U.K. Police Find Explosive Device in Central London

[shrike]

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. police dismantled a car bomb near London's Piccadilly Circus, raising concern about terrorism in the capital two days after Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as prime minister. The bomber is still at large. The car, a metallic green four-door Mercedes, was abandoned outside a nightclub in the Haymarket, in the West End shopping and theater district, shortly before 2 a.m. today. It contained a large device using gas canisters that would have caused a lot of damage to surrounding buildings and would have killed, said a police official who asked not to be identified. The incident marks the biggest terror alert in London since police foiled an Islamist plot in August 2006 to blow up planes traveling from Heathrow airport to the U.S. Terrorists killed 52 people in the city on July 7, 2005, by bombing the subway and a bus. Brown and his new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, met with the Cabinet's emergency committee, Cobra, in London. ``We face a serious and continuous security threat to our country,'' Brown told reporters. ``This incident recalls the need for us to be vigilant at all times.''

[Chaossaber314]

*Cue random comment stage left about how this is all a hoax to help strengthen the police state*

[jose]

PRIME Minister Gordon Brown has dismissed the latest London bomb scare as "feeble" and "unlikely to frighten the public".


Brown compared MI5 to the cast of 'Police Academy'
Mr Brown is understood to be disappointed with MI5's effort, describing it as "half-arsed and transparent".

A source close to Brown said: "The PM wanted to start things off by scaring the absolute, holy shit out of people.

"A badly driven Merc with a couple of gas bottles in the back does not cut the mustard.

"We asked for Arabic literature on the passenger seat, a map of Whitehall with big red crosses on it and a huge controlled explosion on live television. Someone will be getting their backside felt for this."

The source added: "We're trying to introduce ID cards, imprisonment without trial and swingeing restrictions on freedom of speech.

"We wouldn't be able to force through new parking regulations on the back of this pile of arse."

Police say they are looking for "a man" in connection with the incident in London's Haymarket.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Our investigations are currently centred on a man. If you see a man you should react with complete terror and run screaming into the nearest busy shop or pub."
The Daily Mash - LONDON BOMB 'NOT SCARY ENOUGH', BROWN TELLS MI5

[Matt W]

Make that 2:

Police now say two separate explosive devices have been found in cars parked in London's West End. The first bomb, made of 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, was found in a Mercedes outside a nightclub in Haymarket at 0130 BST. Police say the second device was found in a Mercedes in a Park Lane car park after it had been towed away from Cockspur Street, near Trafalgar Square. Both devices were "viable" and "clearly linked", police said. At a news conference on Friday evening, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, said the discovery of the second device was "obviously troubling".

BBC NEWS | UK | Two car bombs found in West End

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Chaossaber314 *Cue random comment stage left about how this is all a hoax to help strengthen the police state*

Actually it's a tactic of war supposed to wake certain people up to the fact that they don't want certain other people interfering in their affairs.


I just heard Rudy Guliani of CNN saying that the Democrats were in denial about such matters, and that they couldn't face this threat. The truth of the matter is that a "free society" cannot face this kind of threat, and that is why they should not engage in the type of foreign policy that our government advocates.


So I hope you see the dichotomy, and how one, or the other has to go. Either we continue to be a free society, or we retain this type of foreign policy.


I know which way I'm voting.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Actually it's a tactic of war supposed to wake certain people up to the fact that they don't want certain other people interfering in their affairs. I just heard Rudy Guliani of CNN saying that the Democrats were in denial about such matters, and that they couldn't face this threat.

I try to look at it objectively. The fact is, our foreign policy seems to bring us face to face with such threats. Plenty of people--"experts" and non--have reacheed a similar conclusion. Unfortunately, many are foolish enough to dismiss that possibility, and regard 9-11 as a sort of historical cut-off point, or simply suggest that before that date all significant terrorism in the Middle East was conducted by radical Muslims.

Grandpa h.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: grandpa I try to look at it objectively. The fact is, our foreign policy seems to bring us face to face with such threats. Plenty of people--"experts" and non--have reacheed a similar conclusion. Unfortunately, many are foolish enough to dismiss that possibility, and regard 9-11 as a sort of historical cut-off point, or simply suggest that before that date all significant terrorism in the Middle East was conducted by radical Muslims. Grandpa h.

Unfortunately 9/11 is a kind of cut off point. The point when the Bush administration openly admitted to practicing preemptive warfare in regards to terrorism.


Ultimately, this means a double negative for us. 1) We started it with our intervetionist oplicies, and then 2) we claim the right strike anybody that may happen to disagree.


