London Subway Blast ...

[hengcs]

sad ... sigh ...
:(

From NY times ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/international/europe/07cnd-explosion.html?hp&ex=1120795200&en=58771b68dfe53a77&ei=5094&partner=homepage

London was struck by a series of four apparently coordinated terrorist explosions in subways and buses during the morning rush hour today, which killed at least 33 people and wounded as many as 1,000 others. The explosions ripped apart several subway trains and at least one double-decker bus and caused officials to close and evacuate the entire subway system.

[Johann]

OK, I can barely suppress my rage at this point.

I had to post on this. I won't state my opinions right away.

I'll just ask readers to consider the following and consider who the leader of Britain is at this moment in history.

This exchange is from Fox News. TODAY.
It's between host Brian Kilmeade and Fox business contributer Stuart Varney.

Draw your own conclusions.

Kilmeade: And Blair made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined, and that was the first time since 9/11 when they should know, and they do know now, that Terrorism should be NUMBER 1. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western World's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks happened.

Varney: It puts the number one issue right back on the front burner right at the point where all these world leaders are meeting. It takes global warming off the front burner. It takes African Aid (LIVE 8) off the front burner. It sticks TERRORISM and THE FIGHT ON THE WAR ON TERROR right up front all over again.

Kilmeade: Yeah.




DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS. WITH YOUR HEAD AND YOUR HEART.

[trevor826]

Tony Blair's speech seemed very carefully worded to hit the right notes with the majority however reading between the lines..........

Let's just say I always think his body language is overplayed especially his hand movements and his emphasis on key words is a bit to heavy for my liking as well.

I feel for all innocent victims of terrorism.

I feel for all innocent victims of war.

Cheers Trev.

[arsaib4]

"On the one hand you have people working to alleviate poverty and rid the world of the pandemic of AIDS and ways to have a clean environment and, on the other hand, you have people working to kill people."

"The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who've got such evil in their hearts that they will take the lives of innocent folks."

[Johann]

Excerpt from an article by Dahr Jamail:

A remarkable proportion of the violence taking place in Iraq is regularly credited to the Jordanian Ahmad al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Queda-linked organization in Iraq. It seems no car bomb goes off, no ambush that occurs that isn't claimed in his name or attributed to him by the Bush administration. Bush and his top officials have lifted his feats of terrorism to epic, even mythic proportions. (Much aided by various media outlets)



Anyone else notice that they are shouting Zarqawi's name everywhere?

Does he actually exist? Has anyone even seen a photo of the man? He probably does exist, but if the U.S. intelligence is so good at pinpointing attacks to him, then why can't they find him in the flesh? Why haven't we seen even a glimpse of this guy?
At least Bin Laden was paraded in front of us a zillion times.

I'm highly suspicious of this Zarqawi stuff. There is so much wrong with this whole situation that the helplessness one feels is compounded by the mammoth compliance of the media.

Look at the field day CNN is having with "LONDON TERROR".

It's sickening.

[Johann]

Please read Robert Scheer's article on Bush: "Serving us the Cold War Warmed Over".- right hand column when you search "Scheer".

www.thenation.com


The best term for everything Bush says or does:

IMPERIAL HUBRIS

[Johann]

Bush's war is only a few more soldiers away from the 2000 DEAD mark.

Iraq is a breeding ground for muslim extremists, it's a full-blown quagmire: it's *officially* claimed 39,000 Iraqis (although that number is certainly WAY higher) and Bush says it's for democracy and freedom.

39 THOUSAND+ dead. Only just before March 2003 these people were breathing the same air as us.
What did they do to get a one-way ticket to the afterlife?
Living in Iraq?

Bush used 9/11 as a prop for this war. I don't know how anybody with a brain cannot see how he and his corrupt administration have orchestrated this business decision.

And it was a business decision. This war ain't about freedom, it ain't about WMD's- Saddam had none. It's been proven as fact.
"No weapons were found and no weapons existed".
America was not under any fucking threat.

And his whopping lies are bought wholesale by a lot of people.

Look at the Karl Rove scandal. The White House said that if anyone in the administration leaks such sensitive information they will be fired.

Well, Rove definitely outed her: "Joseph Wilson's Wife".
That's exactly the same as saying "Valerie Plame".

Why does the man still have a job? Cuz he's Bush's architect.
He's Bush's coal shoveller, the man who got him re-elected (pond scum that he is) and he thinks he can hide behind some lame catch-free part of the law.

This administration is absolutely revolting. It's a gang of power-mad assholes and political opportunists. They have lied and cheated and stole to the point of being pathological.
It's like that machine in Caligula that cuts people's heads off and keeps on going.

Bush never, NEVER comes across as sincere. His speeches are always prepared, always chock full of steaming bullshit.

