Explosions in London

[Wombat]

This is terrible, no easier to bear because we long expected it and because casualties could have been much higher, as they were in New York and Bali. (Of course, we still don't know how high the casualty count will go.) I suspect there really is no feasible protection against this kind of outrage that we could live with. Baggage checks on the rail and bus systems of all major Western cities? Then they'd target regional centres.

London survived the blitz and it will be back to normal in a day or two. There will and must be public displays of grief and solidarity. Ultimately the best answer will be to get London functioning again as quickly as possible. The only answer to terror is to refuse to be terrorised.

[Walden]

London survived the blitz and it will be back to normal in a day or two. There will and must be public displays of grief and solidarity. Ultimately the best answer will be to get London functioning again as quickly as possible. The only answer to terror is to refuse to be terrorised.

I was just thinking, a terrorist is like a spoilt child. The government ought to be meeting with child psychologists, if they want to deal with this in an effective manner.

[avanutria]

Tony Blair just gave a speech...I didn't get all of it but here's most of it.

...I would like again to express my profound condolences to the families of the victims and to those who are casualties of this terrorist act. I would also like to thank the emergency services that have been magnificent today...and pay tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the people of London who have responded in a way typical of them...

[... section where he emphasised that islamic fundamentalists are not the same as islamic religious types and muslims ...]

It is through terrorism that the people who have committed this terrible act express their values, and it's right at this moment that we demostrate ours. They're trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us of going about our business as normal ... and they should not and they must not succeed.

When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated.
When they try to change our way of live, it will not change. ...
We will show by our spirit and dignity, and by a quiet and true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs.

...We will not be terrorised.

I'd like once again to express my sympathy and my sorrow to those families who will be grieving so unexpectedly and tragically tonight. This is a very sad day for the Briitsh people but we will hold true to the British way of life.

[Wombat]

Just to add a word or two to Beth's clarification. The figures she gave for casualties and explosions were the latest I heard. All the explosions were in the City centre, most near the City, i.e., the financial centre of London.

[Montana]

I have a rather sick feeling that the reason they haven't released numbers for the bus incident is because they're still trying to figure out how many people were on there, which would not seem very hopeful for high survivor levels... Those buses generally have about 20 seats up top and 20 plus standing room below; there are seating capacity charts inside and I think it's somewhere around 65, more if you really pack in for rush hour.

Yes, when I saw they weren't talking about bus fatalities and when I saw the picture of the bus, I also had a bad sinking feeling. When you look at the picture taken of the bus from the back, with the two sides curled forward and the roof gone but the seats still there, my guess is that the bomb was at the back of the bus on the top level. Does not spell good things for the folks sitting up top but the ones below to the front of the bus might have survived...
We can only hope.

Wow! Excellent job trying to capture the Blair speech, Beth. You must have great typing skills.
Sounds like a good speech - Blair is a good orator.
The British have been through tough times before (Battle of Britain); they will carry on through this. I heard that the British stock market went on business as usual althought they shut down the automatic stock buying/selling equipment for industries such as hotel, airlines, etc. that might appear to be most affected by this. When I heard this, I thought, "Good for them!"

Stiff upper lip, what?

[Wombat]

London survived the blitz and it will be back to normal in a day or two. There will and must be public displays of grief and solidarity. Ultimately the best answer will be to get London functioning again as quickly as possible. The only answer to terror is to refuse to be terrorised.

I was just thinking, a terrorist is like a spoilt child. The government ought to be meeting with child psychologists, if they want to deal with this in an effective manner.

Terrorism works largely by disrupting people and events way beyond what would normally be in the power of a few people. A handful of people taking minimal risks can bring London to a halt. The best answer to that is to refuse to let them stop you going about your business.

[Joseph E. Smith]

I cannot help thinking about UK citizen retaliation against those UK citizens who are (or their families are) from the middle east and surrounding areas, and my stress level rises. Something like that is also what these brutes and savages (terrorists) like to see. I pray that this will not be the case... there is enough suffering already.

[mukade]

I cannot help thinking about UK citizen retaliation against those UK citizens who are (or their families are) from the middle east and surrounding areas, and my stress level rises. Something like that is also what these brutes and savages (terrorists) like to see. I pray that this will not be the case... there is enough suffering already.

The far-right British National Party are already trying to gain political points from this tragedy.

Mukade

[anniemcu]

Tony Blair "... They're trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us of going about our business as normal ... and they should not and they must not succeed.

When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated.
When they try to change our way of live, it will not change. ...
We will show by our spirit and dignity, and by a quiet and true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs.

...We will not be terrorised..."

I hope that in our resolve not to let the terrorism terrorize us, which I totally agree with, we do not do as has been done before, and ignore the causes... *nothing* excuses this kind of action, mind you, but there *are* reasons that we need to come to grips with, and they are not just elements of insane religious fanaticism. There are some serious problems with the way some of "our business as normal", and our way of life that could use some serious scrutiny and no little change. That will show much more of our spirit and dignity, as well as integrity, than merely reacting in anger, or refusing to be swayed... some "sway" is actually called for.

[jGilder]

If I live to be 10,000 years old, I will never be able to wrap my head around the kind of thinking that it is somehow morally acceptable to do this to innocent people who are doing nothing other than going to work and going about their lives.

