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London 07/07 – continuing

The German magazine ‘Spiegel On-line’ is reporting that something calling itself ‘The Secret Organisation of Al-Qaeda in Europe’ has claimed reponsibility for this morning’s attacks on London.

Allegedly the triumphal claim was made on a website. The article does not link to the website but does include an apparent screenshot of the relevant posting.

This is all unsubtantiated and could be complete bunkum. Who knows?

UPDATE: I have just had a call from a friend who has been stuck down in Aldgate all day. He was on his way to work when the attack occured but was unscathed. Apparently the police are now allowing people to travel home from Central London. The cops he has spoken to have told him that the death toll is now 45 but this is unconfirmed.

38 comments to London 07/07 – continuing

  • My thoughts are with you.

    If your security processes are similar to ours, now will be the time for the police to pay particular attention to … nobody in particular, giving equal scrutiny to elderly Norwegian missionaries and to hate-spouting Imams in London who will, no doubt, be celebrating these attacks.

  • Julie Nilsson

    My guess is that it’ll pan out at around 50 killed. Not a patch om Madrid or Bali, let alone 9/11. One bad night in the Blitz.

    This is a small price to pay for the near-zero risk of nuclear war or 20th century- type conscripts’ conventional wars, but of course I shall be reviled for saying so. Nothing offends more than to speak the truths people feel ashamed to acknowledge, or to remind them that they should be grateful. Grievance and grudge rule our world.

    For sure we will yet again be fed the usual pious balderdash about how our politicians are going to stamp out every threat for ever and ever. They never will, because most people would rather have freedom of movement than be made 100% ‘safe’ by tyrants, who are worse than terrorists.

    Come to that, if we stopped meddling in foreigners’ affairs, the risk would be lower yet. But the mob has been deluded into thinking that they have to live in a world where everyone takes in each other’s washing, and that it would be cowardly not to meddle.

    So the dead will be sung to their rest by a cacophony of hypocrisy, and with luck it will be a few more years before the next equivalent of a bad weekend on the roads hits.

  • Paul Marks

    A pal of mine in Australia has telephones and told me that the Mayor of Paris has said that bombings proved that London was a bad choice for the 2012.

    I thought the choice of London (computer images) over Paris (real buildings) was crazy – but the Mayor of Paris still wins a vileness award.

    The B.B.C. on the 11 a.m. Radio Four news found time (after talking about incidents in London) to slag off Mr Bush over climate change – “After a breakfast meeting with Mr Blair, Mr Bush still……”

    As Mr Richard Littlejohn would say “you could not make it up”.

  • Verity

    Paul Marks – “The BBC found time to slag off Mr Bush over climate change.” This is hysterical. They are probably furious that this attack has cut into their slagging off Mr Bush time. And their pushing the non-fact of “climate change” time.

  • Paul Marks

    The above should of course read “telephoned” not “telephones”.

    Interestingly (as far as I know) the B.B.C. has not reported the Mayor of Paris’s kind comments.

    On a more serious note, various London people I know have reported in alive – which is good.

  • Julian Taylor

    grrr…

    This is a small price to pay for the near-zero risk of nuclear war or 20th century- type conscripts’ conventional wars, but of course I shall be reviled for saying so.

    Yes you will be. Very glib and unpleasant thing to say and did you maybe consider NOT writing this at all?

    At all?

    No?

    … Oh well…

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Julie Nilsson, George Orwell wrote a lot about people like you. If you cannot figure out the difference, ethically, between x people killed in an accidents on the roads and x killed by deliberate acts of mass murder, then your morally blind as a bat, or trying to sound sophisticated. Shove it.

  • Julian Taylor

    One wry observation I just read (thanks FJS!) on Europhobia was,

    14:05 – I tell you what, if this is an “Islamic” terrorist attack, they’re doing a piss-poor job. The pubs are all packed out, people sipping their pints happily, all a tad pissed off, but basically fine with it. Nice one, Al Quaeda – you profess to be from a teetotal religion, and you’ve given the pub trade a massive mid-week boost. Result.

    How very appropriate ..

  • Come to that, if we stopped meddling in foreigners’ affairs, the risk would be lower yet.

    Even better, we could just pay up the jizyah and accept our dhimmitude.

    Now please excuse me, I need to go do some soul-searching about the root causes of these attacks, and how we provoked them.

  • Jake

    Julie Nilsson.

    Al Qaida has stated that their number one reason why they hate the West, is the freedom that women have in the Western world.

    So you are the one that caused this attack. You don’t wear a burka, and you go out in public unaccompanied by a man.

  • Bernie

    I listened on radio most of the day. Blair sounded…terribly…. Blairish…. and…. sincere (sort of). The Marxist Red Ken gave what sounded like a schoolboy prepared speech about “freedom” which was pretty disgusting. I’d been quite impressed with the various times I’d heard David Davis speak until he started prattling on about how we need a minister for “homeland security” which would presumably also require a new law on such.

  • Elaine

    I don’t believe it! I just heard the BBC utter the word “terrorist”! Out loud, in front of God & everybody! I never thought the Beeb would ever say that word.

