamism is the same thing as Islam. Perhaps you think that it is some form of national liberation struggle, or a reaction against imperialism or Bush's failure to sign up to Kyoto.
It is not.
Radical Islamism - in its most important strain - is a political doctrine which was developed principally by two arab thinkers in the first part of the 20th century - Qutb and Banna - who were deeply immersed, not in the culture of the middle east, but in the theoretical perspective of the European romantic movement. It is not an alien, exotic or even really an "oriental" doctrine. It is directly inspired by the same intellectual currents which gave rise to romantic nationalism in the 19th century, and fascism in the mid 20th century.
You might think that its main aim is to oppose military action in the middle east.
It is not.
Its main aim, explicitly, is to restore the Caliphate, abolished by Ataturk when modern Turkey was established. It is not an anti-imperialist movement. It is an imperialist [ http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/07
Qutb saw the primary enemy, not as the foreign policy of Western states, but as Modernity: and in particular materialism, liberalism, and democracy. This is the primary reason that London has been bombed: not because it has "attacked muslims" but because they fear that materialism, liberalism and democracy are damaging to the values which Islamists hope to promore: piety and submission to the will of god.
The radical Islamists are not fighting a realisable campaign, in the same sense that the Irish nationalists were. They do not want a Caliphate in the sense that the IRA wanted a united and independent Ireland. They are fighting a battle against the corrupting forces of modernity for the souls of all muslims. Their principal enemies are principally "apostate" muslims, not you or I.
Why do you think a bomb went off in Edgware Road?
Do you think that it was an accident that the home to London's liberal, westernised Arab muslims was targetted?
Many western "liberals" have simply projected their own concerns about US policy onto the radical Islamists. That is not fair to them: they do NOT share your concerns, but have ones of their own which you would do well to respect. They are not fools or mindless religious fanatics: they are philosophers. You should listen, in particular, to what radical Islamists say, and not what you think they ought to be saying.
Islamist movements have been strong, and growing stronger, in the middle east since the 1950s. Banna established the Muslim Brotherhood which was brutally oppressed by Nasser. The survivors fled to Saudi, where in 1961, they established the Islamic University, in Medina. There they developed the Islamist analysis. That generation taught young, unemployed, hopeless Saudi men who went off to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechenia. Those men returned and turned their sites from the "near enemy" - the Saudi royal family who were tainted by unislamic values - to the "far enemy": the west, capitalism, and in particular the Unit
After nearly 2200 posts I fail to see one post which talks about how many died in IRAQ. What you have seen here, happens almost daily in IRAQ. No newsagency gives a damn, yeah it does appear somewhere in the 2nd page. And when it happens in some western country, all the news agencies rally for a common cause. I'm not political and not against anybody. But realize this, after 1 year of invasion in IRAQ, some 100,000 people died. Yes, you could have read about it, but didnt care all that much. Talk about how many people died rather than how many brits, americans or iraqis died.
You will never have experience until after you needed it.
Amnesty International calls the Shah's secret police the Worst in the World.
Think about that for a minute. The Worst in the World.
And you call him a kindergartner.
A kindergartner? A kindergartner who liked removing teeth with pliers, I guess.
Unfortunately, your grasp of history is as loose as your grasp of current events, and the war is not going as well as you would like to believe. The insurgents include many Iraqis, for a variety of reasons, so your reference to what "The Iraqis" want isn't necessarily meaningful. If you're pointing out that bad actors like Iranian intelligence have a bit of a home-court advantage there too, you're not exactly helping yourself.
(That's a private account by a Wall Street Journal reporter, by the way. For those not current with U.S. media, the W.S.J is ostensibly right-wing, and pro-war.)
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That's the sort of response you are seeing.
London and londoners are well-accustomed to the threat of terrorism, people who live here refuse to let it invade or dictate their lives, hence why every bus I saw on the way home was packed and why a bus driver interviewed on the radio will be back in his seat tomorrow morning.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor or London, released an excellent statement this morning which, in my opinion, well articulated the feeling in Britain and in London. Londoners have never lived in fear of terrorism, if they did, nobody would ever use the tube. This will do nothing, if the tube were open tomorrow morning, I'd take it to work and I know hundreds who would do the same.
