As a Brit and fellow Londoner, I feel I should say something.

Whilst people here are of course upset and maybe angry, its really not a
tremendously strong feeling, unless one is really closely connected with
what happened.

I live near Wimbledon, which is some 12 miles or so from where the bombs
went off - and yet it feels a long way away (I happen not to travel into
London). Having said that, one of my collegue's wife normally works in one
of the london mainline train stations, but she happen to be taking a day
off.

My sister in law came round today. First time I've seen her for a couple of
months - she lives about 6 miles away. So, what was the topic of
conversation, room decoration, and the blooming relationships her offspring
were experiencing - normal stuff. Not anger and what had been happening in
London.

We just kind-off accept it. I like many, I think, feel that this has been
inevitable. Together with the USA, Britain has made a considerable number
of enemies around the world over the last years. Its clearly regretable,
but at the time, the outcry from the population when the invasion was
started, was not sufficiently strong to change the mind of our politiions.
I'm not sure what would have changed our prime minister's thoughts, as
clearly his commitment to support the USA was a powerful one, although his
does project himself as a man of principle in his own right.

For many people here, the idea of the war would be more palatable without
the religious connertation. I, as many indeed most people in the UK, are
very relaxed about religion - I don't believe in it myself, and I see much
bigotry and damage that it does to close people's minds. Yet, in the UK,
church attendence is probably at its lowest ebb of all time - maybe due to
the laxk of hardship being felt by the population - maybe religions thrive
when one wants to believe in something better. Non-christian religions have
faired better in the UK, and certainly one does not see the strong religious
feels within the Christian communities - but one does, in the non-christian
communities.

Cutting off fundiong for extremists, does not seem to work. It takes bugger
to buy a few Kilos of exposives, or even make your own. Sure, you can't
wage a war, but you can bring a city to a halt. The real battle has to be a
combination of avoiding the problem in the first place (!) and cutting off
access to recruites - which in turn means avoiding the extream
disenfranchising of the people in the first place. Of course, you will
still get loonies, who will flip out, and use whatever weapons they can in
their local church, school or what have you. THe birts really don't
understand this USA thing about firearms. We've removed them all from
general curculation - clearly criminals can still get them, but at least
loonies are limited to a machety or chain saw.

Enough rambling. I'm off to make a nice library chair -


"Prometheus" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 22:55:05 -0700, Mark & Juanita
wrote:

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 11:34:07 -0700, mac davis
wrote:

and it was an absolutely brilliant strategic attack --- NOT. Here they
picked a time to attack when the western leaders were meeting to pressure
one another and particularly the US into adopting some policies that could
help derail western civilization (e.g., reducing CO2 emissions by 60% in
the UK by 2010(?) or therebouts) and adopt policies to pay yet more
patronage to dictators and tyrants in Africa where that money could be
funnelled to the cause. Instead, this attack overshadowed the whole G8
party, led to more unity regarding anti-terrorism and basically ****ed off
the Brits possibly strengthening their resolve. The attacks in Spain may
have led to complete surrender and capitulation, but Britain doesn't seem
wired that way.

That's what I like about the British- most of them are people with
some steel in their spines. I was damn sorry to hear about the
attacks in London, but you guys just took it on the chin and went back
to work- really inspiring, and I mean that.