Condolences to London

Perhaps Overblades would have something to say about that.

excuse me, I meant Ovalblades.

With all due respect to the victims in London, isn't it remarkable how
different the World reaction is to violence in Britain versus Iraq? I
mean bombing attacks like this one are nearly a daily occurence in
Baghdad. And yet the news of violence in Iraq elicits no where near
the outpouring of grief and revulsion at this bombing. We are hardened
to the news out of Iraq. Or do we value anglo-saxon lives more than
Middle Eastern ones? Or maybe it's because Britain is the cradle of
our American civilization. It's like having a sibling or parent
murdered - it's not us, but it's getting darn close.

Eric

Quoted message said:

With all due respect to the victims in London, isn't it remarkable how
different the World reaction is to violence in Britain versus Iraq? I
mean bombing attacks like this one are nearly a daily occurence in
Baghdad. And yet the news of violence in Iraq elicits no where near
the outpouring of grief and revulsion at this bombing. We are hardened
to the news out of Iraq. Or do we value anglo-saxon lives more than
Middle Eastern ones? Or maybe it's because Britain is the cradle of
our American civilization. It's like having a sibling or parent
murdered - it's not us, but it's getting darn close.

Eric

No doubt all of the above are true to degrees. Probably also important
is that we view the civiliation, government, security, etc. of Britain
as being similar to our own. When there's a bombing in Iraq we can
dismiss it with the notion that theirs is an unstable country lacking
adequate protection against such occurences. It's comforting to believe
that we in the U.S or Britain are secure against such an attack. And I
think many of us do believe this, or at least feel pretty confident
about it. When something like this happens it disrupts our sense of
security and forces us to recognize that we aren't as safe as we'd
thought. In that sense, as you say, "it's getting darn close."

Mark P said:

Quoted message said:

With all due respect to the victims in London, isn't it remarkable how
different the World reaction is to violence in Britain versus Iraq? I
mean bombing attacks like this one are nearly a daily occurence in
Baghdad. And yet the news of violence in Iraq elicits no where near
the outpouring of grief and revulsion at this bombing. We are hardened
to the news out of Iraq. Or do we value anglo-saxon lives more than
Middle Eastern ones? Or maybe it's because Britain is the cradle of
our American civilization. It's like having a sibling or parent
murdered - it's not us, but it's getting darn close.

Eric

No doubt all of the above are true to degrees. Probably also important
is that we view the civiliation, government, security, etc. of Britain
as being similar to our own. When there's a bombing in Iraq we can
dismiss it with the notion that theirs is an unstable country lacking
adequate protection against such occurences. It's comforting to believe
that we in the U.S or Britain are secure against such an attack. And I
think many of us do believe this, or at least feel pretty confident
about it. When something like this happens it disrupts our sense of
security and forces us to recognize that we aren't as safe as we'd
thought. In that sense, as you say, "it's getting darn close."

But, not too many years ago, the IRA committed a lot of similar
attrocities in England and Ireland, and we didn't get all worked up
about it them.

Quoted message said:

But, not too many years ago, the
IRA committed a lot of similar
attrocities in England and Ireland,
and we didn't get all worked up
about it them.

Ireland and Northern Ireland don't
get along. Although many of Irish
descent live here, the USA isn't
really part of it, and don't feel
threatened by it. One could make
the case that the US didn't feel
threatened by much of anything, even
after the Murrah building went down,
until 9/11.

Quoted message said:

And yet the news of violence in Iraq
elicits no where near the outpouring
of grief and revulsion at this
bombing.

A. Deaths of Iraqis are hardly reported
in the US; no pictures, just numbers.

B. What is reported, for example, Abu
Ghuraib, is effectively trivialized by
the conservative media machine. They
have even characterized the nightly
tribute to the American war dead as an
exercise in disloyalty. IOW, they
"Support the Troops," but only while
they're alive and fighting.

ekurth said:

With all due respect to the victims in London, isn't it remarkable how
different the World reaction is to violence in Britain versus Iraq? I
mean bombing attacks like this one are nearly a daily occurence in
Baghdad. And yet the news of violence in Iraq elicits no where near
the outpouring of grief and revulsion at this bombing. We are hardened
to the news out of Iraq. Or do we value anglo-saxon lives more than
Middle Eastern ones? Or maybe it's because Britain is the cradle of
our American civilization. It's like having a sibling or parent
murdered - it's not us, but it's getting darn close.

