major incident in London

London is slowly getting back to normal. The buses and the tube today morning were not as crowded as they usually are though, I think lot of people are staying home.

We all had to go through security checks before we could get into office, so long queues have formed at the reception.

I did get some nervous stares during my journey because of my brown skin, and people elected to stand rather than sit next to me on the bus and the train, but I guess that is human nature....

I heard from my brother that a coloured friend of his got a few stares.It really got to him.
Its not fair, I hope it doesnt upset you too much.

There is such a huge sense of solidarity over here, and ALOT of praise ofr th emergency services.We WONT let this beat us.It just makes us stronger.I hope the terrorists are p*ssing themselves with fear.

Oh dear Gautam, inevitable I suppose

I know I went to London a day or so after the Madrid bombing and there was an eldery moslem gentleman reading, what looked like a treasured and very old leather bound copy of the Koran, he was reading and rocking quietly as we waited for the train.

It did cross my mind, looking at his carrier bags next to him, 'I hope he's not a suicide bomber, saying his last prayers' we still went though!

Just thought I'd let you know that everyone in my family was finally located by late afternoon, and all are well.
Was in a bit of a flap yesterday, as Mobile Phones were "down" intermittently, but a huge sigh of relief all round, in the end.

My thoughts go out to all the victims and their families, and to our Emergency Services who did such a marvellous job.

Nice to see all A2K Londoners are present and correct.

I'm not sure whether anyone has done this yet, but I would like to thank everyone for their lovely messages of support.

Everyday life in London will go on as normal, no doubt. It has happened before, and will probably happen again.

At the height of the Blitz in 1940, London was bombed for 57 consecutive days, and at one stage, 3000 Londoners were killed....in one night.

Indiscriminate bombing of civilians will achieve nothing.

seconded


and very pleased that your family are all ok.

Brit Gov should should show more carel with the people who come over here before letting them in.
It's interesting though, that so many people want to live here. We must be doing something right. A bit galling for the enemy.
There are more nationalities & languages here than in any other country.
These Terrorists will not succeed any more than the Nazis or the IRA did.

Well, I don't suppose, olk's response is an answer to the others above (nice to have you back, olk, btw!!!), and of course we all are glad to hear that everyone from A2K and their nexts seems to be okay.

LE wrote:


And yet it will be done, again and again.

I heard 3 muslims on the radio this morning

1. Iman from Central Birmingham mosque. "The bombers have no faith. They are not following the Koran"

2. Woman fearful of going out in Manchester because she wears the hajib. "The prophet said dont kill innocents"

3. Young firebrand..."This is Blair's war. The Security services make it worse"

Is the iman right? This is the bombers statement:

In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him.

Nation of Islam and Arab nation: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen [holy warriors] have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.

We have repeatedly warned the British government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid.

We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused.

Allah says: "If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly." [Qur'an Sura 47:7]


......sounds to me that there is a certain religious edge to that.


Is the woman right that Mohammed said dont kill the innocent? I dont know but over the years that injunction has not stopped many innocent people being killed by religious extremists of various kinds including Muslims.

And the young man who blamed Blair...

Well its true it was virtually only Tony Blair who wanted this country to follow Bush into Iraq. So he's right to a certain extent. And if the security services continue to detain innocent people who are then prosecuted and imprisoned on trumped up charges, (which they ahve done) then they do indeed make it much more difficult to obtain good quality human intelligence on the real terrorists.

This new style of franchised international terrorism is the greatest threat to our security today. Its roots are in the middle east and its branches spread out to most countries. We can keep trimming and pruning, but it wont kill it, in fact such actions often make the plant grow more vigorously. Those who think terrorism can be defeated by military means are living in cloud cuckoo land. We need simultaneous action on several fronts. We in the west have been meddling and interfering in middle eastern affairs for the last century almost entirely because of its oil wealth. We install one clan or another to rule a "country" we have drawn up with the stroke of a pen and arm them against their own people; on one condition..that they do our bidding when it comes to hydrocarbons. And if they dont, we destabilise their rule, organise a coup, or just kick them out. (But sometimes we lose as in Iran). This is the reality. The common people are, as usual, forgotten. The Islamists want to overthrow western installed puppet governments and build Islamic republics which will redistribute the resource wealth of the area more equitably. And they want western "crusaders" out of Muslim holy lands. This is the root cause of the terrorism we see today. In my view their arguments are only strenghened among their people by the crass and inept way we have made our response to terrorist attacks.

