[QUOTE=Miller]
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?
[/QUOTE]
Lust4Life may be doing his cause harm by moronic ranting, but America wasn’t exactly eager to stem its local sources of IRA funds.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
In fairness, though the US has had several spectacularly ghastly events, you haven’t lived through decades and decades of bombs going off in your major cities, with dozens if not hundreds of individual incidents, and the constant paranoia that engenders.
[/QUOTE]
I have to agree with you. I don’t wish any innocent lives be wasted but why the big hard on for England? When I see news reports from the middle east it isn’t the Union Jack getting burned and spit on.
[QUOTE=Omegaman]
I have to agree with you. I don’t wish any innocent lives be wasted but why the big hard on for England? When I see news reports from the middle east it isn’t the Union Jack getting burned and spit on.
[/QUOTE]
It isn’t the current terrorism as perpetrated by al Quaeda and the like that’s being referred to in this instance, but that from the IRA and the like. Who certainly gave more of a crap about the UK than the U.S..
Also the Union Jack is the flag of the UK. The English flag is the St. George’s Cross.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
The most powerful bomb in the U.S. arsenal is a fuel-air explosive device, not a high explosive. If the gas cylinders in the bomb were designed to go off first, dispersing the fuel into a mist and then detonating it, that could be an absolutely devastating explosive device.
[/QUOTE]
Sure, IF. An FAE is a lot more than some gasoline cans and bottled gas cylinders in an automobile.
In order to rely on such a contraption doing what you want an extensive test program is a requirement. Where to place the gasoline; how much bottled gas to use: how long to wait for the proper fuel air ratio to be achieved before ignition, stuff like that.
For a bunch of guys to believe they can throw some gasoline cans, bottled gas cylinders and nails into a car and have an effective FAE device is the stuff of amateurs.
There would have been at least some explosions and a hell of a fire but I wouldn’t cite real FAE devices as indicative of the effect.
I’m not sure what the debate is here (that America has had less terrorist attacks than Europe/the UK? Well duh! :)), but just wanted to say that I hope to hell that todays attack is the last one…and I’m truely happy that no one (but the terrorists) were hurt. You guys dodged a bullet and I’m VERY happy that it worked out that way for you.
FWIW, coming from a yank. 
(ed. While I’m at it, anyone want to speculate on why in the hell the terrorists would go after a target so seemingly remote as todays attack on the airport? I can understand car bombs in London…but Glasgow airport?!?)
-XT
[QUOTE=xtisme]
…I can understand car bombs in London…but Glasgow airport?!?)…-XT
[/QUOTE]
Glasgow is the most populated city in Scotland.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
It isn’t the current terrorism as perpetrated by al Quaeda and the like that’s being referred to in this instance, but that from the IRA and the like. Who certainly gave more of a crap about the UK than the U.S..
Also the Union Jack is the flag of the UK. The English flag is the St. George’s Cross.
[/QUOTE]
Well I’ll just the hell up now that I’ve made an ass out of myself :smack:
[QUOTE=xtisme]
I’m not sure what the debate is here (that America has had less terrorist attacks than Europe/the UK? Well duh! :)), but just wanted to say that I hope to hell that today’s attack is the last one…and I’m truly happy that no one (but the terrorists) were hurt. You guys dodged a bullet and I’m VERY happy that it worked out that way for you.
FWIW, coming from a yank. 
(ed. While I’m at it, anyone want to speculate on why in the hell the terrorists would go after a target so seemingly remote as today’s attack on the airport? I can understand car bombs in London…but Glasgow airport?!?)
-XT
[/QUOTE]
I just read about it online.
What hit me was the fact that the new prime minister, Brown, is a Scot. But I have no clue that it’s relevant.
[QUOTE=samclem]
I just read about it online.
What hit me was the fact that the new prime minister, Brown, is a Scot. But I have no clue that it’s relevant.
[/QUOTE]
So’s Blair, really. But it is less obvious in his case.
Let me get this straight. Brown takes the helm as Prime Minister on June 27th and on June 30th, there is a terrorist attack in Britain? Life is truly stranger than fiction.
[QUOTE=Malodorous]
I believe “asian” in Britian is used to mean more Indian or central asian. So Pakistani is a possibility.
[/QUOTE]
I just watched a Scottish eyewitness on BBC Television saying the men were yelling “Allah!” repeatedly while trying to punch their attackers. That probably rules out Falungong.