  • Sylvain Galineau

    I usually welcome anything that makes the type of people who ‘protest’ at the G8 look like the irrelevant lunatic dweebs that they are.

    Not today.

    Condolences and best wishes to Londoners and their loved ones everywhere.

  • T. J. Madison

    >>Julie Nilsson, George Orwell wrote a lot about people like you. If you cannot figure out the difference, ethically, between x people killed in an accidents on the roads and x killed by deliberate acts of mass murder, then your morally blind as a bat, or trying to sound sophisticated.

    Presumably the ethical goal is to minimize the number of people killed, subject to certain constraints (like liberty). If it’s a choice between spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prevent a band of maniacs from killing several hundred people, or investing the same amount of money in curing a disease that kills tens of thousands, the ethical move seems obvious, no?

    Opportunity cost matters.

  • T. J. Madison

    >>Now please excuse me, I need to go do some soul-searching about the root causes of these attacks, and how we provoked them.

    A thought experiment:

    Imagine you’re engaged in behavior that’s stupid and self-destructive. Now lets suppose that some maniac kills your sister, then claims he’ll keep killing more members of your family until you stop the stupid and self-destructive behavior.

    Should you stop the stupid and self-destructive behavior? Why or why not?

  • I offer you my sincere condolences on the losses and suffering borne by Great Britain today. Your country has been a fast friend of my country in the war against Islamacist terrorism, and you were punished for it today. Thanks for your sacrifices of national treasure and the men and women of your armed forces; and may you have courage to stay the course, and to insire the U.S. to redouble our own efforts.

  • Should you stop the stupid and self-destructive behavior? Why or why not?

    Nope. First you kill the maniac. Once the smoke clears and after a reasonable amount of time has passed, you get on with your life – which may or may not mean fixing your own stupid and self-destructive behavior.

    Or to put it another way: I see you drink a beer every night through your living room window as I pass by your house. As I am a fanatical and homicidal teetotaler, I decide to kill members of your family every time you take a drink. Are you going to swear off beer or are you going to hunt me down and kill my intolerant ass without worrying about whether or not you should drink beer?

  • Johnathan

    T.J. Madison, the point I was making was that there was no comparison between random accidents and deliberately caused mass murder and people who make such comparisons are morally otiose and stupid. Talk about “opportunity costs” is besides the point and plain silly in this context.

    I saw Ken Livingstone’s comments on the telly and was actually rather impressed by his sentiments.

  • Verity

    Well said, Bombadil!

  • guy herbert

    Julie Nilsson has a point. But I wish I were as optimistic:

    They never will, because most people would rather have freedom of movement than be made 100% ‘safe’ by tyrants, who are worse than terrorists.

    I’m not so sure. It’s not just terrorism, accidents too cause massively more disruption that is justified because politicians believe, probably correctly, that people in general would put up with almost any inconvenience than be exposed to small risks of imaginitively distressing things. We live in a society of the hysteric lead by the histrionic.

  • Presumably the ethical goal is to minimize the number of people killed, subject to certain constraints (like liberty). If it’s a choice between spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prevent a band of maniacs from killing several hundred people, or investing the same amount of money in curing a disease that kills tens of thousands, the ethical move seems obvious, no?

    Ok, let’s try another little “thought experiment”. You have a bad gasket under your front door that lets cold air into your house incessantly, costing you $50 per month in heating bills.

    Meanwhile I am stealing gas from your car every week to the tune of $10.

    Since you are losing more money to the cold air, you should just give me a cheerful wave (or perhaps a mournful look and an admonishing finger wag) each morning as I come to pilfer your gas, at least until you get your door fixed? Or should you smack me upside my head, and get your door fixed later?

    There are some simple realities to human interaction, and all the leftist pollyanna guitar-strumming piousness in the world can’t change them. One of those realities is that greeting an attack with indifference or passiveness produces another attack. It just does. If we show weakness to Al Qaida they will prey upon us without mercy. We cannot make them like us. We can only submit, die, or kill.

    No, I am not talking about all muslims, or even a war of civilizations. I am talking about the necessity of finding each and every Al Qaida member and auxiliary, and killing them. Not reasoning with them; not pleading for understanding – I advocate sending a small piece of copper-jacketed lead right through their skulls.

  • Pete_London

    Thanks for that. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve been in the office today and kept in touch with events mainly via blogs. Everywhere I’ve been I’ve read comments posted by Americans. These have been of support, goodwill, concern, solidarity, comfort and friendship. Thanks very much, it is appreciated. As you found out after 9/11, it’s nice to know you really do have friends. God knows there are some people in the UK who want the USA demonised and made a pariah and who want to break our bonds. They can shove it up their arse.

  • Pete_London

    Al Maviva

    The comment above was in response to yours.

  • Pete, almost all of my friends on this side of the water understand that an attack on you is an attack on us as well. We all stand together in this fight, whether some of us understand that or not.

  • GCooper

    I’d like to add my thanks to our cousins across the Atlantic for their support and good wishes.

