[Rhubarb]

Bush tried to turn 9/11 into a Hollywood movie, for which he shall burn in hell, and in doing this he encouraged an entire nation (and a couple of others) to bay like hounds for the blood of the faceless terrorist evildoers. He taught us that the bad guys will always be punished, because dammit, it's Right! We have Good (and God) on our side! We are the good guys so whoever we invade must be Bad by default!

The problem here is that the 'enemy' isn't a country. If there is a specific enemy (aside from GWB), it's the al-Qaida themselves, and since they are an organisation consisting of unknown people spanning several nations, they can't actually be invaded. The citizens of Iraq didn't actually bomb London or the Twin Towers. Attempting to exact pointless revenge is just going to result in more deaths of innocents. But hey, Arab deaths will piss off the terrorists and show them we aren't afraid, so it's all good, right?

[Kirby]

...

Stupid logic

[Slade]

C'mon, we all know Oceana's going to pull ahead soon!

[Slade]

My condolences to your public transportation system and the people killed, Britain.

[SithAvenger]

One minute of silence for everyone who died....


But who planned the attack? Do you think it was Al Qaeda? I don't know why, but I don't think that Laden planned the attack.

[Chyld]

JM: Don't think we wouldn't want to, and damnit we tried. But look at it this way: only 60% of the bloody country turned up to vote, Labour got in with a 30% "majority", so technically, only 20% of the country wanted him in. Give it time.

And sorry to those who object to me keeping a scorecard, but according to the papers, the casulty rates bow between 38-53, and 700 injured.

[Rhubarb]

FFS. 'Keeping score' with the deathtoll is the way of ascertaining the extent of the damage. I'd much prefer to know how many died than otherwise.

And I heard it was between 38-41. But as I said, it will keep rising as people seccumb to injuries.

[Heccubus]

For the time being, I'm keeping my cynical self out of debate on the situation. Yes, it's horrible that people have been killed or hurt, but it's no worse than what's happening every day in Iraq, or (God help me for bringing this up so soon after Live8) Africa. So until some facts start coming in from someone besides CNN or Fox News, I'm not saying a thing. It will be struggle, yes, but still...

[Rhubarb]

Uh. Why can't you comment? Surely you have an opinion? Just because horrible things happen more regularly elsewhere (and this point was made several times already in this thread), they don't render this incident invalid, does it?

And if you don't want facts from CNN or Fox, then go check some other news source. What's the problem?

[Ham Salad]

Akhem, I think  it's safe to say this to all our British friends here : Give into the terrorists already and kick Blair out of office for provoking this, pull the troops out of Iraq and don't join up with an asshole like Bush again. Hey, it worked for Spain.

And yes, the death count in Iraq today was likely higher than in London and to those innocent people, who had absolutely no choice in what happened to them or their country, I send my deepest condolences. As for the people of Britain I hope that they'll see this as a reason to kick Tony Blair's government out of office. They are lucky enough to have a choice as to whether they'll be attacked again, whereas the only way the Iraqis can stop the constant murder and torture in their nation is through slow, grueling guerilla warfare over several years.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As a caveat, do not let Bush and Blair with their blood stained hands, guilt laden consciences, and quest for dignified legacies take you on the road to diversion away from a losing war and a boiling middle east and into the realm of African Aid and Olympic glory. Thanks to all in the entertainment business for allowing them to do just that!

diversions, diversions...and the public forgets all about the bad things we have done until the wake up call comes...

[Heccubus]

Uh. Why can't you comment? Surely you have an opinion? Just because horrible things happen more regularly elsewhere (and this point was made several times already in this thread), they don't render this incident invalid, does it?

And if you don't want facts from CNN or Fox, then go check some other news source. What's the problem?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My point was that rather than rush off on irrational tirades, as some have already chosen to do here, I think it's best to wait until more solid information is available before saying things that can best be summed up as ranting.

[Rhubarb]

Ranting > decorum

The death toll is currently hovering somewhere around the 50s, with approximately 700 injured.

Should really be pleased that it's not so awful as originally predicted, but I dunno, the small number somehow brings it home, kinda. Like, when they were going "several hundreds injured" it was easy to dismiss as exaggeration... and then they're like, "okay, it's only 50," and I'm like... "Uh".

Yes, people are worse off elsewhere. But I don't have friends/family in Iraq or Africa, nor have I ever been there.

/rambles

[Heccubus]

I don't have friends or family there either, that doesn't mean that I'm not bothered by the problems there. Likewise for London, and likewise for New York (well, I have friends there now, but I didn't at the time of 9/11). The issue for me isn't whether or not I know anyone there who might've been hurt, the issue is that there are people dying for no good reason, and that bothers me.

[Rhubarb]

Hey, I didn't say I don't care. This has just affected me on a slightly more personal level than other similar tragedies, like say, 9/11.

[Hari Seldon]

In the afternoon I visited CNN's internation site. They wrote the death toll was around 50, but there was still a train car which hadn't been opened and it was bound to have many bodies in it.

I could almost imagine them with the calculators ready, waiting to be the first channel / site to claim "55 BABY!". Bah.