Blasts rock UK subway

[Eghad]

It hard to imagine the UK being bullied by a few bombs. These are the same folks that endured bombing by the Germans in WW2 and gave Hitler the finger. Now I understand why William the Conqueror relocated.
yes there will be a few wieners but most of the bloodline still runs true I bet.

 

[Sir William]

I offer my sincerest support to the British citizens. It is again a attack on all. There were many non-citizens, citizens who weren't of Anglo descent and women and children who were killed and injured. We cannot put a single face or race to the victims. The one benefit that the British have is experience and from that, resilience. UP the British!

 

[bclark1]

The war in Iraq is about oil....

that is a horrible statement, and unless you're a willing part of the MTV generation (i am by birth year but not by choice) you really shouldn't proliferate that belief. the whole of the persian gulf accounts for less than 20% of our oil. iraq accounts for about 5% of the persian gulf's total export, with the majority player being the saudis. one could argue their capacity to increase this export, but according to the USGS kuwait's recoverable reserves are significantly larger. i have trouble believing even the most gung-ho administrations would commit this scale of forces to a country providing at most 1% of our imported oil.

i would like to go on but i hate to drag this off topic, i just can't help but chime in whenever i hear that all-too-common but apparently never researched refrain. it makes me feel like i'm back on campus having to endure the indignity of marching to class amidst a women's-studies-department-organized protest.

 

[Mike Irwin]

I keep asking people that if this war is all about oil, then where in the hell is my 60 cent a gallon gasoline now that we control the Iraqi reserves.

The imbiciles who are parroting the "Oil War" crap get a confused look on their faces for a few seconds and then launch into a quixotic rendition of "BUSH IS EVIL, NO WAR FOR OIL" refrain.

That's right. Don't confuse the kiddies...

 

[KSFreeman]

mrcalm7, yes, I am blaming the Spanish electorate for bolstering The Base. The history of terrorism shows that terrorists always repeat a success.

The Base bombed Madrid. The Spanish people then took a powder in the War on Terror. Since it worked in Spain, the New Barbary pirates think it can work elsewhere. They should have hit Italy or other weaker Euros first.

Your comment regarding New York City, I do not understand.

 

[Vilkata]

This is just the terrorists usual game... Why engage in a real war, when you can engage in a psychological war, that does just the same dammage, but at a lot less cost? In some cases, psychological warfare can be even more dangerous than conventional. At the very least, I gurantee you that many Londoners will be being a bit more paranoid from now on, and that's what the terrorists want. To mess with you. And I do think that the madrid thing had something to do with this... Spain basically said "Were wimps! You can walk all over us!" encouraging the terrorists!! But at any rate...

About the Iraq blunder...

Among other reasons, israel was whimpering and scared every day knowing that husein had short range ballistic missiles pointed at them day in and day out. However, israel was always too pansy to go deal with them themselves. I'm sure theyre dandy happy that we did it for them.

Axis & Allies man. Axis & Allies.

And there is absolutely no way were getting very much oil out of iraq. In fact, I read somewhere that the only significant pipeline going out if iraq is going into israel. Which makes sense, they're our ally, and they've always had a shortage of oil. Suppose its good someone is better off from our badly handled blunder.

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[Kevin Quinlan]

Spain DID cave in to terrorists. THAT IS WHY WE SEE THIS TODAY. The Spanish gov. pulled their troops out of Iraq and as a reward the terrorists told them no more bombings.
We are not involved in a debate, discussion, of fourm on terrorism. We are involved in a WAR ON TERRORISM. Many of us on this site are Military vets. As such we are aware that to win a WAR you do not appease the enemy you destroy the bastards.Sadly it is also obvious that many on this site are clueless of the meaning of WAR and what must be done to win it.

Kevin

 

[MK11]

"Among other reasons, Israel was whimpering and scared every day knowing that Hussein had short range ballistic missiles pointed at them day in and day out. However, Israel was always too pansy to go deal with them themselves. I'm sure theyre dandy happy that we did it for them."

Are you too young or too dumb to remember Israel blowing up Saddam's attempts at a nuclear reactor in the early 80s? Much of U.S. policy revolves around trying to hold Israel back (part of the reason Saddam lobbed SCUDS and other missiles into Israel was to engage them--if Israel attacks, the rest of the Arab world gets into it).

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

For some ... rudeness take out by me , the Israelis were explicity stopped from attacking Iraq in Gulf War I after the Scud attacks on their cities. The US begged them not to attack as it would intefer with our limited goals (that left Saddam in power, BTW).

Learn history.

 

[Eghad]

"I keep asking people that if this war is all about oil, then where in the hell is my 60 cent a gallon gasoline now that we control the Iraqi reserves."

Yes we control the Iraq Reserves, but the crude has to make it to the refineries and the boats. hard to do when the terrorists keep blowing the pipeline up and we cant provide round the clock security for it because we lack enough manpower. Refer to first post on lack of manpower. I beleive iraq is producing less now after the war than before the war. Now demand has increased for oil so no 60 cents a gallon for you...Didya really think the oil companies would cut prices that much?

"that is a horrible statement, and unless you're a willing part of the MTV generation (i am by birth year but not by choice) you really shouldn't proliferate that belief. the whole of the persian gulf accounts for less than 20% of our oil."

Nope Vern, I was born when Eisenhower was elected President and *** is MTV? j/k. I even got a nice little ribbon for my service overseas for participating in the global war on terrorism. and retired with almost 29 years of service. So I am not naive about what is being fought for. Afghanistan was all about 9/11. Iraq is somewhere we would have been sooner or later. In a world with increasing demand for oil, i.e. China 20% of production is a lot.

