TERRORISM. Few terrors are more terrifying. In the past few days we have seen terrorists terrorize England and Scotland. In a totally unprecedented sequence of events that would be without precedent in British history if only there weren’t actual precedents for it (all that IRA bother), terrorists were responsible for inflicting terror across Britain by botching a couple of car bombings and then by messily screwing up a half-assed plot in Glasgow.
EEEEEK! What are we to do in The Face of such terror? We are, after all, bloggers! Citizen Journalists! We have transformed the Media Landscape! Fear our keyboards!
Opinions differ on this crucial question, How Should Bloggers Respond to Terrorism? The Estimable Mr. T Bogg provides an excellent overview of how the Right Blogosphere fearlessly sprang into action — once more into their breeches, and all that:
This will lead to an endless collection of links to like-minded bloggers who are “on the case” which means that those bloggers are linking to the usual EmmEssEmm suspects that they normally don’t trust as well as repeating whatever they heard on Fox news while (and this is where the Citizen Journalist skill set kicks in) providing all the expert commentary one might expect from an unemployed former Piggly Wiggly manager writing from his personal newsroom that also happens to be the spare bedroom/office/sewing room/ and Best Museum of Star Wars Action Figures in The Tri-State Area Ever….
More on that here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here……. with updates from Pajamas Media in Wichita Falls here.
Or, as Maha puts it,
Thursday a single explosion killed five U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, and I don’t see the media or the wingnuts flame about that.
I do take terrorist attacks seriously, even inept ones. I live in New York, remember. Episodes like this are what make me crazy about people who still support the Iraq war — the “why don’t you want to fight al Qaeda?” whackjobs. If that’s who we were fighting in Iraq they might have an argument. But most of al Qaeda is sitting safe and sound in Pakistan, or elsewhere, just watching us shoot ourselves in the foot in Iraq. The bulk of the violence there is between Sunni and Shi’ia militants, not al Qaeda, and both those groups are getting very good at playing the U.S. to do some of their fighting for them. Makes me crazy.
Over here on the Left, by contrast, a lot of people are linking to this article by Larry Johnson, who doesn’t seem all that impressed by the London and Glasgow terror plots, on the grounds that these plots were incompetent.
As events unfold I’m simply asking that folks take a big deep breath and try to keep things in perspective. Are there jihadist extremists in the world who are willing to kill innocents? Absolutely. Are they amenable to negotiation? No. I am not in the, “have you hugged a terrorist today” camp. However, we need to stop equating their hatred with actual capability.
If today’s events at Glasgow prove to be linked to the two non-events yesterday in London, then we should heave a sigh of relief. We may be witnessing the implosion of takfiri jihadists–religious fanatics who are incredibly inept. While I am not an explosives expert I am good friends with one of the world’s foremost explosives experts. Propane tanks and petrol (gas for us Americans) can produce a dandy flame and a mighty boom but these are not the tools for making a car bomb long the lines of what we see detonating on a daily basis in Iraq.
None of all this is to say that terrorism is not a real problem. But it is to say that it is perhaps not a problem that can be solved by failing to put it into some sort of perspective. Shrieking hysterical links to dozens of hysterics all shrieking the same hysterical shriek is perhaps less helpful. Though in fairness, it can sure be funny.
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unnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
anyway, just posted this downstairs, I think it’s sort of on topic here cuz I’m off to the casino after some sunday work but this is interesting from raw story;
another republican tries to hold on to his job, they are beginning to admit publicly what everyone knows, that the presdient’s policies create more terrorists and destabalizes the world;
Senator Richard Lugar,
the most prominent Republican yet to break ranks with the US administration over Iraq, called Sunday for an “orderly” withdrawal of US troops in the coming months.
it’s time guys, we can deal…there are too many re puke licans that wnat to keep their job, we cand deal, we can get them to go along with subpoena, we can get them to say front and center;
if the president tries to keep us from performing our sworn obligation prioviding oversite for his employers, the American people, we find there will be nothing left to do but remove him from office.
the president must be disabused from the notion that he is more important then this body of government.
in case the president didn’t know it, the senate and the house are are elected by the people and we expect to satisfy the oath we took for office
if the administration does not provide immediately the information we REQUIRE, we will remove him from office
we repeat;
we REQUIRE this information, it is not a request he is entitled to deny”
bing
the democrats must deal with the re puke licans before it becomse too late
Gotta run to collect a child from a doctor’s office — back in a flash.
