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Author | Topic: Terrorism in London | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mick Member (Idle past 5014 days) Posts: 913 Joined: |
It's true that the institutions of government in Britain have a good history of withstanding these kinds of attacks. But there are always consequences.
Apart from the poor people who were directly affected by the attacks, the long term sufferers will be anybody who "looks like a Muslim" (read that as "not white") living in London. During the IRA's campaign against the UK, anybody with an Irish accent was considered suspect by the cops, and this resulted in numerous mistrials and people being fitted up for crimes they didn't commit. I predict a similar situation recurring, but this time it will be young asian men who are targeted. We have already had a taste of this with Hazel Blears, a government minister, and one of the East End chief constables (I can't remember which) saying that Muslims should get used to the idea that they will be stopped and searched in the street much more often than white people. This situation will get worse and breed more resentment. I do hope none of the UK members here were affected by this tragedy. Mick
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5847 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
Why would he have to do that? I will note that this is my opinion, based upon my moral value system. No one has to agree with me. But here is my brief explanation... Blair is a leader and as a leader is called upon to make decisions. The importance of a leader is not only that that person commands some level of public respect, but is capable of making good decisions. Even before this, and the election, his decision making ability had been called into question. He put a lot of stock in his decision to go to Iraq as a means of creating safety for Brits. Not only has he backed false and flawed data to make his case, but he has backed Bush's own comments regarding how Iraq is a front line. This tragedy underscores that he was wrong. His decisions were not right, just as much as they were unpopular. When a leader has made grave errors, it is only decent and I would say a duty to step aside and let someone else take over. Otherwise one makes leadership about onesself and preservation of image, rather than worthwhile service to country. If you screwed up this bad, wouldn't you have the decency to step aside? This message has been edited by holmes, 07-07-2005 12:25 PM holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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Brian Member (Idle past 4987 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
My partner's sister lives and works in London, she and her husband are both safe and well. Her tube was stopped at Warwick Avenue and everyone was ushered out.
Brian. This message has been edited by Brian, 07-08-2005 02:43 AM
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gengar Inactive Member |
holmes writes: Even before this, and the election, his decision making ability had been called into question. He put a lot of stock in his decision to go to Iraq as a means of creating safety for Brits. Not only has he backed false and flawed data to make his case, but he has backed Bush's own comments regarding how Iraq is a front line. This tragedy underscores that he was wrong. Are you really 100% sure that there's a direct connection between Iraq and this attack? After all, our involvement in Afghanistan had probably already put us on the AQ hit list. Or do you think that was a mistake too? I'm not saying that Iraq isn't a factor - and I completely agree that it has been a complete screw-up from start to 'last throes' and Blair bears a fair amount of responsibility for that - but I'm not convinced that we can say 'this wouldn't have happened without Iraq'. I think there's plenty of reasons why Blair should resign - but this isn't one of them at this stage
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5847 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
Are you really 100% sure that there's a direct connection between Iraq and this attack? Actually I'm sure there is no direct connection between Iraq and this attack, that is why Blair screwed up so badly. To be clear my argument is not that by going to Iraq he put Britain on some target list it could have avoided. It was that going to Iraq ignored the fact that Britain was on a target list and needed to take that threat seriously. If evidence pans out that this was AQ, which there are some initial indications it might be, then having gone to Iraq to create a "front line" diversion was a complete waste of time. Remember after the WMD threat was shone up as garbage, the remaining self-defense rationale was that by going there AQ terrorists would be forced to go there to fight instead of attacking people in the US and Britain. Blair was the one who put his credibility on the line by backing that mission. Now not only has the worst terrorist attack Britain has suffered come on his watch, it is likely from the very people he claimed he could do a better job defeating by going somewhere where they didn't exist.
