Kevin's Watch

lurch wrote:..Right from the get go..the word "jihad"...My understanding of the word is that it is a Personal Cleansing..make oneself clean , presentable to Allah, in spirit and body...so any adhereing to jihad against a society or peoples,,instant red flag.

Thanks for the feedback, Lurch!

When I think of Personal Cleansing, I think of self sacrifice, not involving others. As a Jew, fasting on Yom Kippur. Or, the giants caamora.

How does plotting and executing a plan to harm civilains and society constitute jihad?

Cagliostro wrote:The best quote I've heard today regarding this event: "What the f*ck is wrong with people?"

That captures the mind-boggling perplexity of all this perfectly. Seriously. Nothing makes any sense of it. Beyond belief and sanity.

,,,take an uneducated mind,,and drill into it at every opportunity,,the west is the Great Satan,,,demonize your opponent..yea,,from Pakistan to Algeria.,,for the last 30 years...so to clear your soul, you must make pure what is around you...thats the bridge they get the ignorant and poor to cross....imho anyway...MEL

I see that the Australian PM has said that there are now 52 casualties, but the latest British report still says 37. Sadly, as in all these things, numbers will rise as the worst wounded succumb. (Myste, I was in London in '96 as well, when Canary Wharf etc. happened.)

dlbpharmd wrote:

May the scourge of terrorism be forever wiped from the face of this Earth.

Amen.

My friends, the sad fact is that this will never happen. There will never be a day when some soldier shoots the last terrorist in his mountain hideout, and says, "I'm glad that's over."

In a bizzare twist, a couple of days ago, I taped a documentary about the doctrine of preventative war, and that sort of thing. I only watched it last night. Part of the documentary was a filmed debate at the famous Trinity College in Ireland about whether the American foreign policy was making the world safer.

And one of the debaters concluded his argument with the words (roughly): The consequences of these actions will fall directly on us. Be Afraid.

The man was a prophet I'm sorry to say.

This has been a terrible event, there is no way of condoning the killing of civillians by anybody. And I think it was a tactical error on the part of the terrorists as well, because they've strengthened British resolve, just when it looked like faltering a little in support of this ill-named "war on terror".

I've said it before, I'll say it again: You can't make war on terror. Terror isn't a place you can bomb, or a person that you can kill.

Sun Tzu said: In war, overwhelming superiority of numbers confers no advantage. Never advance depending solely on military might.

A sad day indeed, although we can take comfort, however cold, from the fact that it could well have been worse. And I'm really glad that everybody so far is OK. I'm waiting to hear from my own friends in London as well, but I'm sure that they'll be fine. I think lurch, in his 2nd to last post, made an excellent point.

The world is becoming even more dangerous than before, it seems. Stay safe as you can everybody. And Mods, shift this to the 'Tank whenever you want, (leaving a shadow topic behind perhaps?).

--Avatar

Some very moving first-hand accounts here.

In my opinion

we are at war with a group/groups who are opposed to
select from below

our way of life
our religion
our arrogant leaders

etc etc etc

we have a belief that we are in the right. they have a belief that they are right. Some people believe that it was right to declare war on Iraq. so we have to suffer the consequences if some other group decide to declare war on us. It is not a conventional war by any means but a war nonetheless. sad to say also that in war innocent people get killed. Tony Blair is okay he has armed security guards day and night, we the general public don't. we are loud to proclaim these people terrorists but that is also their opinion of us. it is the world we live in today.

A big difference. They can call us what they want but we do not target innocent civilians. Al Queada and their splinter groups must be destroyed, plain and simple. They are cowards and despicable people. We will never be able to understand them nor them us, so that leaves us with only one rational option if we don't want similar things to happen in the future.

It had to happen, terrorists attacking the uk... a pity. I'm worried that it might happen to birmingham next. i mean birmingham is the second largest city in England... it could happen. But we have to get on with out lifes... no use hiding, that just means the terrorists win.

I offer my sympathies to all families hurt by what happened in London. terrorists are vile.

safetyjedi wrote:A big difference. They can call us what they want but we do not target innocent civilians.

Perhaps we don't target them, but we certainly kill them. At times there's frighteningly little difference between our leaders and "their" leaders.

CovenantJr wrote:Perhaps we don't target them, but we certainly kill them. At times there's frighteningly little difference between our leaders and "their" leaders.

Well said, Cj.

As they say on Battlestar Galactica, "Give me a frakkin' break!" Their leaders are murderous barbaric thugs!!!!!!!!!! If they had thier way, no one would study math and science in school, only the Koran, women would be nothing more than property and any one who did not believe their way would be dead, even fellow muslims. Do you think that if we left Afgan and Iraq right now they would be content...No! They attacked us in three times in the 1990's before Iraq was even thought of and before Bush was even a candidate. SO comparing Bush and Blair and all of the leaders of the other countries that support our current actions to the likes of UBL and Zarquawi is an out and out insult. No amount of understanding and sympathy to thier cause will stop them.
Sorry for ranting but I just don't understand how you could make that comparison when you look at the facts. I promise I will take a chill pill, I tend to get this way when my RA flares up.

While I do not share any of those beliefs I do think that they have the right to have them. Just as much as I have the right the right to believe in the equal right of all humans, that people should study math & science, and that people should have the right to beleve or not believe in the religion of their choice.

What no one has the right to do is to murder and harm others in attacks such as the one yesterday. That is purely evil, IMHO.


And given the West's history of meddling with the middle east, and the murderous and/or unethical leaders we have supported there (including Saddam -- and we were the ones who armed Osama to fight against the Russians) -- we are, in a very real way, reaping our own bitter harvest from the Cold War.

