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LONDON REACTION
* Wembley’s Manjit Dhanjal, who was aboard one of the bombed trains: “At first we just saw some sparks and everyone thought it was a power surge. Then we saw this huge fireball from the carriage at the front and everything went black.”
* US President George W. Bush: “The war on terror goes on.”
* Unidentified young British woman asked by Sky News about the unbandaged and bleeding wound on her leg: “This? This is nothing. Honestly.”
* London Mayor Ken Livingstone: “Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”
* Tim Brown, an Australian working in London: “I am so angry these bastards have struck to disrupt a gathering of leaders which offers so much hope to so many. Once the buses and tubes are running again we all intend to use them.”
* Silent Running: “Where is Gorgeous Georgie Galloway, MP for Tikrit South, and champion of the oppressed Muslim masses? What will be the first words to pass his odious,lying lips in response to this atrocity? Inquiring minds want to know.”
* MP for Tikrit South George Galloway: “We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the Government ignoring such warnings.”’
* Toby: “He should be detained (as happened to Mosley) in a time of war.”
* Arthur Chrenkoff: “Call for withdrawal from Iraq, and you’re merely echoing public sentiment; call for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and you suddenly remind everyone about the war on terror, Al Qaeda, bin Laden, Taliban - all the nasty things that even the French and the Russians are united against.”
* Australian Prime Minister John Howard: “These sorts of attack will not alter the determination of free countries to do the right thing.”
* London-based Australian tourist Trent Mongan, who’d been in Bali during the 2002 bombings, on Network Seven: “We’ve got to bind together to beat these bastards.”
* Australian Labor Party leader Kim Beazley: “This is an attack on our family.”
* London-based Europhobia: “I tell you what, if this is an “Islamic” terrorist attack, they’re doing a piss-poor job. The pubs are all packed out, people sipping their pints happily, all a tad pissed off, but basically fine with it. Nice one, Al Quaeda - you profess to be from a teetotal religion, and you’ve given the pub trade a massive mid-week boost.”
* Friend Sally, calling to tell me our London mate Stuart was safe: “He’s OK. He never uses public transport.”
* Russian President Vladimir Putin: “What happened today demonstrates yet again that we are doing too little to unite our efforts in the most effective way in the battle against terrorism.”
* We’ll forgive Andrew Sullivan, who forgets the Australians: “How dumb are these fascists to take on the Brits and the Americans?”
* Hamas deputy chief Moussa Abu Marzouk: “Targeting civilians in their transport means and lives is denounced and rejected.”
* Khaled al-Maeena, editor of Arab News: “Whoever did it, whether al-Qaeda or the animal liberation front, they are animals.”
* Editorial in The Australian: “Just as the world united behind New York on September 11, 2001, this morning we are all Londoners.”
More reactions here.
Grateful for Blair’s clear-headed steadfastness on Iraq, but his devotion to silly unexamined bumper-sticker slogans instead of intelligent policies on things like African development and global climate change now go from annoying to deeply offensive. His assertion that there’s anything especially horrific about barbarism that occurs during the ridiculous G8 gas-fest is a jaw-dropper. Talk about missing the entire point. There’s an exceedingly thin line—just over half the US itself has much of a clue on life-and-death issues—but just how thin it is is frightening when one sees this sort of nonsense from Blair.
This New Yorker has been waiting four years for people to refer to 9/11 as a massacre. Even this anglophobe’s heart goes out to those who suffered this massacre.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2005 07 07 at 02:09 PM • permalinkHis assertion that there’s anything especially horrific about barbarism that occurs during the ridiculous G8 gas-fest is a jaw-dropper.
Only to someone who thinks blowing up a bunch of people on buses and trains is not horrific. Would you have been more upset if this happened after the G8 conference? Before? More like, you’d be equally unmoved no matter when this happened.
There’s a term that describes you….what is it…? Oh, yeah, clueless. Or should I say, useful idiot?
Talk about missing the entire point.
