"Does that mean there's a connection between the London attacks and Morocco?"

I think you're missing something in your logic. What would be the justification for the invasion? Because Moroccans were involved in the attacks, or because intelligence services believed the Moroccan government had developed nasty weapons for use against the British?

I still don't recall Bush stating that 9/11 was the impetus for the Iraq invasion.

"If the British invaded Morocco in response to these attacks, Al Qaeda terrorists would demand their withdrawal. "

So then is Al Qaeda the check on Western (Bush's) aggression / imperialism?

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king of the road says you move too slow
KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW

I went through Moorgate at about 8.50-55 Kings Cross on the Northern Line just before 9am.

I dont think the fact this would happen came as a surprise to anyone, obviously when it happens its a surprise but the fact it could / would was almost expected, at least amongst people I work with and know.

It was a strange day, I arrived late for work, normally get in at 8, left 1 hour late and went through Kings Cross and Moorgate but on the Northern Line, not the Piccadilly, so not the same line as the bomb.

Our trains, I work on the Underground, were all stopped at about 9.45, when I left work we had 89 trains in various locations across London.

I think it was apparent very early on, at least at work, that it was something other than infrastructure related but I left work at 1.30pm to get home and it only took 35 minutes to drive from Golders Green in North London to Trafalgar Square and I walked in to Charing Cross and hopped straight on a train.

It was absolutely bizarre, everything in the station was shut but it was just a regular commuting journey, everyone broke out their books, papers and PSP.

I suppose aside from the outstanding job that the Police, the Emergency Services and the Transport Police did, I was most impressed by how fast people started to resume regular activities. By the time I split, people were out all over London doing S**t and quite frankly that was a resumption of normality which has to be good.

ok.

i'll agree to have differing viewpoints on trash. no problem.

but trash they remain, regardless of what they call themselves, what kind of organization they have, whatever tactics they employ, who they claim to represent, what goals they pursue...it all still comes down to trash. there remains no victory resulting from their bombs.

by your apparent evaluation, this trash comes off sounding like admirable adversaries because they are organized and think about what they do.

thats just crap. none of those factors magically transform trash into something different.

your idea of connecting our supposed failure to not being able to prevent an act of terrorism is still very wrong. we did not fail as they did not succeed. any piece of trash can set off a bomb, just about anywhere, at any time. it is not normally a preventable act. we did not, nor will we in the future...fail...due to trash being trash. allowing them no victory is not sticking our heads in the sand. its simply calling cowardice exactly what it is. please don't give justification or award additional attention which sounds positive to trash.

i'm wondering about your counter-terrorism expertise based on the theories you present.

fighting a global war against trash-thought/trash-assaults may never be over. there simply are no predicted timelines. such things, with this trash crap to deal with, do not exist.

"...something isnt fully working..." still sounds like a poke...and it is becoming a sad thing to read from an american.

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Train hard...race well.
www.jimmishler.com
"Jim, I happen to agree with you" DougStern

Glad to hear you are okay.

Also good to hear that you and other Londoners are getting on with your lives. That is the best way to show the bastards that they can't win.

"admirable adversaries"

Be careful of assigning too much to my review of their action. I do NOT admire them in any way. But I don't have the luxury of discounting the fact that they are able to pull this off TODAY.

That which you call "cowardice" we call tactics in the military. I don't like the tactics. I don't think they are right to use. I abhore the destruction of innocent civilian lives as much as you do. But that is how this adversary fights. Whether you choose to recognize them as such is neither here nor there...we ARE in conflict with them, and that makes them an adversary. Despite their despicable morals, they are still a thinking, plotting, calculating enemy.

If you choose to call them trash, and assume that these are "not normally a preventable act[s]"...then why spend such huge amounts of capital trying to get rid of them? I say it is because we CAN'T ignore them...or assign them to the trash heap.

""...something isnt fully working..." still sounds like a poke...and it is becoming a sad thing to read from an american."

