# London Car Bombs **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 30, 2007, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033 "2007-06-30T12:36:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/61 "2007-07-01T10:01:05Z")
[QUOTE=dart] Is anyone thinking of the real causes behind this attack and every other terrorist attack on Western soil? [/QUOTE] Yes. They attack us because it’s easier to blame someone else for your own problems, and because for the leaders of movements like this it’s a chance to be a king and satisfy their ego. That’s not to say that the US hasn’t had its hand in affairs in the Middle East, but for the most part all we ever did was try and get the evil dictator in who would do business with us over the evil dictator who wouldn’t. Either way, the locals were going to get shafted. But ultimately, the modern day Muslim terrorists are not interested in achieving their goals. The Great Satan gives them a handy scapegoat to keep the populace in line. So there is no effective way to battle them, since they’re not ever going to fight a tactical war of terrorism. They’re just going to continue being annoying piss-ants because they have to continue looking like they’re doing something so their minions will keep following. Short of bringing peace and prosperity to the Middle East, there is no solution but waiting it out. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/62 "2007-07-01T10:31:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Very few Americans supported the IRA, and even fewer actually contributed to it at all. And those that did were, no surprise, almost entirely Irish immigrants and their descendents. You exported your political problems to us, and them try to blame us for it? Nice. Why don’t you outline some of the US government efforts to prosecute Irish Americans who funded terrorism in the British Isles? … > [@](#): > > It was an internal political problem! What the hell did you expect us to do about it? Send the 7th carrier fleet to bomb Dublin? Stemming the direct flow of money from your shores to Irish terrorists may have been a good start. > [@](#): > > Rather than immediately labeling these guys “scumbags,” why not try to discover their motivations? Because the old platitude that “one mans terrorist is another’s freedom fighter” is completely incorrect. If you purposefully target civilians, you’re a terrorist. Terrorists are scum. Studying their motivations doesn’t change that fact. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/63 "2007-07-01T11:12:24Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Tony who? (It’s Gordon Brown; Tony Blair.) [/QUOTE] heh - although for all the difference it’ll make to Britain, it might as well be Tony Brown 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/64 "2007-07-01T11:18:46Z")
I think it may have been a woosh. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/65 "2007-07-01T12:09:24Z")
[QUOTE=dart] Is anyone thinking of the real causes behind this attack and every other terrorist attack on Western soil? . [/QUOTE] Too early to tell the motives behind this attempted bombing of a nightclub - but the planned massacre in the Ministry of Sound was, in the words of the terrorists themselves, because girls were behaving “like slags” So presumably your answer is to impose the burqa on all British women? It’s very true that often Western policy (and particularly the Iraq fiasco) leads to justifiable anger in various Muslim communities - but Islamist violence seems to be tapping into the earliest Colonial expansionist impulses of Islam - the early violent expansions of Islam and it’s values weren’t a response to anything, it was a end in itself, and the Islamists see themselves as heirs to that first era. I’ve seen a number of interviews with British Islamists where they talk openly about wishing to impose Islam throughout the UK - if Western foreign policy magically transforms they may lose some support over time - but they are not going to stop [QUOTE=Miller] Very few Americans supported the IRA, [/QUOTE] Almost no Americans condemned the IRA - even after 9/11 I remember reading USA Today’s front page article on the IRA disbanding and in a lengthy piece the use of terrorist tactics wasn’t mentioned once - imagine if a piece on the history of Hamas or Al Q appeared in a UK newspaper without a mention of terrorism (‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’ or something like that) ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/66 "2007-07-01T12:24:26Z")
I seem to recall a great many obsticles were placed when the UK attempted to extradite convicted Irish terrorist back to the UK, including some who had escaped from the ‘Maze’ prison. I also not that the US is not particularly interested in having reciprocal extradidtion arrangments either, so that the US can require extradition of non-convicted persons who do not have a _prima-facie_ case against them, but try it the other way, the US seems to have no interest in extraditing even convicted and imprisons terrorists. > **[Extradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition)** > > In an extradition, one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions and depends on the arrangements made between them. In addition to legal aspects of the process, extradition also involves the physical transfer of custody of the person being extradited to