    Particularly in view of the sustained campaign of puerile anti-Americanism they’ve been subjected to for the past few years from a small, noisy minority in this country, it’s all the more appreciated and a welcome reminder of the insoluble bonds between our two great nations.

    We’ve defeated monsters before. We’ll do it again.

  • Scrof

    *points up*

    What G Cooper said. The vocal idiots/root causes morons will be howling their heads off for the next few days (as ever). Let’s hang in there with our friends and fight our real enemies (that includes you, Jacques).

  • Susan

    G. Cooper, what you said. They are targeting Anglo civilization because they know that we are the toughest nut to crack in the West.

    In my darker moments, I sometimes think that sooner or later Anglo civ. is going to be all that is left of the West still surviving in any recognizable condition, as a matter of fact.

    God bless all in the UK, this is truly the worst I have felt since 9-11.

  • GCooper

    As the dust begins to settle, literally and metaphorically, two largely unremarked elements come bubbling to the surface.

    The first is the recent BBC series championing the claim that there is no network dedicated to wreaking havoc and inflicting terror on the West and that the entire “war on terror” was manufactured by “neo-conservatives” bent on enforcing an authoritarian society for their own ends.

    I trust the imbeciles responsible for that programme are, tonight, if not quite contemplating the whisky bottle and pearl-handled revolver, at least considering their professional futures.

    The second is that we need to remind ‘liberals’ that the murderous attacks on 9/11 took place before the attempts to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan and that these actions, right or wrong, were responses not, as the traitor George Galloway and his kind claim, causes.

    Islamists attack our civilisation not because of what it does, but because of what it is. We cannot reason with them, because there is nothing they want save for our complete destruction.

    All we can do is eradicate them. That is the only course of action open to us and the longer we delay that action, the more perilous the operation will become.

  • Daveon

    GCooper,

    Would you like to make a wager?

    I suspect we’ll find these are a bunch of local (British) lads – bet they’d have qualified for a bloody ID card too. I suspect the explosive will turn out to be home grown and they had very few ties to any sinister external organisation, other than at a conceptual level.

  • GCooper

    Daveon writes:

    “Would you like to make a wager?”

    No, because I agree with you. The likelihood is that the perpetrators of this attack were homegrown.

    But that doesn’t mean they acted in isolation, nor that they were not part of a ‘loose association of jarring incompatibles’ who gave them information and succour. Possibly money and ordnance, as well.

    Indeed, it’s hard to conceive of a bunch of disaffected Moslem ‘yoof’ managing an attack on their own.

    My point remains that they acted as they did on the inspiration of a network – albeit a diffuse one.

    And that the only appropriate response is their obliteration.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    On GCooper’s note, here’s a chilling article on the subject of Muslims in GB.

    (Link)

    TWG

  • guy herbert

    It’s not on Muslims in GB, TWG, but of a members of a specific group who are notorious shockjock of militants, full of swaggering outrage. They no more represent Muslims in the GB than Marilyn Manson represents the kids in America. And they are no more authentic.

    A dangerous terrorist is going to be unobtrusive. Which is not to say that unobtrusive people are dangerous.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    True enough. I should be more specific. These are, however, probably the police’s first targets. If the attackers were homegrown, they wre also likely recruited from this pool.

    What I still don’t understand is what can a religion like Islam offer that creates the sort of men like Sayless Islam?

    TWG

  • fFreddy

    “what can a religion like Islam offer that creates the sort of men like Sayless Islam?”

    Easy. Two things, hatred and power.
    Hatred is always an easy message to sell to the right audience – cf. Hitler and the Jews, Mugabe and the colonials, Stalin and the counter-revolutionaries, etc.
    Power comes when you have a group of foolish young men uncritically accepting this line.

  • Verity

    It’s fed to them by their elders who are offended that the West has no interest in their diety and no interest in obeying that diety’s mad injunctions. These people, it is important to remember, did not come to Britain seeking a better life. They came seeking exactly the same life, but with more conveniences. They came with the intention of making Britain more to their liking.

  • Susan

    Verity: Spot on.

    But they won’t get what they want — even if they do get what they want, because the sweet conveince of life in the West would disappear in a blink if the West became Islamized.

    They don’t understand that our wealth and our pleasant lifestyles and our technology are created directly from the things about us that they so much despise: freedom, individuality, equality of opportunity.

    That’s the paradox of their world view.

  • nobody in particular, giving equal scrutiny to elderly Norwegian missionaries and to hate-spouting Imams in London who will, no doubt, be celebrating these attacks.

    The said “hate-spouting Imams” have actually been taken out of circulation one by one since 9/11. Abu Qatada was one of the foreign detainees in Belmarsh; Abdullah Faisal was jailed for incitement to murder, and Abu Hamza is awaiting extradition to the USA.

    Mosque imams, on the other hand, tend to be older and often graduated from Islamic colleges, either in the UK or the Subcontinent (and occasionally the Middle East). I am talking about long-established institutions “back home” or schools founded by their graduates here – not the low-budget extremist variety we hear of.