Another bombing ...

[impressive]

Details just coming in.

 

[cloudy]

From msn:

JERUSALEM - A bomb exploded at the entrance to a shopping mall in the seaside city of Netanya on Tuesday, and 10 people were injured, rescue services said.

Initial police reports said a suicide bomber blew himself up at the mall.

The bomb went off before 7 p.m. local time, when the mall was crowded with shoppers. Netanya is at Israel's narrowest point, 9 miles from the West Bank. The city has been a frequent target of Palestinian bombers, but the frequency has dropped sharply in the past year, with completion of a section of Israel's separation barrier along that part of the West Bank.

Ambulances and police vehicles raced to the scene.

 

[impressive]

Gawd ... ignore me. My spastic mother called about another bombing. She was apparently misinformed. *sigh*

 

[impressive]

From msn:

JERUSALEM - A bomb exploded at the entrance to a shopping mall in the seaside city of Netanya on Tuesday, and 10 people were injured, rescue services said.

Initial police reports said a suicide bomber blew himself up at the mall.

The bomb went off before 7 p.m. local time, when the mall was crowded with shoppers. Netanya is at Israel's narrowest point, 9 miles from the West Bank. The city has been a frequent target of Palestinian bombers, but the frequency has dropped sharply in the past year, with completion of a section of Israel's separation barrier along that part of the West Bank.

Ambulances and police vehicles raced to the scene.

Ah. TY cloudy. I couldn't find anything.

 

[Guest]

There have been arrests in Leeds (West Yorkshire) following raids this morning, and a controlled explosion at an address there. Seems the police and anti-terrorist unit closed in the net fast. They know now that one of the bombers died in the bus bombing in London, and the forensics and intellgience from that led to the events today.

Edited to add a link: BBC News

 

[impressive]

Another phone call from mom: It was "just" in Jerusalem. (said with a sigh of relief)

Now WHY do I find this statement just as disturbing as the act itself?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

There have been arrests in Leeds (West Yorkshire) following raids this morning, and a controlled explosion at an address there. Seems the police and anti-terrorist unit closed in the net fast. They know now that one of the bombers died in the bus bombing in London, and the forensics and intellgience from that led to the events today.

Edited to add a link: BBC News

What kind of a monster can board a bus, look at the innocent people around him and then kill them?

Without pity. Without compassion. Without even the faintest flicker of humanity.

I can't comprehend it. I just can't.

 

[neonlyte]

Four bombers identified, all British born; one other person arrested in Yorkshire.

Documents identifying three for the four found at the bomb sites, peversely one persons papers found in two locations.

Almost certain one of the bombers died on the bus bombing, police suspect at least two others may have died.

Looks like we may have suicide bombers in our midst.

Now Jerusalem... again. Will it ever end?

 

[R. Richard]

What kind of a monster can board a bus, look at the innocent people around him and then kill them?

Without pity. Without compassion. Without even the faintest flicker of humanity.

I can't comprehend it. I just can't.

1) A homicide bomber hit Netanya’s Hasharon Sharon shopping mall north of Tel Aviv. Jihad Islami’s Jerusalem Battalions claimed responsibility. Bomber from Atil village near West Bank town of Tulkarm.

2) Suicide bomb truck blew up Tuesday afternoon at entrance to Israeli Shavei Shomron northwest of Nablus. No casualties.

3) Powerful bomb blast kills 2, injures Lebanese defense minister. Pro-Syrian Elias Murr’s motorcade was blown up driving through the north Beirut Christian suburb of Antelias. Twelve people also injured.

Three incidents in a day. All intended to kill anyone who happened to get in the way. All done by militants. In the two Israeli bombings, the militants are financed by the European Union. Stop the financing, stop the bombings.

 

[Op_Cit]

What kind of a monster can board a bus, look at the innocent people around him and then kill them?

Without pity. Without compassion. Without even the faintest flicker of humanity.

I can't comprehend it. I just can't.

Is one less of a monster if cannot see the people he will kill and does it by pushing a button?

Pilots do this all the time. It has been a long time since common warfare involved everyone being eye to eye/toe to toe. If Joe al ak'schmo believes he is a warrior in a war, what is the difference between him and say, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets? (I know that he wasn't the bombadier.)

What is the fundamental moral difference?

 

[Guest]

Is one less of a monster if cannot see the people he will kill and does it by pushing a button?

