Terrorist Attack in London

Barada

Saboteur
My heart goes out to all the dead and injured in this mornings terrorist attack in London, England. This hits me just as hard as 9/11, as I have family over there. I hope no one else on here from the UK has been affected pesonally by this tragedy.

Here's the story from CNN.

London bombs kill at least 33

Barada
 

dustrho

S.C.A.L.P. Wpns Supplier
Here's what I posted in my forums earlier today regarding this tragedy...

I heard about this on the AM news station (radio) while driving to work, and this really pissed the living hell out of me. It totally appauls me to no end why people in the world hate Bush and Blair so much, for all the fighting they've done to try to stop terrorism. I don't want this thread turning into a political debate, but we (USA and UK) need to really lay the smack down on these f'n countries that house terrorists! Just like the Emperor said in ROTS, "Every single Jedi is now an enemy of the Republic. Do what must be done!" And, we should seriously blast the **** out of them.

I am not a religious man in any way, but my thoughts and prayers will be with all the families who have either lost someone because of these attacks, or for those who have had to deal with this directly.
 

Buzz Bumble

Furry Ewok
It is a bad / sad situation, but as usual the greed of the modern news media is blowing it out of all proportion, repeating images non-stop, interviewing everyone and their dog, etc., etc. and giving these extremist fools lots of free publicity and attention ... which is exactly what they're after. :(
 

Darth Aussie

Australian Sith Lord
Our thoughts go out to the families involved. May the parties responsible be caught swiftly and dealt with accordingly......
 

Nightwing

New Recruit
Myt sister in law normally travels into London. Luckily, she didn't have to yesterday, otherwise she would have had extreme difficulty getting home.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with dustrho's comments about needing to "to really lay the smack down on these f'n countries that house terrorists" Violence just creates more violence, and IMO, the Iraq war was like a big recruitment poster for people who are willing to become terrorists.

I think Blair did very well on his reply from downing st, he certainly could teach bush a thing or two.

First there was Madrid, now London. Both have something in common and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to make the link

My heart goes out to the to at least the 37 victims and 700 people in casulty plus their family but I also look at another side of it: In africa, a person dies every 3 seconds. A death is still a death no matter where it takes place. Were a person to die every three seconds in the western world something would be done immediately, so why is it not in Africa?

OK, that's enough of my political rant
 

Carl Waterworth

New Recruit
Fortunatly I live 100 miles away from London,but I just cant understand the point of it all. Why? What does blowing people up acumplish? :mad:
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
I think the bottom line for Dustro's comment is that people should spend their energy being angry at the people blowing stuff up rather than Bush & Blair. I can agree with that.

Sitting here at my computer, I can't say whether being in Iraq is worth it or not. I think you have to have faith that the leaders of your country are going to try to ultimately do what's in the best interest of the people. They may not always get it right.

If we're going to talk about Africa, perhaps we should talk about the birth rate as well as the death rate. I think both of those numbers are a little out of whack.

Regardless of all that, it's unfortunate when people's lives are ruined because of a random act of violence.
 

Darth Boru

Celtic Sith
My thoughts are also with those injured or lost and their families. A horrible time for them all.

I have many friends in London and some frantic communications took place yesterday, believe me! Fortunately they are all fine, though one was very nearly in the middle of it. She should have been on that bus, but missed it and ended up on the next one.

I totally agree with Nightwing that violence will only lead to more violence, its not the answer. If the root cause of the problem is lack of education, poverty or whatever it turns out to be, then compassion, understanding and assistance will solve it far quicker than any form of violence.

As for having faith in the political leaders of ANY time.....well, I can't say I'd buy that. Remember (just as an example) that it was previous US administrations that put both Saddam Husein and the Taliban in power AND supplied them with arms AND trained them in guerilla tactics.

Politicians are a breed of human with generally only one thought on theirminds - what will give me power/ make me popular?? As a group worldwide, all politicians from all countries have proven time and again that they are capable of justifying almost anything to get re-elected, retain power or simply 'be popular at home'.

Right, I'm off for a calming hot chocolate, sorry if that got a bit 'heavy'.
 

