who is responsible for the London attacks?
- Thread starter mears
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editor
hiraethified
Mirror: "Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately."
Frankly, I couldn't care less if they were blew themselves up by accident or by devious design, but I can't see how you could expect to get away with leaving huge great backpacks on a busy tube train and no one noticing.
Of course, none of this helps the various bonkers conspiraloon theories that have been posted here - quite the reverse in fact.
Mirror: "None of the men was heard to cry "Allah Akhbar!" - "God is great" - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb"
I'm not sure if the survivors on a noisy, crowded tube would have heard that even if they did say it. Clearly those nearest to the scumbag bombers are no longer here to give an opinion.
Frankly, I couldn't care less if they were blew themselves up by accident or by devious design, but I can't see how you could expect to get away with leaving huge great backpacks on a busy tube train and no one noticing.
Of course, none of this helps the various bonkers conspiraloon theories that have been posted here - quite the reverse in fact.
Mirror: "None of the men was heard to cry "Allah Akhbar!" - "God is great" - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb"
I'm not sure if the survivors on a noisy, crowded tube would have heard that even if they did say it. Clearly those nearest to the scumbag bombers are no longer here to give an opinion.
editor said:
It does make a difference to dealing with the risk of future attacks, though.
You can leave a bag at least as large on a bus and not have anyone question it for a while - I saw it last Wednesday. "Whose is this?" Silence. "I said, Whose is this?" From the back:Mine. "Then can you sit next to it so we all know whose it is?"
Bluntly, if we're expecting bombers who intend to commit suicide, the only thing to do is to stay away from all bags.
gunneradt said:
I think we are mixing up concepts here.
Surely the bombers (and anyone conspiring with them) were solely responsible for the actual act. Assuming they knew what they were doing, they chose to do it and did so.
As for why they felt the need to do it, that is where the actions of others, individuals or nation states, comes in. On this basis, the actions of the US and the UK in Iraq and Afganistan may be properly said to explain why the bombings happened but that is different from assigning some direct responsibility for the actual act itself.
If the bombers came to trial, the actions of the US and the UK could not be used as a defence to the actual bombing, but could be used in mitigation (i.e. an explanation for the offence which may be taken into account in sentencing). It would only ever amount to an actual defence if it was duress - i.e. there was no alternative available to the defendant but to commit the crime or face death / serious injury themselves.
editor said:
But that's precisely what did happen in the case of the Madrid train bombings. The bombers boarded the trains to leave their rucksacks behind when they alighted. The bombs were then detonated using mobile phones, according to the official version of events.
If someone really wanted to leave a rucksack containing explosives on a busy London tube, then it would be a fairly simple matter for them to put their rucksack down on the floor and then alight the train at the last possible moment, before the automatic doors closed behind them. The train would then begin moving off to the next station and the only way it could be stopped would be to hit the emergency button.
detective-boy said:
No it could NEVER be used as mitigation. Also, how could they not know what they were doing. I rather like the thought they might have believed they were going to get away - and didn't. Presumably that also dashes the 21 virgins. What a shame.
gunner
gunneradt said:
Detective-boy knows whereof he speaks. See the username?
I don't think you understand the difference between "used" and "work" on the other hand.
Long, long ago near here someone was caught white-handed, as it were, painting out National Front graffiti on a railway bridge.
Guilt on a charge of criminal damage: rather hard to argue, as a brief might put it.
Mitigation: rather effective. (The story is that the magistrate declared that the bridge had been improved by said criminal damage.)
Bernie Gunther said:
Unfortunately, what we are dealing with is neither so organized nor so irrational as a cult. You ask "what factors account for the actions of the known bombers." I'm afraid they're depressingly simple, and derepssingly rational. They believe, not irrationally, that the Muslim world, conceived of as a whole, the "Umma," is under systematic attack by the capitalist/Jewish/Christian world. Muslims who believe that are under an obligation to defend the Umma as best they can.
How would that lead them to kill innocent civilians in London? Again, the reasons are depressingly simple and depressingly rational. They calculate that by spreading terror among the general population of the UK, they will press public opinion to force Tony Blair to cease his attacks on the Umma. It worked in Spain, and they think it will work here too.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
I think you're right that the cult model is not 100% directly applicable, but I think it's likely that the mechanisms I was describing earlier play a part.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
gunneradt said:
What contacts with Israel?
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
gunneradt said:
1) That is incredibly simplistic
2) How many times have we been attacked since 1948 because of this apparent support?
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
gunneradt said:
We schedule a timeframe for withdrawal from Iraq, and advocate reinvolving the UN on a temporary basis. We need the Iraqi state to function properly as a state as soon as possible.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
That's sort of not true at all.gunneradt said:
Well, it might be if you ignore the sanctions, the daily bombings, the continued political involvement and so on. In any case, Afghanistan and Iraq are not the only Muslim countries in the world, are they?
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
gunneradt said:
Think no fly zones and sanctions, they didn't stop interfering in Iraq since the last Gulf War.
The USA is also more vulnerable as the only global superpower.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
gunneradt said:
Are suggesting they have escaped Pandoras box and the lid cannot be closed?
DexterTCN said:
What should we have done, let the Soviets role over them? We fought alongside them in Afghanistan and than they decide to attack the US?
I think that says a lot more about them than it does about America.
Anyway, there is a crisis in Islam. Some of their best and the brightest are blowing themselves up and making nasty chemicals to kill innocents. Its not so bad that they decide to blow themselves to bits (be my guest) its the civilians they take with them which causes so much anguish.
Muslims can't blame America and Israel for these thugs. They must come to grips with the problem and solve it themselves.
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