Not today
A few of you may have noticed the last post got yanked after being up for ten minutes or so. A few minutes after posting it, a friend in London informed me that a bomb went off in a crowded bus in London, as well as several in the subways:
An explosion destroyed a double-decker bus in central London during rush hour Thursday, police said, and several blasts also went off on the London subway. There were reports of casualties.People covered in blood stumbled out of the subway, and a witness said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed.
"I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double decker bus was in the air," Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency. She said the bus was packed with people.
The subway explosions may or may not have been bombs, as nobody really knows much yet as this just hit the wire a few minutes ago. They shut down the whole tube system of London, which is a pretty vital piece of infrastructure... From what I know, if the whole tube system is out, London is out. Maybe it'll end up being some freak thing that wasn't intentional, but it doesn't look good.
Maybe it's because I've been up all night trying to push something out, but I just don't get this stuff. I like to think I'm fairly empathetic, and can make an effort to put myself into someone else's shoes, and while I may not agree with them, I can at least see how they're ending up where they are. I can get why someone might want to do anything, even if I'd normally find it abhorrent.
However, I can't imagine how anyone, under any circumstances, could possibly think some of this OK for any reason, let alone carrying some of it out. Bombs in civilian areas, even in schools, and we all know some of the scary stuff available for download coming out of Iraq.
I don't get completely fucking crazy people either, and unless I'm not sane, these people are just plum fucking crazy.
I've been reading books on Islam, the history of the middle east, HAMAS, the I.R.A. and other groups, because everything is supposed to have a story, and the patterns for why things are are supposed to be there if you're willing to look, but I'm just done. The problem with crazy people is that you can't deal with them, that's why they're called crazy.
Not murderous, not evil, they're just so fucking warped in the head that their reality can't even be fully comprehended... I don't know, I'm not at my best at 4:30am when I haven't slept, and alternating between anger and sadness like a current.
Anyways, the post I yanked will go up again sometime, but there's a time and a place for absurdity and social experiments, and today isn't it. Bow your head towards London today, and hope whatever madness may have infected it doesn't take too many people with it.
Posted by drunkenbatmanJuly 07, 2005, at 05:26 AM
Comments (30)
Posted by: Anonymous Coward at July 7, 2005 05:47 AM
Maybe it'll end up being some freak thing that wasn't intentional, but it doesn't look good.
This may not be terrorism, they don't know what caused it or the scale. Coming after London was awarded the Olympics and the G8 summit started it is suspicious, but it could be a freak accident.
Posted by: clokey at July 7, 2005 05:49 AM
The police have confirmed that explosives have been used.
Posted by: David Emery at July 7, 2005 05:59 AM
I'm a Londoner, and was almost caught up in this (I was on the underground at the time), and I'd just like to say thanks for caring :-) And to everyone that didn't get to see the post: It's a fun one!
Posted by: Malte at July 7, 2005 05:59 AM
Fuck. How the hell can anyone do such a thing? They think they are going to heaven for killing innocent people?
Ok, we don't know who did it yet. But since it's more than one bomb it has to be more than one lunatic doing this.
Posted by: afterimage at July 7, 2005 06:01 AM
Drunken - cheers for the sentiment. Just about to get the tube into work this morning when the network got shut down. Returned home, and I'm now working from here, watching TV in the background.
This is absolutely a terrorist attack. Looks like some bad incidents, but from the TV footage the emergency plan looks like it's working great. I think the initial news about 'power surges' was part of the emergency drill - get everyone evacuated by telling them about an innocuous problem and avoiding panic. Shutting the whole system down immediately is a good idea too. Lots of well equipped emergency services attending these incidents.
My best wishes to anyone involved directly in this.
Posted by: Retard at July 7, 2005 06:11 AM
Blasts all around London - 7 explosions including a tourist bus. St Mary's in Paddington has cleared out 4 wards to cope with incoming (despite the majority going to Royal London). Apparently some AlQuaeda/Jihad in Europe has claimed responsibility for it.
Posted by: Jeremy Higgs at July 7, 2005 06:41 AM
I've been watching Sky News on cable in Sydney, Australia for the past few hours, and it's been confirmed that it was a terrorist attack, with a number of explosions on the 'tube' network and on that double-decker bus you mentioned, DB.
