Terrorism strikes again

I was in my hotel room and had the TV on about 5pm (9pm NZ time) when first heard the reports of the atrocities in London. At that point, they were claiming that it was power outages on the Underground, but they had just reported the bus explosion, and it seemed obvious to me it was terrorism. That now seems to be clear.

My thoughts are with those who got caught up in this through no fault of their own. When I lived in London, just after the Madrid bombings last year, every suspicious look, every bag, you looked at it and wondered if there was a bomb there. And today, perhaps, there was.

Very sad. I am sure that the UK will carry on as it usually does. Londoners are used to terrorism. This won't knock em.

Comments

[sagenz]

Prior to the war on terror they were capable of taking over 4 planes and attacking major targets. Now they are reduced to small time very short term harrassment. Thoughts with the victims but they are impotent & losing the war.

[Craig Ranapia]

Does put all the tivial crap in perspective, doesn't it?

[Craig Ranapia]

Does put all the tivial crap in perspective, doesn't it?

[Craig Ranapia]

Does put all the tivial crap in perspective, doesn't it?

[Craig Ranapia]

Does put all the tivial crap in perspective, doesn't it?

[sagenz]

bit too much sugar in the bloodstream their craig? Yes it does put all the petty politicking in perspective. But that is all they can manage and there are psycho cult leaders with followers all over the world. Charles Manson is in jail. Osama Bin Laden is not.

[Craig Ranapia]

Bugger... BTW, just got an e-mail from my cousin who's working as a nanny in London. The rational part of my brain was saying '99.999% chance she's fine' but it's the not knowing that get you.

[Craig Ranapia]

Bugger... BTW, just got an e-mail from my cousin who's working as a nanny in London. The rational part of my brain was saying '99.999% chance she's fine' but it's the not knowing that get you.

[Adolf Fiinkensein]

Good little piece Jordan. I wonder what involvement on the part of one or two London mosques will be found to have occured.

[Gooner]

The stiff upper lip will prevail. You're right Jordan.

When will Sydney be hit? That is the worry.

Craig, four times and you missed out the 'r' each time:)

[Sock Thief]

It is so crazy on so many levels. Whatever one thinks of the G8 it is an attempt to try and deal with the poblems of poverty in Africa and gobal warming. The complete narcicism of people who will disrupt such a process by killing innocent people for the goal of setting up a facist theocracy is just beyound belief.

[Tom S]

The Europeans spent vast fortunes trying to terror bomb each sides civilian populations into submission during WWII and failed.

What sort of grand delusion makes a few half-wit suicide bombers think they can do better?

[Logix]

And it is also worth reflectiing that this kind of horror is happening on a daily basis in Iraq, but for whatever reasons, our responses are quite different aren't they?

"What sort of grand delusion makes a few half-wit suicide bombers think they can do better?" I have to agree, just what actual purpose is being pursued here?

[Craig Ranapia]

Gooner -
I've hit the computer with a slipper. It should behave now.

Logix -

Certainly. I don't think No Right Turn has posted anything headlined 'Fuck London' yet.

[Anita]

Tom S,

Isn't the purpose here different from that during WWII?

If we believe that the islamic extremists' message is "stay out of our countries and we'll stay out of yours" it seems to me that the method/message combination has some real chance of (at least minor) success.

Anita

[Sock Thief]

Hodo, there's a slim chance that you are being satirical but even then it would be bad taste.

[Russell Brown]

"Send in the B-52s and turn the Middle East into a parking lot. Millions of dead towel heads are no loss to the world."

You really are a nasty little thug, aren't you?

Oddly enough, I've just replied to an abusive email in resonse to my suggestion that the IRA could be seen as Christian terrorists.

I reminded him of the 1972 Claudy bombing, which killed nine people, including three children. A Catholic priest was actively involved. The church responded by *covering it up* and giving him a fake alibi. Doctrines are not the same thing as values.

Cheers,
RB

[andrewfalloon]

Hodo would you listen to what you're saying?!
"Send in the B-52s and turn the Middle East into a parking lot.
Millions of dead towel heads are no loss to the world."
There are terrorists in every major country in the world. Tim McVeigh's Oklahoma bombing didn't make you want to go and bomb Oklahoma, did it?? Should Ireland be wiped out because of the I.R.A??
Wherever these terrorists came from, it is most likely the Governments of these nations will immediately denounce these barbaric and horrific attacks. How can you advocate the killing of innocent citizens just because of the actions of a few misguided extremists??