Thank you Duchess. (I have been saying that a lot lately) I apologize for my rant. I just want to concentrate my thoughts and prayers with those hurt and injured, so sorry to all.

Its OK. Pain makes us all a bit edgy at times. My prayers are also with those affected...and I hope you feel better from your RA as well.

duchess of malfi wrote:While I do not share any of those beliefs I do think that they have the right to have them. Just as much as I have the right the right to believe in the equal right of all humans, that people should study math & science, and that people should have the right to beleve or not believe in the religion of their choice.

They may have a right to have these beliefs. That does not give them the right to act on them. Particularly when these are some of the actions that those beliefs entail:

- Killing thousands of unarmed and innocent civilians in random terror attacks.

- Murdering hundreds of thousands of their own people in 'ethnic cleansing' operations, and burying the dead in unmarked mass graves.

- Forbidding women to receive any education whatever, to own property, to choose their own husbands, to receive wages for their work, to walk in the streets on their own, or to take any active part in society.

- Ritually mutilating the genitals of millions of female children.

I'm sorry, but there is no equivalency between the actions of al-Qaeda and its ideological friends and those of the U.S. and its allies. In the entire history of warfare, no army has ever fought with such extreme care to avoid civilian casualties as the allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. And no army has ever fought with such murderous intent as the radical Islamist factions in this war, who not only target civilians specifically, but make terror the principal object of their strategy.

Was it a mistake for the West to arm the Taliban and al-Qaeda during the Cold War? I don't think so. At the time, they were fighting against a Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan, which was intended as the first step in the subjugation of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. The Soviets had never moved south before, and had no reason to do so in 1980, except conquest. They, too, had to be stopped. The radical Islamists do many evil things, but the Gulag Archipelago was worse, and it was backed by a nation that could legitimately claim to be the strongest military power on earth.

As unsavoury as the mujahedeen were in tactics and ideology, they were the only force on the ground capable of opposing the Soviet invasion. One has to choose one's allies from the sort of people actually participating in the war, and King Arthur was not an option. From 1941 to 1945, the Western powers sided with Stalin against the Nazis, because Stalin was the lesser of two evils. From 1945 to 1989, they sided with various dictators and fanatics against the Soviets, for the same reason. Now the Nazis and the Soviets are both gone, and it is time to deal with those dictators and fanatics who have proved that they will not leave us in peace. This is ugly, ghastly, obscene, and necessary; it is the ABC of history. As George Orwell said long ago: 'Men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard them.'

My heart goes out to the people of London at this time. It does not go out to mean-spirited people like Mr. Galloway, who proclaims that the leaders of the great Western democracies are the real criminals, and insinuates that the victims in London deserved what they got because they voted for Tony Blair.

Well said, VF!

Lurch et al who have expressed a similar sentiment wrote:...Anyway,,lets start facing reality. The west has got to do some serious rearrangement of how we are being perceived, The first thing to do is stop talking out of both sides of our leaders mouths. Spare me the bravado. We are seeing what happens when the last idiot said, " bring it on! "...MEL

Right on the money...as we all know terrorism didn't exist until the George W Bush administration. Additionally, this "what did we do to deserve this" mentality really irks me.

Neville Chamberlain would be proud.

...Nevile Chamberlain??,,LOL!...One thing WE learned from the Vietnam experience..was that you have to have the Hearts AND minds of the populace that you are trying to introduce to " freedom " democracy" and Liberty. Oh! Oh!,,look at all the food we send them!,,thats their stomachs.
...There is NO surrender,,approval of, reap what you sow,,attitude on my part towards the Al Kay. I am Talking About How They Can Be Defeated. The first thing one must do,,is drop the American Mind Set and try to perceive the Middle East thru a Middle Eastern Mind Set. Once that is understood, then you are closer to victory because you see the victory in Their Terms.

..I'll be the first one to acknowledge the rise of Passion during these moments of insanity. But that is no excuse to join the insanity. The Islamic revolution has been propogated thru the madrases( muslim schools for children) for a whole generation now. Thats what we are up against. I have heard the voices of Arabians in Saudi Arabia and Egypt,,Pushtuns in Pakistan, Asians in Indonesia,,proclaim that they would go to Iraq or any Islam country and fight the western devil if he invaded any Muslim Nation. The general population may not be wearing suicide vests,,sniping at patrols,,setting up roadside remote control explosives,,but they sure as hell ain't stopping those that do...the hearts and minds........

...George the First and Wild Willie, both, were wise enough to keep Saddam under wraps, and ipso facto , create a three state entity out of iraq. That wasn't good enuf for George the 2nd,,and now even he is admitting,,that some future generation, just possibly,,maybe,,will be the beneficiary of todays war with the " terrorists" in Iraq and across the Globe. He hasn't done a damn thing that will provide that benefit to some future oh so fortunate , pie in the sky recepient of such beneficience. And in the mean time ...you and i get to eat schitt and die. Sorry, that ain't the ticket....Alll this is just a different version of the " domino theory" slung around during the vietnam era. ...I suggest, shovel the horse crap aside, and keep an eye on the necessary reality,,Hearts and Minds. We don't even understand our enemys yet.. Its not because we are unable,,its because we choose not to.....hearts and minds...MEL

Every ethnic group and nation has employed terrorism at some point in its existence. It simply is more deadly now that stronger weapons are available. That doesn't make it right, it just makes it real.

Brinn wrote:Neville Chamberlain would be proud.

Ha!

I don't think many people are going to get that Brinn.