Fox news stalwart Bill Krystol mentioned about a half dozen times today on their roundtable “discussion” republican strategy to “deal with Hillary” come election time. The Republicans want Hillary to be the democratic candidate MORE than any of their field to run for the Republican vote. Obama’s campaign money must just BE SCARING THE BEJEESUS OUT OF THEM.
As an England based Scot who uses Glasgow Airport a lot, yesterday was scary.Well yes, they’re incompetent most of the time, but the ones in the London Underground weren’t, so let’s not assume they won’t get it right sometime.
Indeed, even their incompetence worked up to a point because, firs, it meant a big bit of Central London was at a standstill for most of Friday and the area around Glasgow Airpost likewise overnight yesterday.
Second, every event creates a subtle shift of public sympathy for the Securocrats and makes the protection of civil liberties in the UK that bit more difficult.
Play into that the tensions existing in what is physically a very small country between the indigenous (or if you wish white) populace, especially the less sophisitcated end of that group, and second and third generation Asian lads who are not sure quite where they fit in British society and it all gets a bit uncomfortable.
I sensed a little complacency in the piece which I cannot share.
Perhaps “terrorism” could be somewhat allieviated if the West would stop trying to rip off the Middle East for their natural resources. And cease practicing empire, colonialism, and killing off women and children in the process.
And Tony Blair, Bushs’ boy gets a promotion.
Welcome, Thers. I love your prediction on the final, last, no more changes, title to Jonah Goldberg’s latest spew:
A prediction:
When all the hilarity finally dies down, the colossally incompetent spectacle of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: A Very Serious Book, I Really Mean It You Big Dumb Meanies! will only be rivalled for sheer entertainment and snark value only by the Pajamas Media disaster.
I think I’m on fairly safe grounds with this prediction.
Right wing bloggers strike me as the sort of types who would be imperceptive to the benightedness of lecturing countries like Britain, Germany, and Italy on the effects and methods of coping with terrorism…Due to their cupidinous quest to possess some sort of moral high ground untainted by all the other foolish choices they have deigned to make and opine about.
In a word… Nescient.
This was Larry Johnson’s best line…
You know what you call a vehicle with 50 gallons of gas? A Cadillac Escalade.
Fellow Americans. If you want to burn the lights all night long, and race to ninety between stop lights that’s fine. Just understand the price. War.
By the way, after posting I went to read the Larry Johnson article and its related comments. No one, and I mean no-one in the USA would be so snarky if it had happened in NY. What happened in Glsagow was not, repeat not, any sort of non-event, as anyone who saw the pictures would know. The Jeep was a total inferno and it was impacted in the doors of the main passenger terminal, which at the time was crowded with innocent holiday makers including kids. That nobody was killed or injured.
It reminded me that it can be all too easy to hate all Americans, not just wingnuts, for their easy contempt for everyone else. Anyone who reads my usual outpourings on the Lake will know just how very angry I am at what I have just read.
Get Tough @ 3
Uhhhh…..no, that would be John Edward’s progressive agenda that make ‘Lil Billy’ want to soil his pants. Obama is no threat. He’s one of the ‘guys’; an insider trying to run ‘outside’.
We will see what the good burghers of Iowa think.
As an England based Scot who uses Glasgow Airport a lot, yesterday was scary.
I heard a compatriot of jour last night on the BBC saying, een effect:
“Well, yeah, they crashed through the wall, and this guy had set himself on fire, and I just tackled him, and sorta held him down until everybody else could jump on.”
Wheech paraphrase ees actually pretty close.
So, while not disagreeing weeth joo, I would posit that the word “scary” could hold a different meaning for joo than she does over here, no?
so.
Do you really think we’d be in Baghdad if there wasn’t any oil in Iraq? Do you think we would sweating a war with Iran if they had no crude?
Gore.
It’s all relative. When i lived and studied in London 20 yrs ago an IRA bomb went off 3 blocks from where we lived.
ETA is just like IRA but they don’t target civilians.
It’s all relative, complicated and very political, mostly…it’s called globalization, or migration, or some such..