Pot, meet kettle.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 07 07 at 02:19 PM • permalinkI don’t know Jeff, I’m reading the opposite in IceCold’s comment (and I recall him being a sane person in past posts), namely that he’s taking Blair to task for saying that the attack must be considered more horrific by having happened at the time of the summit…I’d have to agree with IceCold on that, since it would imply (among other things) that it’s a bigger crime to try to intimidate some politicians by murdering lots of civilians than it is to try to intimidate civilians by murdering lots of civilians.
Rebecca:
>The capacity of George Galloway {spit be upon him} for self-delusion is just phenomenal. If the West wins this war (and we will), he will be remembered by history as a self-serving, bribe-taking traitor to his own people.
No he won’t. For history will be written by our elites, and for some reason, the Western intelligencia hates itself and its own society. Orwell noticed this in 1945 about British intellectuals, and it is the same today.
Galloway will retire a weathy man, with the blood of his countrymen on his hands, giving interviews to elitist publications reveling in his wisdom.
There surely will be a special little corner of hell waiting for him at the end.
I really can’t imagine how one could be so blinded by greed and ambition to do the things he does. I just can’t.
Russian President Vladimir Putin: “What happened today demonstrates yet again that we are doing too little to unite our efforts in the most effective way in the battle against terrorism.”
Oh, so we should all get together and help the islamic freaks in Iran develop nuclear weapons??? Or maybe he means we should be using the Chechyn treatment. I don’t know what to make of this guy.
No, I’ll give Putin a pass on this one especially after what they went through in Beslan. All of these terrorist attacks are horrific, but going after children is beyond the pale.
CNN -> Terrorist attack in Beslan
The question is - what will Russia, Germany, France, et al DO about any of this?
I’m pleasantly surprised by Ken Livingstone’s response.
His assertion that there’s anything especially horrific about barbarism that occurs during the ridiculous G8 gas-fest is a jaw-dropper.
A significant proportion of people think that Al Q acts because of “injustices” by the west. Blair needs to get the message across that Bin Laden isn’t interested in debt relief or aid.
Where will it end?
1. Never. The madness will continue from now on. With periods of quiet while the jihadists regroup from “selective attacks”, and the Muslim world gives them their tacit support. Probably.
2. A strong Muslim world leader unites all the sane Muslims, and they call for an end to the jihad. Yeah, right!
3. A war and bloodbath that makes the Crusades look like a Sunday School picnic. Let’s hope not. But,....4. ?
rinardman
4 is the option that everyone understands, but nobody mentions. It is what will happen after AQ or an affiliate detonates a nuke in, say, Paris. And that is devastation with nuclear strikes followed by the sort of thing that Islam did in the Christian Kindoms they annihilated in the 600s and 700s: (Syria, Anatolia, Libya, etc), the old-time Islamists did the ‘convert now or die’ trick a lot back in those days.
MarkL
CanberraI question whether it would be done then if it hit a European town. If it hit an American one it would happen pretty quick. The Chinese would be quietly told the game is up, Iran is done and if you even think of interferring it will go badly for you. Oh, and by the way, get the NKs denuked now.
A few days later Damascus, Tehran and a few other appropriate sites would be gone and the Marines would be waiting a few days later to wipe out what was left. Not pretty.
Hitchens has pointed out that none of this is about “issues”, it is about the extremists - to whom even a muslim living in London is disposable. They are tainted by westernism, not proper muslims.
We cannot expect the “moderates” to act. They are (i) intimidated by their fellows, and (ii) partly sympathetic. They may feel defensive about being seen as lesser than the jihadis in some way. Their reaction so far has been to do the ritual condemnation and/or predict backlash.
I will be happy to say I am wrong about this if there is evidence of some really good quality intelligence coming from the islamic community. Until there is such info, the infiltration of jihadist groups will remain more difficult than infiltration of, say, a redneck gun-totin’ militia in a western country.Don’t forget that the French have nukes, too. If a rogue nuke were to hit Paris, I think they’d be in the same trap that a President from the Democratic Party would be if the nuke hit NYC: They don’t have any credibility left when it comes to the military and matters of security, so the only way to placate the population would be to go all out in their response. Force de Frappe en route to the Middle East.