He's got no conscience whatsoever. He just does whatever George wants to do. He doesn't acknowledge or seem to realize that HE works for the people. Not the other way around.
The PEOPLE elected him yet he acts like a man with cosmic immunity.


People like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter need to be put down like dogs. I'd love to be in the same room as O'Reilly. I would rip him a new asshole. He represents everythig I hate about America. He's full of himself, tells guests to shut up routinely, and is so arrogant that he's BEGGING to have his skull caved in.

Ann Coulter was on CBC the other day (in a brilliant op-ed story about how the U.S. media are complicit with the Bush admin) and she said "Canada was our best friend- they sent troops to Vietnam". The interviewer stops her and says "No we didn't". She says "Are you sure?" "Yes- quite sure. We took a pass on Vietnam, just like we took a pass on Iraq"
Coulter: "I'll get back to you on that".

The next day (in a follow up to the story) Coulter is on some U.S. network blathering on about how this Canadian interviewer was all up in her grill, calling him "some bubblehead reporter".

I hate her. She needs to be bitch-slapped. Often.

People actually rely on O'Reilly & Coulter for the "truth" on world topics and american politics. How tragic.

If people are so xenophobic and naive to have no objectivity or doubt in regards to "personalities" that bark in favour of the war, then Christ Almighty, Doom On Them.

[trevor826]

A Mosque close to where I live was desecrated after the recent bombs in London. As the newspaper put it "animal parts offensive to Muslims were found on the premises" there have also been cases of hate mail threatening death and covered in swastikas. There is no excuse for this behaviour after all, were Irish people or Catholic churches threatened with all the IRA bombs in the 70's? No they weren't, I have many Muslim friends as well as all denominations but these attacks and threats are brought about by rascist bigots who have just been waiting for an excuse.

Cheers Trev.

[hengcs]

July 21
... again?!
;(

[trevor826]

From the Times:

Police shot wrong man

Suspect was innocent Brazilian electrician

SCOTLAND YARD was forced to admit last night that a man shot five times from close range by police officers was not connected to Thursday’s London terror attacks.

In a short statement the Metropolitan police described the man’s death as a tragedy and expressed “regret”. He was named as Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician from Brazil who had been working legally in Britain for three years.

The killing of an apparently innocent man will be a serious setback in what is already a difficult inquiry. As well as pursuing the attempted bombers, police and intelligence services disclosed yesterday that they were hunting up to 30 people thought to have assisted the two terror attacks in London in recent weeks.

It has also been disclosed that MI5 has warned Tony Blair that the threat from Al-Qaeda, with the possibility of more suicide attacks, is likely to continue for at least five years.

Witnesses to the killing of Menezes described how he was chased into Stockwell Tube station on Friday morning by armed plainclothes officers and killed with shots to the head while lying on the floor of a train.

The officers are thought to have feared that Menezes, who was wearing a quilted jacket on a summer’s day, might have been concealing a bomb. No explosives were found on him.

Within hours of the shooting, however, senior officers were saying they were “very confident” the man had been one of the four bombers who attempted to set off explosives in London on Thursday.

Then, as it emerged that the Brazilian was not one of the four, officers suggested he was still linked to the bombings.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said on Friday the shooting was “directly linked” to anti-terror operations. Even yesterday, hours before the man’s identity was confirmed, security sources said he had been known to police from a recent counter- terrorist investigation.

It now appears to be a case of mistaken identity. The body of the electrician, originally from a town north of Rio de Janeiro, was identified by his cousin in Britain, Alex Alves Pereira.

O Dia, a Rio newspaper, quoted Pereira as saying: “What can the police say? They will try to justify this but there’s no way. My cousin’s body had his head blown apart with bullets in the back of the head.”

He added: “Jean came from a tight-knit family. We are all absolutely devastated.”

Pereira said he did not believe Menezes had been trailed by police but that he had been reported to plainclothes officers by someone who saw him “jumping around at the station”.

Yesterday’s police statement expressing regret for the shooting said: “We believe we now know the identity of the man shot at Stockwell Underground station . . . We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday, July 21, 2005. For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan police service regrets.”

Menezes, who had a dark complexion, had become a target of the anti-terrorist branch’s armed surveillance unit after his address, but not his name, was found on a paper inside one of the bomber’s rucksacks.

He was followed after leaving his flat in Tulse Hill, south London, on Friday morning. The officers were under the control of Gold Command, Scotland Yard’s major incident centre. Originally, police had said the man had walked from a property in Stockwell to the local Tube station. But later police changed their statement to say he had been under surveillance during a three-mile bus journey he made from his home to the station.

“They picked him up hoping that he would take them to other people. But as soon as he was seen going towards the Tube they had to take action,” a police source said.

The officers intervened as Menezes entered Stockwell station. Witnesses there say he bolted, leaping over the ticket barrier and running down the escalator, pursued by the plainclothes officers.