What’s behind using ‘teh’ instead of ‘the’? Is it a Blackberry thing?
I believe I heard Larry Johnson say on Countdown the other night that there have been approximately 50k total casualties from ALL terrorist acts since the ’70s. And there were approximately 50 Million casualties during WWII.
A matter of perspective.
And since I grew up knowing that there were enough nuclear warheads pointed at my country to destroy it ten times over (at least), I absolutely refuse to think we should be living in total fear 24/7 at a bunch of folks who WANT us to live in fear and hide.
Be careful? Absolutely! Be aware of when things are not as they should be? Absolutely! But since the terrorists in the US are just as likely to be home-grown varieties as they are wearing a sign saying “I’m a Muslim” or “I belong to the IRA” or whatever other boogey man of Cheney’s or the Chimpenfuhrer’s choice, I will live my life and fight the LIEberman’s and all the other cowards and idiots who want my rights.
Chetnolian @ 4
Your next to last paragraph really puts the finger on it I think. In Norway, over the past 30 years, there have been large numbers of refugees from the middle east and elsewhere. My friend, whose family still live there, told me that the racism and resentment towards these people is enormous by the “real Norwegians”. It is very frightening, and one racial incident could spark major problems over there. This is, no doubt, the real cause of the “homegrown” terrorist acts, and is generally ignored as a problem.
What I am upset about, is that the media in this country and the government immediately spread hatred directed toward their only household name enemy, Al Qaeda; before they even have the facts in as to who is conducting the incidents. As you point out above, it drums up more surveillance, more war, more anger towards muslims, and basically more of everything we don’t want in this country. Everything and everyone who commits acts of terrorism is Al Qaeda to these people in order to serve their agenda. Is there any evidence that those who were involved in the London bombing or the Glasgow incident was committed by mosque-attending Muslims??
Agreed!
Cars kill! They are like terrorists in waiting.
Yet I step unafraid daily into my car and drive it with respect and the caution it’s due.
Treating these ‘rage boy’ incidents to such mass media coverage is like rewarding a child for having a violent temper tamtrum. They just keep doing it.
Isn’t it clear that this is a criminal matter, to be addressed by law enforcement and not war?
(Whatever happened to serial killers? Did they just disappear.)
I worry that the attacks in England and Scotland are (tinfoil, I know, but …) shiny objects arranged to distract us and soak up bandwidth so that we don’t, and the MSM don’t, pay attention to the really strange meeting going on up in Maine. Bush-41/Bush-43/Putin: something like Yalta, and nobody seems to be curious about it.
Bless you for asking…I’ve been wondering for ages.
behindthefall @ 20
Putie, Putie, Putie…we’re gonna bomb Iran (4th Branch is working on it as we speak) relax… and yes, we promise to save you some oil. More lobster????
behindthefall @ 20
When Chimpy Met Pootie.
-GSD
Laura Doty @ 21
“teh” is the most common typo for “the”….
behindthefall @ 20
Heard on the radio this morning a discussion of what they would have to eat. Seems everyone agreed that it would be lobster. That’s what I like – good old-fashioned in-depth reporting on the important stuff.
Laura Doty @ 21
It’s kind of like “potatoe” was to poor Danny Boy – a silly mistake that becomes an emblem of their larger idiocy. In this case the target is Rightie bloggers too busy spewing venom to spellcheck.
Thers, hope your child is okay.
Fun post!
well, yeah, but…is teh not written on purpose? Why for?
LS @ 24
So, it’s apparently intentional use is just a joke: ‘It looks like I just made a typo but I didn’t, really’?
OOOOHHHH. Thank you GordonM. I see teh light.
Laura Doty @ 21
Often used typo for “the” but used specifically as a bit of irony.
Chetnolian – i apologize for seeming heartless – but in fact, we are trying to break the ‘terror’ stranglehold our own administration has on us – when, really, the way to win the war on terror is not to be afraid.
Laura Doty @ 28
Yes, to deliberately give the impression of a typo that is missed due to lack of attention to detail…i.e., the terror incidents somewhat failed due to bungling or something like that.
behindthefall @ 20
They are also distracting from much TradMed reportage about the most lethal three months ever for American troops in the Occupation of Iraq since the War on Iraq began in March 2003.
once more into their breeches, and all that
Damn you, Thers! I had to use the last of the laptop cleaner to get the ice tea off the screen…
Chetnolian @ 11 -
chetnolian, it makes perfect sense for the people who were there to be concerned. but the crazy frightened tv coverage here… well, it was just nuts.