No free society can operate like that abroad in the long term. I suspect that was a major part of the motivation for the Neocons to start the "culture wars" both at home, and around the globe, the perfect excuse to clamp down on civil liberties in the name of protecting us. ( Even though it's the policy makers that are the real targets of the terrorists. )

[Nono]

*Cue random comment stage left about how this is all a hoax to help strengthen the police state*

Well now, Chaos, if the British government (Brown, Blair, whatever) didn't have such a solid track record of lying and manipulation, you might have something there.

Unfortunately, they're devoid of credibility, like their US counterparts.

Not that's scary.

[Chaossaber314]

This has nothing to do with credibility. Do you have some evidence to support the idea that the Brown administration is responsible for these attacks?

Playing the usual suspects card as far as them lying or taking advantage of serious incidents isn't evidence of their responsibility for them.

[Trotsky]

These boys were incompetent. They're supposed to be MD's, intelligent people and they can't even set up a bomb properly. Muppets. Thank feck for the incompetency of the NHS.

[Nono]

Quote by: Chaos Do you have some evidence to support the idea that the Brown administration is responsible for these attacks? Playing the usual suspects card as far as them lying or taking advantage of serious incidents isn't evidence of their responsibility for them.

Obviously I have no evidence, of anything at all.
Am just saying "How can you believe anything these buggers say?" That's all.

Remember the "plot" they "uncovered" last summer to blow up airliners by means of mixing differerent liquids once on board? That one was kinda farfetched -- not really within the realm of feasibility. You have to wonder.

I personally have no idea what really happened in Glasgow or elsewhere. Nor do I doubt that there are Islamo-Nutbars in the UK and elsewhere who'd just love to create all sorts of mayhem.

But I ain't taking stuff served up by Blair/Brown at face value.

[T Bone]

Taking what at face value, Nono?

Do you pay attention to what is happening in the Middle East due to American and British military operations there? How many people die every day due to political and social unrest? Thousands?

Some nutjobs trying to blow a few Brits to bits in retaliation doesn't sound too fishy to me.

[rmnunez]

I'm concerned over the educational shortcomings evident in these destructive Muslim 'Doctors Without Borders', don't they teach the hypocratic oath in Britain any more? By the time one has gone through all those years of study in a collegiate setting with all that humanism and abundance of commitment to every conceivable social cause -one would expect evidence of a bit more maturity.

[Matt W]

Perhaps you'd better read a bit more background, rmnunez. These gents weren't from round here....

[rmnunez]

I'm advised the studied medicine in Britain.

[Matt W]

Here:

BBC NEWS | UK | Who are the car bomb suspects?

Read and learn.

[rmnunez]

Ah, yes, these are foreign-trained, I’d confused them with the other 45 mentioned elsewhere hereabouts, the Glasgow airport doctors are Dr. Abdullah qualified in Baghdad, Dr. Asha, a Palestino/Jordanian there, and Dr. Haneef from Bangalore. The only one with a British degree is the PhD. (Dr. Ahmed) -in Engineering. They were apparently acculturated enough to secure and maintain successful professional practices in first rate institutions.

This apropos my remarking on the absence of apparent morals among people with superior education as doctors, so what of that “do no harm”. The same commitments bind doctors trained in Muslim jurisdictions, so remarking on their apparent absence is pertinent.

"I remember him as a liberal thinker who respected other nationalities and religions -that's what we were educated in our schools and in our career as doctors."

This Islamic exception to the hypocratic oath among terrorist doctors must be of very difficult moral justification since its shared by well-educated doctors who have all documented such academic achievement and professional brilliance (one is a brain surgeon). All of these suspects are described as of outstanding accomplishment, highly qualified successful, specialists, very well educated, gifted, brilliant…

These certainly don’t fit the disenfranchised, impoverished and repressed anti-establishmentarian profile which we are told by critical lefties are signing up in droves to repel the united statian infidels. I also doubt any of these doctors was as concerned about inequitable wealth distribution as their apologists are.

[Nono]

Quote by: T Bone Taking what at face value, Nono?

The declarations of Blair/Brown. Can't you read?

Some nutjobs trying to blow a few Brits to bits in retaliation doesn't sound too fishy to me.

Me either, T. But does the fact that it doesn't sound fishy to you or me make it true? (Or the fact that it sounds fishy make it untrue?)

If you read my post you'll see that it's about credibility, not about likelihood. Is the safety of the British public ultimately in the hands of people who distort the truth for political reasons -- yes or no?

[Chaossaber314]

Distorting the truth does not imply culpability for this or any other matter. In fact it's merely a synonym for the term "politician".

[Nono]

Ah c'mon! Try to see the world through less simplistic lenses. You can be a successful politician without quite Tony Blair's passion for mendacity and spin. And without indulging that passion in quite such destructive pursuits.