I agree. I understand that some people may be angry, but I cannot comprehend how someone can justify such actions (especially during, or around, rush hour). (Although perhaps they feel it is justified for the deaths due to the United States' 'campaign' in Iraq.)
Posted by: Skatch at July 7, 2005 07:05 AM
If you take the war in Iraq, for the sake of argument, I don't think it's very hard to imagine how someone could justify an attack like this. (I'm not implying that Iraq has anything to do with this, this is just a hypothetical argument.) Coalition bombs have killed so many innocent people, and forces have arrested and tortured many others. For someone who has family that has been killed, I think it's easy to see how anger could lead someone to want to do something like this. After you get over the "us vs. them" mentality, you realise that we are terrorising other populations in many of the same ways they attack us. The only difference is that because it's us, it's justified and it's called war (or "liberation") and not terrorism.
Considering many people still resort to eye-for-an-eye "justice", I really don't think it's hard to see why this happens. I strongly disagree with what happened in London and find it terrible, but I also find it very easy to see how someone's mentality can be such that it is justified in their mind.
Posted by: Andrew at July 7, 2005 07:15 AM
Skatch... The problem with your argument is that these types of attacks have been justified by terrorists long before the war in Iraq. No one likes to see casualties of war, but coalition forces have not targeted civilins. That's a distinction that can not be brushed aside.
Posted by: Phil at July 7, 2005 07:26 AM
I'm not generally a huge fan of this newspaper or its website. But it is at least trying to keep up to the minute on the news about this with what it calls a newsblog:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/
Posted by: Alex at July 7, 2005 08:20 AM
Blair's been on the news, confirming it as a terrorist attack. Mobile phone networks were only allowing through emergency calls for a while, so I was pretty worried as my mother's in London... thank God or whoever's up there she's safe. I agree with Drunkenbatman that these attacks are senseless, and whoever it was was pretty screwed up. Londoners have my sympathies and best wishes today.
Posted by: Sam Deane at July 7, 2005 08:22 AM
As another Londoner, I'd like to say thanks for your support.
Empathy is a key word here. The people who commit these acts don't appear to have much of it. Those of us who suffer as a result must hold on to ours.
Yes they are lunatics, but we need to understand what drives people to do these things. It's about poverty and oppression, about injustices both real and perceived, and these are things that we need to take our share of responsibility for, and do something about.
Crucially though it's about intolerance. The supporters of terrorism live in a world of absolutes, and they don't tolerate difference. We must be careful not to be drawn into that world.
Posted by: Ankalon at July 7, 2005 09:04 AM
The problem with today's culture in Islam is that they are all shaded extremist by their mass culture, which is conservative nowadays. In the dark ages, they were actually a liberal, progressive culture, with Europe being the fanatics. Nowadays the conservatives are coming out of the walls, we have the conservative Islamic culture fighting conservative America.
This happened with the Nazi's also. They couldn't kill another human, but the party made Jews less than human. Those concentration camps didn't just kill them, it separated them and made them easier to color bad. Conservative, fundamentalist (we have the same types, only Christian here) Islam thinks of us as "infidels" and "devil's." The high up ones use that to make us less than human and easier to kill. Because you wouldn't mind killing a spider if you had to, would you?
Since it says exactly (maybe not, this is hear-say), to convert others to Islam, that's what they have to do. Not share culture, not make peace. Convert. Just like in America. Could the creation be a metaphor? The big bang?
No. God just went "click."
Right and wrong is defined by our culture. WE, say killing others is wrong. But they don't. We say freedoms like free speech and freedom of religion are right. They don't. Their entire system is lifted directly from an ancient text, based exactly on words that cannot be translated out of the native language because it will "distort" the words, the meanings. This is going on in our government. We have a model of the results.
We can have freedom, which is tied to free thought, or we can base our opinions, not on the world, but on a doctrine that may or may not be relevant.
So we can't just point the finger and say "bad."
(Thank you, Robin Williams, for an example. Click!)
Posted by: Pray for Peace at July 7, 2005 09:16 AM
It is absolutely crucial on a day like this to remember that Islam is a great and peaceful religion. And that way fewer than .1% of Muslims are terrorists.
We cannot allow right-wingers to seize the opportunity to denigrate diversity. In an act of solidarity, Tony Blair should immediately propose to increase Muslim immigration into the UK.
Through love and understanding of all peoples we will one day have our peace. Let us pray that our British brothers and sisters will not seek retribution.