One or two unorganized anti-government rednecks with a truck and some fertilizer where able to cause plenty of devastation in Oklahoma.
The only resource really required to commit mass murder is a lack of respect for human life.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
-US, please notice calling yourself "America" basically takes that title away from Canadians and South Americans. ... Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying to you in the hopes a whole nation will read this post and change the way they address themselves. I don't give a shit what you guys call each other... it's just silly.
We've been calling ourselves Americans before there even WAS a United States of America. There's no reason to stop now, however inaccurate it may be. Not that it is especially inaccurate: it derives from the fact that this was intended to be a new American nation, and Americans were different from Europeans, so therefore we are Americans, not Europeans. It wasn't intended to be a statement of nationality per se, but merely to distinguish from Europe. Once the nation was formed, incorporating America into its name, the moniker inevitably stuck, and there's not a thing wrong with that.
It's confusing, but not wrong.
And incidentally, you would have more luck convincing people to stop calling Native Americans, Indians, and that won't go away either, and has a far less rational (though just as historical) basis for sticking around.
Anybody that thinks a few bombs in London will make the British people back down from anything is obviously completely ignorant of history. You know there are people in London who survived the blitz in the '40's saying "What, this? This is nothing! I've seen much, much worse... and it didn't scare me then either!"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Keep in mind that the primary weapon during the American Revolutionary War was the smoothbore musket. A smoothbore has an advantage over the rifled musket in its rate of fire, primarily due to much less effort needed to ram the ball home.
The downside is greatly reduced accuracy. This was overcome by placing large numbers of muskets into a tightly-packed formation of troops, and having them fire volleys in unison. No individual soldier could be sure of his individual target, but a rectangular cross-section of space to the immediate front of the formation would become very hazardous to occupy.
In fact, the word of command preceeding "fire" in the British Army was not "aim" but rather "level".
Now if you are hunting food, it is very rare that you are presented with a tightly-packed formation of deer, ducks, turkeys, or whatever. Aim counts when you are substancence hunting, and so the natural weapon of the hunter is the rifle, not the smoothbore. Slow rate of fire does not matter when your target is not shooting back, and when it is likely to run or fly away after a miss.
Most of the firearms extant in the colonies at the time were hunting weapons used to obtain food, not military weapons. So the American Revolutionary Army make a tactic of not forming up in ranks to blaze away (as per current accepted military custom) but instead preferred to hide in the bushes, take a potshot, and then fall back into the woods - hit and run tactics, rather than stand and fight tactics.
(Your typical American Revolutionary was also ununiformed and so hard to identify as an "enemy combatant", where the British wore easily identified bright red coats)
The standard tactics of the guerilla throughout history - see, for example, the Mongols vs the Romans, or the Vietcong vs the US Army.
Seen from the point of view of a commander vastly outnumbered in terms of men and firepower, this is a natural and sensible thing to do. Seen from the point of view of the commander with the bigger battalions and the greater firepower, it is cowardly, sneaky, and unfair. Seen from the point of view of the line soldier, for whom death lurks behind every tree, this is... terrifying.
The major differences between the modern Islamic extremist "terrorist" and an American Revolutionary "freedom fighter" (besides the fact that the Americans won, where the Islamics are still in doubt - and never forget that the victors write history) is that, as far as I can recall at least, the American Revolutionaries limited themselves mostly to military targets (although the odd Loyalist homestead was not immune) where your modern Islamic terrorist draws no such distinction between "soldier" and "civillian" - and that is largely a cultural thing.
As far as "there being no reasoning with them" being a source of irrationality... if the Soviet Union had invaded the US (not that there was ever a real liklihood of that ever happening, but let's pretend) would you rest until all the invaders had been thrown out of your homeland? Would you accept the argument "Well they're here and they have all the guns, so we might as well just learn to speak Russian and be done with it"?
Do NOT mistake "They won't do what we want them to do!" with "irrationality".
Also, do NOT mistake "one must study the reasons why they are acting the way they are and seek to understand their point of view" with SYMPATHY for their cause. The American invasion of Afganistan was COMPLETELY justified, and I shed not a single tear for any Al-Quaida member or Taliban member killed in the process.
