London in chaos after terrorist blasts; 45+ killed

[Totster]

What's that Chuchok?  Hello......Chuchok......

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh well, looks like we've lost cocky Chuchok! Hey, Chuchok         

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If I'd have known you were going to respond like this.. I wouldn't have posted the link...

totster

[Pattaya_Fox]

Well to-day is Saturday....and he`s probably been in School all week.

[Nam Kao]

Islam, so pieceful....

[patsfangr]

Chinese chatrooms give backing to bombs

Chinese internetchat rooms were awash yesterday with reaction to the London terrorist bombings, much of it unsympathetic and outrighthostile to the many victims of the attack.

Many of the postings on sina.com, China's largest portal, suggested that the attack in London was justified in retaliation for the high-profile British involvement in the Iraq war.

"This is a gift to the imperialists who imposed hegemony upon others," said one posting.

"The British are as evil as Americans. Thank God for the attack!" said another.

One participant in the chat session who was disturbed by the tone of the discussion surveyed a sample of the 27,000 postings, and reported that about one third had expressed positive sentiment about the attack.

"Why didn't terrorists set off the explosive on the day when London won the bid to host the Olympics?" read one chatroom posting. "What a grand scene would that be! The leaders of al-Qaeda have made a bad plan!""I am in strong favour of Jihad and any terrorist action against imperialism. Let's thank bin Laden for his contribution to the world peace," another added.

China has about 100m registered internet users, most of whom are young people about 30 years or under.

Although the chat session does not offer a scientific sample of opinion in a country of 1.3bn people, the anti-western sentiment does dovetail with the strident nationalism that is a trademark of many young people.

Tony Blair, the British prime minister, was criticised in the chatrooms, as he has been in the Chinese press, for being too sycophantic to President George W. Bush.

Financial Times

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wonder what kind of an article I could write to demonstrate the hatred that lurks within some here in TV for all Muslims?

I lived and worked in Shanghai for 15 months. I found the vast majority of the people there, whether at work, around our apartment building, or "out among "em" in the crowded streets of the city, to be warm and friendly toward Americans in every respect.

Are some of you now going to throw the entire population of China into the "them" pot with the Muslims? Come on, guys. Get hold of yourselves, and recognize that there are elements in every society that hold extreme views on virtually every subject you can name. Take a look back through this thread, and look at the spectrum of the comments. It ranges from a "We must eradicate all Muslims, or they will eradicate all of us" - to "Just talk to these terrorists, and convince them to stop being so destructive".

Most of us fall somewhere well in between those two extremes; just as most of the world, and all racial, natural, and religious elements within it, falls somewhere in between all extreme views. Deal with the extremists. Deal with them harshly. But there's much to be gained from life by mixing with those different from ourselves, versus drawing ourselves into a walled society of only "our own kind".

[darsie]

Conforming to the restrained British character, Thursday's attacks are more likely to lead to measured, surgical steps against terrorists rather than bombastic crackdowns, Israeli counter-terrorism analysts say.

A former senior IDF intelligence officer said the attack was probably linked with al-Qaida and should serve as a catalyst for setting up a global counter-terrorism headquarters. The terror attacks were also likely greatly helped by sleeper cells inside Britain, one analyst said.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya'acov Amidror, a former chief of IDF intelligence assessment, said that post-9/11 – with the exception of Madrid – the West had been able to foil attempted al-Qaida attacks.

Except for Madrid, all major al-Qaida attacks since September 11 were in either Muslim countries or poorly functioning countries like Kenya.

"The key to fighting this global terror network is closer cooperation between the various security agencies in the world," Amidror told Army Radio from London, where he was touring.

Moti Cristal, an expert in negotiation and a fellow at the Institute for Counterterrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, said British security had not been caught sleeping, but rather didn't root out terror cells with enough resolve.

"In the past two years, they have arrested several cells. But this attack shows they didn't go deep enough and this is mainly due to legal and cultural restrictions. Now they will be much freer to go deeper," Cristal predicted.

Cristal explained that British attempts to enact antiterrorism measures following the attacks of September 11 were "bashed by the House of Lords and the liberal nature of the British people. Now this attack will provide a very important backing for their government to do what they know they should do and this is to take much more countermeasures and surgical operations without breaking the very delicate relationship with Britain's Muslims."