I agreee with Chet that the attacks in England are not “non-events”. But they are also significantly less than the daily events in Iraq, yet the mantra from Bush’s Peoples’ Temple seems to say that any attack in Iraq must be ignored and minimized because to do so will give the “terrorists” a victory.
Yet any incident in America or elsewhere no matter how small or botched or unscuccessful must be magnified in order to affirm just how deadly and dangerous “terrorists” can be.
Quite the dichotimy.
-GSD
TeddySanFran @ 34
And that 80 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in air attacks.
And that the Sunni Parliament is falling apart as we speak, and a minister under investigation is hiding out in the Green Zone.
And that the US basically attacked Sadr City.
TeddySanFran @ 34
Also most lethal four and five month periods since then…
LS @18
Sadly, the answer to your last question is yes. There is a very well documented undercurrent of jihadist thinking within some parts of the British Pakistani community (not all obviously).
LS @ 22
I wouldn’t want to be the one trying to convince the leader of a national of canonical paranoids that establishng a U.S. client state in Iran is nothing to worry about. Right up there with ABM installations in Eastern Europe — Putin was so ticked about that that he conducted a test of a MIRV missle that he said could get through “anything”, read, continental U.S. defenses.
The Bush family dynamics at work up in Maine must be Shakespearean: Are 43 and Putin trying to get 41 to WAKE UP!!
~~~ModNote: edited by request of poster.~~~
behindthefall @ 20
My take is that this is a sign that W has finally realized that Father Knows Best. The WaPo series on Cheney had some coded signals to that effect (blame Cheney for everything, whitewash W, give Baker, Olsen and other of Poppy’s buds halos).
Part of W’s famous resistance to talking to bad people is, I think, that W is a complete sucker to any sales pitch. Putin’s moves with the missile shield stuff (calling W’s bluff) prove W is no match. Can’t use Cheney anymore, so “aw shucks Dad, I didn’t really mean that stuff I said. Think you can help me?”
Very true. It was a serious thing, and very frightening to live through. We can’t minimize the trauma of watching a man burning, or not acknowledge that matters might have been far worse, had barricades not stopped the cars, or if more people had been in the path of the car. But hysterical commentary about London and Glasgow pulls us away from the actual.
While we’re on this matter, I can’t get out of my mind the picture of 85 people burning to death in last week’s car bomb in Baghdad. But…where’s the commentary? (or teh commentary! ; ) ?)
Of course it was scary if you were there. Which is the very definition of a local story.
And can we have some acknowledgement that the anti-terrorist bollards put in place at airports worked — instead of all the breathless coverage of what might have happened? “What might have happened” seems to play into the terrorists’ game quite nicely. Although it fills the 24/7 cable newshole effectively.
GSD @ 37
Now that I agree with.
Speaking of Hysteria — C of E Bishop says Gay Marriage Causes Floods.
Can we start referring to him as Billy Krystol? It just seems so much more appropriate.
Chetnolian @ 11
It was scary here too, Chetnolian, but not nearly as it was for our good friends in Britian, I know. My heart goes out to you.
We just listened to Joe Lieberman talk about putting up security cameras all across America, so please indulge us is making fun of our “leaders”.
Mods — can you change ‘gat’ to ‘get’ in next-to-last para in #41. (Talking of typos.)
Chetnolian @ 11
My take: Terrorism is scary no matter what country it occurs in, but I think Larry Johnson is right in saying we must try to keep things in perspective. In the United States, our government has used the fear of terrorism to fraudulently start a war that had no relation to the terrorist threat of Al Qaeda. The Main Stream Media was so corrupt or cowed that it acquiesced to the fraud, McClatchy being one of the few notable exceptions. President Bush blithely threw the rule of law out the window (if he even understands the concept, which I doubt) and we in America have so far let him get away with it. With the events in Britain and Scotland, we see the Main Stream Media react the same way it has for the last five years: with knee-jerk sensationalism devoid ofperspective.Larry may haveoverstated hiscase somewhat,but this often happens tomake one’s point more clearly.Western countries have an irrational enemy that attacks in secret and kills innocent men, women, and children, but the sky is not falling.I wish the MainStream Media would pull its head out for once andstart helpinginstead ofgratuitouslypropagating terror.
