Explosion In London

[ainwood]

And what about the catholic communities in the US? In the wider europe In Australia? New Zealand? Do they support blowing-up of civilians?

It is unreasonable to bash an entire religion for the actions of a few extremists. Please take more care in your posting.

 

[blindside]

The Catholic community in Northern Ireland on the most part rejoiced at the IRA's slaughter of British civilians.

My Father served in the British army in Ulster. I know how deep the hatred runs for the British in the Catholic communities of Ulster.

It's not unreasonable to suggest a great many Muslims feel no sadness towards today's events.

Were the Catholics in the world rejoicing when Brits were killed by IRA?

 

[chancellor_dan]

Ainwood - The discussion centred around the 10% of BRITISH MUSLIMS who potentially support Al-Qaeda.

But on the subject of Catholics in the US, everyone knows that whilst America is supposedly an ally of the United Kingdom, Irish-Americans have funded and provided arms for the IRA for decades.

Even the Clinton administration invited IRA terrorist Gerry Adams to the White House every St Patricks day, a tradition only halted by Mr Bush this year after the brutal murder and subsequence covering up of Robert McCartney in Belfast.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Nice to check up on the posts here after managing to back home from Docklands....

First of two small points - I cannot seriously believe that anyone could think that this is the work of either the IRA (incluidng splinter groups) or any anarchist elements. It just so obviously isn't the IRA on so many levels that it's obvious to anyone following their campaigns over the last 35 years. Anarchists ? In the UK they tend to be awfully well meaning, fluffy people who like going illegal bill-posting, and at worst, with a drink or two too many, will start bashing cars with metal sticks.

None of the above means it is al Qaeda or a related organisation, but there's damn few other suspects.

Secondly, in a city the size of London, it's simply not feasible for security per se to provide sufficient assurance that these attacks will be prevented - you need to rely on intelligence activities. It those that failed today. Extra police diverted down from the G8 summit would not have been able to stop this. There is an argument for another time on how such intelligence activities can properly defend a free society without breaching some of the fundamental liberties which are essential to such a society, but, I can't imagine any of us would respond rationally and reasonably to that issue, today.

 

[ainwood]

Ainwood - The discussion centred around the 10% of BRITISH MUSLIMS who potentially support Al-Qaeda.

And in your post, you did not draw the distinction between those and the other 90% who don't. As I said - please take care with how broadly you sweep your brush.

 

[plustaticman]

Complacency wasn't the problem. The world is just an imperfect place.

The U.S. didn't catch 9/11 in time. The Spanish government didn't catch the Madrid train bombers. Russian intelligence agencies failed to catch the Chechen separatists before they committed their raid on that movie theater. India, Phillipines, Japan, pick a nation; none of our nations can catch all of them all the time.

It's nothing you did wrong, and all these comments in this thread that "Blair should have seen this attack coming" are simply abominable.

No kidding. No matter how much you do, crappy things still happen. Kinda like trying to stop murder. Only way to do it 100% is to remove individual freedom. I like my freedoms/rights and as such I accept a certain degree of risk.

I really feel for UK today. I watched PM Blair speak this morning, he seems to have a handle on it together with UK's emergency services. I was also really impressed by how emergency services refrained from reporting details to the media until they were reasonably certain about their accuracy.

Again, God Bless over there.

 

[WillJ]

My change in smilie (see above) reflects my attitude; my deepest condolences to the victims and those they know and love.

 

[blindside]

It isn't very small, Bastards were celebrating in Bay Ridge(A piece of Brooklyn with a high muslem population). Anyway, I work with the MTA and I am in the subways often, doing inspections. My job got a whole lot harder. If anyone wants to know what is happening in NY, basically, people are using the subways as normal, but cops both ununiformed and uniformed are at the platforms and stairs leading up to stations incase of attacks here. I am at a loss at these attacks. Whoever these Bastards are (IRA, Al-Quada, etc.) should pay...

The cops with the M4s and the shotguns freak me out.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I heard the news when it first came on NPR this morning. I'm sorry for London's loss. Did anyone read about New York's 9/11 mayor being at a London train station when the attack began? (I haven't read all 24 pages of this, my apologies if it has already been brought up.)

 

[Damnyankee]

The cops with the M4s and the shotguns freak me out.

The police in the subways need to take a page out of Israeli tactics. I know they have many attacks, but many more have been stopped by either very astute people or very brave cops.

 

[Perfection]

I'd like to express my deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones.

A sad day indeed

 

[blindside]

The police in the subways need to take a page out of Israeli tactics. I know they have many attacks, but many more have been stopped by either very astute people or very brave cops.

What good are guns when all a guy has to do is drop a duffel bag with the explosives and walk off? Dogs are probably more useful.

 

[sysyphus]

To our brothers and sisters in Britain, the hearts and minds of Canada are with you. The sun will shine on Britannia again.

Today, this is how I feel. (ugh, I can never seem to get the images in correctly!)

 

[Damnyankee]

What good are guns when all a guy has to do is drop a duffel bag with the explosives and walk off? Dogs are probably more useful.

I don't know if I did mention it, but there was bomb sniffing dogs. By the way, guns would be useful if a guy was about to blow himself up, you see that, you put one between his eyes.

 

[Taliesin]

My deepest condolences to anybody here who has been personally touched by the attacks. They were vicious and depraved and cruel, and no people should have to face something like this. These are ordinary people, just heading in for the day's work, who were incinerated, who were blown apart, whose blood was sprayed onto buildings, who had arms torn off, who climbed over bodies to escape from smoke-filled subway cars, who are suffering in hospital beds at this very moment. Britain has become the fourth western nation whose populace has now tasted, in the last four years, the bitter fruit of its foreign policy. Whether the invasion of Iraq was right or wrong, the English people have been given a small taste of the suffering experienced by many there and elsewhere.

Let us pray for the living, mourn the dead, and hope that this horrific act does not cause immoderate and unadvised shifts in attitudes or policies. We can expect more events like this-- explosions in Rome, carnage in Warsaw, destruction in Copenhagen, perhaps. Who knows, maybe even Toronto will come in for its share. Western governments can no longer assume that their actions abroad will be without serious repercussions at home.

 

[JonathanValjean]

You are all in my thoughts and prayers today and will be in the coming days. I feel that America has no closer friend than the British, and therefore, this attack affects me almost as much as it would if it were my own country. May the perpetrators be brought to swift justice, that is, if they are still alive (and not part of a suicide mission).

 

[privatehudson]

Ainwood - The discussion centred around the 10% of BRITISH MUSLIMS who potentially support Al-Qaeda.

Overall I agree with Ainwood's remarks, however I'm no more inclined to believe your survey to be any more valid just because you put remarks on it in capitals.

 

[chancellor_dan]

I can't verify it's accuracy. However it's mentioned on the BBC, a source everyone lept to the defence of in the past as "always accurate and truthful" when i once accused them as portraying the race wars in Bradford as purely the fault of Whites.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

@Taliesin. Your list of the effects and sufferings went well beyond what was required to make your point, and far beyond what was tasteful & appropriate. It makes your condolences sound insincere, and gives the overall post the appearance of a loosely disguised "you had it coming".

 

[MamboJoel]

Seven Seven