AmShak

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Nightwing said:
In africa, a person dies every 3 seconds. A death is still a death no matter where it takes place. Were a person to die every three seconds in the western world something would be done immediately, so why is it not in Africa?
I really have trouble seeing how you can compare the two.





Darth Boru said:
Remember (just as an example) that it was previous US administrations that put both Saddam Husein and the Taliban in power AND supplied them with arms AND trained them in guerilla tactics.
I would have sworn that i saw Saddam at the garage sale that the russians had after the cold war.
 

Nightwing

New Recruit
Borsk said:
I think the bottom line for Dustro's comment is that people should spend their energy being angry at the people blowing stuff up rather than Bush & Blair. I can agree with that.
A small guy once said "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
 

Nightwing

New Recruit
AmShak said:
I really have trouble seeing how you can compare the two.
I don't understand what you mean by this. Is a life worth less if you live in a developing country? We are all equal.
 

AmShak

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Nightwing said:
...a developing country?
What?

we're not talking the value of life here. we're talking a group of people who plan, calculate and execute deadly attacks on people who have little influence in the grand scheme of things. they do this to terrorize others because they are cowards.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
Nightwing said:
I don't understand what you mean by this. Is a life worth less if you live in a developing country? We are all equal.
No. But, you're comparing people that were killed because of the direct actions of another group of people versus people that die because they live in a country/world that cannot support them. Nobody is blowing up the Africans that are dieing - that's the difference.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
Darth Boru said:
...faith in the political leaders of ANY time...

Fine. I think where I was going with that though is that leaders are going to make choices and some of those choices work and some of them don't. If I was the leader of a country, I don't think I'd neccesarily do a better job. Just like I don't think you or Nightwing or Dustro would do a better job. It's basically just faith that things will turn out alright in the end.
 

Darth Boru

Celtic Sith
I think maybe what we need to realise is that some of those choices directly affect people in Terrible ways sometimes.

There is documented evidence that this happened :-

An African nation had a disaster (famine, drought etc).
They borrowed something like $15bn over a few years to buy food.
Western world leaders put tariffs / subsidies in place, making it impossible for this nation to compete in an open market.
Their debt spiraled.
They paid back $15bn over time, but interest means they still owe $32bn.

Every 3 seconds a child dies of hunger / disease.

The decisions of the Western World Leaders to impose trade tariffs on imports, to subsidise their own farmers and have ridiculous interest rates on foreign lending DIRECTLY contributed to the deaths of millions.

In that respect the western world as a whole is at least partly reponsible.

The eradication of poverty is simple in principle - remove the barriers to fair trade and forgive the daft debt. Some of this has been done over the last few days.

Nobody is saying that what has happened in London is right, it is categorically NOT! However, there will be MASSIVE expense and effort poured into investigations etc, while people continue to die in droves across Africa because of OUR governments actions.

On another parallel note - remove poverty and you go a long way to removing many of the reasons terrorists have to recruit the gullible. Remeber - the master terrorists NEVER get involved, they recruit gullible idealists to do it for them.
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
I'm not going to debate any of that stuff or the need to deal with it. It is obviously a problem. Although I will say again that the birth rate should be considered when looking at Africa. I don't understand people (regardless of country) that have more kids than they can afford to take care of. It is irresponsible.

I suppose I'd like for someone to explain why we're talking about Africa in this thread. Did the terrorist bomb London because of Africa? Or are we talking about Africa as a means of minimizing the importance of people getting blown up in London? Just asking...

need to realise is that some of those choices directly affect people in Terrible ways sometimes

I can't argue with that. Leaders (you know...'people') will make choices that end up being bad sometimes. Or sometimes they make choices that benefit one group of people at the expense of another group. Which, depending on your point of view, would a be a good or bad choice. Sometimes there isn't an answer that benefits everyone.

We don't have a leader that's in charge of doing what's "right" for the entire world. We have a bunch of leaders in charge of nations that have to do what's right for their respective countries. The leader of my country has a responsiblity to look out for the best interests of this nation, not to be the "leader of the world". Yeah, it's a good idea to help other countries out when they're in trouble. But that can't be the number one priority. For Blair, his number one priority has to be the citizens of the UK and making sure they don't get randomly blown up. I'm sure Africa will not be ignored, but you have to have your priorities straight. The most important thing the US should be worried about right now is the hurricane that's about to hit. Not London and not Africa.
 