Posted by: Alex at July 7, 2005 10:02 AM
At what point do the 99.9% of the muslim community that don't support terrorism stand up and denounce those who do?
Posted by: Jason Terhorst at July 7, 2005 10:48 AM
There was an interview on one of the news "magazines", either on NBC or CBS, that asked Muslim students, who attend a school of Islam in New York City, what they thought of those who had attacked us on 9/11. Keep in mind that these kids had seen the events of that horrible day firsthand, because they live in that city.
Yet, they said, "they're brave" or "they're patriots", or "they're fighting for the sake of Islam". None of those kids, nor their parents even made an attempt to denounce the actions of those who murdered their own neighbors in cold blood. Now, give me one reason why they shouldn't be kicked out of our country. Or shot.
Posted by: fudo at July 7, 2005 11:07 AM
Pulling the post was absolutely the right thing to do, db. These kinds of events make everything else seem trivial, to me.
And out of respect, I'll reserve the rest of my thoughts on the issue for another time.
Posted by: Ben at July 7, 2005 12:03 PM
Posted by: Jason Terhorst at July 7, 2005 10:48 AMNone of those kids, nor their parents even made an attempt to denounce the actions of those who murdered their own neighbors in cold blood. Now, give me one reason why they shouldn't be kicked out of our country. Or shot.
Because lack of jingoism is not yet an actionable offense in the United States. At least not in New York State.
Asshole.
Posted by: Skatch at July 7, 2005 12:38 PM
Andrew, just to be clear, I wasn't making an argument to justify the bombings, just trying to show one kind of reasoning that could lead someone to do the things that took place today. You might disagree with it, but you should at least understand it.
As Sam said, it is very important to understand the reasons behind attacks like these. The attacks themselves cannot be justified, but the reasons for the anger that leads to them can be real and valid. That is a distinction that it seems too many people fail to make. If we don't understand the underlying problems behind terrorist attacks and try to find solutions, it is inevitable that more attacks will take place.
Posted by: Orson Olson at July 7, 2005 06:26 PM
Yo write: "Not murderous, not evil, they're just so fucking warped in the head that their reality can't even be fully comprehended..." Yet you've been reading a lot about the ME?
How can you not get the fact that this a defense of the realm of Islam - a revival of traditional Muslim Imperialism - a call to re-assert the superioirty of Islamic values and root out corruption and cast out the evil West - this is the Islamic way! - the solution to all that's gone wrong since the old caliphates. It is at once a purification ritual and a war. It is a harbinger of the nuclear 9/11 to come.
It is our future for the next several decades until Islam can reform - if it can reform. The future is in London on 7/7 - London's worst terror attack, and more effective than Guy Falke's Popish plot centuries ago.
What's so hard to understand?
Posted by: Ankalon at July 7, 2005 09:06 PM
Uh, not to ignore the ongoing flame war (DB should know better than to allow comments on a post such as this ;p), but Mr. Olson, are you sarcastic or what? Do you want Islam itself to reform, or Islam to reform Ame-- er, "cast out the evil West." Notice that capitalizing "west" means you think it to be a proper noun, and therefore something as tangible as a country.
The thing that's hard to understand is your point. Could you elaborate? I think you could drive this flamewar to auspicious heights. Because remember people, the current leaders in Islam are a crazy bunch. Not the ancient types that invented math and stuff.
Posted by: mumbo at July 8, 2005 02:57 AM
Hmm
Michael Moore's recent Fahrenheit 9/11 had some very disturbing footage of small children that had been killed via us bombing.
I think the question we have to ask is if your daughter sister lover,brother was killed via a bomb would you want to go after that person?
The problem is that this stuff lasts generations and yet the politicians play with it and ride off the fear.
What in a peaceful way what can we do to stop this - because killing isn't the answer.
Posted by: g. at July 8, 2005 04:53 AM
I too think pulling the post was the right thing to do, but I'm not so sure posting a rant to go along with it was ;-)
@ Alex
At least in my country they already have denounced them (through their central council, they condemned the bombings as barbaric and unislamic) and very probably in yours - the problem is that this is either ignored by the media (since it isn't very interesting news in itself if someone wants peace and understanding) or repackaged and spinned as a "muslim groups fear reprisals" story.