JEM -
I disagree that the US would be so rash or would have to be. In fact, we’re probably the country most able to deal with it without nuking someone in return, because we have so many options *short* of atomic retaliation.
I worry, far more, about France having to react so harshly—because France has no ability to punish a country wholesale without resorting to nuclear arms.
Hamas’ statement could be translated to “please don’t hurt us please!” Learning their lesson? One can hope.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 07 07 at 07:46 PM • permalinkTim, my sauce (and I believe its the same one Paul McGeough uses) tells me that Andrew Jaspin holds Douglas Wood responsible for the London terrorist attack. Apparently, he feels it was a not entirely unwarranted retaliation for Wood’s recent insensitivity to those chaps who detained him Iraq. Also, Andrew is dismayed by the crass catawalling eminating from the survivors of the bomb blasts - after all, they should have displayed more perspicacity than to travel on public transport when there were explossive devices on it.
Don’t think of a single nuke, think of several nukes simultaneously detonating. Then in the chaos, picture refineries, hospitals, chemical plants and police stations being destroyed by suicide bombers. Think of hundreds of Beslans going on at schools around the country, hijacked radio stations broadcasting racist propaganda to turn blacks against whites and sleeper terrorists sewing murder and mayhem all over the countryside.
That is jihad and it won’t be in Paris, it’ll be the US. When the terrorists get nukes our future as free people will be measured in months.
Andrew -
I think you may have a point,and I think someone else mentioned it too. France does have a history of decrying everybody else’s reactions and then going off and doing whatever the hell they want when their own interests are at risk.
As to the US, I don’t know. I think there would be such a demand for a measured nuclear response a president would have no choice but to do something and wipe out a few sites. I think this pressure would be greater on a Democratic president than perhaps on GWB. Since he has had a very direct response (do something - I know people argue whether it was right, but he did recognize the enemy for who he is) maybe that would give him the opportunity to do some targeted conventional bombing of strategic military and government sites in Iran and Syria. That would be followed by calls for the immediate resignation of both countrys’ political class under threat of invasion, which neither county could stop.
But if our measured response was followed by another atrocity, do you think we would just blow it all up?
Just out of curiosity - have either BBC or Reuters bitten the bullet yet and referred to the London perps as “Terrorists”; or are they still “insurgents”, “malcontents”, “protesters”, or the like?
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2005 07 07 at 09:07 PM • permalinkYes I think you read IceCold’s post wrong, JeffS.
For Blair to say that the bombings are worse because they collimated with a conference on poverty, global warming and other cuddly issues is sort of pandering to the apologists a bit, don’t you think?
Just like Red Ken Livingston (unsurprisingly) stating that the bombing wasn’t nice because they were killing “working class” people (presumably as opposed to business leaders and other dreadful capitalists).
It’s pure 100% evil, and no-one should have to qualify their condemnation of the attack, I reckon.
News Limited ‘your say’ has some rather choice comments:
From: Mike
Comment: Thank you very much Spain. You showed the terrorists that they can get what they want by bombing civilians.From: catherine
Comment: My sympathy to the people of London and all those affected. My prayers are with you. Stay strong.From: Warwick
Comment: There’s a lot of terrorist trash building up in humanity….time to take out the garbage.
Then angry asked:
From: angry
Comment: Where are the anti-war people. come out and say something, say something to the barbaric people. Why are you so quiet when London was hit?
He spoke too soon:
From: Brock
Comment: To all the leaders of the world today - please be very careful in your response to these events. We need to put an end to this global stand-off. This is not the meaning of life. Kym, Kristy, Mark H, Mark Reid, Alastair, Sarah Mc, Rory & Sam - I hope you’re all okay.From: James
Comment: Mr Blair says that those who use violence to influence others’ way of life are evil. I’m sure the families of the dead in Iraq agree with him. War is the rich man’s terrorism.