Chetnolian @ 40
Is the jihadist thinking due to a desire to overtake the world, kill all infidels, and establish a Wahabi global society, as we are told over here; or is the jihadist thinking in response to feeling racial tensions in Britain due to prejudice, as well as a sympathy for the plight of Muslims around the world?
GordonM @ 42
So, you think that this is 43 saying: “Look; 1) Cheney, about whom you have been so worried, is being deballed as we speak, 2) I have no plans to do anything within Iran, 3) I will keep Israel from doing anything, and 4) NOW will you have some lobster?”
behindthefall @ 49
Done. Refresh now.
David Ehrenstein @ 46
Glad we’ve solved that problem.
behindthefall @ 52
That kinda rings true! Cheney is that the vet.
David Ehrenstein @ 46
Using this model, Texas must be chock full of sodomites.
-GSD
To add to my comment in 43. I should have said my mental picture of people burning in Baghdad. We can see cars on fire from Glasgow. But not from Iraq. God forbid we have visual aids to strengthen our compassion for Iraqis.
Laura Doty @ 57
No kidding!!
Kathryn in MA @ 9
OK…that’s a keeper….
Maybe Bush is letting Putie down gently, Putie…remember that Madam (*^(*&..we introduced you to in DC last time you were over here…well, we’ve got a problem..
Just to clarify — my contempt is not for those terrorized by the actual incidents or their governments’ reaction to it. My contempt is for those in officialdom who perpetuate the terror agenda by magnifying such incidents out of all proportion and for those in TradMed who succumb to the easy ratings bait.
Also, my contempt for Joe Lieberman is unabated, since he went on TeeVee today and told Americans that Democrats were being partisan about warrantless wiretapping. And that the events in London and Glascow proved his point.
LS @ 55: “Cheney is at the vets!” I am laughing so hard from relief that tears are blurring the screen. Go, vets!
GSD @ 56
Or Dog just has bad aim.
TeddySanFran @ 61
Well. There you have it in a nutshell. The whole shebang. All she wrote.
David Ehrenstein @ 46
Was it not a gay marrage that caused the C of E
behindthefall @ 52
I’d guess at this point it’s 41 saying that ’cause 43 krept into the vodka and is chasing the help around the house with live, unbanded lobsters.
LS @ 64
My bold emphasis in the last sentence, not TSF’s.
Lieberwipe was on today reaffirming every Rovian-Bush line ever uttered.
That man is truly a hypocritical, mendacious coward.
Congrats to the Dems that pulled support for Ned Lamont so as not to offend the delicate cordiality of the US Senate.
-GSD
TeddySanFran @ 61
I predict that Holy Joe will be supporting the GOP nominee for President, because he (it has to be a he) will have an appropriately muscular approach to foreign policy. And the Democrats are all such partisan meanies.
Maybe then Harry Reid will kick him out of the caucus.
TeddySanFran @ 61
And, as other’s have pointed out above, while at the same time ignoring far worse carnage every day in Iraq.
I think that’s what Thers was trying to get at — the sheer hypocrisy of the WetPantz Media coverage, as if the fright — justified — of Brits is worth far more than the everyday death and horror of Iraqis.
Faith Based lunacy on parade in Alabama.
-GSD
GSD @ 71
Maybe Alabama would have some rain if the folks in Texas stopped with the rampant sodomy, lust and fornicationery.
-GSD
LS @ 60
And so does CHENEY!
Hundreds protest at Kennebunkport:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap…..otests.php
Loo Hoo. @ 73
;=>
GSD @ 71
How is this not state establishment of religion? A governor announces “pray for rain” days?
.
Jeebus save me from your followers….
LS @ 74
Hope solai sees that; planning to make the trip, but life intervened.
GSD @ 71
Perhaps it would be more fitting to borrow this raindance from Tennesee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bE-CpHSKm4
Can’t believe I beat OKK to that one.
Faith Based Initiatives=Ministry of Religion.
Nice work Chimpy.
-GSD
from an undisclosed remote location, I struggle to capture a very iffy wireless signal. laptop inverted, held over head, standing in a contorted posture near the window. so how do I use this precious bit of internet access?:
“F*ck Joe Lieberman.”
