Explosions Around London
 

Scotland Yard just confirmed one of them is a bomb. Saw it on BBC. :( Trying to contact friends that live there.

They are saying now.. two bus explosions and two explosions on the subway system, with people trapped underground (that would be very scary).

[rant on]

It's about high time we start lobbing some bombs (preferably nukes) back at the terrorist bastards. F*ck civility, precision bombing and the rules of war... :mad:

[/rant off]

Which country will we nuke?

I woke up this morning about half an hour ago and my mum told me what happened.

The first thing out of my mouth was "did you call Nanny?". My grandmother and aunt and uncle live in London. Fortunately, the blasts were not where they live.

At first I thought it was IRA, then my mum said they suspect Al Qida. I think maybe this happened in London because they were just awarded the Olympics. I suspect that if Paris or Madrid or whatever, had one, it would have happened there.

According to the Al-Qaeda's linked organization statement, it had to do with Iraq.

Link to Article

It was probably the French. ;)

I already said that to my mom. ;)



But seriously, I am ticked. I absolutely adore London, so anything wrong happening there, I take very seriously. I pray for everyone there. :mad:

I thought that at first, too, but now realize it probably had more to do with the G8 Summit. Today was the first official day of meetings.

BBC News is saying there were between 4-7 blasts in buses and underground trains and stations around London. It would be much more probable that the blasts were due to the G8 and not the Olympics. I doubt that terrorists give a crap about who gets the Olympics and more about stirring sh*t up for the G8 summit to make a statement to world leaders.

And the French? Riiiiight....they don't bomb anything but islands in Paradise to test their nukes. :rolleyes:

I thought that too. It could have something to with the G8 summit, but it would make more sense to bomb Scotland, not London.

Our good friend Sara (her family is my husband's surrogant fam since his parents passed away) is living near Russell Square this summer. I'm praying she's okay. I just got off the phone w/ her mom, who's trying to get in touch w/ her, but the phone system over there is a mess, of course.

This shit is ridiculous.

I think bombing London again to strike at the terrorist bombers would be a bit counter productive wouldn't it?

True that, Coop... as I said, I was just ranting at the bit. Nuking London wouldn't be very productive. Paris, on the other hand... ;) :) :D

Nuke our "allies", Saudi Arabia.

-Rudey

But the area the G8 is taking place in is pretty rural if I'm not mistaken. London is a more "impressive" target sadly. Plus, now all the world's "major" leaders are NOT in their home country for these attacks. They are not trying to hurt the 8 men, but the people they govern (though I'm sure they'd be happy assainating them anyway...)

Still waiting to hear about the husband's relatives in London. Dear Lord.

Well right now everything is pure speculation...which is why I was so pissed off at CNN when they had a note saying that the Police Chief said it was a coordinated attack...he did not say that, he said it was a possibility and it looked that way but wasn't going to speculate and wanted to wait for more evidence.

Sorry, end of my rant.

My Nanny is okay, fortunately she lives in west London. However, all public transportation all over london has been shut down.

My cousin works in that area, but she was supposed to be at a job interview in Soho this morning, but I haven't heard anything about her yet. So far all my family is fine. I'm still waiting to hear about my cousin.

Yet, if this is Al-Qaida, more Muslims were killed in London than would have been killed in Scotland.

Of course, rationalizing with the irrational isn't exactly rational!

AMEN, honey!!!

The terrorists are getting more brazen by the day! I have friends in London right now and I'm trying to find out if everyone's ok.

I very much wonder how this will change some of the European countries attitudes. Specifically interested in France's reaction

French have always been dealing with terrorism. If you think the Europeans are soft on terrorism, that is vastly mistaken.

I thought it was the IRA at first, too.

London was JUST given the Olympic bid. You do realize that you can't just waltz in somewhere and bomb things, right? It takes a relatively in-depth amount of planning.

And I don't really think that this is going to change the rest of the European leaders' minds about the stance they take on terrorism. If anything, it might persuade them to keep the stances they already have, since it's the countries that are in Iraq that are being attacked.

Really? How are they hard on terrorism?

-Rudey

Look, I don't know how much planning went into this. Perhaps it was organized before hand and there were cells in place in these different cities. I don't know. It was purely speculation.

I don't really give a shit why they did it. We have to stop them from doing it again.

A friend of mine works in London, so I sent her an email this morning. She is fine, as is her husband, who is in Switzerland right now. She's spooked about it and will have to walk home this evening.

My heart goes out to the victems, their families, and the people of London.

They really aren't. They look for the path of least resistance and then strike. This is far less brazen than 9-11, but only because its the most damage that they could do.

We were attacked before we went into Iraq, and a sampling of a whopping two nations (UK and Spain) doesn't exactly provide compelling evidence.

I'm not arguing with that. I'm just wondering why this would persuade ANYONE to change their stance on terrorism when changing your stance on terrorism would probably vastly increase the chance that your country would suffer an attack. That line of reasoning makes zero sense to me.

I'm not so sure that changing a European nation's stance on terrorism would really increase (or decrease) the chances of being attacked. I say this because if you read what Al Qaeda, and sympatico groups, say, they are holding grudges from the Crusades. They are swayed by current actions, but their agenda is clearly not limited by contemporary events.

France, as Arya pointed out, is fighting terrorism. I may despise Chirac, but lets give credit where credit is due. France has the best intelligence gathering capability, with regard to penetrating Jihadists, of any European nation. It is because of France's help that New York is now considered to be almost immune to attack by Al Qaeda. I think that Al Qaeda would like another shot at New York, but they can't because of France.

All nations who are potential targets of Al Qaeda are best served by pooling resources together. I believe that this attack will only intensify the desire to cooperate on the intelligence sharing level. After all, on September 11, 2001, almost 3,000 people were murdered, and almost $10 billion in property was destroyed. Today's tragedy in London is the best that Al Qaeda can do, and it is of a scope that is far less than what happened almost four years ago. If they will continue to attack, a continued coordinated campaign against them will probably guarantee that any future strikes are muted compared to what Al Qaeda would like to do.

Al Jazeera
 

The lead article on Al Jazeera's English web site reads: Muslim leaders condemn bloody attacks on London
http://aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=8930

I find this intersting as this suggests that their readers are very concerned with the face of Islam in light of the continued actions by Al Qaeda

Bad joke buddy, people are dead and at this moment a country is deeply hurt.

I do have to admire the brittish and their 'stiff upper lip' cause all of them on TV are pretty firm in their resolution to not let the terrorists win. Unlike the pussy Spanish when this happened there in March 2004.

On another note - while this barbarism is tragic, its somewhat reassuring that the terrorists are still only using TNT. Its relatively low-end technology and shows that they havent been able to get their hands on raidological dispersal devices, bio weapons or other WMD's. The explosions suck, but they could be a lot worse.

As I was evacuating from my apartment on 9-11, I was thinking the same thing. Its very strange to be grateful that "only" a certain number of people died.

Two of my housemates from school are in London. They're both ok but shaken up.

Just herd from cousin that there are reports of abuse toward anybody that isn't white, especially people of Indian descendent. I knew this was going to happen, with emotion flying high.

Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/597425.html

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