bomb alerts and stuff

xp exactly stevem.

Yes, I was just thinking, it's probably in the 80s now, after Osman's explicit statement from Rome.

If you really want to know what caused Hitler, then it was the shooting of Franz Ferdinand, because otherwise there would have been no WWI and Hitler would in all probability have expired as a penniless wino in the gutters of Vienna, which he was on the road to doing before being called up.

You should write to the Guardian - I hear they're looking for a replacement for Aaronovitch.

xpost

In other words, why do you want 7/7 to be a question of the personal responsibility of terrorists, but not a question of the personal responsibility of politicians?

this isn't entirely whati think, given i have said that the ubjective motivation of the individual bombers isn't very important. but atthe same time the people who set off the bombs are more respobnsible than the politicians who failed to stop them!

in your paragraph there's an 'is' part and an 'ought' part. i disagree that by asserting that 'is' i am somehow like jack straw. but i disagree with most of the 'ought'.

It's not just that politicians failed to stop the bombers, it's that they framed the whole context in which the bombers are operating. The politicians are themselves bombers: they bomb from 15,000 feet, but they still bomb. That's why Blair refused to condemn bombing when he condemned suicide bombing last week.

there's no space in you argument for the *choice* of people to react to x and y in this way. the men who set up camps in afghanistan. the men who procred the weapons, and those who carried them. you can't reduce this down to one cause -- 'america' -- and leave it at that, qed.

the war was unpopular. if hating the war was the only cause, how come all of us who hated the war aren't bombing buses? after all, the context has been thus framed.

you think? so not a response to israel/iraq at all? these terrorists are all *really* lamenting the decline of the organized left. if only they could see the still glowing light of russian communism and leave out all the theocratic dogmatism (oh hang on no, maybe there is a kind of affinity here) they could be genuine anti-imperialists... this has been a george galloway dream.

And you know as well as I do that there's no connection between Bin Laden and the "organised left": before he was fighting the US he was fighting the USSR.

Well, that's like saying hackers are fighting monopolies when they make a virus that exploits a loophole in Internet Explorer. It is and isn't true.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/4741965.stm

I think they were taking people's names and addresses. I can't think why, unless it is to write to them and apologise for the inconvenience.

33% said the PM bears "a lot of responsibility" for the attacks
31% said he bears "a little" responsibility
28% said his decision was "not responsible"

those 31% in the middle is a little vague, to say the least.. i mean

"people were asked to what extent, if at all, the game 'grand theft auto' was responsible for the bombings"

5% said GTA bears "a lot of responsibility" for the attacks
55% said GTA bears "a little" responsibility
20% said GTA was not responsible

OH MY GOD TWO THIRDS SAY GRAND THEFT AUTO IS LINKED TO THE IRAQ WAR!

A fact which seems to have been airbrushed out of history, along with the fact that Thatcher, of all people, condemned the US invasion of Grenada.

And what did the British Left have to say about Wilson's refusal of LBJ's request for British troops to be sent to Vietnam? Why they savaged him for not condemning US intervention in Vietnam out of hand, of course! And marched up and down with banners denouncing him as a murderer!

"Al-Qaeda 'blames Blair for bombs': Osama Bin Laden's lieutenant warns London faces more attacks because of Tony Blair's policies."

Very cunning, the same "either with us or against us" tactic Bush used after 9/11. Now people like me can't argue any connection without being accused of parrotting Al Qaeda. They ruined the last US election by doing the same thing to Kerry's program.

Well, it might make a change from being told (cf. Henry upthread) you're parrotting George Galloway / Saddam Hussein. So there you go, it's official: now anyone making any link between Blair's bombs and suicide bombs is "on their side" and "against us".