So what do we do?

IMO

Recognise the fundamental economic and political causes of terrorism. We cannot hope to defeat it unless we acknowledge the injustices (for which we are largely responsible) that exist. This includes an equitable settlement between Israel and Palestine.

We must get better HUMINT. That means getting closer to the Muslim communities, not alienating them by locking young men up on false charges. This will make it easier to identify and penetrate the real terror cells. If these are indeed home grown, they cant conceal themselves for long if even their own communities give them no quarter.

We should not flinch from acting firmly where necessary through economic sanctions, policing intelligence work or military action.

And we should undermine their philosophical foundations in Islam. In the past we have been over sensitive in our desire not to cause offence. But we cant afford that luxury any more. The imans and the preachers who sell their brand of Islam to disaffected youth must be exposed as the dangerous lunatics they are. Dont attack the man, attack the ideas he holds. Expose them as fraudulent, dishonest, untrue, unscientific, illiberal, repressive, medieval. Destroy their credibility and you take away their power to influence the gullible.

These fanatical terrorists believe the West is degenerate, soft and corrupt. That we have no will to resist or fight, because we do not have their faith. Well that might be true of some. But they misunderstand the majority of us. We have moved on from medieval superstition and benefited greatly for that. After great struggle we have established a liberal secular pluralist and tolerant society. Its diversity is its strength. Those who would destroy us and our way of life cannot comprehend this. They will not prevail.

I fully agree, Steve!

(Only thinking that there are amongst us some non-Muslims with fraudulent, dishonest, untrue, unscientific, illiberal, repressive, medieval ideas, too. Not hoping that they start with the same somewhere else.)

"there are amongst us some non-Muslims with fraudulent, dishonest, untrue, unscientific, illiberal, repressive, medieval ideas, too."

Very true walter. And I hold them in equal contempt.

I dont know anyone who opposes the war on terrorism.

I know a lot of people who think going to war in Iraq served no proportional reason in terms of the war on terrorism, and is in fact strengthening the hands of our opponents in that war every day. There's been even government reports underlining that the Iraq war is increasing the number of our opponents, not depleting them.

Any rhetorical insinuation that those who think the Iraq war was and is a folly in terms of fighting the war on terrorism in fact must just be opposing the war on terrorism is baseless and despicable. It should be far below your standards, Timber, and the only excuse I can come up with for it is that you must still be very upset. I expect you to come back on it.

My best wishes to all those in London or with loved ones there - I hope everyone's OK.

I live in London but am currently staying in Nottingham. When I was first told about the bombings my reaction was similar to that of after the 9/11 bombings - "this can't really be happenning, someone's gotten their calendar really screwed up and thinks it's 1st April". It sunk in soon enough that it was for real... at which point panic started setting in and I was glued to the phone to check up on my family and friends, who were all thankfully alright. My brother works near Edgware Road and when I called him he described the scenes as he had seen them and, quite frankly, I started to feel thoroughly sick. From what I've read and been taught the Koran not only preaches acceptance (it instructs Muslims to treat Christians and Jews specifically as brothers) but also strongly condemns slaughter of innocents, especially of women and children (bear in mind that I'm not exactly an expert on Islam so my knowledge is scant at best... but a fair few of my extended family are strict Muslims and I've picked up info from them along the way). Admittedly, as with every religious book it all boils down to personal interpretation. Even so, I really can't understand these terrorists who claim to be acting to serve Allah with honour - where's the honour in this? I really don't have words to describe how appalled and horrified I've been by all this.

