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London on Flickr

Lauren


Wider shot
Originally uploaded by Nicholas Shanks.

Pictures from common people who witnessed the London bombings are being posted under several tags at Flickr.

I don’t have much to say about the incident because I don’t have television news and am getting mixed reports from blogs and online news orgs. For me there is, as Chuck and I discussed this afternoon, a serious rage bubbling under the surface of this tragedy. Ask the people in London how the war on terror is going.

There is so much I want to do and say but today I feel very small.

11 thoughts on London on Flickr

  1. Sure. Stop the war on terrorism and see if your buddies in the Middle East stop killing innocent people.

    I hear this crap about how Bush turned Iraq into a recruiting center for terrorists. Recruiting terrorists? The type of people who commit these acts already have a deep, burning hatred for us anyway; they don’t need to be “recruited.”

    What Bush did do by invading Iraq was take the war to their doorstep. And if that lures one terrorist from Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Iran to the front lines, then so be it. Come out and play. We’re here to kill you, and you want to kill us. Let’s get it on.

    Liberals typically defy logic. They think a woman has a right to kill a baby, but if I shoot a burglar who sneaks in my window at 3:30 A.M. then I should be imprisioned. Yeah, that’s brilliant. Let those true colors shine! These terrorists, all of them, are the enemy. They want to kill YOU, your mother, your son, your dad, etc. Why do you have compassion for them? Do you think they’ll just “go away” if we withdraw and do nothing? Think again (emphasis on THINK).

  2. Marksman, every single pretext advanced by Bush and Blair for the invasion of Iraq has been demonstrated to be utterly false. In what way does the occupation of Iraq advance the ‘war on terror’?

    Tony Blair, by dragging Britain into an illegal war of aggression and colonial plunder, bears political responsibility for these bombings. He should be hounded from office.

  3. Marksman–

    The particular people who would commit crimes against American innocents (as opposed to, say, innocent Iraqis) are simply engaging in a different form of the actions you purport: actions sanctioned by their worldviews instead of yours.

    If I knew that one particular individual or group of individuals were going to harm someone I loved, I would kill them with my own hands. But I refuse to trade stocks in your Fox News Market of Scarcity and Fear. Life is good, most people are good, and the ones who aren’t are no justification for the way you see the world.

    Terrorists are people with histories that have made them dead to human suffering. Yep, I said it. They might also be irrredeemable. But you seem to be cut of the same cloth–you just have the added benefit of being a first-worlder who wears Gap khakis when he goes to First Pentecostal in Everytown, TN on Sunday.

    If you were in Iraq right now, which side do you think you’d be on? (I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of that militia meeting you attended last Wendesday.)

    I do hope that you and the other 51% of like-minded Americans who elected this prep school punk learn to think critically someday. It makes all the difference. You see, pattern recognition is a uniquely human ability. This fact does not bode well for you or your contemporaries, despite the claimed depth of your thought.

    It’s gonna take a lot of love and a lot less psychosis to change this world, not a hum-v stuck in the sand of some poor fuck’s backyard.

  4. Maybe if “we” had actually been fighting a real war on terrorism rather than a completely different and unnecessary war in Iraq, that might have gone some way towards preventing this. The Iraq occupation may have made this more likely, or it may have made no difference, but I can’t imagine how it could have done any good. And the Iraq invasion, whatever you want to call it, is certainly not a war on terrorism, unless you believe that terrorism==Iraq, which is a shortsighted and dangerous view – terrorists come from far further afield than that (Afghanistan, anyone?)

    I don’t think we should do nothing. But I do think that invading Iraq was an act of breathtaking stupidity (or blind aggression or greed or whatever) that was in no way relevant to fighting terrorism. You bet I feel violently angry towards the people who did this, and I wouldn’t feel the slightest bit of sadness to see them hunted down and killed. That doesn’t mean I want to see innocent children killed, homes destroyed, women’s rights taken away from them, in a completely unrelated country, for no good reason. I don’t see the logic of that.

