Is anyone else as cynical as me?

[fsmail]

my DH and I were discussing the fact that neither of us believe there is actually an increased risk of terrorism and the timing is far too convenient with a failure in compromise in the Middle East. It is sad that we don't trust anything that is said about terror because of all the lies in the past. Is anyone out there as cynical as us?

There are people who feel exactly as you do. Personally, I'm not prepared to take the risk. If the 7/7 bombers had been stopped beforehand, we would have had no 'proof' they were planning something.

One sceptical person yesterday said on Five Live that why do we never hear of these suspects being tried and convicted, and a lawyer responded by saying that they are, but the details cannot be given to the press for security reasons.

Awful that we don't automatically trust our Government, and equally awful that we have to live our lives in this shadow.

DH works at Scotland Yard .. didn't come home last night... too busy..not likey to see him for a few days.

Things like this are not timed by the Government according to other world events , timed due to threat and the suspects timing of events.

I don't think it's awful that we don't trust our government automatically, I think that's a very healthy attitude.

There's a line where healthy scepticism can slip over into being a starey-eyed conspiracy theorist, of course, but on the whole I think a healthy distrust of the machinery of the state is a good thing.

CC
I do think it's awful that we can't trust Government. We should be able to disagree with them - or dislike them - but we should know they are being honest with us.
I know I'm dreaming my perfect world fantasy

Mummydear. I walk past Scotland Yard every morning and see two armed police takinga stroll. It always unnerves me a bit but then I hear snatches of their conversations and they are talkingabout house prices and teh like. I feel like saying look you have a gun in your hand you need to be more serious.

Seriously though why do they walk up and down.

My DP said the same as the OP. Not sure what I believe anymore.

My brother works for Police Intelligence, he couldn't say much but he told me that it was a very, very real threat. They've been working on this particular threat for months.
This particular issue had nothing to do with politicians. The intelligence service informed the politicians & not the other way around.
I'm all for healthy cynicism, but can honestly say that I think on this occasion cynicism is probably misplaced.

lol@ house prices
what sSHOUDL they ebe tlaking about? lol

Drosophila -- what would you like them to talk about then whilst walking up and down outside NSY for hours at a time ? House prices are serious , now if they were doing handstands and throwing their guns about then thats a different matter !

I think it looks a bit bad for Tony Blair to be on holiday in the Caribbean at the moment, which suggests to me that it is real and not trumped up as it wouldn't be a great time for the govt to choose!

Well I definitely don't trust the government who have done nothing but lie since day one. I do like to believe that I can trust our security forces, MI5, MI6, and the anti-terrorist branch. The govt has done so much surrupticious (sp?) slagging-off of the spooks that I figure they (the spooks) must be trustworthy.

lol at handstands
lol at all of you

OMG Prescott in charge !!! ???

I also think it is real because of the amount of revenue the airlines have lost over this.

lol dros

I was sceptical until I heard about the arrests in Pakistan. I imagine they (the Pakistan police or intelligence) got something (by whatever means) from the people they arrested or their possessions that gave our intelligence services a better idea of what was going on.

I just don't believe that we had all the necessary information without the information from Pakistan.

I'm not surprised people are being cynical, after the ricin plot that never was, all the lies told about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, Forest Gate, that time they sent in tanks at Heathrow etc. etc. But I'm prepared to wait and see. I hope the security services and government wouldn't go this far just to persuade us there is a terrorist threat. Seems rather elaborate to be a fake.

they walk up and down so that they don't get cramp..or because they might get picked off too easily if they kept still if they are on the move then they are more of a challenge like those fairground rifle ranges..they can't walk too far though or they fall over get hung upside down until they are brought back to the other side

But 7/7 did happen. No-one stopped it, but if they had, would we have all asked if it was a real threat?

Who would it benefit to close the busiest airport in the world for 24 hours apart from the terrorists themselves who want to cause maximum chaos and maximum fear? Being cynical about the terrorist threat is one thing but thinking that the government decided that this would be a good way of taking our minds off Isreal/Lebanon is absolutely barking.

I think these are real people:
suspects' names

The main point and perhaps the media are primarily at fault here. We have had so many hypes over ricin over bird flue over the threat of dirty bombs that now people are becoming cynical about any new thing. As far as I am concerned there is more chance of me dying of cancer, heart attack stroke, or even by being struck by lightening than there is of me dying in a terrorist attack and believe me I feel awful about the 7/7 attack but I find all of this media and Govenment hype, all this 'Let us not forget we are war' propoganda fuels manic behaviour that when you bring it down to the actual risk is out of proportion.

I feel desperately sorry for any muslems in this country. How do the media know it was people of that ethnicity that were arrested and why was that information released into the public domain? That information alone is fuelling a lot of this terror that is being perceived by the Public. All that should have happened if it was a real threat is that the people should have been arrested quietly and the airlines should have been informed not the mass hysteria that has been generated. The media should have been kept under control. There is now a bigger threat to peoples minds than there actually was and I await with baited breath, the proof. Unfortunately I distrust the Government to such a point after seeing countless uturns on nearly all of their policies and the length to which they use spin. Sorry I won't go on but hopefully you get my drift and please feel free to shout me down.

Innocent till proven guilty but already their trials will be flawed because by publishing their names so freely they already face trial by media. This should not have happened. It gets in the way of real justice

I do wonder why the airlines don't do as the Israeli airline does, to prevent terrorism. In all the years of hijacking, when much of the threat has been about Israel, El-Al has never had a hijacking. They professionally interview each passenger before they get onboard. If the airlines were actually serious about security, they wouldn't faff about banning whatever the last guys had been talking about using, they would copy El Al.

But really, from the airlines' perspective, this is all about costs and managing the appearance of risk, not managing actual risk.

that's interesting nqc - what do you mean by professionally interviewing though