London Bombing

[Elspode]

Well, blowing themselves to bits doesn't seem to be a deterrent. I'm guessing it will be awhile before they weary of Jihad.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Well, blowing themselves to bits doesn't seem to be a deterrent. I'm guessing it will be awhile before they weary of Jihad.

Wearying is exactly the right word. There is a recent poll from the Pew Research Center showing that Muslim countries' support for violence is falling.

This is a good article that links to many articles on the subject.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0715/dailyUpdate.html

[jaguar]

I'm not going to reply to noodle's comments because they make me very, very angry and it's been a stressful enough couple of days as it is. A number of friends were caught in the tubes when this happened and everyone is still kind of in shock, everyone feels very unsafe in in the inner city which is essentially where I live (back in london now). Amazingly parts of the underground are working, busses are running as normal and trains are running as normal, massive props to the authorities on getting things back to normal so quickly.

I spoke at some length of a friend of mine that acted as part of the legal team defending some of the guys in the Ricin Plot case that collapsed over here. He had a few interesting things to say.
1: There is a big fear of a huge crackdown of some sort on the Muslim community, there have already been many, many arrests.
2: The majority of those guys will be completely innocent but the hurt and anger that will come from their harsh treatment while they are arrested will do nothing to help relations.
3: One of their ex-clients or friend thereof as a thank-you warned them to stay off the tube. He has since been arrested.

These attacks were highly indiscriminate, they probably hit as many devout Muslims as Christians or anyone else. The feel at the moment is these guys were 'home grown', brits radicalised at home rather than imported terrorists. If this is a war it's a war of ideas, not faith or nationality and it can't be won like one of those wars. It can only be defeated by defeating those ideas, you can't do that with bombs.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by jaguar

SNIP~~
I spoke at some length of a friend of mine that acted as part of the legal team defending some of the guys in the Ricin Plot case that collapsed over here. He had a few interesting things to say.
1: There is a big fear of a huge crackdown of some sort on the Muslim community, there have already been many, many arrests.
2: The majority of those guys will be completely innocent but the hurt and anger that will come from their harsh treatment while they are arrested will do nothing to help relations.
3: One of their ex-clients or friend thereof as a thank-you warned them to stay off the tube. He has since been arrested.
~~SNIP

And neither your friend or whomever warned him alerted the authorities? That makes them both accessories before the fact, to murder. Gosh, I wonder why the whackos can't be stopped.

Oh, that bullshit about surviving the blitz. That generation is long gone.

[Queen of the Ryche]

I think you hit the nail on the head there Jag. Thank you, and again, my sympathies.

[mrnoodle]

Fine, I've made someone angry again. I'll stop posting on this topic. If you want to take it in the ass from every movement or country that decides to take a dislike to you, fine. It must be a comfortable illusion to live under, wish I could share it.

You can't change minds until you've made your own people safe from the bombs.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Fine, I've made someone angry again. I'll stop posting on this topic.

mrnoodle, I can't count the number of times I have drafted responses to your posts and then deleted them without submitting them. Your posts always make me angry and my deleted responses reflect that. You seem to go out of your way to try to piss people off. In many of your posts, you put words and ideas into the mouths of liberals, and you always mischaracterize us. It's easy to make liberals sound wrong when you put lies in our mouths.

In the past, I have contemplated putting you on ignore, but decided against it.

I've occasionally tried debating issues with you in the past, but it's impossible because your style is to mischaracterize the other side and make shit up to support your own arguments. That's why you make people angry.

I'm like the silent majority of muslims who don't approve of the terrorists. But unlike them I am speaking up now so that the lurkers here won't think that mrnoodle speaks for all of us. I don't approve of your posts. Probably not any of them. Consider this a blanket rebuttal for every political post you have written or are going to write. I won't be making individual rebuttals of each one, because I don't have the energy.

[jaguar]

You can't make people safe from the bombs until you change minds.
What stopped the last group to terrorise london, the IRA? Certainly wasn't the security forces.

[Queen of the Ryche]

you didn't make me angry - I just don't understand your logic - oh well. I still like/respect you and value your opinion, because it is usually well founded and based.
bad people do bad things no matter what their background is. nuff said.

[BigV]

Jaguar,

I apologize for having my priorities upside down, taking the bait here before I reached out to you. I am enormously relieved that you personally are well, and that your city and your leadership have responded so well. My thoughts and prayers are with you and yours.

[cowhead]

hey, Jag.. glad to hear you're alright. just my little bit though.. it seems that London would be a foolish place to attack (although, yes I can see why.. being a world famous city) however, seeing as how they (you) survived the Nazi bombings in WWII it seems that that would provide some indication of how Londoners would react to such a thing.

[warch]

That denbeste piece is good. He needs to take a gig as Whitehouse speechwriter.

The arab street's apparent strong reaction to the insurgents' murder of the Egyptian ambassador is hopeful.
and Pakistan is one major wild card.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by vsp

Come on, now. Are you honestly and seriously suggesting that George W. Bush, his policies, his choices of appointees and many of his fellow Republicans _aren't_ influenced by Christian extremists to any significant degree?

I will honestly and seriously suggest that.

George Bush, his policies, his choices of appointees and many of his fellow Republicans are influenced by CHRISTIANS, no doubt. But not the extremists, no. Not the abortion-clinic bombers, not the KKK.

"Extremist Muslim" = very different from average Muslim, as you have pointed out. "Extremist Christian" = the majority (or even a significant percentage) of people who are Christian? No.

[jaguar]

was that meant to be funny radar? It wasn't even black funny, it was just plain fucking stupid. Fuck you, you worthless piece of shit.

I spent most of this morn in the city centre, most of the tube is running, the busses are back to normal, people are a little scared but it's amazing how quickly everything has bounced back, even most of the west end is running as normal. Lots of police around, even more than normal but that was partly because the queen was opening something or other. This *is* a resiliant city, it'll take more than that to bring london to it's knees.

[Trilby]

Jag, Czin, and all the other Brits on this site: My apologies for my fellow Americans stupid-assed comments. Radar is beyond help but he's allowed to have a keyboard for some reason. Ignore him.

You Brits are showing your true mettle. You have my admiration and my best wishes. You make us all proud.