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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 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 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.
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.
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?
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As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
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
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)
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 really think that the Brits will come through this okay- They are a very tough people. I think that if you are so inclined it would be nice to say a prayer for our friends in Britain.
There are a lot of crazy violent people out there, but it will not strain British resolve. Lets hope that there aren't more attacks, and keep our friends in Europe in our thoughts.
Thanks to Sattelite Radio and the internet, I can listen to BBC (Used to have to get it on shortwave)
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
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.
"If you can't catch criminals, criminalise the people you can catch."
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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.
It's the flawless logic of the politician - all that anti terrorist legislation didn't work, so lets have more anti terrorist legislation.
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.
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?
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.
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.
No effect?
You mean, other than the fact London has been a major target for terrorists for nigh-on 4 years, and this is the first attack to not have been thwated?
+Pete
Score:-1, Funny
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Sympathy yes, but what we need is less prayer and more thought.
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
The war we fought against Germany and Japan brought us 50 years of peace.
Yeah, 'cause WWII was the last war the US was involved in...
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?"
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.
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?
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"
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.
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...
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
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.
If fighting terrorism triggers terrorism, how do you stop it?
Fighting terrorism does not encourage terrorism.
Invading an unrelated country and calling it 'war against terror' (cos' you know, all those dirty Arabs who don't like the US, it's, like, all the same, no ?) certainly does.
The solution is to fight terrorists, not people who have nothing to do with them, so as not to turn them into terrorists.
Comprende ?
Thomas-
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?
So if someone in the Army is walking in a street, its ok to shoot him because he/she is a valid military target?
Of course.
The kicker is "valid military target". Army personnel "walking in a street" of a country that they are currently invading, for example, and who have not surrendered in any way, are perfectly legitimate targets for the defenders. No body of international law would convict the shooter of war crimes in that case.
Sorry if that's not the answer you wanted, but war has a tendency to suck that way.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
You have to take them out. It is the only way. You can't sweet talk terrorists into being nice people.
Terrorist organisations that have increased their membership as a result of governments "trying to take them out":
- the Provisional IRA
- ETA
- PLO and PFLP
- almost all Resistance organisations in Europe during the Second World War - but especially the French
- ANC
- lot and lots and lots of others
- any organisation I would join if some other country was bombing civillian men, women and children round my way on the grounds that they may hit a terrorist as well
Terrorist organisations which have been defeated as a result of governments trying to "take them out"
- Dutch resistance during the Second World War (temporarily - and due to inflitration by native Dutch speakers and code intercepts rather than shooting and bombing).
er... that's all I can think of.
Sure. Let's go with the proven tactic.
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
I've seen lots of people around with this notion. So the question is, how and why did these people become brainwashed?
Let's say that you personally had the power to go out and put a bullet in the brain of every single person who is currently brainwashed. Consider that, perhaps, these people are becoming "brainwashed" because they've grown up in an environment where they've lost friends and family members; that maybe other social groups have dominated their group by brutal force. It is quite possible that, given the hundreds (or thousands?) of people that you'll be offing, there'll be hundreds or thousands of their friends and family members who will then be ripe for new brainwashing...
There is no doubt, the people who perpetrated this attack are sick bastards. They do deserve death. But if we simply go out and start killing people in kind, don't we just become terrorists ourselves?
--John
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?
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.
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.
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
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"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.
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.