I will never be able to think about jumping through hoops in the same way again.
David Ehrenstein @ 46
Gays account for 6% of the male population. It’s a DNA thing (Discovery Magazine).
Leave it to the MSM to scratch their ass and quote some obscure, wtf sky-pilot all at the same time.
‘I worry that the attacks in England and Scotland are (tinfoil, I know, but …) shiny objects arranged to distract us and soak up bandwidth so that we don’t, and the MSM don’t, pay attention to the really strange meeting going on up in Maine. Bush-41/Bush-43/Putin: something like Yalta, and nobody seems to be curious about it.’
EPU’d in the Talking Heads thread, but relevant here I think, especially in the light of Chetnolian’s comments :
one thing that some of us Brits want to say is : ‘this isn’t all about you.’ That goes for Liebermen, but I’m afraid it also goes for those (pardon my French) f***wits in some parts of the liberal blogosphere – but I hasten to add, not here
( well, not when I first wrote the comment, anyway)
– who seem to think that this has all been orchestrated to distract attention from Cheney and potential contempt issues.
While it’s probably escaped a lot of people’s notice, we’ve recently acquired a new prime minister in the UK – and, more noticeably a new foreign minister with a track record of skepticism about British involvement in Iraq. (no link, but check out the Guardian Unlimited site.)
(I’m not saying – of course – that those who want to distract from Republican crimes might not be playing up the news on this for their own agendas. Of course they are. But *everyone* discussing this in the US needs to step back and realıse they are not in the front line of thıs partıcular set of attacks)
This is what Lieberman would like to see across America:
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._0530.html
But I must admit that perhaps Stephanopoulos’ question may have triggered his stupidity.
GSD @ 79
Chimpy fulfilling Ronnie Raygun’s promise to the Fundies is all.
True that.
Loo Hoo. @ 83
I think waking up triggers his stupidity, which is on a hair trigger by now.
MP, true, I should have said this particular demonstration of his stupidity. Punaise?
It sounds like Putin is having a hard time getting to the compound because of the protesters or something. CNN
Duck gets wedgie in Maine!
HuffingtonPost
Laura Doty @ 89
Wonder how many gallons of gas he has on that puppy?
Welp, I was just wondering how many gallons of gas Bush has on his boat…
What I don’t understand is the cache or mystique that is given to these people called terrorists.
They are just common thugs using violence to try to get things.
How many people are killed by gang violence on a daily basis. How many kids killed by gang shooting either deliberately or just caught in the crossfire?
When that happens, no one blinks an eye, but say TERRORIST!!! and everyone gets their panties in a Bunch!
Come on America! grow up!
I don’t think one can simultaneously hate and think. So being whipped into hating a group keeps folks from thinking about, well….we all know and it’s too sad to list.
Jane’s upstairs.
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.
Sir Peter Ustinov
bill in turkey @ 82
Now this is where I attach my (American) tinfoil. Wouldn’t want to have any pesky British PM thinking he could deviate and some of his country’s real needs ahead of The Long War, now would we?
Chetnolian, it was not my intention to minimize or dismiss the effects of these events. I was rather focused on the response of the right bloggers as well as the American cable TV media. This response was indeed hysterical and counterproductive. Sorry if I sounded insensitive.
‘Now this is where I attach my (American) tinfoil. Wouldn’t want to have any pesky British PM thinking he could deviate and some of his country’s real needs ahead of The Long War, now would we?’
Another way to look at it: Iraq’s a good recruiting ground for all manner of extremists (and so is Britain, I suspect).
Probably worth having a shot at inflaming the new PM and seeing if you can provoke an over-reaction, if you’ve got an interest in that.
In fact, it’s a twofer: if Brown scales down involvement in TWAT you can claim it as a victory; if he retaliates against the Muslim community he acts a recruting sergeant. And of course, he could do both.
Given that – why *wouldn’t* an intelligent jihadi plan somethıng lıke thıs for Brownis takeover (which incidentally was telegraphed way in advance)?
LS@51. A bit of everything. Committed jihadists with their crazy world view prey on the unsettled feelings of these young men. Having moved towards integration, then finding it more difficult than they thought to be treated simply as Brits, they have tended to move back towards exaggerated Islamic observance and thus a very few, but it only takes a very few, are drawn to terrorism.