But one must also keep an open mind, and if one finds that one's own government has behaved badly and to some degree provoked the activity, it is just good sense to rectify the problem. Just because the terrorists want something doesn't mean that what they want is WRONG.
If I were the American President, I would have:
1) Utterly destroyed Al-Quaida in Afganistan and anybody who aided and abetted them. Utterly. Finding Bi
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Uh, I don't know, maybe because Iraq and Saddam HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11.
:)
I guess maybe your right, the Iraq war couldn't have been an overreaction to 9/11 since its wasn't a reaction to it at all since there was no connection between the two outside of the fabrications of the Bush administration.
But on the other hand as recently as Bush's prime time speech a week ago he was STILL trying to tie Iraq to 9/11 and using 9/11 to justify a largely unprovoked invasion. I could have seen taking down Saddam back in the early 90's when he invaded Kuwait, but to wait more than a decade and then do it with no real justification put the U.S. and Britain dangerously close to war crimes charges because thats what people who launch unprovoked aggressive wars are branded as these days, Saddam was one when he invaded Kuqait, Hitler was one, now the U.S. and Britain are in the same league. How sad
@de_machina
We destroyed the societies in those nations. We destroyed their religions and still send missionaries. We imposed colonialism on them. We supply them with arms. We prop up undemocratic regimes. We are destroying their agricultural base. We are exporting our pollution and social problems to them by giving them no choice but to produce in sweat shops and destroy their environment.
If we left these people alone, maybe in a few centuries, they would recover. But we owe them a big debt, and right now, we still make their plight worse on balance.
Sure, on some level, suicide bombers and the like are obviously (in one sense, since they are willing to die) imbalanced.
... riciculous.
Yet, to conceive of terrorism as solely the result of mental imbalance is
Let me put it to you another way and perhaps you can think about this:
Assume we have two forces, one large and well armed and trained, another smaller and less well supported. Assume that something the larger one has done has annoyed or threatened the smaller one (or that they percieve it is so, which is really all that matters).
Think of this strictly as a tactical problem. You are the smaller power, you are vehemently opposed to the larger power and its stance (whichever one you don't like very very much). You are at a point where you feel you have to fight back. So, how do you do it?
Do you:
A) Take your primitive tools, limited resources, and probably dubiously trained manpower into the field against modern professional armies with state of the art technology (planes, tanks, satellites, etc) and great training, pretty much knowing you're going to get your ass kicked?
Or do you
B) Take your primitive tools, limited resources, and dubiously trained manpower (and because of their dubious training, some of them may be well suited to certain 'special actions') and find a way to strike at your opposition which will: a) cause them great pain and upset and which *may* (maybe) lead to them changing their policies and b) strike at them in such a way as to not risk your organization or your ability to continue the fight and c) do so in such a way as you can afford and reasonably manage?
Strictly on a tactical level, going after the soft targets in a democritized society is a good decision for a small irregular force with some zealots handy.
No mental imbalance is required, except perhaps on the behalf of a couple of the zealots. Mostly, calm cool decision making is required from those who authorize, plan and order these actions. No mental imbalance there, just a real desire to take the fight to the enemy in a way that will really hurt them and do so in a cost effective way for the attacker.
Now, it remains to be seen if these tactics will force the changes in attitude or policy that the terrorists want. History tells us governments sometimes can be bloodied enough to back away from unpopular stances (sometimes at the behest of their own bloodied citizenry). Similarly, these ops may not be setup to play to a G8 crowd (other than to say 'you tried to take us out, we're not gone, now we're kicking you in the nads to remind you we ain't dead'), but may be playing to the recruiting areas where the terrorists look for a power base and economic support and recruits. They are saying to those people 'look, the little guy really *can* hurt the big guy' and 'our resistance is not ineffective' and 'we're willing to die for our beliefs' (or to order some brainwashed folks to do so for us, but that isn't stated in the PR).
I personally wore the uniform of my nation and would never like to think of myself as waging war on civilians. I'm not happy when I hear of civilians being hurt in exchanges between the UN and people using them as human shields. But the truth is, I was trained and acculturated into that view by the institution of my military.
