London Bombed...Again

[bunglehead]

WTF? 2 weeks to the day and exactly 3 bombs in the subway and one on a bus.

Sucks. At least nobody was killed.

 

Terrorists suck.

[assmonkey]

Honestly, I'm surprised there haven't been more terrorist attacks to date.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Check the following LINK to a story from the BBC detailing the governor of London's reaction to the 7/17 bombings. A surprisingly levelheaded assessment of the situation, refreshingly free of calls for blood wrapped in nationalist bombast.

 

Read and enjoy, compliments of Dr. Flash Amazing's Summer Reading Program.

[assmonkey]

This is thread drift--which I acknowledge is completely inappropriate in this forum--but I think it's a little ridiculous that a Londoner is decrying behavior that the British Empire exemplified for over two centuries. Namely, the forced occupation of foreign lands.

 

How soon they forget.

 

Not that I disagree with the general terms of his assessment.

 

- a s s m n k e y

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

It's no more ridiculous than a present-day American decrying slavery or expansionist genocide. In fact, it's good that people can look at the past of their own nation and note that "whoah, we really fucked that up. Best not to repeat."

 

Have a beer with fear!

[Gary_Yngve]

This latest attack sounds like a bunch of copycat terrorist-wannabes, not some precision-planned funded operation.

 

Once again, kudos to the Londoners for getting on with their business and not freaking out and raising a ruckus.

[murraysovereign]

I think it's a little ridiculous that a Londoner is decrying behavior that the British Empire exemplified for over two centuries. Namely, the forced occupation of foreign lands.

 

How soon they forget.

 

You seem to be suggesting that he's criticizing American activities in the Middle East. But in fact, he's pointing the finger squarely at Whitehall. When he says

If at the end of the First World War we had done what we promised the Arabs, which was to let them be free and have their own governments, and kept out of Arab affairs, and just bought their oil, rather than feeling we had to control the flow of oil, I suspect this wouldn't have arisen.

the "we" he refers to is Britain, not the US. At the end of the First World War, it was predominantly Britain, along with France, and the US in only a supporting role, that carved the Middle East up into the jig-saw puzzle we now know and love. There's a good book on the subject I read many many years ago, with a great title - "A Peace To End All Peace". And it's the fall-out from that post-WWI drawing up of mid-East borders that we're finally having to confront. Yes, the US has become a dominant player in the region in the years since WW2, but it was Britain that got the ball rolling in 1918, and that's what Livingstone is tracing the current situation back to. He hasn't "forgotten" anything - he remembers it all too clearly.