One event changes attitude in UK-----how strange

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McGentrix wrote:

Lord Ellpus wrote:
McGentrix wrote:
Lord Ellpus, I have nothing but the highest regard for the Brits. A more stoic, polite, well mannered bunch has never existed. Speaking as a descendent of British stock, it would ill-behoove me to ever under-estimate the pride or scorn of the British populace. However, just like in America, there is a certain part of the population with which I disagree with in regards to politics.

I wish more Americans here would try to understand that Britain is not America and visa versa. You have far more laws and restrictions on invidual freedoms than could ever be enforced by our Patriot act. Seems things like that are forgotten...

You have me confused, Rayban....it seems that NOW you only have the highest regard for us.

I tell you now, if you walked into ANY pub in the land and spouted your arrogant garbage at such an inappropriate time, you would no doubt wake up with a vest full of broken ribs and a crowd staring at you.
Your whole beginning to this thread has seriously annoyed me.

What would happen if I had walked into a Bronx bar, a week after 9/11 and said "Well, you yank liberals had it coming"

Totally insensitive, ill thought through and thoroughly sickening.

Yeah, that's great. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you could try getting the names right in the future before you make these rants?

Easy mistake to make, McG, you all sound the same. Smile

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I do like and admire Lord Ellpus. I sympathize with his reactions in this matter and the good sense he brings to most topics here, and also I am in accord with his evident pride in his homeland and people.

However I do believe some of the comparisons made here to unflatteringly contrast British response with that in the U.S. are not only wrong, but unworthy of (some of) the speakers.

9/11 took about 3000 American lives in a very dramatic and visible event. That's about 60 times as many casualties as in the LOndon bombings -- the events are not on the same scale, even considering our greater population.

No apologies here for support for the IRA. Until the early 1990s the Irish in Northern Ireland had good cause for revolution against a rather vicious Stormont government. Beyond that the IRA was a major part of the struggle for independence in the Republic. The children and grandchildren of Irish immigrants to this country were raised on the memories of their parents and grandparents (and they are the largest ethnic group here.). They do not paint a flattering picture of British rule. As with any such movement, when the cause is ended and resolved, one is left with a residue who go on without reason. They are criminals and should be treated accordingly - and this is happening in Ireland.

Terrorism is merely one of many techniques and tactics in warfare.One that is particularly favored by the weak as an effective weapon against the strong. I disagree with Bush that our war is with "terrorism" - one does not go to war against a technique or tactic. For this reason I believe it is silly to confine the matter to al Qaeda or Usama bin Laden.

Instead our war is with a resurgent Islam, full of anger and frustration at centuries of abuse and exploitation by European colonial powers (and later a bit by us as well), and frustrated at its own inability to get its own house in order, and use its natural wealth and the creativity of its people in sensible political arrangements, or even to tolerate popular government, dissent, and the appearance of other cultures and religions in its midst. This war has many manifestations and techniques. Terrorism is one. Political action on the part of Moslem emigrees who fled to Britain, France, or the USA to find a better life, now demanding the application of the intolerance and theocratic political control of their former homelands in their new country is another. Rogue regimes, bent on expanding their power at any price and willing to exploit any means at hand to challenge the West is a third. However all of this constitutes a single war. One wins a war when his enemy loses hope. I don't believe that focusing on effective police measures would be a sufficient means of fighting this declared enemy or of winning this war - Jaques Chirac notwithstanding.

While I fault Bush's rhetoric on the "War on Terrorism", I do applaud what I see as a fairly sophisticated strategy in the war that I described above. There have been many theaters in this war, each fought in a different way -- Pakistan, Taliban, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Lybia, Syria, Egypt, Morroco, the Islamic diaspora in Europe and the USA. It is understandable to long for simplicity in difficult circumstances, but it is sometimes very foolish to give in to that longing.

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georgeob1 wrote:

I do like and admire Lord Ellpus. I sympathize with his reactions in this matter and the good sense he brings to most topics here, and also I am in accord with his evident pride in his homeland and people.

However I do believe some of the comparisons made here to unflatteringly contrast British response with that in the U.S. are not only wrong, but unworthy of (some of) the speakers.

9/11 took about 3000 American lives in a very dramatic and visible event. That's about 60 times as many casualties as in the LOndon bombings -- the events are not on the same scale, even considering our greater population.