If, OTOH, I'd grown up in a spot fraught with troubles, economic destitution, and guided by those who had a particular worldview and were gearing up for the final religious war or who were feeling religiously persecuted or somehow tainted or abused by a far off rich power (who are obviously corrupt because they're rich and we're not and we're morally pure so they must... not be?), then I'd probably look at the assets my side has (small amounts of money, having to work from the shadows, no B-2s, no F117s, no M1s, no satellites, etc) and I'd understand if they had to fight a bit dirty or hit at the soft targets. That's just how you have to fight when you're that outgunned. Or so I can ima
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
So Saddam, was paying PLO terrorists, lets spend $500 billion dollars, kill a couple thousand American soldiers, and piss off the entire world doing Israel's dirty work for them. Hate to break it to you the Saudi's pay PLO terrorists too, why aren't we taking them down too. All the Arab states support the Palastinians. The Palastinians were thrown out of their homes, off their land and out of their homeland, and have been sitting in squalid refugee camps for most of the last 50 years, homeless and stateless. They need some help.
;)
"Add to that his threats and weapons programs"
Dude, you seem to be stuck in 2001. Everyone, including the Bush administration has admited there were no weapons programs worth anything any time recently. Saddam's aids maybe told them there were some, and Chalibi set up a scam in which people like CurveBall lied and told the Bush administration there were weapons programs, and the Bushists were all to willing to believe the lies. If Saddam, had any weapons "programs" they must have been bad ones because they didn't keep him in power.
"War crimes?!? Please...you are so out of the mainstream. Bush's policies are key to eliminating the slime on this planet."
Well it aint working because your apparently still here
Out of the mainstream huh, well if you've read the Downing Street Memo, Blair's inner circle openly discussed the risk that they would be open to war crimes charges if they invaded Iraq based on fabrication, which is exactly what happened.
We have a problem in this world if a country like the U.S. can fabricate a case for war against any country they choose, take the country down on the whim of a cracked, power mad, President and Vice President, and never have to answer for it. Whose next, Syria or Iran?
"I don't know where you live, but I guarantee in the long run it will be a better place because of these policies."
Well you just proved you have no clue what you are talking about and how stuck you are on yourself, because I guarantee you, that you, me nor anyone else, has a clue where these policies are going to take us in the long run.
@de_machina
"We stand for freedom; they stand for expanding their own power"
Probably should ask before I start this rant, who exactly is "We" and "They". Those are kind of vague terms.
Oh well, I cant wait to start the rant, I'm assuming "We" is the blessed United States of America and the "They" is all the devil's spawn who oppose her.
First, Dude, you need to stop kidding yourself.
OK here is the first hint, just a little clue, what nation refers to itself as the worlds sole remaining superPOWER. You see superPOWER means they have a whole lot of POWER. If the U.S. isn't seeking to expand its POWER the only explanation is because it already has all the POWER so its no longer possible to expand the POWER any further.
Maybe you could have sold the "we stand for freedom" part if you'd stopped there. But I assure you if there is one entity completely devoted to expanding its power in the world its the United States.
You don't spend $500 billion a year on weapons, wars and intelligence unless you are planning on using it to expand your power. You dont put troops in like 120 countries unless you are intent on expanding your power. You don't have a dozen aircraft carriers and thousands of nukes unless you are bent on expanding your power.
You don't invade a country every 5 years or so and change their government unless you want power, well maybe if you installed freedom you would have a case but we have installed more dictatorships than democracies over the last 100 years. You don't stage coups every few years, topple sovereign governments, and install puppets, often ruthless and despotic dictators as puppets if you "stand for freedom" and are disinterested in power. I assure you the list of countries where the U.S has installed or kept in power ruthless dictators is long and well documented. The mess that is Iran today is entirely due to the United States installing and keeping in power the Shah of Iran, a ruthless dictator who was the antithesis of freedom. Marcos in the Phillipines, Diem in Vietnam, Pinochet in Chile, Samosa in Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador, Argentina, this list goes on for a while, all places where the U.S. sold freedom down the river, and peoples in to slavery, in the pursuit of wealth and POWER.
@de_machina