The manner in which the aftermath has been handled is a credit to the emergency services, but there are the inevitable question marks over whether such a catastrophe should have been allowed to happen in the first place. As has been pointed out, London is a wonderfully multicultural city. A large part of the city's heart and soul lies in the acceptance of people from all sorts of different backgrounds and the general sense of freedom which both allows and results from this. Confidence has also long been a strong factor in the general atmosphere pervading the city - you need only look at the rise and rise of the housing market for confirmation of this, or the rapid and continuing growth of the restauranting business.

It's not really fair to expect the relevant authorities to have time to thoroughly check every member of society accessing a public place or public transport, nor would the people be likely to have the patience to queue up for airport-style checks when, say, boarding a bus. The sad truth is that methods employed by terrorists are largely indefensible without a complete lockdown - something which is inconceivable, unacceptable and impossible in a 'free' country.

The more cynical or us will be thinking that we as a country have brought this upon ourselves - getting involved in an illegal war without justification or official backing and the war crimes which come with it, the inevitable deaths of innocents which come with any war. There's the argument that we're stuck in some vicious and lethal catch-22 situation - we (general 'West') are subjected to a major terrorist attack, we force our way into a country to look for a terrorist in hiding, don't find him, go off into another country in the the name of the War on Terrorism, bomb the crap out of them, terrorists retaliate by finding a way into our cities and acquiring weapons of their own, they bomb our civilians from the inside (as it were), we send more troops into countries suspected of harbouring terrorists... etc. Whilst it's nice and easy to say that the terrorists started all this cowardly bombing of innocents they could just as validly argue passive-aggressive oppression or even outright attacks on a military scale, both harming innocents, goading them into action.

Given the resolve and strength of character shown by first the New York citizens and now London citizens, what more can we do as civilians and, essentially, bystanders? Thoughts would be appreciated!

And apologies for the length - I think I just kind of went off on one...

"Nation of Islam and Arab nation: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen [holy warriors] have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters"

These cowards admit that part of the reason for the attack is the Brits activity in Afganistan. Afganistan? Home of the Taliban/al-qaeda.

For those who think that the Iraq War is the reason for this, you are foolish. For those who think Afganistan is the reason, you too are foolish.

It is way past time for the Muslim commuity to rise up against these extremists and GET CLOSER TO US. It is way past time for the "rulers" of Saudi Arabia, Eqypt, Syria et al..to make a stand.

Now THAT, on the other hand, I will heartily echo, to the very letter in fact.

We once had a very good thread on this, back on the Roundtable. Scrat and I had, I think, a very useful and thoughtful debate: Terrorism, Crime: How Does Poverty Factor In?

The bombers think they are following the Koran. The imam thinks they are not following the Koran.

Nothing much new there, I'm afraid: different (violent and non-violent) interpretations of the Holy Book have marked the entire history of both Christianity and Islam. One interpretation doesn't negate the other; they just conflict.


<nodding>

Don't apologise, Ark - we should thank you for that post <nods>

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in a BBC radio interview [recorded audio] Friday that investigations continued urgently, although he admitted that finding the perpetrators was like looking for "needles in a very large haystack." He also said that the UK government would be pressing on with legislation to establish a system of national ID cards [Home Office backgrounder], although he said he doubted that such a scheme, had it been in place already, would have stopped the bombings.

mark

"DigitalGlobe is making available to the media satellite imagery of London, England. This image was collected by DigitalGlobe on July 28, 2002. The image provides a comprehensive overview of the city where bombings occurred during the Thursday morning rush hour."


source & link: Satellite Imagery: London Media Gallery

I watched Dateline last night in which part was telecasted from London. One thing that they stated was that London had in the past received other threats of bombing on the tube. Fortunately, they were always able to stop the threat before it occurred.

One person stated that the tough part of dealing with terrorists is you could stop them prior to their attack 100 times, but it only takes one time out of that 100 to be devastating.