There is another problem, which may be relevant to the events of the last few days or at least their timing. British society, having spent several hundred years prising tolerance out of Christians, is not about to give it up in the interests of multiculturalism. So last month it was decided to give the novelist Salman Rushdie a knighthood. Now that may seem quaint to you yanks, but it is actually a very clear statement that we value free speech very highly, indeed enough to provoke violent reaction from extremists. Unfortunately, Islam, at least as represented by its leaders in Britain, is not good at free speeech. It is for instance, highly homophobic. This is something which we have to work through in Britain. Meanwhile of course the Shrub’s blunderings about in the Middle East don’t help one little bit.
By the way, I’ve calmed down now, and really want to say nothing that has happened in Britain comes close to what happens most days in Iraq, and I didn’t want to claim it did.
All I said, and I stick to it, is that if you have walked through a terminal door a week or so ago, and someone tries to firebomb the building through that very door, it does seem rather real.
Thanks to those who have responded sympathetically to my rather intemperate first comments.
Oh my, I obliterated my addition…
what I meant Chetnolian, was you didn’t come across as saying that. You were passionately pointing out that real things happen and it’s not all about us.
Chetnolian @ 100: You describe an excitable segment of your society. Could they be manipulated by provocateurs? Perhaps provocateurs who did not have the interests of that segment at heart?
It is incredible to me how “bloggers” on this site are so unthematic and just act like flamethrowers on an empty beach.
Is there none of you who can recognize your seeming lack of power and focus? And then address that problem? Otherwise do not enable yourselves and keep pissing in the wind.
Chetnolian 100, Thanks for responding. I find your comments to be very interesting.
I lived in England (Liverpool)during the early 1960’s and went to school there for 3 years. When I arrived there, I had an American accent. I was constantly bombarded by “Yankee go Home” …an after effect sentiment of WWII, which I believe was a result of the delay of the “Yanks” from entering the war. I found the people to be very resistant to anyone “foreign”, so I understand how difficult, multiplied many fold, it must be for the foreign born or foreign-looking youth over there to find positive direction in this day and age.
Also, perhaps of interest, I walked out of the terminal at La Guardia Airport back in the 70’s about 10 minutes before a terrorist bomb exploded a locker there, so I understand. Being an ex-New Yorker, I understand that reality also. It is good to hear your viewpoints.
leftdcin72 @ 104
You mean just like you are doing??????? :)
LS @ 106
NO
leftdcin72 @ 104
You can’t be serious.
Perhaps you are new here. Stick around for a morning session where those of us who are working day and night check in with each other.
December 12, 2003, Noonday, Texas:
May 4, 2004 Noonday, Texas
terrorism, to me.
i still want to know what happened to the Anthrax investigation(s)?
Pissing in the Wind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkEvy-9yVyQ
OOH Loo Hoo! That rain dance worked!!!
Yes, the new plot seems to have been carried out by the Basil Fawlty wing of Al Qaeda. Their bench may be getting a bit thin.
PLovering @ 82
He was also quoted as saying the Bible “described” the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Vandals sacked Rome in 455 A.D., a good THREE HUNDRED YEARS after the last book of the Bible could have been written.
I’m embarrassed. Usually, we Anglicans send our bishops to decent schools.
And of course on this side of the ocean, our leading luminaries in the Republican party: Bush, Chertoff, Lieberman (YES-Republican!) and others are using the attacks in London and Scotland to push the FEAR button.
The right-wing fear mongers have nothing left to use on the population except fear…they’ve screwed up everything else.
Fear doesn’t go as far as it used to though….
Chetnolian @ 4
So as it turns out, at least one of them is a doctor, not just another misguided kid. And he traveled to your country for the purpose of doing these things.
This is a breaking story and I hope this thread is promoted. What we could be doing is helping you ferret out this group over there–rather than whining abt our state of fear.
A. Citizen.
I know this thread is long dead, but I have to say: Spoken like a true Boomer.
I’ve got one word for you: scoreboard.
Obama-more than 32 million from 250,000 donors
Edwards-9 million.
Time to call ol’ Mudcat, John, get in your truck, put on your workin’ boats and do some work at the house.