AmShak

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Darth Boru said:
On another parallel note - remove poverty and you go a long way to removing many of the reasons terrorists have to recruit the gullible.
do you really think that poverty will ever be gone or that it's even possible? poverty will always exist on some level and there will always be those who take advantage of it. maybe the focus should not be on removing it, but with how we deal with it.
 

Barada

Saboteur
Wow, this thread spiralled off topic quickly.

Here's some random thoughts on some of the things mentioned in here.

Comparing a terrorist attack in London to children dying in Africa of starvation is ridiculous. No, one group's lives are not more important than the other. The difference is that in Africa, this is an acknowledged problem that occurs continuously. It may not be 'right' but it is an accepted fact that this is happening, and is predictable. A handful of children will likely die over there by the time I've finished typing this post. The attack in London, and all other terrorist attacks, occur because a certain segment of the global population believes that in order for world leaders to pay attention to them, they must murder innocent people.

To look at it from the terrorist perspective, they feel that the western world in infringing on their territory. Some may even believe that anyone not of their religion is the enemy. In their eyes, the western world, and especially their leaders, are evil. They feel the only way to defeat this 'evil' is to blow them up. Compounding the issue is a belief system that dictates that to become a martyr for their cause will lead them to enlightenment in the next life. This isn't really what the Muslim religion is about, but those that belong to these terrorist groups interpret it this way.

There is so much hatred and anger from these people to us, and most of us cannot even see it. It goes much deeper than 'those evil terrorists'. What we really need is to try to form some kind of liason with them - to truly try to understand and show respect for what it is they dislike about us, and then to honestly attempt some kind of resolution. Without that first difficult step, there can be no end to this violence, and more innocent people such as those in London will die.

Apparently we here in Canada are the only country that Osama bin Laden mentioned by name a couple of years ago that has yet to experience any terrorist activity whatsoever. I'd say that means that the next time you hear al-Qaida and 'attack' in the news, it may possibly be here in Toronto, Montreal, or Ottawa. I certainly hope not, but it would be foolish to think the possibility is not there.

Back to Africa, I'm not sure how the western world can help the situation. Sure, national debts may have helped lead to the problems in the Third World, but it is not the only cause.

Many of these people live in arid, hostile environments. Clean water and sufficient food are daily problems. People cannot live long, healthy lives when the basic necessities of life are a struggle to obtain. Because there is no food or clean water, illness and starvation are constant threats to their livelihood. Kinda hard to develop a healthy economy when the people are dying of hunger.

Throwing money and food at them doesn't help either. There is so much political red tape involved, that most of the charitable donations given to these nations winds up making the leaders, and the other rich minority, even richer. Many of these leaders are corrupt, and the food and money hardly make it to the people that need it.

What's the answer? I have no idea.

Speaking as an anthropologist with a B.A. in the field, this is life. War, illness, and famine are the three main components of global population control. It has been this way since the beginning of civilization. Survival of the fittest, if you will. From a purely scientific point of view, these factors help from keeping the global population from becoming so large that the earth cannot sustain any of us. Innocent people must die so that the human species can survive as a whole. Borsk mentioned high birth rates in Africa. In any civilization, birth rates and death rates tend to balance out with each other, almost in a natural form of replenishing the population. The birth rate in Africa is so high for several reasons. There is a lack of education, and certainly a lack of birth control. These people reproduce because there really isn't much else to do with their time in most cases. What Borsk calls irresponsible is really ignorance.

Now, speaking as a human being, I wish that we could find a way to eliminate the three 'population control methods'.

I just have absolutely no answer to how it must be done. Blowing people up that don't fit in with your ideals in certainly not the answer...

Barada
 

Borsk

Administrator
Staff member
barada said:
Now, speaking as a human being, I wish that we could find a way to eliminate the three 'population control methods'.

If we somehow managed to eliminate the three 'population control methods', we'd very quickly have more people than the planet can support. Another issue at the summit was global climate change. This is an up-and-coming population control method. You cannot have exponential growth forever without creating consequences that counterbalance that growth.
 
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