Let's keep this in perspective, as horrible as the bomb blasts in London are, it's miniscule compared to the death and destruction the US and British terrorism has wrought on Iraq. I feel exactly as Dale does in his frustration to understand how anyone can do this sort of thing. Terrorism is horrible no matter where it originates, Al-Qaeda or the US and British governments. No one is going to win the war on terrorism unless they themselves cease being terrorists. Instead of focusing on terrorists, the US and British governments lied about the intelligence to the people and their representatives in order to get them to support what is really nothing more than terror for political gain, i.e. “terrorism.” They launched massive terrorist attacks in Iraq that have resulted in over 100,000 deaths now… and counting.

End ALL terrorism.

[The Weekenders]

I wondered how long it would take.

[anniemcu]

I wondered how long it would take.

Not very long... for you to point derisively (that being your standard reaction to jGilder's posts, I am *assuming* this is in the same vein) at someone who is merely stating the truth. But that's no real surprise, as it's far easier to point and sneer, than to actually grapple with that truth.

Until we do that grappling, we are destined to continue to find very rude attempts to awaken our better consciences. But then, we've already 'discussed' this in the Ward Churchill thread.

[Nanohedron]

Just logged in. This is terrible.

[Dale]

If I live to be 10,000 years old, I will never be able to wrap my head around the kind of thinking that it is somehow morally acceptable to do this to innocent people who are doing nothing other than going to work and going about their lives.

Let's keep this in perspective, as horrible as the bomb blasts in London are, it's miniscule compared to the death and destruction the US and British terrorism has wrought on Iraq. I feel exactly as Dale does in his frustration to understand how anyone can do this sort of thing. Terrorism is horrible no matter where it originates, Al-Qaeda or the US and British governments. No one is going to win the war on terrorism unless they themselves cease being terrorists. Instead of focusing on terrorists, the US and British governments lied about the intelligence to the people and their representatives in order to get them to support what is really nothing more than terror for political gain, i.e. “terrorism.” They launched massive terrorist attacks in Iraq that have resulted in over 100,000 deaths now… and counting.

End ALL terrorism.

Please don't do this now.

[Tyler]

If I live to be 10,000 years old, I will never be able to wrap my head around the kind of thinking that it is somehow morally acceptable to do this to innocent people who are doing nothing other than going to work and going about their lives.

Let's keep this in perspective, as horrible as the bomb blasts in London are, it's miniscule compared to the death and destruction the US and British terrorism has wrought on Iraq. I feel exactly as Dale does in his frustration to understand how anyone can do this sort of thing. Terrorism is horrible no matter where it originates, Al-Qaeda or the US and British governments. No one is going to win the war on terrorism unless they themselves cease being terrorists. Instead of focusing on terrorists, the US and British governments lied about the intelligence to the people and their representatives in order to get them to support what is really nothing more than terror for political gain, i.e. “terrorism.” They launched massive terrorist attacks in Iraq that have resulted in over 100,000 deaths now… and counting.

End ALL terrorism.

Wait a second... dont you mean the terror that the US and British GOVORNMENTS have wrought? I hope that's what you mean, because it sounds like you would choose to hold normal citizenry responsible for post-election govornmental action.
Yes, the deaths in London are numerically miniscule compared to the hundreds of thousands of deaths happening in the middle east, but speaking as one who has recently lost someone close in the Iraq conflict (hence my hiatus for a while), each of those lives in London were as innocent as any taken in this horrid foreign conflict. When you count it in numbers of lives lost you begin to sound like the warmongers who claim that our losses in battle are not substantial. Each one of those Londoners was someone's father, mother, son, etc. as much as were the ones killed on both sides in the middle east.
I hate this war, and I have as much cause to hate this horrible war as anyone, but the actions of one do not justify the reactions of another, on either side...never have they, nor will they ever.

No one is going to win the war on terrorism unless they themselves cease being terrorists.

Am I a terrorist? Are you? What about the people who shop at Wal-Mart?
What about my friend who is dead? All he did was transport water to Iraqi villagers for hells sake and he's dead!
%99.5 of us are just trying to get on with our lives! Are we terrorists?
The only way to bring an end to terrorism around the world is to start with our piss-poor behavior here at home!
Most of you who know me know that I used to be registered as a republican and renounced the party some years ago, and am now a very content "fence-sitter" due to my angst over both parties and their outrageous foolishness. The reason I do not subscribe to either the "left" or "right" is the total inability to find the middle ground for the good of humanity. It is this general culture of contention that is getting us into trouble. It's this inability to get along with others, this inability to try to see from another's perspective, this constant desire to have it all and for free, this divisiveness that we exibit even in discussion amongst ourselves that are the reason that we incour the anger of other peoples, not because we're all a bunch of terrorists.
Is it right to say that Americans are terrorists? Is it right to say Britons are terrorists? No more than it is a correct assumption that all Saudi Arabians, Iranians, Iraqis, Muslims, etc. are all terrorists.
We're human beings. We ought to treat each other like human beings.

jGilder, I certainly dont mean this to be any sort of a personal attack upon you, and I appologise in advance if I offend; I've been under it a great deal in the past two months, and your post just happen to be the one to set me off.

As a final statement, I concour with Dale...
I can never understand why one would choose to take an innocent life, in any way. I try to live my life free from offense to those around me and do as little damage to my environs as possible throughout the course of my life. I add my condemnation to any act of violence precipitated upon another person, whether it is an act of terrorism orchestrated by al Qaida or the govornment of the United States, or a crime of a personal nature; the difference means little to me.
It seems to me that the message we should try to send should not be to "end ALL terrorism," but to value and respect human life. Terrorism will take care of itself if we learn to but love our neighbor.
This war cannot be won by violence, but by love.