The reason we went to war with Iraq so soon answer seems to be changing constantly. I think the president should just buy a reason like they buy a vowel on wheel of fortune. Now as Mr. Powell told us we have charged into the China shop that is Iraq and have bought all the destroyed mechandise lock, stock and barrel.

We have no choice but to stay. if we leave Iraq to the terrorists.... we will find out what a jihad is like. The terrorists will have a moral victory if we leave Iraq. So no I am not advocating leaving.

As Patton once said, "A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." So whats the plan of Bush and Rumsfeld?

 

[Vilkata]

There was some footage of the dammage in London on TV, as well as Tony's little speach. The bus they showed looked completely torn up. Interviews with victims were shown too, it seems like they're all handling it surprisingly well. Adaptable people!

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[70-101]

My company has a field office on Tavistock Place which is less that 100 meters from one of this mornings blasts.

 

[Eghad]

The Israelis have us by the short hairs...

We do not want them to upset the apple cart in Iraq. Israel is gonna look after Israel. Now that we started the war in Iraq they went from the short hairs to the bollocks. We cant piss the muslims off which is exactly what an attack by Israel would do.

I was looking at some nice pictures of a recent ADA joint excercise between the Us and Israel in Israel which was done recently.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"hard to do when the terrorists keep blowing the pipeline up and we cant provide round the clock security for it because we lack enough manpower."

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

You fail!

If this war was TRULY about oil, the US would have the oil fields and transmission lines clamped down so damned tight it wouldn't even be funny.

There wouldn't be a US solider in any part of Iraq that didn't have oil infrastructure in it, and we wouldn't be taking casualties in some little sand pit whose only export is camel crap.

"Now demand has increased for oil so no 60 cents a gallon for you...Didya really think the oil companies would cut prices that much?"

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Exxon Mobil was conducting the war in Iraq.

When did that happen?

 

[buzz_knox]

What we are seeing in Iraq is recruit training for all the new misfits to learn how to fight us. You don't plan this kind of sophisticated simultaneous cell bomb attack by running around in Iraq yelling about Jihad.

Actually, the recruiting is done in London masques. I'd say a lot of the training is done in-country, just as it was during the IRA days. The implicit argument that without the Iraq conflict, such coordinated strikes would not be happening flies in the face of the clear fact that such strikes were part of AQ's standard operating procedure long before the Iraq conflict started.

As for the war being about oil, I guess that's why we invaded Mexico and Venezuela to control their oil supplies. We didn't? Whoops. Well, at least we dropped the sanctions on Hussein so we could buy all the oil we wanted. We didn't do that either? Durn. Maybe it wasn't about oil after all.

 

[Eghad]

When was the last time Exxon Mobil attended attended a energy policy meeting with Cheney? and when was the the last time the press or joe sixpack attended one with Cheney?

before you secure the pipelines you need to secure the border...hrmm that takes quite a few troops. Next you have to patrol places where the terrorist might be. I guess we could take all the troops from the borders and towns and place them on the pipeleines 24/7. We have about 150,000 troops in Iraq... Some of them are support troops who dont do combat missions or patrols. take the number of those from the actual number and thats what you have left to provide security for all of Iraq.

If the middle east didnt have oil would we be there?

 

[Limeyfellow]

Its not uncommon for terrorists to go through Britain anyway. Its generally easy to get into the country as an immigrant and has some of the best training cells in the world that then can easily get into other countries. Most the 9/11 suspected bombers came through Britain (even if alot of them are still alive and been on tv giving interviews for years after the attack). Its the terrorist gateway to the world.

Of course we wouldn't have all this bull if in the coldwar we didn't spend billions training these groups to fight either the Soviets or the US back in the 60s to the 90s and then stab them in the back and drop them when they were no longer of use. Quite a few of these terrorists have ties to the CIA from Osama bin Laden, Shamil Basayev, amongst others. They are called blowbacks. Agents who turn against their creators. Now we are feeling the problems of stirring up a swarm of angry wasps for decades.

As for the Spanish opposition winning the elections. That was always going to happen long before the actual election. The polls and the people were demanding the withdrawal of troops long before the attack due to precieved insults, not wanting to be there in the first place and friendly fire. The government had no chance of winning , but after the attack we heard all the bull that this was the cause for the Spanish government being defeated in the elections. I guess thats the main problem with getting your news for only the likes of ABC, CNN or FOX and so on.

 

[Eghad]

" In a staff discussion 44 years ago, President Eisenhower asked his National Security Council about "the campaign of hatred against us [in the Arab world], not by the governments but by the people".

His National Security Council outlined the basic reasons: the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is "opposing political or economic progress" because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region."

 

[Trip20]

If the middle east didnt have oil would we be there?

lol...

When your done with your tired "oil cry" argument and want to come to the table to talk about real issues, then I'll welcome the debate.

To think this is all about oil is naive.

To do so, your ignoring:
-- terrorism
-- suspected WMD's
-- genocide

...and the list could go on for many more reasons the middle-eastern countries need a boot in the @$$.

Anyone who says it's all about oil, WMD's, or any one specific reason is completely wrong. Rather I submit it's a cocktail of reasons.

Only those who are Bush haters, or who hate the administration in general, latch on to the one or two "bad" reasons to be over in the middle-east in any capacity - and purport them to be the end-all-be-all absolute reason we're over in Iraq.

Now, my favorite, is when people say Bush invaded Iraq for his daddy.

 

[Eghad]

There is far greater genocide in some African nations......

Was Bin Laden and his band of merry men in Afghanistan or Iraq ?

show me the WMDs.........