Pilots do this all the time. It has been a long time since common warfare involved everyone being eye to eye/toe to toe. If Joe al ak'schmo believes he is a warrior in a war, what is the difference between him and say, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets? (I know that he wasn't the bombadier.)

What is the fundamental moral difference?

There is no war currently going on in London. The people on those tube trains and buses were going about their everyday lives, blissfully unaware they were under threat. Many people from many different backgrounds/creeds/religions/whatever, were slaughtered when those bombs went off, without any warning whatsoever. They did not know they were at risk. We didn't need to be "freed" from an oppressive dictator, who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his own people.

I do not condone the killing of innocents, any innocents, but there is a fundamental moral difference.

It is abhorent, whether it goes in in Israel, London, Madrid, New York, Baghdad, or anywhere. Anywhere that innocents are at risk. As R Richard said, the funding of these people needs to be stopped, and stopped now, whereever that financing comes from.

Can I just mention the IRA again?

 

[LeahLo519]

I don't know anything about it, but I bet it's Bush's fault!!!

 

[R. Richard]

Is one less of a monster if cannot see the people he will kill and does it by pushing a button?

Pilots do this all the time. It has been a long time since common warfare involved everyone being eye to eye/toe to toe. If Joe al ak'schmo believes he is a warrior in a war, what is the difference between him and say, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets? (I know that he wasn't the bombadier.)

What is the fundamental moral difference?

If you had been in combat during a fixed position war, such as WW II, you would have possibly observed up close and personal the difference. During WW II it was found that it was more efficient to send your own men into your own artillery barrage when trying to capture an enemy stronghold. The losses to your own artillery fire were less than the losses that would have resulted had you sent your troops in just after your own artillery barrage.

Similarly, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets killed some people. However, a great many less people died as a result of the Enola Gay raid than would have died had the allied forces attempted a conventional attack on Nippon.

Joe al ak'Schmo is not trying to end a war, he is trying to kill people to make money. Yes, the people behind the terrorists are well paid professionals. They may send the faithful to their death in homicide bombings, but they are in it for the money.

For example, the explosives used in the London bombings were NOT crude, home-made explosives, but the latest in military explosives, almost certainly from Serbia. The tactics used were classic Al Qaida, professionals organizing carefuly timed homicide bombings using the faithful to push forward their terrorist agenda.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Is one less of a monster if cannot see the people he will kill and does it by pushing a button?

Pilots do this all the time. It has been a long time since common warfare involved everyone being eye to eye/toe to toe. If Joe al ak'schmo believes he is a warrior in a war, what is the difference between him and say, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets? (I know that he wasn't the bombadier.)

What is the fundamental moral difference?

I'm not going to say it here. Not in a thread where something so sad is being discussed by peple.

 

[Op_Cit]

Can I just mention the IRA again?

Hey, I'm Irish. (not that it matters...)

But my question was if Joe al Ak'schmo thinks he's in a war...

I'm not trying to make a war here, just trying to offer an objective perspective from which one can question one's own morality.

You do not think you are in a war, and are surprised to learn that other people think you are making war on them. Yet what of he that does think he is in a war?

Our leaders make decisions that have effect, directly and indirectly to the detrement of individuals on this same planet. Our tax money is used, and our consent is implicit in our representative democracy (and every law of the land). For whatever the reason behind our meddling in other people's business (good or bad intentions) our efforts cause harm to a group of individuals.

These guys see and feel that harm, and after exhausting whatever ordinary means they have they at some point in the chain resort to violence.

I am no expert on IRA history (I'm not even Catholic), but can't help but think they tried normal petition to achieve their goal of a sovereign Ireland before they undertook violence. Then (I'm pretty sure), they assembled a straight up army for the purpose of independence and attacked in a traditional method. (I'm willing to bet that in the beginning they were more straight up about it than Thomas Jefferson and friends were.) After being defeated, the captured leaders (as I read somewhere--not that that's fact) were put to death. The executions of these folks is what really got the whole thing going.

From there it was escallation: The bigger boot of the British empire stomped and stomped every more traditional means of fighting that they (IRA) had available. Again, only what I've read, but wasn't it the thugs sent by the British that started targetting family members of IRA? I remember hearing about a footbal stadium being quarantined and civilians being shot as well. The bombings is what was left to them. If England had sat down with them day one and worked out the eventual political change that did happen, do you really think the IRA would have existed past 1920 (or whenever the heck it was)?

