Our hearts go out to all of those affected by the terrorist bombings in London earlier this morning. Those of us in the U.S. know what you’re feeling right now.
I’ll never understand what terrorists hope to accomplish by their cowardly acts. History has shown time and time again that terrorism is an ineffective tool for change. Rather than weakening their enemies, the attackers will galvanize their victims and their allies. Purposefully killing innocents in the name of a cause only turns the world against that cause and those who support it.
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I’ve been living in New York since 1998. So as you can imagine today’s bombing left me feeling much as they did four years ago. I feel just awful for those poor people in London. I am also wondering how we can effectively fight such a cowardly enemy.
I agree that it turns nations against their cause, but…who exactly is behind the cause, what do all the causes entail? Those are the first questions asked when seeking information of an enemy and yet, aside from the obvious answers and a few others, we have very little information. It’s hard to turn against an [for now] invisible enemy, even if united our nations stand.
Despite the terrible event in London, I hope they will not let fear grab them and pull out of the works put forth against terror. Whether people agree with the war in Iraq or Afghanistan is so irrelevant in moments like these; there are terrorists and insurgents obviously living in every nation; that’s where the war is most, and we can’t be fearful and back off from it.
You know…. the words that come to mind I can’t utter. This was such a personal attack, not unlike 9/11. I’m an American. But you pick on the British, you pick on us. Someone is going to pay so very dearly.
Here in Spain we suffered a terrorist attack in Madrid, so not only people in U.S. know the fear.
Yes, we had great concerns over the Madrid train bombings, as well. And Malaysia, and all the other places where terrorist attacks have occurred.
Its not the first time lunatics have targetted the UK and London in particular.
We got over all those, we’ll get over this.
In fact the mood-on-the-street is quite upbeat - people helping each-other, even free Riverboats and private jobs by Taxi drivers to help get people home tonight as the transport system is largely down at present.
In fact all the terrorsits have really accomplished is costing 30 people their lives for which we’re all very sorry, and all of us some money to pay for the damage to the London Underground system.
If its to galvanise support for their cause its failed, if its to make us scared it failed - we’ve been through worse bombings, and accidents, if its to get publicity - lets hope the news agancies have some brains and just not give them any.
Maybe the difficulty you have in imagining the terror viewpoint is that you have to depart from your rationality to comprehend it. Your indoctrination has encouraged you to be tolerant and sympathetic to all human life. Theirs teaches a set values in which we are evil things to be destroyed.
The ultimate solution IMO is to kill the terrorist meme.
Well, okay, I do understand it at some (purely intellectual) level. It’s just that I find myself constantly surprised at the depths that my fellow human beings can sink to.
Unfortunantly, sometimes terrorism does work. The bombings in Madrid did seem to affect the election and Spain did pull it’s troops out of Iraq early. In a few cases where nationals were kidnapped, the governments did meet the kidnapper’s demands. As long as it works sometimes, they have a reason to continue.
@Andy
Do you mean to stop calling it all “terrorist threats”, “terrorist actions” and such? Just say: “Some stupid hooligans blew themselves up in London, leaving 30 dead. Next story …”?
I guess if they feel they need to get peoples’ attention, then reducing their status from terrorist to village idiot with some explosives would be a good way to do that. Let them know we don’t really care what they do.
I live in London and had to drive a truck into town today. I’ve written about it at my blog.
It looks like this might give Tory Bliar the excuse he needs to press ahead with compulsory ID cards and even more bizarre and intrusive security measures - they are even talking about body scans for tube travellers! I’d like to see them manage that in the morning.
It was after 10 this evening when they drew attention to one of the two Muslim areas hit by these bombings (Edgware Road; the other is Aldgate, which is right next to Bangla Town). Probably al-Qa’ida is a convenient conclusion to jump to, but whoever did it does not care who they kill.
So where were the police? They were drafted to Gleneagles to protect the politicians , 12,000 of them. Only now are 1,500 being sent back to London. I can’t believe the stupidity of our politicians now, as usual they will be clamping down and making life more difficult for the law-abiding public but just making noises about what’s happened.
This is the chickens coming home to roost.
As a Brit, I’m happy to say that most people are being sympathetic to what happened yesterday. BUT, I have to say, I’m pretty p*ssed off with the way that a lot of Americans are going about reporting this attack. A *LOT* of Americans are saying ‘Now it’s the UK’s turn’. I mean, give me a break.. It’s our turn? This isn’t the first time the UK has been hit by terrorist attacks you know!?
I understand that the self-obsessed US media is behind a lot of this ‘Now Londoners feel the same way that New Yorkers feel’ mindset. Quite honestly, it’s utter b*llocks. London’s always been a target for terrorists. And we’ve always known it but hell… You know how it is with us… Stiff upper lip and business as usual. Be it the IRA, al Qaeda or bloody Guy Fawkes, we’ve been a target all our lives. It seems the world has yet to wake up to the fact that terrorism is a global thing and not limited to the US and it’s allies. Sure, it’s a certainty that the attacks are a result of the UK’s stance on Iraq and Afghanistan but ultimately it’s an attack on our way of life. Our capitalist ideals which these extremists seek to abolish through fear and terror.