Eric

Although I hate to feed a thread that has nothing to do with swimming or
sports in general here, I want to say that I think news about the violence
in Iraq does not get as much headlines because we already know that there is
violence there as it is a war zone. Violence on such a scale that occurred
in London, though, is unusual, and so newsworthy. I suspect that if
violence on this scale continued in London, it would gradually make less
headlines and eventually make none at all, as what occurred in Iraq. After
all, most of the violence that occurs in London on a daily basis I never
hear about, and this would be the case no matter how bad it was. Only the
new makes the news.

On a related note, recall the tremendous outpouring of grief that occurred
after the tsunamis hit southeast Asia. The people there are certainly not
Anglo-Saxon and are perhaps even more foreign to most Americans than Arabs.

Now, let's get back to swimming! 🙂

Quoted message said:

With all due respect to the victims in London, isn't it remarkable how
different the World reaction is to violence in Britain versus Iraq? I
mean bombing attacks like this one are nearly a daily occurence in
Baghdad. And yet the news of violence in Iraq elicits no where near
the outpouring of grief and revulsion at this bombing. We are hardened
to the news out of Iraq. Or do we value anglo-saxon lives more than
Middle Eastern ones? Or maybe it's because Britain is the cradle of
our American civilization. It's like having a sibling or parent
murdered - it's not us, but it's getting darn close.

I remember living in Belfast in the 70s with American funded terrorism going
on daily, and several friends and colleagues killed and injured in the
process.

--
BD
Change lycos to yahoo to reply

When Kerry said that terrorism would always be with us, but should be
reduced to the level of a "nuisance," he was widely disparaged. But he
was correct; save for the ultimate form of terrorism (more below).

On KNX radio in LA today, they took a call-in from an airline pilot.
The radio guys asked him if airline pilots were frightened of the
probability of terrorism, being largely helpless to deal with it, when
it happens. He gave a good answer: he said that there are 27,000
airline flights a day in the US. Even if coordinated terrorist attacks
shot down 10 planes with stinger missiles, that is still only 1 chance
in 2,700 of being shot down, which is probably less than the odds of
getting killed driving to the airport several times a week, as pilots
have to do.

The problem is, bin Laden has stated that his goal is to kill 4,000,000
Americans, because he calculates it will take that many to get us to
change our mid-East policies. You can only kill that many with a
nuclear bomb. So the only form of terrorism which ultimately matters,
from a national survival point of view, is nuclear terrorism. There
were 8 years between WTC #1 and WTC #2, showing that there is patience
to go along with sophistication, among the rank of terrorists. I
always roll my eyes when I read that someone thinks we are being
effectively protected by the current administration's policies, simply
because we have escaped attacks within our national borders for the
past 4 years.

- Larry W

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

When Kerry said that terrorism would always be with us, but should be
reduced to the level of a "nuisance," he was widely disparaged. But he
was correct; save for the ultimate form of terrorism (more below).

In the aftemath of 9/11, a local magazine (the New Zealand Listener)
looked back at the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attacks and reprinted
the following extract from an editorial by the then editor of the
magazine, Murray Holcroft, in October 1972, titled "The Faceless
Enemy":

"Those who do travel may have to learn, eventually, to submit to search
and interrogation, accepting indignity as the price of safety. New
freedoms of space and movement, opened to us by air travel, are already
in danger because terrorists have learned to exploit them.
....
"We have lived long enough with Doomsday to believe it will stay around
the corner.

"The biggest danger is not a spreading violence but the loss of freedom
that may be needed to check it ... The open society begins to fail when
it has to devote too much time and energy to self protection. Only the
crustaceans can accept life in a carapace."

I kept the article as it seemed remarkably prescient, as it does once
again today.

Liz D
PS
I worked in an office in Tavistock Square in the 1980s and regularly
used the Russell Sq tube station - it is very deep and has either a
lift or very long flight of stairs to exit, or did then.

In message <[email hidden]>, Liz
D <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

"The biggest danger is not a spreading violence but the loss of freedom
that may be needed to check it ... The open society begins to fail when
it has to devote too much time and energy to self protection. Only the
crustaceans can accept life in a carapace."

I kept the article as it seemed remarkably prescient, as it does once
again today.

The UK government is currently debating the introduction of identity
cards for British citizens. Which many of us are not keen on, as we
don't want them. But if they're introduced, which seems only a matter of
time, we'll have to pay for them.

<http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/comrace/identitycards/>

Quoted message said:

I worked in an office in Tavistock Square in the 1980s and regularly
used the Russell Sq tube station - it is very deep and has either a
lift or very long flight of stairs to exit, or did then.

I work a few blocks from there. We were told not to leave the office
building and instead eat from the cafe. I'm not keen on the food there
so I went out to a local place. However, I cycle to work, so I wasn't
faced with a four-hour plus trudge home afterward.