the legal authority of the requesting jurisdiction. > In an extradition proc... Given the facts of rendition though, the US doesn’t even bother with extraditions warrants, it simply abducts suspects, even if the evidence against is piss poor. There is some iriony here that pro-Irish campaigners in the US claimed that Irish terrorists were freedom fighters, and that their rights were being abused, including false propaganda that Irish Cathiolics were not allowed to vote - a complete untruth. Yet when the US behaves in ways incompatible with human rights it expressess dismay and anger that some countries will not extradite people to the US. Whilst I hardly think this is anything like an independant website, it does comment on those terrorists currently still at large and who the US will not allow to be extradited, or the process is now so difficult and labyrinthine that others are effectively not extraditeable so it isn’t worth the political hassle of even attempting to do so. [http://www.victims.org.uk/america.html](http://www.victims.org.uk/america.html) [http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1563119.stm](http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1563119.stm) The closest the US has come to acknowledging this is to outlaw a IRA splinter group, but this is around 30 years too late. [http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/2003/05-13-2.htm](http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/2003/05-13-2.htm) For the US to be concerned about terrorism is a bit rich, given it equivocation on such organisations which it has variously supported and sanctioned as the mood took it in the past. [http://www.cfr.org/publication/10159/](http://www.cfr.org/publication/10159/) ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/67 "2007-07-01T12:33:21Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Tony who? (It’s Gordon Brown; Tony Blair.) [/QUOTE] Whoops! Um, yes, I meant Tony Blair. Since the two look so much alike, I get them confused. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/68 "2007-07-01T12:37:01Z")
[QUOTE=Capt B. Phart] Almost no Americans condemned the IRA - even after 9/11 I remember reading USA Today’s front page article on the IRA disbanding and in a lengthy piece the use of terrorist tactics wasn’t mentioned once - imagine if a piece on the history of Hamas or Al Q appeared in a UK newspaper without a mention of terrorism (‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’ or something like that) [/QUOTE] The IRA was only controversial in areas of high Irish concentration, like Boston or Chicago. Outside of such areas, if anyone actually thought of the IRA, they tended to be against them. I doubt anyone out in West Texas had ever heard of them except for the odd mention or two in the World section of the local newspapers. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/69 "2007-07-01T12:50:23Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] Whoops! Um, yes, I meant Tony Blair. Since the two look so much alike, I get them confused. 😃 [/QUOTE] Or maybe I was confusing Tony Blair with Charlie Brown. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/70 "2007-07-01T12:57:02Z")
Look around then, [http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/12/Columns/What\_s\_a\_terrorist\_\_w.shtml](http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/12/Columns/What_s_a_terrorist__w.shtml) Seems to me that US memories when it comes to terrorsim are extremely short, as far as the US is concernced, terrorism only started with McVeigh, which conveniently erases a lot of recent history. [http://web.mit.edu/SSP/seminars/wed\_archives\_04fall/byman.htm](http://web.mit.edu/SSP/seminars/wed_archives_04fall/byman.htm) It’s only when the US itself suffered terrorist outrages that real efforts were made to crack down on the IRA money flow.Its partly this pressure that has enabled the UK and the IRA to come to some arrangment oafter 30 years. Now that we have all these unemplyed terrorists, they have to find new openings, > **[The Times & The Sunday Times](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/)** > > News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times Or maybe subcontracting to FARC. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/71 "2007-07-01T14:36:05Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] The IRA was only controversial in areas of high Irish concentration, like Boston or Chicago. Outside of such areas, if anyone actually thought of the IRA, they tended to be against them. I doubt anyone out in West Texas had ever heard of them except for the odd mention or two in the World section of the local newspapers. [/QUOTE] Exactly, the fact that most Americans didn’t give a shit that a terrorist campaign killing thousands of civilians in two democratic countries was being financed from the US makes present US calls for the whole world to wring it’s hands because Americans have suffered terrorist atrocities stink of hypocrisy ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/72 "2007-07-01T15:26:01Z")