Still not a poke, Jim. I promise. Really, I do. I guarantee you, though, that some high-positioned AMERICANS are asking just that question today..."What isn't working? How are they pulling this off?" In fact, I wouldn't expect anything less.

 

Still not a poke, Jim. I promise. Really, I do. I guarantee you, though, that some high-positioned AMERICANS are asking just that question today..."What isn't working? How are they pulling this off?" In fact, I wouldn't expect anything less.[/reply]


Like someone else said, fighting an enemy who is willing to give up their life to further their cause is a never ending battle I am afraid. As we have seen there is no end to how many new recruits want to martyr themselves and blow stuff up. Perhaps it is time to look at it from another angle?
Perhaps an analogy of fighting the war on drugs would be good here. Simply arresting the makers will never win you the war against drugs, you have to address the people who are using the drugs. Once you start to do that and those people start to dwindle in numbers, then the other will go away. (or go somewhere else)

I will make a bold statement and say that what happened today was not preventable and it would not be preventable on the NY Subway, the Chicago EL or any other public transport system anywhere in the world.

There is no practical way of preventing what happened today.

The only way of preventing it would be airport style security system which is simply impractical when journey time from Charing Cross to Tottenham Court Road is roughly 4 minutes. WTF will want to get screened, just will not work and is not practical.

Already people are saying there was a failure in intelligence. Maybe, but I dont think so. Even if you knew it was coming there are 400+ stations on the tube, the Northern Line is 25-30 miles North to South I believe with 4 seperate tunnels north and south bound plus loops for turning trains and sidings underground. How do you check and know everything is secure.

The reality is, I think, irrespective of whether londoners agreed or disagreed with the war, life goes on and I think a great number were resuming life this afternoon and at some point in the future I am sure this will happen again, here or elsewhere, in some form but you cant stop living.

[reply]I agree... at least one car bomb explodes in Bagdad EVERYDAY... I forgot, the people that die EVERYDAY don't speak english...[/reply]

Unfortunately you expect car bombs to go off in Iraq, its really sad, I dont like it, but it happens daily. You dont expect car bombs to go off in London. I'll be there in a couple months, so im sure my wife is worried. In Chicago we have death by violence on a daily basis, via street gangs, I dont see the international community sympathizes with us. I dont see critizing someones expression of sympathy being constructive.

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Just curious,

Without looking up posts in the Lavender Room, why do you think the US invaded Iraq?

a) Racism - to kill a bunch of Arabs
b) To plunder the country's oil supply
c) To enrichen Cheney & Haliburton
d) To Americanize the heathens
e) To establish a permanent American presence in the area
f) Because Israel said so
g) Because we're pretty much Saudi Arabia's lapdog (no disagreement here)
h) Because it was easier than dealing with the Saudis or the Pakistanis
i) For no good reason, other than American selfishness
j) Because Americans believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11
k) We're too afraid to stand up to N Korea
l) Watch Fahrenheit 9/11
m) All of the above
n) To spread peace, democracy, & freedom throughout the world (gag)
o) Because it was a peace-loving county with good schools, compassionate leaders, and posed to harm to anyone on Earth
p) All of the below
q) They appeared to have WMDs & SH planned to use them
r) They funded various terrorist groups
s) Because it was a "safe haven" for terrorists (i.e. Abu Abbas)
t) Because Bush et al believed that removing SH from power would make the US (and other countries) a safer place

Who said Al Qaeda is the only terrorist organization in the Middle East?

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king of the road says you move too slow
KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW

I think what you mean is, "So it's OK to fight our war with someone on someone ELSE'S soil?" Godzilla & Gamarron fighting it out in downtown Tokyo. To believe that is true it to believe Iraq and SH posed no threat whatsoever to the US. And that is a crock of crap to draw out the flies.

