Let me ask you a question. The USAF decided that there was an increased threat, regardless of what you or other Londoners think. What should they do?
It doesn’t matter what you or I think. It only matters what USAF intel thinks. They think that there is/was an increased risk. I can pretty much assure you that USAF probably has a little more intel about the situation than you or I.
It isn’t that after a certain amount of time it automatically goes back to normal. Sometimes it takes a few days before you have all of the proper info to say that there is no danger of another attack though. During the time that you are sorting everything out shouldn’t you keep your people away?
Who are you calling a Londoner? 
I’m saying that if they perceived an increased threat, they were making a mistake. I don’t like it when big military powers make mistakes. It makes me rather distrustful of any other decisions they make.
Sorry about that. :smack: I have lurked long enough to know that you aren’t a Londoner. I understand that you think that there was no more threat immediately after the bombing but I have to agree with the USAF’s action. I think that instead of assuming that everything is alright, you should default that there is an increased risk and after looking into the facts decide if there truly is or not. It is the way that the USAF saves lives of it’s people.
So do you feel that they should not have given way to public opinion this morning?
Can I ask a question - were any of the UK armed forces confined to barracks and told not to go to London for the same period of time?
I don’t know the answer, but it seems to me that:
If they were then yes, the USAF decision is correct, because it is complying with the local intelligence.
If not, then the USAF was disregarding the local intelligence from their number one ally.
Does anyone know?
How do you know that they gave way to public opinion? Couldn’t they have been planning to remove the ban anyways? I think that after reviewing the evidence they lifted the ban. If on the other hand they were just responding to public opinion they are sending the wrong message and they are being stupid. I hope for the sake of face (and sanity) the USAF had this planned after a review of the facts.
Get a fucking grip on themselves and think about what message their behaviour is actually sending out to your allies, your countrymen and the enemy?
This is a good point but if the intels are conflicting I would rather be safe than sorry.
Just a strange coincidence, then?
I can’t believe how doggedly determined some people are to take offense when there is absolutely nothing to be offended about. It is standard USAF policy to restrict their Airmen from the area when something like this happens, people have related their own personal experiences with this policy in locations like Texas and Puerto Rico (unless you think the USAF has some sort of vendetta against those locations too). This gives the USAF time to evaluate the situation and determine what further measures, if any, are warranted. So, on Thursday, the bombs explode and USAF personal from the nearest bases are automatically restricted from the blast area. The USAF reviews the situation and determines that there is no additional threat and lifts the ban within four days. I am trying very hard to see anything unreasonable about that timeline and failing.
Wow. Would you like them to treat allies’ intelligence with the same disregard in other situations?
That is the point, they aren’t acting any different than they normally would in this situation. The USAF will protect itself whenever possible and that is just common sense. If they want to put a ban on a place that just had a terrorist attack for a few days until everything has been settled I don’t see the problem in that. Maybe the reason I find everyone else to be overreacting to this is because I am used to places being put on ban for all kinds of reasons. Possibly dangerous places put on ban isn’t something new to me so it is hard to get worked up over it.
We’re not taking offence. We’re saying that the USAF behaved in a ridiculous manner, in a way that discredited itself, and harmed the image of London as a place which is perfectly capable of coping with such situations.
‘The blast area’?! You make it sound like a nuclear explosion had taken place, in which case the M25 would be a logical exclusion zone.
Intel from Britian should be one facet of the US intel not the whole thing.
Having spent some time in the USAF’s East Anglia bases, I can’t say I see this as a terribly useful proscription, Force Protection or no. I agree with Airman Doors that F.P. is an important part of overseas deployment, and I understand that keeping troops out of London keeps them safer, but the Wing Commanders at Mildenhall & Lakenheath need to realize that their actions carry a significant political weight too. I would expect a Captain or a Major to make the knee-jerk decision to pull out of London, and Doors is dead-on for why: every officer is responsible for every person under his command, all the way down the chain. However, a Colonel or a General should be thinking politically – as much as it sucks to have to do so – and a wise one would forward such politically-charged decisions up the chain, or split the difference with a policy that encourages vigilance but doesn’t forbid any areas.
The follow-up article makes it pretty clear that this edict was handed down clumsily, with an eye on helping London recover, and as soon as the good sense of it was questioned, it was retracted swiftly by a clear-thinking General.
Because their friend, the people hurt, are trying to send a message of defiance by continuing as normal and it is completely undermined by the sight of the USAF cowering behind its barbed wire against the statistically unlikely chance that if there were more bombs one of the few soldiers or family, compared to the millions in London, might get hurt.
The risk is absolutely negligible but the offence to your allies and the signal it send to the enemy is not. I don’t give a fuck if it’s normal procedure. It’s kneejerk assholism not to actually assess the situation. If it’s safe for civilians and tourists, its safe.
As for the imagined ‘Intel’. :rolleyes: Seen any WMD’s lately?
This is headline news in the UK and has done the image of the USA great harm.
Yeah, the Americans would be bound to have far better intelligence than the UK intelligence.
About things that are happening within the UK. I can see that :rolleyes:
What nonsense. That sort of attitude
“We are the Americans and therfore we know best” is exactly what people are complaining about in this thread. There, just exactly what you’ve said in that post.
I have no idea if the UK armed forced and the US military issued the same orders to their people, over the same time period, but think for a minute what you’re saying.
And then anyone who thinks that the limeys are getting their panities on a wad over nothing, maybe you can explain why two allies in one of their home countries, away from the coutry they are waging war on would ever have conflicting intelligence about domestic situations?
Aren’t they supposed to share it out?
No?
Course, that might go a long way to explaining the friendly fire we’ve all heard so much about.
In no way did this discredit the USAF or London. These are just precautions until they figure out if there is another threat or not. It happens in ALL situations like this. I could understand if this was something totally strange that the USAF decided to do but how can you think it is ridiculous to follow safety protocol that it follows in any situation?
Is there any way they could have lifted the ban without giving rise to claims it was prompted by the uproar? Once the outcry started, it’s rock and a hard place time; lift the ban and they’ve caved, don’t lift it and they’re just being more insensitive. There’s an adverse interpretation for every possible move, but it doesn’t make it true. And even if they are responding to public pressure, it doesn’t mean the ban wasn’t a reasonable move in the first place, given established procedures and the knowledge at hand.
I pretty much fail to see the problem here. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption, once bombs have gone off, that there might be more (and even more reasonable to assume that there are active terrorists around). Since USAF personnel have no official role in the recovery effort, it makes a fair bit of sense to keep them out of the affected area. Maybe “don’t go inside the M25” is a bit over-cautious, but it’s easy to communicate. And in the aftermath of terrorist bombings, caution is a pretty hard thing to get angry about, IMHO.