[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance] I just want to throw out there that in my opinion the world at large should be damn glad that there hasn’t been a large-scale, organized series of bombings and other terrorist attacks in the United States during the last few decades. I say this because of something I find in the raw American psyche. We’re the guys who are largely at peace. Even with the largest, most horrifying wars of the last 100 years we were safe at home (99.9% of the time). Wars and bombings were something that happens ‘over there’ or ‘to other people’. When things do happen here we go for the ‘hellacious overreaction’ response. [/QUOTE] The response of our political leaders was to wrap themselves in the flag[as in this _Doonesbury_ strip](http://www.arcamax.com/doonesbury) and castigate as unAmerican anyone who questioned their actions. They were rewarded by reelection. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/73 "2007-07-01T21:38:43Z")
Isn’t that exactly what I said, David? The American psyche is such that, when attacked at home, they’re willing to lash out in the strongest possible way if sufficiently scared. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/74 "2007-07-01T21:59:59Z")
[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance] Isn’t that exactly what I said, David? The American psyche is such that, when attacked at home, they’re willing to lash out in the strongest possible way if sufficiently scared. [/QUOTE] Sure. I was trying to agree with you. Did I screw it up? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/75 "2007-07-01T22:41:06Z")
[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance] Isn’t that exactly what I said, David? The American psyche is such that, when attacked at home, they’re willing to lash out in the strongest possible way if sufficiently scared. [/QUOTE] I enjoyed reading your prior post, but the question remains, what, exactly, did Saddam and/or Iraq have to do with 9/11? I mean, when (sadly, not _if_ mind you) you get hit again, who do you think is a likely candidate to annihila, er…_retaliate_ against? Bolivia? They have a bit of oil and gas too…which “evil commie” dictator Evo Morales is trying to wrest from the greedy hands of Spanish and Brazilian corporations. Not a bad target, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/76 "2007-07-02T01:58:49Z")
As I said in my first post I didn’t want to get into the politics of it. The issue here is that we could be scared into doing pretty much anything. And it \*_is_ us I’m discussing. Regardless of personal whim the fact is that the President and Congress won’t go, for long, against the will of the electorate. That’s why they took such pains to make the case (however true or false…that’s not the issue, here) before the media and the United Nations. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/77 "2007-07-02T04:10:37Z")
[QUOTE=Capt B. Phart] Exactly, the fact that most Americans didn’t give a shit that a terrorist campaign killing thousands of civilians in two democratic countries was being financed from the US makes present US calls for the whole world to wring it’s hands because Americans have suffered terrorist atrocities stink of hypocrisy [/QUOTE] It wasn’t so much that they didn’t give a shit; it was that it was so far away it may as well have been on Mars. The people I grew up amongst were not the brightest you’d hope to find, yokels in the purest sense of the word. As mentioned in another thread, I knew an adult woman who hadn’t a clue where Mexico was, and this was in Texas mind you. IRA? They’d heartily agree these are bad people and something ought to be done, but, um, where are they exactly? Bolivia? What, England, you say? Is that somewhere near Europe? I seem to remember it’s close to Europe maybe. So we’re talking white folks then? Land’s sake, someone ought to stop them people. Now, don’t you think it’s just awful what’s happening to the cotton prices now? Now there’s a tragedy and a half. I was talking to Jim the other day, and he said his crop … That’s pretty much the people I spent my formative years around. I can see how that might rankle our European friends, but that’s just the way they were, for good or bad. I’d like to know in turn how many Englishmen got all riled up about lynchings in the Deep South or gave a darn about the Rape of Nanking while those events were transpiring. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/78 "2007-07-02T04:21:19Z")
Oh, but if it will make anyone feel better, I will go ahead and accept the notion that I personally am a bad person because a very tiny less-than-1% of the US population supported the IRA. Bad Siam Sam. Bad, bad, bad. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/79 "2007-07-02T04:42:32Z")
[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance] We’re also the only country to have _used atom bombs in anger_. I’ve heard all of the reasons concerning loss of life for invading the home islands and such and they make sense. But I also think it makes a certain amount of sense in the American mind to think ‘Fuck them, they sneak attacked us. They deserve it.’ and push the button. [/QUOTE] Emphasis mine. Cite as to the psychological states of Truman, Oppenheimer, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033/80 "2007-07-02T13:18:06Z")
Back to the subject. The BBC have just announced that two of the suspects in custody, including one of the men in the airport Jeep, are doctors. So much for the Hippocratic Oath. The badly burned man is now a patient in the hospital where he was employed as a doctor. Such irony. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-car-bombs/410033.md?page=5)