No apologies here for support for the IRA. Until the early 1990s the Irish in Northern Ireland had good cause for revolution against a rather vicious Stormont government. Beyond that the IRA was a major part of the struggle for independence in the Republic. The children and grandchildren of Irish immigrants to this country were raised on the memories of their parents and grandparents (and they are the largest ethnic group here.). They do not paint a flattering picture of British rule. As with any such movement, when the cause is ended and resolved, one is left with a residue who go on without reason. They are criminals and should be treated accordingly - and this is happening in Ireland.

.

So, you're actually saying that you agreed with USA nationals, putting hard cash into an IRA collection bucket, so that it could buy explosives, in order to blow up English civilians in Pubs?

Since 1939, there have been over 400 terrorist attacks by the IRA, both in Northern Ireland, and here on the Mainland. Each of those attacks caused grief to families, and many caused terror and mayhem within civilian communities.

The majority of the Northern Irish want to remain part of the UK. Now..dont go calling those people "non Irish" or any other such term, because if we applied the same rules, none of you would be classed as Americans. These people have lived there for many, many generations, and want to remain British.
They then have to suffer stark and bloody terrorism from the original "native people", on a regular, prolonged basis.

Tell me, as you think that "Northern Ireland had good cause for revolution against a rather vicious Stormont government".....how "vicious" would the USA Government have been, had it experienced that scale of bombing and slaughter from the militant faction of the Sioux?
After all, they would have been bombing your pubs in Georgetown, because they were "raised on the memories of their parents and grandparents."

Think about it.

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georgeob1 wrote:

9/11 took about 3000 American lives in a very dramatic and visible event. That's about 60 times as many casualties as in the LOndon bombings -- the events are not on the same scale, even considering our greater population.

.

There is nothing that will convince anyone with a civilised mind, that 9/11 was anything but a true tragedy.

However, the sweeping assumption made by Rayban, is that we were merely "observers" before last Thursday, as opposed to "victims".
May I suggest that it is the other way round, as London has been a "victim" in more ways than you can imagine, for a VERY long time.

In addition to our dear IRA bombers, we also had the small matter of the Blitz.
Different thing, I know, but when someone implies that we have only developed a backbone since experiencing what he was intimating was our first atrocity, it certainly merits inclusion, if only to prove a point.

BLITZ.
FOR 57 consecutive days, London was bombed either during the day or night. Fires consumed many portions of the city. Residents sought shelter wherever they could find it - many fleeing to the Underground stations that sheltered as many as 177,000 people during the night. In the worst single incident, 450 were killed when a bomb destroyed a school being used as an air raid shelter. Londoners and the world were introduced to a new weapon of terror and destruction in the arsenal of twentieth century warfare.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitz.htm

The worst night of the Blitz occurred on May 10, 1941 - when 3,000 Londoners were killed.
ONE NIGHT!

Now, working on the assumption that your population is about nine times that of Britain? Proportionately, that would be 27,000 Americans, in one night.

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Lord,

First, my condolences to your nation and it's citizens and congratulations to you for your well-written and thoughtful responses here, including the ranting parts.

What you fail to realize is that Rayban and McG (God, are they twins?) and Lash (oops! triplets!) want to think everyone should mirror the US response, so please, find some way to convey to your leaders that they should:

A) Make growly utterances like - You're either with the terrorists or against us. No, wait, I mean, you're either with us or against us.

B) Create a complete doily of mis-information, bad intelligence and pompous "We know where they are hiding...." statements and then bald-facedly claim, when found to have been completely wrong, that other things motivated your actions.

C) Don't forget to panic and invade a country not associated with the attacks.

D) Encourage the terrorists to "bring it on." That has been so effective for the US.

E) Tell all the opposition that they 1)don't understand, 2) can't understand, 3) must shut up, 4) will be the subject of some of that overwhelming force spoken of so highly here.

That way we can continue to fight the terrorists over there, right where you are, cuz that's how they see it.

Daffy, no?

Joe(godluvyah)Nation

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panzade wrote:

<Due to server problems this post is two hours late>

I'm scratching my head here. I read Clarke's comments twice and Rayban's original post three times and I still can't find one mention of the English change of heart towards Bush. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on Rayban's part.

Nor can I, unless Rayban thinks Clarke is the sole occupant of this country, but even then, he never changed his stance in the first place either. He was always rather conservative and appproving projects that Bush would think proper.

There is no change of heart and there won't be any resorting to violence, like there was never any resorting to violence after the IRA bombings, and the Conservatives were in power during most of the bombings. Look how the British Conservatives managed to carry themselves with dignity, without resorting to violence.

If the Conservatives wouldn't resort to violence, why would the Liberals resort to violence?