The point here is not to argue who's right and wrong. It is to see the series of cause and effect that leads to these things, because only by understanding cause and effect can you really solve any problem.

Start by throwing off the delusion that you yourself are not capable of any vile deed. This is, I think, the fundamental block of why these problems will not be solved: People refuse to believe that they themselves are capable of anything.

People choose to believe that they themselves, by way of a series of unfortunate events, cannot be led to a point where they could do anything (like blow up kids). As a result, they will not ever begin to understand that other person. If you say, "But I don't want to understand why a particular person eats babies for breakfast," then you will never have peace.

Once you find that place, once you see that path that could lead you to take out a sniper rifle and start shooting people from the bell tower, you can more easily not take that route, and more easily not unintentionally shove others down that path.

(And, to be fair, both England and the US have "declared war" on al qaeda. So if you were a subscriber to the AQ monthly news letter, you would be safe in assuming you were considered to be at war with them.)

 

[SummerMorning]

What kind of a monster can board a bus, look at the innocent people around him and then kill them?

Without pity. Without compassion. Without even the faintest flicker of humanity.

I can't comprehend it. I just can't.

It's not a monster, that's the fundamental misconception. Sadly these are pretty ordinary people, albeit in somewhat extraordinary conditions. The Milgram psych experiments show quite clearly that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary cruelty, a fact driven even further home by human history.

The person boarding the bus sees himself as a soldier, he looks around and does not see other people, he sees [pick one: cattle / vermin / servants of the Enemy / demons / necessary collateral], he knows and believes that what he is doing is right [we do not agree with his knowledge] and that this is the only way. He pushes a button and things go white.

Possibly he pities the poor deluded witless fools on their bus, who do not know the cosmic struggle between good and evil going on. Possibly he feels sorrow that they must die in order to further the cause of good. Yes, with many a flicker of humanity... the whole act is just so tragically human that it makes a person want to throw up.

I can comprehend it. And it is loathsome. I can only say one thing for those fighting against terrorism: beware that you do not become that which you fight

 

[SummerMorning]

Start by throwing off the delusion that you yourself are not capable of any vile deed. This is, I think, the fundamental block of why these problems will not be solved: People refuse to believe that they themselves are capable of anything.

People choose to believe that they themselves, by way of a series of unfortunate events, cannot be led to a point where they could do anything (like blow up kids). As a result, they will not ever begin to understand that other person. If you say, "But I don't want to understand why a particular person eats babies for breakfast," then you will never have peace.

Once you find that place, once you see that path that could lead you to take out a sniper rifle and start shooting people from the bell tower, you can more easily not take that route, and more easily not unintentionally shove others down that path.

(And, to be fair, both England and the US have "declared war" on al qaeda. So if you were a subscriber to the AQ monthly news letter, you would be safe in assuming you were considered to be at war with them.)

Precisely so.

 

[Op_Cit]

Joe al ak'Schmo is not trying to end a war, he is trying to kill people to make money. Yes, the people behind the terrorists are well paid professionals. They may send the faithful to their death in homicide bombings, but they are in it for the money.

I'm pretty sure most Joe al Ak'Schmo's aren't making money by blowing themselves up. There are some that get compensation for their families, but how is that different from any other modern warrior?

And, not to give shereads any ammo, but I'm not current on the Haliburton thing: is everyone in the Bush and Cheney families completely divested (and without hidden trusts holding stock)?

More fundamentally, can you explain the economics of it to me? Joe Terrorist might get a donation, but he has negative cashflow buying these illegal weapons. While Capitalist Bob is well in the black making bombs. (I am in the red though on my taxes going to Cap. Bob).

 

[oggbashan]

More

From today's The Times:

Bomb in bin

Port-of-Spain: A bomb exploded in a bin in the Trinidadian capital, wounding 13 people. Police searched the commercial district for other explosives and evacuated the area. A witness saw one woman with her hand blown off and a man whose foot was partially severed. Police said that there were no arrests. (AP)

 

[SummerMorning]

From today's The Times:

Bomb in bin

Port-of-Spain: A bomb exploded in a bin in the Trinidadian capital, wounding 13 people. Police searched the commercial district for other explosives and evacuated the area. A witness saw one woman with her hand blown off and a man whose foot was partially severed. Police said that there were no arrests. (AP)

Superb.