[Anita]

Yet another occasion where it would help a lot if the media would differentiate between Islam and Islamism and then separate out Islamist Fundamentalism.

Muslims (ie followers of the Islam faith) are not all Islamists (followers of the Islamist political ideology) - in fact most of them aren't.

Once the media grasps the difference between the religious and the political, they should then work on understanding that not all Islamists are Islamist Fundamentalists.

I find it really hard to understand why this distinction is so hard to grasp - we make it all the time in our own society. The kind of rubbish people are spouting today is the equivalent of the intellectual failure that would lead them to say "All Christians are evil and should be destroyed" because some idiot shoots a doctor outside an abortion clinic.

It is just not this damned hard to understand, explain or accept.

Bah!

[tim barclay]

I hope that Sydney is not hit, but I bet the Labour Party secretly does so they can make the political point that the war in Iraq has something to do with this and virtuous appeasing NZ is spared. And then a bomb lands in Wellington, what is the explanation then? We are all vulnerable even NZ.

[Paul]

Adolf making acusations ahead of the fact that the spiritual leader of Muslims in London came out condeming the bombs, great stuff Adie.

And then our all time psycho chimes in with the blanket bombing of 'towel heads'.

I wasn't going to say anything here, but for christs sake Hodo why wern't you on a london tube yesterday.

[Paul]

And then as I was tyoing Timmy jumps in boots and all. Explaing to me why the Kiwi dollar rose overnight and this morning on market perceptions that we are indeed a safe haven.

But we wouldn't want to criticise the precious markets now would we Tim.

[Sally]

Im also am very sad, and agree with Jordan's post.

And this thread finally proves beyond any doubt that Mssrs Barclay and Hodo are clinically insane.

[Ackers1]

David Hodo = Village Idiot

[Anita]

David,

Are you also advocating nuking the Hutt Valley because there are Christians there, and a doctor was shot outside an abortion clinic in the southern US?

Should the UK have bombed Christchurch after the IRA bombings in London? After all, I'm sure there are Catholics in Christchurch.

If ripping through some health tissue is all right, where should we stop with the overgeneralisations and viciousness?

Anita

[Stephen Cooper]

This is the most disgusting thread I have seen in the time I've been reading blogs.

I can't begin to understand why you (Hodo, Barclay) people even come onto this post to comment such utter stupidity. What on earth do you gain by publicly announcing such idiocy?

*Shiver*

[andrewfalloon]

I am a right winger who supports military action in Afghanistan and in Iraq, but what Hodo is suggesting I find totally abhorrent.
Too many people have died in the name of religion.
Do you wish to wipe Islam off the face of the earth because of a few extremists (9/11, Madrid, London etc)?? If this is so then should we wipe out all world's Catholics because of the actions of the I.R.A?? And all Jews because of the actions of Israeli extremists.
What religion are you Hodo?? I very much doubt you would survive this religious cleansing.

[tim barclay]

Believe me the Labour Party would just love to make the political point that Iraq and the coalition fighting there have made themselves vulnerable. But virtuos appeasing NZ is safe. That is the way they think believe me. She just couldn't wait to hit back on Don Brash's marriage thing, she would have chortled for hours after that. Call me insane Sally but I suggest you grow up and start to understand how politics is being fought out at the top.

[Ackers1]

And even less reason to read anything suggested by one so idiotic - yourself.

[Paul]

Jesus Hodo you read even more brainwashing shit than I do, and I know my pinko commie sites inside out.

You take it to a whole new plane of disturbed conspiracy theorists.

Why is it that the first article, is disturbingly close to the bone of what people think of you.

Projection David, projection.

[Tom S]

Anita,

I suppose the answer to your question is to ask if you believe in the universality of our belief system and values. If you believe (as I do) that all humans wish for democracy (and that includes Chinese - why we wish to "defend our values" against Osama and sell out the Chinese for a free trade deal is a hypocrisy that sickens me, but thats another debate), human rights, and fair suck of the prosperity sav, and in the rights of women, gays, etc etc then how can we simply leave the Osamas and the mad Mullahs to impose barbarism on our fellow humans?

Osama Bin Laden and friends oppose the (as they see it) culture war the "decadent" West is waging on Islam. I can't see how we cannot come into conflict with fanatics like these Muslim fundamentalists if we "impose" our values on them by demanding an end to barbaric Sharia laws and expecting women to be treated as equals.

Personally I do think we are more enlightened than the 14th century fanatics of Islam, and we must insist that what we believe is right and progressive is both defended and advanced.