Furthermore, the liberals of our day, the Labour Party are more conservative than they have ever been and they still aren't going to resort to violence. (Besides, the true liberals of the Liberal Demorats will never get into power so they'll never be able to order violence against an Islamic country that might harbour terrorists).

Seriously, if you think people would go over to the Conservative side after your little rant, then you're seriously mistaken. If every Conservative was like you, there wouldn't be any Conservatives. You are beginning to sound more and more like the Conservatives that are causing the problems in our world, today.

Most of the problems in the Middle East are caused by Conservatives, you know. The ones that aren't allowing democratic votes? Conservatives. The ones that aren't allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia? Conservatives. The ones that genuinely discriminating against women? Conservatives. The ones that tried to have an elderly scholar lashed enough times that he'd die? Conservatives. (It took the more liberal Crown Prince to have him reprieved).

At the moment, the Conservative Party in our country barely have a leg to stand on. Most of their leaders are ineffective, their party is seen as racist, behind the times and bigoted.

Conservatism? Please. It needs a complete make-over from the inside-out, and the insensitive posts I've seen so far from Conservatives merely prove my point.

rayban1 wrote:

To all Brits from rayban

Would you all please read the article by your Home Secretary....Suddenly you are no longer sympathetic observers of the tragic attack on this country----instead you are the victims. I merely pointed out the different perspective you now have and that you take the attitude that you must now do something to combat this evil menace.

Complete garbage. Have you read the article yourself?

Quote:

Now that you are the victims, it is obvious that you want action to be taken and both Mr. Clarke and your PM are responding admirably, IMO.

Rubbish. Our people have been victims ever since the War on Iraq, with British victims in Iraq being killed by terrorist bombings. We have not been observers. For the very reason you stated, because of this support of Bush, our troops, our people in Iraq have become victims.

Quote:

I very much admired the stoic response of all the Brits and you very much displayed the spirit eloquently spoken of by your PM, who BTW is in my estimation a great leader, that you would not be terrorized. There was no panic and by the next day it appeared to me that the British people were determined to show that everything was again normal.

Yes, he is a great leader and a great weasel. His skill in politics is vast indeed. Thanks to the right-wing policies of his New Labour, there is no viable political alternative to the "left-wing" Labour Party. The right-wing Tory Party is in shambles, because their policies are now Labour policies and the left-wing Liberal Democrats have never been voted into power.

Yay, one Party state!

EDIT: Whoops. After re-reading my post, I've just realised I've gone all over the place. The entire post is unfocused, attacking all sorts of things at once. I apologise for its randomness.

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Not a problem, Wolf. This ain't a university course term paper. Smile

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JTT wrote:

Not a problem, Wolf. This ain't a university course term paper.

But I like to have my arguments logical with references and facts and figures. It makes them that much harder to knock down.

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I can't be bothered to read all this stuff.
But I disagree with most of it.

Years ago, Mr Bush promised to attack terrorists wherever they could be found, and similarly treat people who give comfort and support to terrorists.

But, he didn't send any bombers to Boston. Why was that?

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McTag wrote:

But, he didn't send any bombers to Boston. Why was that?

Hear, hear...

(in my best parliamentarian voice)

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Potential voter protestations of course.

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Joe Nation wrote:

Lord,

First, my condolences to your nation and it's citizens and congratulations to you for your well-written and thoughtful responses here, including the ranting parts.

What you fail to realize is that Rayban and McG (God, are they twins?) and Lash (oops! triplets!) want to think everyone should mirror the US response, so please, find some way to convey to your leaders that they should:

A) Make growly utterances like - You're either with the terrorists or against us. No, wait, I mean, you're either with us or against us.

B) Create a complete doily of mis-information, bad intelligence and pompous "We know where they are hiding...." statements and then bald-facedly claim, when found to have been completely wrong, that other things motivated your actions.

C) Don't forget to panic and invade a country not associated with the attacks.

D) Encourage the terrorists to "bring it on." That has been so effective for the US.

E) Tell all the opposition that they 1)don't understand, 2) can't understand, 3) must shut up, 4) will be the subject of some of that overwhelming force spoken of so highly here.

That way we can continue to fight the terrorists over there, right where you are, cuz that's how they see it.

Daffy, no?

Joe(godluvyah)Nation

Nobody will listen to you Joe. You make too much sense.
Cool

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McGentrix wrote:

Quote:

The US acted as the US has a history of acting. Decisively and with overwhelming force. That's how our country was formed and that's how our country operates. It would be silly to expect Britain to react the same way the US does just it is silly to expect the US to react the same way Britain did.