--
congokid
Good restaurants in London? Number one on Google
http://congokid.com

Bill Clinton had it right. Interdicting terrorism is at core a police
responsibility, much more than a military war. Afghanistan passed the
"Global Test" for war, in that invading it did not alienate all the
countries whose enthusiastic cooperation we need for effective
terrorist interdiction at the international police level. Arguably,
after the fact, it might have been better to "contain" Afghanistan,
avoiding the opium/heroin gold rush providing jihadists with a revenue
stream, and taking advantage of its centralized status for jihadists by
infiltrating the upper command and control echelons to produce
powerfully useful intelligence. But that's hindsight.

I can't believe the naivity of those (we are talking about half the
country) who believe that uniformed military boots on the ground in
Iraq have served to make us less vulnerable to nuclear explosions in
our port cities. The effectiveness of the Iraq insurgency was entirely
forseeable to anyone who followed the exploits of the DC snipers.

Two half wits armed only with a single shot, bolt action hunting rifle
terrorized 15,000,000 people living in and around the capital of the
most powerful country in the world and were caught only because they
called the police and told them where to look for clues, a la Batman
comics. That's why statistics like a 55% "approval rating" of Iraqi
citizenry are so meaningless. We aren't talking about the disaffected
45% using blustery language on talk radio. 5% of the country
sympathizing with 1% of the country supporting 0.1% of the country with
access to the unsecured weapons arsenal of Saddam can and will wreak
mayhem for a decade or more to come. Which will continue to produce
highlight reels for Al Jazeera. And provide the mother of all
terrorist training camps for those inspired by these highlight reels.
And cripple the military credibility of the US (Iran and N Korea know
that they face no threat of invasion by a country that can't meet
current recruitment goals...and Paul Campos had it spot on that Bush
can't beat the drums for military enlistment without calling attention
to the fact that the War's most ardent supporters are not sending their
own children in harm's way. They'll advoctate baby killing before
advocating a draft, was what Campos said, if memory serves. He got
that one right). And ultimately increase the probability of the
unthinkable.

Why is something which is so clear to anyone who looks at it
objectively so opaque at the level of national public opinion? I blame
President Bush for disinformation. But I also blame the likes of
Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Howard Dean for not being able (or
having the political courage) to formulate and articulate a coherent
and compelling message.

Quoted message said:

Why is something which is so clear to anyone who looks at it
objectively so opaque at the level of national public opinion? I blame
President Bush for disinformation. But I also blame the likes of
Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Howard Dean for not being able (or
having the political courage) to formulate and articulate a coherent
and compelling message.

I agree with you 100%. But how can I blame Bush, who reassured us in
such a heart=felt way that he thinks of Iraq every day. Every single
day, he further emphasized. It seems clear to me he is out of the loop,
bears no more responsibility than any puppet chosen by his gang of four
or five.

I keep track to a small extent of the country of origin of hits on my
swimming workout site. Every morning I see hits from Korea, Indonesia,
Africa, Iran, and such. Under all these fighting, shooting, killing,
maniacs from all countries are just people who want to swim better,
teach their children something useful, have dinner more often with their
grandparents, lead pleasant lives. They must do so in constant fear for
what reason? The answer is ugly. The benefits of these wars are for so
few and the damage is to so many.

rtk

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

Why is something which is so clear
to anyone who looks at it objectively
so opaque at the level of national
public opinion?

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb
voting on what to have for lunch."
--Ben Franklin

"The best argument against democracy is
a five-minute conversation with the
average voter."
- Winston Churchill

Right on, Larry. But already blaming the "loyal opposition" for our
misguided policy? Come on, give me a break. Do you really believe
that, or are you throwing a bone to your adversaries to win them over a
bit?

The Bush administration seized on the huge political opportunity of
9/11 and have been riding it ever since. And as you say, the fatal
flaw in their thinking was to treat a criminal problem as a
Nationalistic one which could be solved by our huge army. But there's
no political hay to be made by campaigning for things which WOULD help
us fight terrorism - international cooperation, better intelligence
services, and the rule of law. That dog just won't hunt, and Karl Rove
knows that.

John Kerry ran a lamentable campaign. But he must have been utterly
shocked and confused that one of the candidates war records was the
focus of much of the campaign, but the candidate who spilled blood in
the mud of Vietnam, and killed Viet Cong for his country was the one on
the defensive. Hey, Rove is good.

Howard Dean was running on an anti-war platform, but he failed to
secure the nomination. Hillary Clinton is not going to lose her
political career fighting a war president who is goading the country to
rally 'round the flag. That would be stupid. Our failed war on terror
can be laid solely at the feet of a possibly sociapathic president and
his right wing neocons. Please leave it there, Larry.

Eric