[michael]

Tim Barclay - what utter twaddle you post. No political party in NZ wants to see terrorist attacks anywhere, Sydney included. There is simply no political capital to be made out of this. We do have to be vigilant that we don't lapse into totalitarian fundamentalism to combat a threat which undoubtedly exists. There is room for focused military action against Al Qaeda, but we also have to attend to the conditions of injustice that exist throughout the world and provide the breeding grounds for terrorism.

[Adolf Fiinkensein]

Paul,it's time you woke up. If suicide bombers were involved, as appears likely, then they will have been 'succoured' and 'suckered' locally. Have you never heard of Arabs telling lies? It is a physical and pcychological impissibolity for a person to be maintained in a suicidal state for long enough to come from another country and do what these people appear to have done. Please try and find your brain before next you engage your mouth.

[secretsamurai]

It's simply not worth replying to barclay or hodo's posts. Adolf - According to your logic, I suppose all Christian churches in Oklahoma should have been placed under surveillance after the bombing there, right?

[tim barclay]

Believe me if the Labour Party could make a political point regarding the link between the war in Iraq and these terrorist bombings they will, especially if Sydney gets targetted. I stand by that and wait to see if our policy of appeasement keeps us free, it won't of course.

[Anthony Burn]

Jordan, I have written an account of my own personal experience of what I witnessed in London during the attacks, as well as a reflection on it after the event at http://anthonyburn.blogspot.com
Hope you are well mate.

[Logix]

Cui Bono?

[Craig Ranapia]

Latin - roughly translates as "To who the good?"

[Jordan]

I now am not convinced that Tim Barclay or David Hodo are actually human. Anyone else care to speculate?

[tim barclay]

Jordan I am human alright but I do wonder about your dear collegues in the Labour Party. There you have a whole political party that is made up of intensely political school teachers and Union Officials, they have done nothing else except live breathe and drink politics. They will be running the policial ruler over the London bombing and seeing if they can get an angle here in NZ especially if they can justify their policy of appeasing terrorism in Iraq and say this is keeping us safe.

[Sally]

Wow, it seems that neither Mr Braclay nor Mr Hodo actually have an inner monologue.

David Hodo, who advocates blowing up the entire Middle East on account of a few extremists, accuses **other people** of ad hominem attacks.

And Tim Barclay - the only person who has suggested a possible partisan angle on the London tragedy - accuses **other people** of "doing nothing else except live drink and breathe politics."

Crazy, stupid hypocrites.

[Jordan]

I just find them entertaining now Sally. Don't take em seriously. They aren't worth the angst. :)

[rightkiwi]

Jordan: I think I was the first to pick that David Homo doesn't really exist.

[Jordan]

Rightkiwi, I'm now operating on that basis. He won't be commenting here again.

[tim barclay]

Jordan I look at your Blog abocve and yeas you are trying to extract something out the London bombing having something to do with us being spared because we are out of Iraq. Your whole post was a case for appeasing terrorists. I just knew it. We will see, I hope i am wrong but I fear you policy of appeasing terrorists will harm us.

[weizguy]

"I fear your policy of appeasing terrorists will harm us."

Any more than the current policy of galvanising support against the west by killing Iraqi civilians?

[Steve McKinlay]

For those that continue to link the terrorist attacks to Iraq you've all missed the point.

Extreme Islamic terrorist groups have been operating and carrying out terror attacks for 15 years. (if not longer). Long before the US and UK invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fundamentalist islamic terrorism is about a hatred of western culture and liberal democracy as much as it is about foriegn policy.

Whether you agree with the Bush/Blair "ray jeem" or not you've all swallowed their bullshit.

The war in Iraq isn't, never was about terrorism (there were no terrorists in Iraq before the invasion), or weapons of mass destruction (there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) it's about the continued supply of the last large remaining oil reserves (outside of OPEC control). As Cheney says, the American way of life is not negotiable. For the pantomime to continue requires vast amounts of energy.

[michael]

What appeasement, Mr Barclay? Tell that to the troops in Afghanistan, Iraq or the sailors who have patrolled the Persian Gulf for years (at some personal risk). What have you done to fight terrorism besides pour petrol on the flames?

[mslinda]

speaking from the POV of someone living in in Sydney: yes we do expect an attack, and it will (partly) be because our govt has aligned us with the attackers of Iraq - and partly because it will get wide international coverage. Great footage on CNN if the Opera House goes up, eh? and many of us do wish that our govt had behaved more like NZ's - not just because they have increased our risk, but because it has been the wrong thing to do, and has damaged too many other innocent people - the ones damaged in London and still every day in Baghdad, alike