Your first sentence above says a lot.
You are right, McG. It WOULD be silly to expect Britain to react the same as the U.S. That is what makes Britain great! Don't get me wrong, I love the U.S. and it's people. It is the current government I don't admire.

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Intrepid wrote:

Joe Nation wrote:
Lord,

First, my condolences to your nation and it's citizens and congratulations to you for your well-written and thoughtful responses here, including the ranting parts.

What you fail to realize is that Rayban and McG (God, are they twins?) and Lash (oops! triplets!) want to think everyone should mirror the US response, so please, find some way to convey to your leaders that they should:

A) Make growly utterances like - You're either with the terrorists or against us. No, wait, I mean, you're either with us or against us.

B) Create a complete doily of mis-information, bad intelligence and pompous "We know where they are hiding...." statements and then bald-facedly claim, when found to have been completely wrong, that other things motivated your actions.

C) Don't forget to panic and invade a country not associated with the attacks.

D) Encourage the terrorists to "bring it on." That has been so effective for the US.

E) Tell all the opposition that they 1)don't understand, 2) can't understand, 3) must shut up, 4) will be the subject of some of that overwhelming force spoken of so highly here.

That way we can continue to fight the terrorists over there, right where you are, cuz that's how they see it.

Daffy, no?

Joe(godluvyah)Nation

Nobody will listen to you Joe. You make too much sense.

No he doesn't. He makes grandiose statements and silly allegations.

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McGentrix wrote:

Intrepid wrote:
Joe Nation wrote:
Lord,

First, my condolences to your nation and it's citizens and congratulations to you for your well-written and thoughtful responses here, including the ranting parts.

What you fail to realize is that Rayban and McG (God, are they twins?) and Lash (oops! triplets!) want to think everyone should mirror the US response, so please, find some way to convey to your leaders that they should:

A) Make growly utterances like - You're either with the terrorists or against us. No, wait, I mean, you're either with us or against us.

B) Create a complete doily of mis-information, bad intelligence and pompous "We know where they are hiding...." statements and then bald-facedly claim, when found to have been completely wrong, that other things motivated your actions.

C) Don't forget to panic and invade a country not associated with the attacks.

D) Encourage the terrorists to "bring it on." That has been so effective for the US.

E) Tell all the opposition that they 1)don't understand, 2) can't understand, 3) must shut up, 4) will be the subject of some of that overwhelming force spoken of so highly here.

That way we can continue to fight the terrorists over there, right where you are, cuz that's how they see it.

Daffy, no?

Joe(godluvyah)Nation

Nobody will listen to you Joe. You make too much sense.

No he doesn't. He makes grandiose statements and silly allegations.

Beats your silly statements and silly allegations.

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Here's an idea, Rayban. I have noticed that McG displays an Avatar of the 9/11 atrocity, in an attempt, I would imagine, to ram home the point about the reality of terrorism.

You therefore have my full permission to "grab" the attached photo (I chose one which was not too graphic) of the Real IRA (an offshoot from the IRA. They separated, as they thought the IRA was not killing enough people)....bombing of the BBC in London.

If you wish, I could supply more graphic pictures, like the Omagh bomb (there were 29 deaths, I believe, so there may be some bodies visible)
or the Birmingham Pub bombs....... Just let me know.

I "snatched" this photo from a very interesting website. I know I speak as a layman, but I'm sure that their web designer would get good bucks working for AQ, as the layout is most impressive. He probably charged this terrorist organisation a fortune.....still, they had plenty of funding, and I bet he didnt mind being paid in U.S. Dollars.

http://irelandsown.net/RIRA.html

http://k.domaindlx.com/lordellpus/bbcexplode.jpg

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I wouold like to see your wrath directed at the correct terrorist group Ellpus. It was Muslim fanatics responsible for the latest bombing, how about venting your anger at them?

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Rayban,

You were probably thinking that you were being a wily old Fox, on the scent of a new "trail" regarding this whole matter.

It seems to have backfired somewhat, and goes to prove the old British adage.

"A Fox always smells his own hole."

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McGentrix wrote:

I wouold like to see your wrath directed at the correct terrorist group Ellpus. It was Muslim fanatics responsible for the latest bombing, how about venting your anger at them?

Because Rayban started this whole thread by strongly implying that we were just casual observers to terrorism before last Thursday.

I HAVE to use the IRA as an example, in order to prove that he is acting like an arsehole in this matter.

And if you think that the IRA, or the Real IRA is not a current Terrorist Organisation, then you are being as naive as him.

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One event changes attitude in UK-----how strange

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