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.
When MOVE was identified in Philadelphia the powers that be (on a city level!) authorized force that destroyed a fairly large amount of homes and such.
When the SLA was nailed down in LA in the early 1970s again the city authorities decided to just shoot the hell out of them all.
When 9/11 happened, without getting into justifications or rationales here, our response was to absolutely flatten two countries.
Or, in short, had the IRA decided to start a program of bombings and such in Boston, New York, and Chicago our response would, in my opinion again, to order Great Britain to ‘deal’ with Ireland or we’d level the entire country regardless of voting blocs. It wouldn’t have been hard to demonize the Irish and make it justified in the eyes of the public.
Remember, we hold our freedoms dear, such as they are, but had no trouble abrogating them and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Japanese immigrants on the off chance that SOME of them might be working for Japan.
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.
We’re the land of overreaction when things touch home. God knows what we’ll do if Al Qaeda pulls off a sustained bombing program inside the States.
Get me, I love being American. It’s fun and prideful and absolutely insane if you’re at all objective about it. But we’re also totally nuts on certain subjects. Being attacked and killed on our home ground is one of the surest paths to crazy Americans.
[QUOTE=Honesty]
Let me get this straight. Brown takes the helm as Prime Minister on June 27th and on June 30th, there is a terrorist attack in Britain? Life is truly stranger than fiction.
[/QUOTE]
Right now, Tony Brown must be sitting back with a cool drink going, “Ahhhh! Not MY problem.”
[QUOTE=matt]
I’m a Brit. I was a student in Manchester when the IRA blew the heart out of the city. You are indeed operating under a false impression.
[/QUOTE]
I stand corrected
Great post, Jonathan Chance. You’ve got a level of self-awareness not always apparent on the SDMB - you’ve quite accurately summed up what the US’s domestic situation looks like to the outside world.
How many “insurgents” would the US produce if another country shock-and-awed you guys?
Miller, I seriously think you’re reaching. You can redefine the criminal murders of the KKK as “terrorism” if you like, and indeed they did have targetted bombings - but daily bombings on city street corners killing random citizens, for thirty or more years, is heretofore pretty damn rare in the US.
Anyway, the good news is that, despite the fact that we’re on full terror alert now, the authorities have these bastards alive and in custody, and when their burns heal - as painfully as possible, I hope - the cops will be able hunt down their entire network (if there is one).
Is anyone thinking of the real causes behind this attack and every other terrorist attack on Western soil? I am not in any way supporting the concept of killing civilians, or anyone for that matter, but it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone when these events do occur. Rather than immediately labeling these guys “scumbags,” why not try to discover their motivations? Aren’t you remotely curious? Maybe when our countries occupy theirs and murder their wives and children and relatives, maybe that upsets them a bit. The fact that three missing U. S. soldiers can make the news for several weeks while 50-100 Iraqi civilians are blown up in the footnotes of the newspaper every day is disgusting.
Yes, it is senseless and horrible to murder or attempt to murder our innocent civilians on their way to work or out at a pub. The things that happen in our name when we’re not looking are equally senseless and horrible.
Tangental: It seems that London has been being regularly bombed since 1867.
I was in London once when a bomb went off and no one in the street batted an eye. Some helpful fellow gathered that we weren’t natives and politely informed me and my mom that we shouldn’t worry, “The metro shouldn’t be held up long.” :dubious:
[QUOTE=dart]
Rather than immediately labeling these guys “scumbags,” why not try to discover their motivations? Aren’t you remotely curious? Maybe when our countries occupy theirs and murder their wives and children and relatives, maybe that upsets them a bit.
[/QUOTE]
Except that most of the people who have carried out the bombing campaign in the UK are not from either Iraq or Afghanistan. They are either British citizens, born in this country, or immigrants from Somalia.
[QUOTE=dart]
Is anyone thinking of the real causes behind this attack and every other terrorist attack on Western soil?
[/QUOTE]
Please.
Britain is a democracy. If you don’t like the current policy, then you organise a sufficient number of people to vote that the policy be changed.
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
Right now, Tony Brown must be sitting back with a cool drink going, “Ahhhh! Not MY problem.”
[/QUOTE]
Tony who?
(It’s Gordon Brown; Tony Blair.)