Mark Whitby, a witness on the train, said: “As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked like a cornered rabbit. He looked absolutely petrified.”

Whitby said Menezes tripped or was pushed to the floor. “One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him.”

It is not clear why Menezes ran from the officers. One theory is that he may not have understood English, but his cousin said he was fluent.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission confirmed it will launch an investigation into the death. The shooting of an apparently innocent man will cause major disquiet both in the Muslim community and within SO19, the elite firearms unit that is involved in hunting the suicide bombers.

Two firearms officers are facing a murder investigation after being accused over the shooting of Harry Stanley in 1999. Stanley was shot by SO19 after he was seen carrying what officers judged to be a weapon but was in fact a table leg.

The treatment of the two officers by Scotland Yard management sparked anger among SO19 staff. Earlier this year many were planning to withdraw from firearms service because they felt their colleagues had been made scapegoats.

Friday’s shooting had inflamed tensions in the Islamic community because it was at first thought the victim was Asian. Baroness Uddin, a Labour Asian peer, said: “There is so much scepticism out there because I think while people like myself might have known about the shoot to kill policy, is it not known out there?”

The Met issued new guidance to firearms officers after 9/11, directing them to shoot a suspected suicide bomber in the head to prevent him detonating any explosive.

Writing in today’s News of the World, Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, defended the introduction of what he described as the “shoot to kill to protect” policy to save innocent lives in a “time of unique evil”.

“I have no doubt that now, more than ever, the principle is right despite the chance, tragically, of error,” he said.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We have had many phone calls today from anxious Muslims. It now appears we have have a ‘shoot first ask questions later’ policy.”

Last night a Downing Street spokesman said: “The prime minister has said all along that he supports all the efforts of the police and law enforcement agencies.”

__________________________________________________

Yes you've read it correctly, an innocent man was held down by plain clothes police and executed in public, in Britain!

So this is what we've come to, state sanctioned murder, God help you if your not as white as snow.

I felt something was wrong when they said a suspected suicide bomber had been shot dead, I mean if you've already killed him surely it would only take seconds to find out if he was a suicide bomber.

This sort of news makes me feel physically sick and ashamed to be British.

Trev.

[Chris Knipp]

This as described in the revealing Times article is a horrible incident even by US post-9/11 standards of behavior. This is the most troubling part of the article:
The Met issued new guidance to firearms officers after 9/11, directing them to shoot a suspected suicide bomber in the head to prevent him detonating any explosive.

Writing in today’s News of the World, Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, defended the introduction of what he described as the “shoot to kill to protect” policy to save innocent lives in a “time of unique evil”.

“I have no doubt that now, more than ever, the principle is right despite the chance, tragically, of error,” he said. Such a barbarous policy is almost certain to lead to the deaths of innocent people. I thought the British were not overreacting; this suggests quite otherwise. Note the Bush-type "evil" talk; the complete confusion and self-contradiction of the police, according to the rest of the article, about who they were chasing. The mosque desecrations and hate talk are too familar to US readers.

I posted (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=430) earlier about the London bombings in my website's Politics section and I commented there on Tony Blair's reaction. I liked what the mayor of London AKA "red Ken" Livingstone had to say to the BBC last week (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4698963.stm) about how the attacks came about.

[trevor826]

Turns out that not only did the police execute an innocent man but all the reports about the incident were falsified as well.

Police claimed the man wore a quilted jacket on a hot summer day, photographs prove he had no jacket.

They claim he ran into the station, leapt over the turnstile, down the escalator and fell into the train, CCTV footage shows the man clearly walking calmly into the station and through the turnstile, he did run a couple of steps to jump onto the train where he sat down.

Claims that police shouted for him to stop were also falsified, they challenged him on the train, he stood up but was forced back into his seat where he received 7 bullets through his head and 1 in his shoulder.

Lies and deceit from start to finish, it makes you wonder why the witnesses lied?

Trev.

[Chris Knipp]

Police claimed the man wore a quilted jacket on a hot summer day, photographs prove he had no jacket.

They claim he ran into the station, leapt over the turnstile, down the escalator and fell into the train, CCTV footage shows the man clearly walking calmly into the station and through the turnstile, he did run a couple of steps to jump onto the train where he sat down.

Claims that police shouted for him to stop were also falsified, they challenged him on the train, he stood up but was forced back into his seat where he received 7 bullets through his head and 1 in his shoulder.

I had heard the jacket was not true, but of course this information is buried in the US. Is there one UK source (or link) where we can get this information about what actually happened, trevor? I have not been following up on this and I should because I wrote about it on my site and it was published in another couple places. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=430)

Thank you.

Chris.

[trevor826]

There was a big ITN news special on the story which went into a great deal of background information with reports from the moment the suspect left the house until he was shot.

Info can be found at itn.co.uk/news/1677571.html

Cheers Trev

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks very much. I've got it.