I think there's plenty of reasons why Blair should resign - but this isn't one of them at this stage I agree that there are other reasons. I'm not even saying that he should do so immediately (I said if he was decent he'd do it soon). This is simply the final incident by which he should realize more capable hands should be at the reigns. I might add that it is clear Britains enemies find him weak, this attack timed at such a critical moment for him, and so a change of leadership could be in order for that as well. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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gengar Inactive Member |
OK, with you now. I should have expected you to have a more reasonable argument that seemed apparent at first.
Given that we know so little on the detail, I think I'll hold off on too much analysis. I just hope it doesn't turn out that stuff was missed due to the distraction of the whole G8 palava up in Scotland.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1494 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
The Brits were able to maintain their civil liberties through all of the years of terrist attacks of shin fein. Well... I'm not sure I agree. As a result of those terror attacks, it's now pretty much the case that, if you're a resident of a major UK city, you probably spend about 60-70% of your waking life in view of a government or corporate-run security camera. I don't know anything about firearm ownership in the UK, either - might that have been a civil freedom swept away in the crackdown on terror? When did you stop being able to own guns?
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gengar Inactive Member |
I think we've had pretty restrictive laws for decades. Automatic weapons have always been illegal. You have to register to get a licence for shotguns and rifles, and it's not straightforward (I think you need to prove you're a member of a shooting club or something).
Most handguns were banned in the late 90s in response to public outcry following a school shooting in Scotland (google 'Dunblane Massacre'). Personally, I'm wondering how long it will be before the phrase 'ID card' comes up.
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CK Member (Idle past 4155 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
Firearms have never been easy to obtain in the UK, the ownership of them has always been restricted. When the laws were tighten in the early 1990, people were happy. We as a nation have never liked Firearms and we don't have any really form of cultural history with them.
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CK Member (Idle past 4155 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
quote: For legal reasons I can't really get into I can't actually say too much about this matter. However I can say that the introduction of cameras has very little to do with terrorist, it's to do with community policing and anti-social behaviour. In addition, the govt actually owns very little to zero cameras. The cameras are all operated by local authorities who allowthe police and other agencies to have access to footage.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1494 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I've found the whole response to this somewhat racist. Like, 4 bombs? 40 dead? That's an average day in Iraq.
But it happens to some white people, and all of a sudden, "we're all British today." No offense Londoners, what has just happened to you is terrible, an abominable crime, but a lot of people are losing all perspective on this. And predictably, Fox News is the worst, most racist culprit. "London bombs killed Arabs and normal people!" They're positively salivating over the destruction now.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
I felt similarly for years, whenever Americans complain how they're entitled to a good life and a steadily improving standard of living while most of the rest of the world is mired in poverty.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
I don't know anything about firearm ownership in the UK, either - might that have been a civil freedom swept away in the crackdown on terror? When did you stop being able to own guns? I've never seen owning guns as a civil freedom. Personally I'd much rather be free of other people owning guns than own them myself.
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bubblelife Inactive Member |
I can see these attacks exacerbating racial tensions.
Firstly I don't recall the British goverment being overly distressed at the numerous and frequent bomb attacks in Belfast city Centre, but it is easier to be concerned when your home/family might be affected. Secondly, a point which my brother brought up yesterday. He moved to London with an irish accent and was targeted in school by kids who thought to punish him for being a terrorist. School kids will do exactly the same thing with all asian kids, probably whether muslim or not, so the terrorists are condemning poor little kiddies to a lot of unneccesary bullying.
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CanadianSteve Member (Idle past 6500 days) Posts: 756 From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada Joined: |
The worldwide islamist movement controls nation states, Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia (kind of) and one other I forget, and did control Afghanistan. It has powerful 5th columns in other nation states. Not long ago, an islamist 5th columnist in Pakistan, Khan, had control over that nation's nuclear bomb button, and was disseminating nuclear tech to enemies of democracy, like N. Korea, Iran and Libya. Without the support of nation states, bin Laden and al Qaeda would never have been anything worth noting. And they are only one of mnay such Islamist terrorist groups.
