Did anyone read this article in The Times yesterday on the London bombings?

[oliveoil]

I think it is spot on, what do you think? It's a bit long.

here it is

I haven't read all responses but felt like adding my two pence worth.

I don't agree with all that has been said in this article by a long stretch. I feel like the bombings need to be reported and we do need to know the details. If details were not forthcoming we would be convinced of cover up and conspiracy. I want to understand what my fellow londoners experienced. I owe them my understanding and compassion.

I had those 'annoying' emails,phone calls and texts from family and friends. For me, it has been a positive. People who I have not heard from for a long time contacted me to see if I was ok. People care, the girls from where I worked 2 and a half years ago even remembered me and I was very touched. Those who found it annoying are obviously too arrogant to care for others IMO.

I had to travel by the tube the next day, I posted on here - I was really scared and nervey. I was worried by one commuter. Yes he was of Muslim appearance, and carrying a bag. But it was the fact that he seemed disorientated and distracted that worried me - he bumped into me several times in a short space of time whilst heading to the platform.

There is no way we can go and infiltrate these communities, it is against their human rights, and I believe give them more ammunition for being anti - British. I don't know the answer, nor do any countries, as this would not be a world wide problem otherwise. The author is IMO, racist.

The bombers were very very wrong and have done their communities a grave injustice.

The media do, though need to strike a balance with their reporting of this event. As I have posted recently I work in a central London hospital which recieved victims from the bombings. Reporters have been skulking around and behaved very aggressively towards the nursing staff who approached them. Hence, now on our two seperate units, when I last worked, a security guard had to protect each unit to ensure a reporter did not try and gain access. This is an ITU. Patients are not usually able to talk in such units, and very often are unconcious. They are betraying patient confidentiality and that is wrong.

thread highjacking - murder in the name of religion goes on elsewhere in Britain - there was an alarmingly small amount of coverage about churches inm the uk involved in the trafficing of children and also the ritual sacrifice of children.... recent examlples inc a boys body found in the thames.

So Marthamoo is right these problems of extreemism are everywhere in the uk - I hope that somehow the ecvents of last week can address tthe probs we have in our society

Didnt read all of thread so sorry if I get it wrong but wanted to say...

Marthamoo, pesonally i think drug dealers (especially the ones who sell to kids outside schools) ARE guilty of mass murder, if more subtley.

Article very long and kids kicking up so couldn't read it all, but thought this bit ( And I ask those mothers: why did you not know what was happening to your sons? I ask their fathers, too) was harsh: If these mothers genuinely knew nothing, then they are victims too, albeit in a way that make it harder for them to get the support they need, plus I imagine they are feeling heaps of guilt too. They (THE MOTHERS OBVIOUSLY, NOT THE MURDEROUS BOMBERS) have my sympathy, along with all the other victims of this tragedy.

I don't know whether they really knew or not- How could I? I do know though that if my sons was going to kill themselves (let alone others) I'd have ahd to take action because I would hate to lose them. There is no cause under this sun that would change that.

Personally (though I see the points made) I think the coverage is good because it does help to stop a cover up. Also, I think people need to see the Muslim community grieving and all that stuffs takes days to overtake the coverage of images from the bomb scenes. I don't suppose the word of a respected Muslim Imam makes much difference to an extremist, but maybe other poeple need to see that the grief is universal: imho, Al_Qaeda are not even that interested in fifty or sixty deaths on a tube, their real result is any religious tension that can be stirred up, because it is an environment of religious tension that enables them to recruit. At the most basic level, you wouldnt expend four lives if you didnt think it would result in the recruitment of many more: Al Qaeda will want to keep going after all.

I may of course have this all wrong, but it's my version of how I see things anyway!

You see these people are such extremists - suicide bombing is totally against Islam - suicide is a huge sin in Islam so whoever is behind this really does not, from a religious jurisprudence point of view, have a leg to stand on.

And they have a very distorted and weak understanding of Islam - they are just using it to further a political agenda.

It should not be forgotten that this extremist interpretation of Islam was greatly encouraged by the US as a counterbalance to the Russian forces which invaded Afghanistan.

Good point Saadia.

What I fail to understand is the two young men with pregnant wives. Those poor babies!
Given that the families appear to be non-extremist, how on earth do you explain what happened to their dads? Even if you fervently believe that you should die in the name of whatever you might support, how could you do that to your own kids? And the poor little children of some of the bombers, grieving for their dads who did such an awful thing? I just cannot comprehend it, except to assume they think the kids will benefit from some martyr status. What they'd benefit from, is a Dad

Totally agree PeachyClair, just do not see how anyone who loved their kids could do that. I think the perpetrators were brainwashed, and just got into a kind of tunnel vision where nothing else mattered. I think it is a cult-like situation.

I was thinking yesterday actually, you don't really hear anything of the cults any more do you? When the members of cults did strange things like Waco, we knew they were brainwashed into it, we knew how and specialists could (albeit in great difficulty) overcome it with most cultists... now the brainwashed ones are considered evil. What they do is certainly evil, no question, but perhaps those same cult experts from yesteryear need to be involved in the understanding of all this?

Yes, pc, that might help to give more of an insight into how these peoples' minds work.

But I can just imagine how, if a young person is shown horrific videos of atrocities committed against Muslims around the world - and let's face it this has not been a great century for Muslims - the loss of Palestine and Jerusalem, Sabra and Chatila, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the fact that Saudi Arabia (the site of Islam's holiest sites sites) is filled with US troops - it would actually be very easy to convince someone, whose life perhaps lacks direction, to seek some kind of purpose by committing these awful acts.

Unfortunately, I can see that Saadia. And it is just that sort of technique that brainwashers use isn't it?

I think another part of the problem is that eerybody feels so helpless these days. I mean, people used to believe they could change things, there were protests and marches, now the Government wants to invade Iraq so they do it. Despite public opinion. It makes people feel powerless, which I would assume is an environment that creates terrorism.

i looked through the societies at my new Uni on the net. When I used to go to my ex-fiance's Uni with him, there was Amnesty, CND, the lot. Now? Badminton. Everybosy seems to have given up!

Yes Peachy, although I find it abhorrent and from a religious point of view wrong wherever it is perpetrated, this kind of terrorism is perhaps more understandable in places like Israel and Chechnya where Muslims are living under severe oppression and where their rights are being abused. With the world turning a blind eye you can see why they might feel they have no other option.

But here in Britain Muslims enjoy total freedom of worship rights and protection from discrimination and in the main are able to lead quite nice lives compared to other parts of the world and that is why the Central London bombs were so shocking to me.

But I do think that anger against the Government and its policies should be channelled through other lawful and democratic means and this might be where orthodox and moderate Muslim leaders have let people down.