Terror Bomb in London

[Shi]

even though u have shitloads of arabs, it's still British people they were attacking, and if someone arabs get killed in the blast, tough. But if you would attack the world championship, you are actually attacking arabic countries. Big difference.

Al-Qaeda NOT EQUAL arabs, so as Flip says, you should be careful when making such generalisations.

[Ankh Morpork]

If the US/British/Italian/Danish and all the rest, pulled out today, there would be civil war in Iraq as the extremists attempt to convert the country to an extreme clerical state.

Might be so, but the question is if anyone else apart from the iraqi's should shape their future. The more iraqi's the invaders kill the more turn against them. They attacked iraqi with lies as an excuse...not really sure if any iraqi will accept them trying to decide what is gonna happen next with their homes. There is a forbidden word on the lips of many forces in iraq atm...and its the word 'defeat'.

/Ankh

[Mojo]

I doubt anyone posting here is actually qualified to comment on what's good for Iraq, whats not, how the arabs think and whats going to happen next.

[Ankh Morpork]

I doubt anyone posting here is actually qualified to comment on what's good for Iraq, whats not, how the arabs think and whats going to happen next.

Thats not the point, we got the right to discuss it and thats kind of what we are doing atm.

/Ankh

[Mojo]

Thats not the point, we got the right to discuss it and thats kind of what we are doing atm.

/Ankh

An uninformed opinion is not much of a basis for a discussion.

[Argyleyn]

I doubt anyone posting here is actually qualified to comment on what's good for Iraq, whats not, how the arabs think and whats going to happen next.

The only qualification you need to discuss politics is common sense. You really don't need to be a rocket scientist or spend 15 years reading in depth analysis of the middle east problems.

The world championships would be just as good a target as the olympics, extremists are targetting a way of life, not the countries - for them these games are just as legitimate a target as any other.

Actually, that's just plain wrong. For all i know, they ARE targetting specific countries, the ones allied with the US and participating in the iraq war. I live in Greece and i am certain 99% of the people here didn't believe even for one moment that we could be victims of a terrorist attack, exactly because we have good relations with the arab world and didn't take part in the Iraq campaign. Major terrorist attacks have happened in 3 western countries and they all shared the same thing at the time, they had troops in Iraq and took an active part at its occupation.

What is most frustrating about this situation is that these groups have a complete lack of political goals or ambition. This is the crux of the problem. If they would at least develop a political consciousness then the world might begin to understand their motivations and so on. All they seem to be is a collective bunch of fanatics with no real goal other than the destruction of anything that looks bad to them - even when they get out of the wrong side of the bed.

Actually, what these groups think is irrelevant. The issue at hand is that they are supported or tolerated by a wide part of the middle eastern populace and that is where their strength lies. In a country whose citizens were hostile towards them they couldn't really last in the long term and would propably be arrested. They can freely wander around the middle east though and gather their resources and recruits there simply because even in an extreme way they represent a widespread wish for vengeance against the foreign oppressors. Fighting the Americans directly isn't an option, the firepower advantage they have is ridiculous Their only solution is performing desperate actions, which sometimes work, like in Madrid.

The issues that cause that support is the Western policy in the middle east, which has a long history of invasions and direct interventions against the popular will.The biggest problems at hand are the Iraq war and the Palestinian issue. Unless these are stopped or solved, i can't see how the situation can change.

Tbh, the same thing happened in France during the occupation of Algiers, bombs were going off left and right in Paris. How many bombs go off now that Algeria has achieved -real- independance? Weren't there mad fundamentalists who would like to blow up France? Yes, but they lost any real support, without which achieving a plan is impossible.

[Mojo]

The only qualification you need to discuss politics is common sense. You really don't need to be a rocket scientist or spend 15 years reading in depth analysis of the middle east problems.

I didn't actually mean a formal qualification, i guess your common sense missed that one.

[Lieva]

they set out to disrupt.
The bombs went off during rush hour and 37 people died.
Could have easily been in the thousands had they wished.

just hope peeps dont blame others of the same religion as the perpitrators (like what happened in 2 towers thing)

[Ankh Morpork]

An uninformed opinion is not much of a basis for a discussion.

True, but who said we're not informed?

Edit: I guess your right btw, but apparently it was good enough to start a war ]/Ankh[/B]

[Mojo]

True, but who said we're not informed?

/Ankh

The arguments don't look very informed and they look biased, they look like the same arguments I have heard, seen and read a hundered times over. No one is quoting new information with sources to that information. It's just old information delivered in a way that suits the persons who is posting own political, religouse and moral leanings.

The problem with the media is that it's pretty narrow, yesterday morning here was a great example of how bad it is, given all the nations represented in the ongoing chatbox there was seemingly only 2 sources of news, it didn't matter which news site you read or in which country you were getting one of 2 news copies 1 seemingly sourced from the BBC and the other sourced from Rupert Murdoch (or rather one of his 184? news organisations) the later being more speculative but essentially the same.

We had people from 5-6 countries all quoting the same information and the same sources, were all reading the same thing over and over and this doesn't just apply to news media, books magazines they are all sourced from the same places, by the same people and this is very rarely being questioned (because people just don't notice?)

I read news sites all day, it's what i do, i read books i read news and i watch documentries and i do it lots and lots. i have 3-4 news sites loaded from 8am to 5pm, when i get home i have those same sites loaded and i turn on the news, i dont watch regular TV and i dont read regular books and I dont subscribe to any single line of thought (except trying to keep an open mind always).

So when I see a bunch of people discussing things I have been reading all day or week, or year, with all the same slants, angles and biases I know I am not reading an informed opinion, I am reading the opinion of a journalist author (or maybe even PR man) re hashed, yet again with a little touch of new bias.

I am incredibly cynical by nature I am loathed to beleive anything said by anyone in power, in the media and certainly not a forum, I try to source my own information and make my own mind up and I generally keep that opinion to myslef because it ends up being so ambiguouse it's scarey. We live in a very complicated world, these issues you discuss are being prodded and poked by very very powerfull people and organisations with very different agendas and it get's simplified beyond stupidity, if you keep an open mind and (try) to soruce your own information you will get very sacred about what you see indeed.