The Islamists, who very arguably are following the Koran's War Verses to the letter, want to see, first, all islamic nations under their control and ruled according to Sharia Law. Then, they want the same for all other nations. That is why they are actively committing terror and war in a great many nations around the globe, and is why they committed a genocide against Sudanese Christians and now Black Sudanese Muslims, who practise a much more benign form of the Islam. The Islamists hate democracy, and say so flat out, because it is rule of man by man, rather than rule of man by Allah according to Islamic Law (Sharia). They know that it is a competing ideology they cannot defeat, if it is a matter of hearts and minds. We saw that in iraq when they tried to prevent the election from taking place, and now through sustained terror try to undermine its rise. What motivated 9/11 was that the US was in the Islamists' way with respect to their plans to take over islamic nations. They thought they could scare the US out of the Middle East so they'd be freer to march on, as they had been. Iraq is about many things, like, certainly, "preemptive action." That is, as the EU was undermining sanctions against Hussein (because of their secret oil for food and other such scandalous business deals), soon he would have been shorn of them, and able to reaquire nuclear technology, then the bomb. Although he was not an islamist himself, he did have a "the friend of my enemy is my friend" arrangement with them. Sooner or later he would have used the bomb to invade other Arab natuions, and, very possibly, to hand off to Al Qaeda or such islamkst group. the war was also about injecting democracy into the ME as to offer Arabs and others, like Persians, an alternative to military dictatorship and Islamism. For all of the above, Blair was right to support the US in a war to protect democracy. Every free citizen in the world had and has something significant at stake. As i said before, the islamkists are active everywhere in the world, and after gaining control of the Arab and Islamic world - and they were on the way towards achieving that goal - they would have come after us. Being nihilist by nature, and believing that death in teh service of islam assures entry to heaven, they would have used atomic bombs. If you doubt that, consider their suicide bomber cult. Consider the incredible brashness of attacking the US, when it is so much more powerful than they. What happened yesterday was a tragedy. But in the bigger scheme of thngs, the war against islamist (not islamic) terror is akin to having taken on Hitler in the early and mid 30's, before he became too powerful. As you all know, Churchill warned what Hitler was up to, and was laughed off. This time, a few people in power, Bush, Blair, Howard, and a handful of others, were up to the foresight and challenge. If you doubt thatt eh war in iraq is about this, or succeeding, consider the following that has occurred as a result of it: * Much of the Islamist movement has moved its resources there to fightthe US. That means it is far easier to defeat them in this concentrated area. What's more, we have to ask why they have done that? The answerr is simple: Democracy is their greatest enemy. An Iraqi democracy, right in the heart of the Islamic heartland, would mean their doom. No, it won't be instantaneous. They'll continue to live on, for a while. But they will have suffered a total ideological loss. Their military loss will follow (although the nature of the War Verses and Sharia Law means that a residual Islamist movement will survive for many years attempting to destroy Islamic democracy, failingly.) You may argue that the war has been a great recruitment campaign forthem. That is no less wrong than arguing that taking on the Nazis only recruited more Nazis and fascists worldwide to the cause. The bottom line is that the winning side recruits the most;the losers the least. By making the Islamists into the losers, we weaken, then destroy, their recruitment. * There have been no terrorist attacks on the US, in part because theIslamists have concentrated their resources in Iraq. *Libya renounces nuclear weapons * Syria leaves Lebanon, which then has elections. * Pakistan closes over 1,000 madrassahs, and gets the islamist Khanaway from the nuclear weapons button. he no longer sends nuclear tech to iran, North Korea, Libya and to other enemies of democracy. * Iraq has had elections, is forming concensual government, and is abeacon for democratically minded Muslims everywhere. * Arab intellectuals are no longer afraid to talk about democracy. * Some Arab nations have liberalized and others appear ready to follow. Put all that together, and you the seeds of a revolution that willdefeat islamism.
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