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king of the road says you move too slow
KING OF THE ROAD SAYS YOU MOVE TOO SLOW

[reply]yeah Cathy I'm with Francois and SAC on this one... this country (US) is still incredibly racist although at a more subvert level... no longer overt. one way this is expressed is the ho-hum manner with which we take in the daily news from Baghdad. We are aghast that are troops are dying, 1,2,3 maybe more a day. But not a single news group even bothers to try and total the number of Iraqi deaths and how most attacks are Iraqi on Iraqi... why... because they know their audience doesnt care.... sick just plain sick[/reply]

What US are you talking about? This is the melting pot of the world!

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[reply]But not a single news group even bothers to try and total the number of Iraqi deaths and how most attacks are Iraqi on Iraqi... why... because they know their audience doesnt care.... sick just plain sick
[hr]This is fucking bullshit...do you actually watch the news? Both Fox and CNN generally give as much coverage to each attack on the Iraqis as it does to US troops. And if we didn't care about the Iraqis, then why are Americans still giving their lives over their???? We obviously care a very great deal. Go stuff yourself.

Spot[/reply]

Right On! Ditto.

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It may not be "OK," but it is better than having to do it here. I think most people are taking a very short sighted veiw of this whole problem. All I hear about are "weapons of mass destruction" and "Al-Q" and "Muslim extremists." It doesn't seem to have occured to most people that these are just syptoms. The whole Middle East is just waiting to become a giant problem (yes, MUCH bigger than it is now). At some point we (or someone, and this is always seems to be the US because we're the only ones left with the resources to do so) need to start cleaning out the cancer and trying to save the whole patient. Can you imagine what would happen if all these little third world countries would put aside there differences, pitched in all their oil resources, and decided to take on the western world in one big winner-take-all throw down. This is essentially what prevented the American Indian from driving the white man into the sea-they couldn't get along. Whitey won. If we can keep the major players in the radical Muslim world from getting together, or eliminate(or convert) some of the radical countries that would join this alliance maybe, just maybe, we can avert some form of WWIII.

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Azby

I'm glad I don't live in your world Azby.

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"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

Yep - let's just friggin take out everyone who has different cultures and religious views, looks different, acts different, is poor etc. I'm pretty sure that's what God intended for us to do to each other.

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People I've loved, I have no regrets
Some I remember, some I forget
Some of them living, some of them dead
All I want is to be home ".....Foo Fighters, Home

While I agree with you that there has been no substantiated link between Iraq and Al Qaeda regarding the 9-11 attacks specifically, there is evidence of contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda. To assume that Saddam and Bin Laden would never had found common ground against the US is, IMO, a very dangerous assumption.

Spot

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I said I was guilty of the same. I guess you shoot first and ask questions later.

[reply]
While I agree with you that there has been no substantiated link between Iraq and Al Qaeda regarding the 9-11 attacks specifically, there is evidence of contacts between Iraqi intelligence and Al Qaeda. To assume that Saddam and Bin Laden would never had found common ground against the US is, IMO, a very dangerous assumption.

Spot [/reply]

So you think that justifies our invasion???? Saddam may have at some point in the future settled his differences with Bin Laden and joined forces against the US???

Thats pretty fuckin thin.

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"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

no harm no foul Monk. nothing kills a party faster than talking about politics or religion.

peace. have a good night!

kc

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

Actually what we are doing in Iraq is training terrorists how to be more effective against American forces. We are making terrorists faster than we are killing them. Also known as blowback. This is what Reagan did for Al Qaeda in it's formative years before they pulled off 9/11.



http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2005/0623/dailyUpdate.html

Dont look at that picture above KC



Here's a better one for you

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very interesting. in the recent past, it seemed that you were quick to call others 'american-hating', and today different folks call you 'american hating'!

things do indeed seem to go in circles, and it is always amazing to me (but perhaps it shouldn't be) how quick people are to throw labels on one another...

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Where would you want to swim ?

son of a bitch! here I am finally relaxed, and you try to fuck with me like this...

meet me behind the orange barrel in the alley at 9pm--Come alone. :)