He added that the attack was not aimed at influencing certain events and had no immediate political goal. This is in contrast with the Madrid bombings, which were scheduled to influence Spain's national elections and pressure the country to remove its troops from Iraq.

Cristal believed the timing was more likely linked to the announcement of London as the host of the 2012 Olympic Games than the G8 gathering in Scotland.

"They did it to humiliate the British and to show the world how vulnerable London is. It was anger, revenge and punishment for what they conceived as British arrogance and support for the United States."

Cristal said that retaliation by Britain was not an issue.

"It's about preventing the next attack. The big challenge the Brits are facing now is to use this chance to redefine the balance between human rights and measures against terrorism," he said.

Dr. Hanan Shai, a lecturer on military and security at the Hebrew University, said care needed to taken to prevent the terrorists from achieving their aim of forcing the West to destroy itself by limiting freedoms.

"In the long run, their great achievement is to cause a blow to individual rights. Success for them would be for modern Western society, by its own hand, to turn into a totalitarian one," Shai said. "From attack to attack we become less pluralistic."

Still, he advocated a stronger stand against suicide bombers. The report that at least one of the bombs in London was set off by a suicide bomber should awaken the need to tackle the outdated rules of war which ignore terrorists' violations of morality, he said.

[Totster]

Chinese chatrooms give backing to bombs

Chinese internetchat rooms were awash yesterday with reaction to the London terrorist bombings, much of it unsympathetic and outrighthostile to the many victims of the attack.

Many of the postings on sina.com, China's largest portal, suggested that the attack in London was justified in retaliation for the high-profile British involvement in the Iraq war.

"This is a gift to the imperialists who imposed hegemony upon others," said one posting.

"The British are as evil as Americans. Thank God for the attack!" said another.

One participant in the chat session who was disturbed by the tone of the discussion surveyed a sample of the 27,000 postings, and reported that about one third had expressed positive sentiment about the attack.

"Why didn't terrorists set off the explosive on the day when London won the bid to host the Olympics?" read one chatroom posting. "What a grand scene would that be! The leaders of al-Qaeda have made a bad plan!""I am in strong favour of Jihad and any terrorist action against imperialism. Let's thank bin Laden for his contribution to the world peace," another added.

China has about 100m registered internet users, most of whom are young people about 30 years or under.

Although the chat session does not offer a scientific sample of opinion in a country of 1.3bn people, the anti-western sentiment does dovetail with the strident nationalism that is a trademark of many young people.

Tony Blair, the British prime minister, was criticised in the chatrooms, as he has been in the Chinese press, for being too sycophantic to President George W. Bush.

Financial Times

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wonder what kind of an article I could write to demonstrate the hatred that lurks within some here in TV for all Muslims?

I lived and worked in Shanghai for 15 months. I found the vast majority of the people there, whether at work, around our apartment building, or "out among "em" in the crowded streets of the city, to be warm and friendly toward Americans in every respect.

Are some of you now going to throw the entire population of China into the "them" pot with the Muslims? Come on, guys. Get hold of yourselves, and recognize that there are elements in every society that hold extreme views on virtually every subject you can name. Take a look back through this thread, and look at the spectrum of the comments. It ranges from a "We must eradicate all Muslims, or they will eradicate all of us" - to "Just talk to these terrorists, and convince them to stop being so destructive".

Most of us fall somewhere well in between those two extremes; just as most of the world, and all racial, natural, and religious elements within it, falls somewhere in between all extreme views. Deal with the extremists. Deal with them harshly. But there's much to be gained from life by mixing with those different from ourselves, versus drawing ourselves into a walled society of only "our own kind".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think people have taken the article for what it is and not made generalisations... it was only the poster who originally mentioned the article that didn't understand that this is not representative of the whole chinese population. This is further confirmed by the fact that only a third of the postings showed a positive reaction... and take away those who just jumped on the bandwagon and the percentage becomes less again..

totster

[george]

We are now closing this topic regading this tragic London event, as it has gone off topic.

/Admin