  5. What Bush did do by invading Iraq was take the war to their doorstep.

    How many of the 9/11 terrorists were Iraqi nationals? And how many were from Saudi Arabia? How many of them did Saddam Hussein fund? Oh, and remember how Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were mortal enemies? Just a thought. If we’re gonna bring it to someone’s doorstep, shouldn’t it be the person’s (or nation’s) who actually attacked us?

  6. There may be a time when terrorism is defeated. I doubt it, but perhaps.

    There won’t ever be a time when left and right quit demonizing one another.

  8. tapping Dubya on the left shoulder from behind him, whispering in his ear, “Hey, moron, where’s Osama??? Or did you forget about him???”

  9. I sure am glad our country wasn’t permeated by wonderboys like Josh when WWII was fought. Me thinks it would have been a completely different outcome.

    These are the facts of the matter. We are waging a war against people who are trying to destroy us. They hate us and our way of life. They intentionally target bystanders and civilians. By invading Iraq, we have created a theatre in which this war can be carried out. You are correct when you state that none of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis. However, I believe most of the militants doing the bombings and beheadings in Iraq are coming over the border from other countries. My response? GOOD. At least we don’t have to sweep mountain ranges and pluck them out of caves. Let them come and be conquered. Eventually, the Iraqis will win and we will leave. The people will be happy and safer because we shed blood and showed them they don’t have to live with fear and tyranny.

    I remember one of the dumbest things a liberal ever said about the war. I stated that the terrorists who are decapitating innocent people over there were barbarians. It takes an especially sick fuck to saw someone’s head off with a knife. They murder women and children and they enjoy it. I don’t want these people on the planet; they’re better off dead. Dimbulb replied, “I didn’t see anyone getting their head cut off until we invaded Iraq.” Wow. Enlightment! I’m sure Musab al-Zarquawi would be a street vendor in Baghdad, selling silk scarves to toothless old women if he wasn’t busy waging a war on terror. He’s AL-QUEDA. He’s a terrorist and a killer. We are fighting him now in Iraq. What would have us do? Withdraw into our borders and hunker down for another 9/11? Some of you people really worry me. Your way of thinking is going to get hundred of thousands of innocent people slain. The terrorists would love nothing more than to have us sit still and do nothing. Don’t let your hatred for Bush and the other Republicans obscure the truth. What we are doing in Iraq is worthwhile. It’s not going to be obvious overnight. But I guess I’m wasting my breath. Hard work and dedication is something that a liberal could never understand. Peace, love, high taxes, and government social programs with unlimited giveaways are the order of the day. Sad. So sad.

  11. Marksman – despite acknowledging that the perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity had no connection to Iraq, you engage in various mental cortortions trying to establish an ex post facto rationalisation for the invasion of Iraq. You demonstrate wishful thinking of the most politically blinkered variety.

    As all other rationales have been exposed as flagrant lies, I guess you will cling to any straw. Anything to keep up appearances, I suppose.

    The terrorists, which according to you, are flocking to Iraq to await the final showdown with the US military, nevertheless managed to sew death and destruction in London. Meanwhile, the US military, in an attempt to quell the Iraqi insurgency is resorting to increasingly ferocious measures. The destruction of Fallujah, the attack on Samarra all bear the hallmarks of the Nazi-type tactic of exemplary punishment. Despite razing Fallujah to the ground, the insurgency continues unabated. Furthermore, members of Saddam’s secret police – those ‘torturers’ so decried by the US media – are being actively recruited into the newly formed Wolf Brigade, an instrument for dealing with resistance to the US occupation of Iraq. Thus bringing freedom to Iraq entails the rehabilitation of Saddam’s instruments of repression.

    If you really believe that Iraqis will thank the US for destroying their dwellings, wrecking their infrastructure, arresting, imprisoning and torturing their menfolk, looting their natural resources and installing a puppet administration comprising thugs and criminals, you have been sorely duped.

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