Terrorist attacks in London

[chelseafan]

This is such a cheap shot by Al Qaeda, the fuckers really are cowards, their fundalmentalism is something to be abhhored. Not only does it show them for the shits they are, but it does the repuation of the vast majority of Muslims no good whatsoever.

Instead of catching them and sending them to Jail, why dont we throw them to the relatives of the deceased and let them have their way.....

[Long Gun]

I?m not saying that nobody here is going to be affected, we all are to one degree or another, and I have plenty of friends and family in London who could just as easily be involved that I don?t know about already. It's just that I wouldn't be looking here for solace or comfort from people I've never met and I don't understand why people post that ?message of support? kind of thing, anymore than why the Queen and every politician under the sun seems to think that clogging up the airwaves and stating the obvious, yet again, yes this is terrible, we will not surrender blah, blah, blah is going to change anything for anybody. I know you all mean well but ??..

 

Of course it upsets me, but I get upset every day when I read the papers. It must be shitty being in London at the moment and horrendous for anyone directly or indirectly involved but 33 seems about the average number dying every day in bombings in Iraq, just as innocent as any who died today. But, yes, it's 'our' country so we feel a bit more emotionally involved about them because they COULD be people we know and love, but hearing all that empty rhetoric from the politicians is bad enough "We are going to find them and punish them" bollocks. They haven't got a clue how to do that or this wouldn't have happened.

 

These people, whoever they are, are a massive problem, way too good at what they do for the 'good, sensitive, righteous' folks to deal with and I can't see how they are ever going to be 'beaten'. I really think we have to say that the 'carefree', British way of life is over and it's back to the IRA days in the 70s where you were being searched where ever you went, only 100 times worse - and what good is searching a suicide bomber ever going to do? - Or we say 'They aren't going to beat us, we are in the right and we are not going to let them force us to change the way we live', and just accept that getting blown up occasionally is an unfortunate consequence.

 

We can sit back in awe of the resilience and attitude of the wounded, of the friends and family of the victims, of the amazing work of the emergency services and feel proud that, yes, normal service probably will be resumed as soon as possible. But those who might actually think these atrocities are justifiable, a good idea in some way, probably aren't watching the Beeb, or reading message boards like this. They have their own websites to read and they are saying things like:

 

The message said: "The heroic mujahidin have carried out a blessed raid in London."

 

It continued: "Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters."

 

There will already be people in England, seeking and taking revenge on random, innocent targets. I was at college in Birmingham in 1974 when the IRA bombed the pubs and the whole way of life changed for a while, but with the IRA we let ourselves be searched everywhere we went and we looked out for abandoned bags. With this we will be on the lookout for anyone who looks a bit swarthy and nervous. Anyone reading a Koran. Anyone under a burka or a hijab.

 

Anyone with an Irish accent was walking around pretty tight-lipped for some days back then - though the Irish community did come together and organise a huge protest march through the city, against the bombings. I do wish/hope that the 'normal' muslims in the UK would do the same.

[vegasdave49]

Well put steve. But I must say that I find little interesting, when a cult decides to kill those that disagree.

[BelgianBoy]

Today we are all British.

 

BB

[David_66_UK]

 

Am not in London.

 

Kinda strange looking at it on TV today in the office, after the initial reports stood around the TV for 5 - 10 minutes trying to work out how bad it was, but once folk realised it wasn't a "spectaculer" just went back to work and well within the hour the jokes started...........

 

Dunno whether this tells folk outside the UK anything, or whether or not this sort of reaction was typical. Just how it was.............

[Steve]

Long Gun, you can take statements from politicians with a pinch of salt. You never really know where heartfelt sentiments stops and political diatribe starts. Those on here have no political posts to garner. Coming to know people such as yourselves on this board who are English personalizes the tragedy moreso than others.

 

I think your fellow countrymen will suprise you. There will be those that know of people who are planning such events and feel ashamed they are connected to such people ethnically or via religion. The authorities will redouble their efforts. Things will get dicey. Methods will be used that will be frowned upon and rightfully so, and eventually, you'll find an effective, fair way of dealing with it all.

 

I'm an optimist by nature and perhaps too much of a pollyanna view of things but I really do feel you (as well as us here after 9/11) will get through it all.

[bibblies]

Yep. I don't know why Al Queda bother. You couldn't have picked a more stoical country to bomb. We've seen it before in London, with the IRA and all that (we've only just got used to seeing rubbish bins on train platforms again!). There's no way we'll "do a Spain". Tony Blair's position has strengthened today, if anything.

 

I'm still going to go into London on the tube the usual 3 days a week and go about my business as usual. No terrorist fucker's going to intimidate me. In fact, I don't know any other Londoner who's "terrified". They're all doing what Dave said above. So terrorism doesn't seem to be working very well, does it?

 

(In fact, I'm more terrified by the thought of BelgianBoy becoming British. )

[STFC]

Just a note to say everything now v.quite in London the

Traffic has started moving,people are walking to their usual

main line stations because the tubes are shut and the buses are full.

 

I'am waiting to give a friend a lift home,she seems to be doing a pub crawl in high heels from the city.

 

The motorways are clogged so it could be along time before

we get home.

 

The tube was a nightmare, i waited for about 20 minutes in the dim light,with a smell of smoke and people screaming

and crying.When the doors at the back were opened we

were only a few yards from the platform.

When i saw the state of the people out side Edgware station i stopped moaning about the delay.

We were told it was a electrical fire but by the time i got to

Marble Arch there had been more explosions and the Police

were every where.

 

I have had my fare share of diastours every time my mum

sees anything on the TV she rings me to see if i'am there.

I was on New York for 9/11,in Phuket for the Tsunami

and in Soho and Birmingham when the IRA had a go.

I was in Madrid a week before the bombing there.

 

Just lucky i guess.

 

STFC

[Bkkbound04]

London has survived the day very well, my office is at Aldgate but providence had me out in one of our services in Newham today so I was not in the front line of things,I was in Stratford and then back to Mile End mid afternoon, yes there are deaths and injuries, chaos in the transport system, mobile networks not as reliable as usual, but there is a tangible relief and a belief that if this is the best the miltants can do then we are on top of this and the threat is managable..the emergency services had a massive over capacity available to it and the major incident plans that were implemented are actually meant for really spectacular events that was not what happened today.

The CCTV systems here will quickly identify suspects and you can expect very quick results from our security services.

I agree with Bibblies and expect Blair to come out of this in a stronger position.

 

JP

[ALHOLK]

Very strange timing, with the G8 summit and all

Probably not as the G8 meetings are planned a long time ahead.