Personally, I’m with Ben:
From: Ben
Comment: It’s times like this we need Team America- World Police. These guys would catch and kill the gutless terrorists and still have time for a cocktail party. I hope the gutless wonders who conducted this bombing are brought to justice and executed very swiftly. Show them no mercy.
The “insanity” is “branded as ‘evil’” because it’s evil, not insanity. Calling it “insanity” implied that these people have no control over their actions. It’s patronizing; you might as well call them stupid darkies who are like children needing the firm hand of their white masters to guide them through life. Calling their actions “evil” at least gives them the respect they so crave; it acknowledges they are adult human beings who have free will who are capable of choosing between right and wrong. Just because they have convinced themselves that they are on the side of good doesn’t make it so, nor does it make them helpless babies in need of hugs and therapy, all your bleatings about how this makes you all uncomfortable because it implies that there is some sort of (ew ick) “higher authority” aside.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 07 07 at 10:30 PM • permalinkJEM asks- But if our measured response was followed by another atrocity, do you think we would just blow it all up?
That would be my scenario #3. I think you guys are right….where it goes in the future hinges on whether the jihadists get a nuke. If that happens, and they use it, my question is: where, and against whom, do you retaliate with nukes? That will be a tough call without some good intelligence.
Andrea, my point is that it’s got bugger-all to do with God. The concept of ‘good and evil’ are strongly linked with a belief in God, that’s why I don’t think evil is the right descriptor - but I can be persuaded otherwise, maybe. I’m not an overly religeous person - I know, come the ‘islamist take-over*’ I’ll be one of the first of the Godless to die.
Why shouldn’t they be patronised? They’ve been brainwashed. They don’t deserve any respect.
Please don’t take offence, administrator. I just want to clarify what I mean.
*ie: if this wake-up call doesn’t work to wake up the ‘be nice to them we owe them’ mob.
“Just as the world united behind New York on September 11, 2001, this morning we are all Londoners.”
Oh, hopefully not exactly like the world “united” for 9/11. Kind of got tired of the “awwwwww… how terrib- HEY! you’re not supposed to DO anything about it!” reactions.
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 07 07 at 11:25 PM • permalink#45
Ahh, gotcha underscore. I always associated evil and good with God and religeous dogma.
I like this one:
2. Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt;
wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart,
words, and the like.
[1913 Webster]from here. (enter ‘evil’)
Shoulda looked it up ages ago!
On Mitchell/3AW this morning a ‘terrorism expert’ called Wright-Neville (or Neville-Wright - he has a regular spot) from Monash University used the opportunity advance his views.
Mr Ruddock is stupid because his press conference was about scaring us and we may stop using public transport. Mr Ruddock had said was that the government cannot guarantee safety no matter what they do - which seems reasonable. I wasn’t quaking in my boots after hearing Mr Ruddock’s remarks.
Wright-Neville (or Neville-Wright. People with double-barrelled names are generally sus) and he strongly implied it was the allies fault for liberating Iraq. If we’d left it Afghanistan this would never have happened but in his view Iraq makes us targets.
Anyone know anything about this fellow? Obviously an academic lefty - is he to be taken seriously?
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 07 07 at 11:45 PM • permalinkI’ve decided I’m in favor of global warming. One city at a time, starting with Tehran, Riyadh, Damascus…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 08 at 01:42 AM • permalinkSo, can the Queen still order Galloway to the Tower?
Posted by Kevin Murphy on 2005 07 08 at 02:04 AM • permalinkre: #12, #19, #36.
IceCold, it looks like I read your post wrong. It is still confusing to me (now I could read it either way), but I see the point of PW and underscore.
Maybe chris sheil’s dyslexia is contagious? ;-P
I apologize, and withdraw my comment.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 07 08 at 06:25 AM • permalinkThose of us in London appreciate the kind words and thoughts from Australians & Kiwis over this terrible attack. It is good to see we Londoners have friends on the other side of the world.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2005 07 08 at 07:39 AM • permalink
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Sullivan also forgot the Russians and the Israelis.