 

[rgraham666]

Terrorism has been around for a very long time. We just hear about it more quickly now and are more likely to hear about it from obscure places.

Also, the terrorism is happening to 'us'. This makes it more important. There are one thousand combatant deaths and five thousand civilian deaths every day in all the silly, niggling, little conflicts happening all over the world. This has happened every day since the end of WWII. As long as it didn't happen to 'us', we here in the West mostly just shrugged.

As far as the mind set of the bombers goes, what they suffer from is information disease. Read my essay by the same name for a description of it.

Finally, RR, do you have a chain of evidence for your assertions? They seem a little, incendiary, to me.

 

[R. Richard]

Finally, RR, do you have a chain of evidence for your assertions? They seem a little, incendiary, to me.

If you can Google the Internet you will find that Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian, died with a net worth of some one to three Billion dollars [note the B]. His widow Puta scrapes by in France [you would think Espana, due to the name] on the equivalent of $22 Million [note the M] per year from the Palestinian Authority [PA]. This while the average Palestinian lives on less than $2 per day. Arafat called them martyrs, not because they blew themselves up, but because they fell for his crap.

You can then Google that the families of Palestinian homicide bombers were paid the equivalent of $25,000 by one Saddam Hussein. They still get a little martyr money, but not nearly $25,000. Blame George W. Bush for the decrease.

The Palestinians still attack Israel with Kalashnikov rifles [maybe $2,000 each for prime condition examples] and sophisticated explosives. Such explosives have to be obtained from governments, mainly via bribing military officials; they aint cheap. The people who import the Kalashnikovs and the explosives do not work cheap. The people who put the explosive devices together do not work cheap. ["I myself am a patriot, but my wife Pizdah who lives in the Ukraine needs at least $5,000 per month to scrape by. Don't tell me she can live cheaper, she keeps throwing the name Puta in my face."] The people who live [and die] under the PA work cheap.

Now then, where does the money to finanace this one branch of terror come from? Get your Google fingers warmed up. The United Nations "runs" [ha!] the Palestinian "camps". The European Union [and even, to a much smaller extent the USA] keep feeding money to the PA [Hey baby, Puta and Pizdah gots to live here; know what I means?]

If you want to stop the terror, cut off the money. That last is a professional opinion by R. Richard.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

RR, that's so distasteful that any point you could be trying to make will have to be flushed.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

It's not a monster, that's the fundamental misconception. Sadly these are pretty ordinary people, albeit in somewhat extraordinary conditions. The Milgram psych experiments show quite clearly that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary cruelty, a fact driven even further home by human history.

The person boarding the bus sees himself as a soldier, he looks around and does not see other people, he sees [pick one: cattle / vermin / servants of the Enemy / demons / necessary collateral], he knows and believes that what he is doing is right [we do not agree with his knowledge] and that this is the only way. He pushes a button and things go white.

Possibly he pities the poor deluded witless fools on their bus, who do not know the cosmic struggle between good and evil going on. Possibly he feels sorrow that they must die in order to further the cause of good. Yes, with many a flicker of humanity... the whole act is just so tragically human that it makes a person want to throw up.

I can comprehend it. And it is loathsome. I can only say one thing for those fighting against terrorism: beware that you do not become that which you fight

I'm sorry Summer. There is noting ordinary about someone who can do this. It shows a complete disconnect with any higher function in the brain. At least a disconnect to any of the better instincts and emotions we are all supposed to share. No pity. No compassion. No concern for the lives you are destroying. That isn't ordinary.

I can't make myself believe that's ordinary. Or that an ordinary person could make themselves go blow up people innocent of any wrong doing for no reason.

I can't call them animals, beacuse most animals don't kill for no damned reason at all.

I don't think it's within us to become like them. At least, it's not within me. I don't think it's within Lou, or Rob or anyone lese I know personally.

I can hate with the best of them, but I can't do away with my humanity. No matter what the cause.

 

[R. Richard]

RR, that's so distasteful that any point you could be trying to make will have to be flushed.

I must agree that the way I wrote my post was more offensive then I intended and I do apologise. However, people who maintain their own in luxury while forcing others to die or to live in grinding poverty are even more offensive.

JMNTHO.