[beatspete]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3222608.stm

Bomb attacks on the British consulate and the HSBC bank headquarters in Istanbul have left at least 15 dead and more than 300 injured.
A man who called the semi-official Anatolia news agency claimed that Al-Qaeda and the Turkish Islamic militant group IBDA-C had jointly carried out the attacks.

[TheCelestialOne]

Yup, and there appears to be a power outage in Istanbul. The terrorists are doing their job well... Sadly enough

[TheCelestialOne]

Also, it appears that the British consulate-general is amongst the casualties. Bush and Blair have already started their press conference. The Brits see this as a direct attack on Great Brittain. This could have some serious aftereffects.

[IceFire]

Turkey will probably consider this a direct attack on them as well seeing it is in their country.  Unsure as to which way they will swing, rejecting western influence or siding with it (they are attempting to become part of the EU).

No matter the case, these terrorists are, I'm hoping, venturing so far out onto a limb that nobody will be supporting them.  Obviously their source of funds from the Saudi government has dried up...problem is, Saudi Arabia may fall yet.

[pyro-manic]

I'm not gonna go off on one again, so I'll just say that I think it's very sad. Pathetic and sad...

[kasperl]

well, the british consul is dead, amongst over 20 others, and the total amount of wounded this week is way too high for hospitals to handle.

[vyper]

Originally posted by TheCelestialOne
The Brits see this as a direct attack on Great Brittain.

Quite so, and believe me when I say thats a bad thing for the attacker.

[q]well, the british consul is dead, amongst over 20 others, and the total amount of wounded this week is way too high for hospitals to handle.[/q]

A tragic day to be sure. However, for the sake of the innocents involved I hope we don't cut loose with the Paras, etc without getting good intel first.

[Bobboau]

the morons, they should have just stuc to killing us, all there doing is strengthening the aliance between us and the UK, if they would have just not atacked anything UK ralated, Blair probly would have gotten voted out by someone running an anti-US campain and we'd loose all UK suport but now, we've probly gotten another term of solid UK suport, and that is a good thing for us (us being western civilisation)

hey when is the next UK election, and what is the PM's term?

[Rictor]

Hm, this may yet swing a number of ways. I'm sure that there will be people within the British press and goverment who will use this opportunity to point out that by being involved in the war in Iraq, Britain and its citizens are now more threatened than before by terrorist attacks and that instead of improving the security situation by attacking Iraq, Britain has only worsened it. And they wouldn't be wrong to say that. The important thing is, how will the British media spin this, and how will the people take it.

Needless to say, its tragic. As is all loss of innocent life.

[Bobboau]

Sheraton hotel in Baghdad was just hit

[edit]palistine hotel was just hit

[Setekh]

The Iraqi Oil Ministry was hit. Fired from donkey carts... how long will this go on?

[diamondgeezer]

Until evolution removes our opposable thumbs I suppose

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Setekh
The Iraqi Oil Ministry was hit. Fired from donkey carts... how long will this go on?

Until one sides support exhausts itself and the remaining fighters find out that they are fighting for a cause nobody even cares about.

I'm pretty sure its them rather than us that will reach that point.

[TheCelestialOne]

It will never stop. There will always be a small group of extremists or mentally deranged people who are bent on terror. And seeing as explosives and the likes is not very hard to get outside west Europe it won't really stop.

[Beowulf]

I suppose the US, UK, and Israel should just go and hide in their respective homelands, mollify the UN and try to raise world opinion... maybe then the terrorists will go away!

Ohh wait... Israel doesn't have a homeland...

[diamondgeezer]

Careful

[Ace]

Originally posted by Beowulf
I suppose the US, UK, and Israel should just go and hide in their respective homelands, mollify the UN and try to raise world opinion... maybe then the terrorists will go away!

Ohh wait... Israel doesn't have a homeland...

Homeland? The whole use of the word when pertaining to the US (let alone most countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.) is bull****.

If the US is supposed to be a nation made out of the hard-working immigrants coming to it to avoid opression like every US citizen is told in gradeschool since they learn how to talk, then there is no "homeland." In fact, the US is the exact opposite of a "homeland" it's more like "refugee land."

[Rictor]

Originally posted by TheCelestialOne
It will never stop. There will always be a small group of extremists or mentally deranged people who are bent on terror. And seeing as explosives and the likes is not very hard to get outside west Europe it won't really stop.

Yes, but you have to understand, that terrorists are not simply people who like blowing things up. What they do, they do for a reason. Every terrorist action is done because someone believes they are being oppressed. I can completely understand why the Iraqi people are pissed at the US. If someone invaded your country, would you just roll over. Think of it this way. If China one day decided to invade the US, and then occupy it for a period of time, would the US population just take it? No way, they would fight tooth and nail. Thats exactly what the Iraqis are doing. What I'm trying to do is to show that there is no "bad guys" and "good guys". If terrorism is defined as the killing of innocents, then the US is certainly one of the world's largest terrorit states. Between 10,000 and 15,000 Iraqi civilians died as a result of the invasion. And yet, no one even thinks of making them accountable for that.

I can actually see why the Palestine Hote; and the Oil Ministry were targets. The Palestine hotel is a place where many US military and political leaders stay. By having high ranking political figures in the hotel, that makes it a semi legitimate target. And the Oil Ministry, well that one is kind of obvious.

__

But I digress. I'm not interested in turning this into a political debate. Just try to understand that not everything is black and white, and that the killing of civilians is wrong, whoever is doing the killling.

Peace

[Grey Wolf]

Hmmm.... You know, we can trace the current events to four basic things (mostly the fourth one):
1. The fall of the Ottoman Empire.
2. American foreign policy under Theodore Roosevelt (America's imperialist age)
3. British Imperialism
4. People who don't quite understand cause and effect.

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
Hmmm.... You know, we can trace the current events to four basic things (mostly the fourth one):
1. The fall of the Ottoman Empire.
2. American foreign policy under Theodore Roosevelt (America's imperialist age)
3. British Imperialism
4. People who don't quite understand cause and effect.

Ohh! That makes much more sense now!
I see killing innocent people isn't all that bad, as long as you put it in perspective and all!

Originally posted by Ace


Homeland? The whole use of the word when pertaining to the US (let alone most countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.) is bull****.

If the US is supposed to be a nation made out of the hard-working immigrants coming to it to avoid opression like every US citizen is told in gradeschool since they learn how to talk, then there is no "homeland." In fact, the US is the exact opposite of a "homeland" it's more like "refugee land."

Well put!

As long as they're legal....