@ Andrew
Coalition forces have specifically targeted civilians, especially in the early days of the iraq war, they attacked ambulances and anyone who drove too fast (or in the wrong direction). They wiped out an entire wedding party in afghanistan just because the helicopter pilot was on government prescribed speed. Oh yeah and I would count levelling an entire city and making 100,000 people homeless "targeting civilians", but that's probably just me.
Although I'm sure all of these actions can be justified, the actions alone are unnecessary fuel to the fire for these fundamentalist retards.
Posted by: drunkenbatman at July 8, 2005 05:51 AM
I too think pulling the post was the right thing to do, but I'm not so sure posting a rant to go along with it was ;-)
Probably some truth in that. It was really strange, I'd worked all night to get a big thing off my plate, and saw a pal from London was online who I hadn't seen in ages... pinged him, and he told me bombs were going off at London. 5 minutes getting some details, pulling the post... and I was really just pissed off at what I was seeing and already had MarsEdit open.
What's a little scary is I'm just as angry at the world right now as I was then, albeit the edges have been softened by some amusing covercasts sent my way.
Posted by: negrul at July 8, 2005 06:29 AM
It is a society of extremes, ours. Most of the events we take notice of are of the extreme. No one stops for a moment to realise. It is the case of the fanatics.
Killing the innocents has allowed the guilty to have a reason to exist. This goes for all wrong doings which spanned generations during human experience. "An eye for an eye" has been proven to be trully wrong but some people just can't get a hint.
London, we are with you.
Posted by: Jason Petersen at July 8, 2005 03:25 PM
to g.:
About the wedding. I remember that, and yes, while it would suck to have your wedding bombed, you should have read the story you linked.
The people at the wedding were apparently "firing into the air" in celebration. I'm not saying that their culture is wrong for having Ak-47's be more commonplace than TVs, but just think for a second: If you're piloting a plane over war territory and you see people on the ground firing weapons in the air, what will you think?
The radical Islamic nations are not afraid to put weapons in the hands of 13 year old boys and girls. What's to say that people dressed up at a wedding are innocent? I'm completely against this war (and the Afghani one), and voted against the perpetuation of the Bush administration; however, Darwin might have smiled ironically at the fate of those shooting guns in a celebration during wartime with planes overhead.
Again, I'm not saying that the pilot was correct, but please be more mature than to chalk up his actions entirely to the effects of "government prescribed speed."
And my deep condolences to those in London. I hope Blair offers swift and just retribution to those responsible.
Posted by: wicak at July 9, 2005 09:31 AM
London, my thoughts are with you. I have friends living there, and most have replied to my pings and emails.
@Ankalon, I have read the Qur'an from cover to cover. I havent seen the part where its says to convert others. As far as I know, Islam does not have an active conversion directive/policy.
w.
Posted by: Ankalon at July 10, 2005 03:08 PM
Thanks for the heads up, wicak. This post is stale, but information about the subject never hurt.
Posted by: g. at July 14, 2005 08:02 AM
sorry, the computer crashed and deleted the answer I wrote and I forgot to come back, so ..
just a quick note to Jason:
I think neither of us can talk realistically about the information the pilot had available, so we don't know if he knew he was flying over territory where someone shooting a gun into the air can be considered a civilian.
And some part of my mind refuses to find somthing remotely funny about people getting killed over misunderstandings in cultural differences, even if it is something stupid like fetishizing guns.
I don't do speed, or any other hard psychoactive drugs myself (because I think they're fucking scary substances) but I have seen a grown man under the influence of this drug pull down his pants, stripping it over his head "for protection" throwing away his wallet into the crowd and running off into the night, because he thought the clapping coming from the speakers and the audience were gunshots fired at him.
So when I read the airforce was giving dexedrin without medical supervision (dexedrin in overdoses (ie more than one pill a day) acts like the closely related methamphetamine (speed)) to it's fighterpilots (I think it was in an article about canadian troops beeing bombed by u.s. pilots) I thought this practice of (purposefully or not) clouding the judgement of your soldier was a really bad idea.
That's the long version of "government prescribed speed" ;-)
This is getting a little off topic, so if you want to continue the discussion over mail, feel free to do so...
I can confirm that according to the local radio (and I am about a mile from the scene). There have been six explosions. So far 2 reported dead and many injured
I worked next to aldgate for three years (up until a month ago). I am still trying to find a lot of friends