I’d like to thank the majority of people here who have offered their prayers and sympathy. I’d also like to say that I’m annoyed with some peoples referencing of this to other attacks and attrocites.
FYI: Alan, I should point out that your figures are right but wrong! There were 1500 met police in Scotland. The majority of that 1500 are being sent back to London. 12000 overall, but only 1500 of them are from London.
“Purposefully killing innocents in the name of a cause only turns the world against that cause and those who support it.”
And that’s what the people of the countries invaded say too. Innocence is not the preserve of the West, and the word “terrorist” is subjective.
Drop by http://www.werenotafraid.com/
Iraqi civilians face bombings, explosions and deaths on an almost daily basis - it has become a part of their daily lives - something that wasn’t so before they were invaded.
It fascinates me how the civilians of a country that invaded a nation and is fighting a war is utterly devastated and shocked when they get a taste of what war is like.
Phil: I am not talking about OUR memes, words, definitions, press coverage or anything like that. I am talking about the socially propagated ideas in THEIR heads that prompt terrorism. For us, it’s not really a meme, it’s a topic. For them, terrorism is a true meme and the childred catch on to it very early. It must not be allowed to propagate, that’s all. If we can’t think of a better way than genocide, we’re not very clever, “r we”?
Thoughts and prayers to the UK from America.
“History has shown time and time again that terrorism
is an ineffective tool for change.”
Oh? It worked very well in Spain. The bombers got exactly what they wanted.
Y. Arrafat (sp?) of the PLO got to lead a people and a lot of UN
support through terrorism.
Personally, I think Mr. Blair should make an announcement along the
lines of, “At the request of the bombers we are sending several
SAS units to Iraq with orders to hunt down and kill everyone
connected to any terrorist actions in the UK.”
Their targets are civilian, ours are military. Any argument for “terrorism” being subjective that doesn’t take this into account is being extremely dishonest.
That’s a bullshit argument Mark. “Our” targets involve predictable numbers of what “we” call “collateral damage”. This is the reality of waging a war of aggression on other nations. Some argue that figure in Iraq is now somewhere around 100,000 (this is around the figure I predicted it would be before the invasion). “Their” argument that their victims are collateral damage is no different to “ours.” Tell me though Mark, were the non-stop bombing raids in North Vietnam, and the resulting millions of dead, military targets? The hundreds of thousands killed in Cambodia by these bombing raids? The napalm attacks of villages in Vietnam? The use of fire and cluster bombs in Iraq recently, the bombing of Fallujah and other major cities in Iraq? The bombing of water and electrical plants of Iraq in 1991? The bombing of Lebanon in 1982-84 (this is the one that pissed bin Laden off)? The tens of thousands of Dresden? Or how about the hundreds of thousands in the fire bombing of Japanese cities and the hundreds of thousands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Were they “military” targets Mark? Truth be told I haven’t even begun to list the number of civilians killed by “us” over the decades, and no amount of propaganda that we’re the “good guys” is going to change that, only the downfall of our governments will change anything, something “they” very much have this thought in “their” minds. You see they’re not interested in “stopping our way of life” as the corporate media incessantly “reports”. No they just want to stop us from interferring in theirs.
Greg Mee: “It worked very well in Spain. The bombers got exactly what they wanted.”
Utter BS, and it’s high time Americans stopped trying to spread this lie. Withdrawal from Iraq was an election pledge of the Spanish opposition party, who were already pulling ahead in the polls before Madrid got bombed. Then the Spanish PM tried to blame the bombing on ETA - a crassly clumsy move that the voters saw right through.
So, they elected the opposition party, who promptly carried out their election pledge. It was democracy in action, Greg - NOT craven cowardice.
http://www.polhemus.cc/blog/?p=199
one thing that I have trouble with is the word inocents, who are thes people? If we let our leaders do what ever they like with no stopping them from invading a country just for the fun of it our comsitution tells us it is our falt, therfor we are not inocent, why should any other country have all the inocents and we have none. all people are responcable for what there leaders do no matter what contry they live in. bigkey said that
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[...] Here are a few snippets of people’s responses to the bombings in London that came through my regular reading channels. But when something is driving enough people into insane belief systems that we see regular explosions in our cities, it would be smart to care—a lot—what that something is. Because, on the evidence, I don’t think the leaders of the Western world have a clue. Tim Bray I’ll never understand what terrorists hope to accomplish by their cowardly acts. History has shown time and time again that terrorism is an ineffective tool for change. Rather than weakening their enemies, the attackers will galvanize their victims and their allies. Dougal Campbell I’m praying for the survivors, the families of those who are lost or are dead, and the sanity of world leaders in this time of crisis, pain and suffering. The lives of those involved will be forever changed, the reconstruction of the damage will take time and of course the nation will be in the defensive mode for a while as well. Pray. Randy Peterman All over the damn news: “Can you tell us your reaction to today’s events ?†Like anyone is going to praise it! ‘Podz’ I was in a meeting when the bombs went off - which it now looks like was the cause of the explosions that have been going off around buses and tube stations around the capital. There’s not a lot more that I can say at the moment, except that the timing with the G8 summit and the Olympics yesterday makes it look like a terrorist thing. Tom Coates [...]
[...] I came across this blogpost, respectfully expressing support for the victims of the terror attacks in London three days ago. [...]