|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Candy Morgan
Sergeant
Username: Candy
Post Number: 17
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 2:45 pm: | 
|
There's already a thread for condolences and worries, so please don't condemn me for thinking of things before people, I've posted to that one already.
I did a search on Aldgate Station, it has a long and varied history as some of you know:
http://www.answers.com/topic/aldgate-tube-station
The news is now focusing on the human aspect of this crime, as it should. In any tragedy, the human suffering is most important, buildings can be rebuilt, lives can't. However, if any of the UK members hear anything about the structure itself - it seems like an open air platform rather than a 'subway' station - could you please post and let me know if the loss is compounded by the destruction of history as well as lives?
I apologize if this seems cold-blooded, I don't intend it to be. Other than my hopes and prayers there's not much I can do.
"What did you do to the cat? It looks half dead." ~ Mrs. Schrodinger
|
Chris Phillips
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 1143
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 2:55 pm: |
|
Candy
I believe that the explosion took place in a tunnel between Liverpool Street and Aldgate East (not Aldgate) stations. Apparently it was only 100 yards from Liverpool Street. Seven people were killed.
Chris Phillips
|
Candy Morgan
Sergeant
Username: Candy
Post Number: 19
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 3:06 pm: |
|
Ah, I see. The early video showed police and rescue crews crowding around under the green awning (I think that's what it is, I may be wrong) with Aldgate on it, I was half asleep when I saw it so missed the East entirely, and of course my pea brain connected Aldgate with Aldgate High Street (scene of an earlier and much more endearing fire engine chorus, I think...) and then we were off to the races.
I am hopelessly confused when it comes to London streets and directions. I seem to have some kind of dyslexia that just makes my brain freeze. Gardens, mews and courts are just not proper streets, doggone it all!
Is seven the total now, or the total from that station? FauxNews is just tossing off numbers at random.
"What did you do to the cat? It looks half dead." ~ Mrs. Schrodinger
|
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1582
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 3:07 pm: |
|
Hi Candy
Good post, Candy, and your concerns are merited in that we have to wonder how the terrorist incident will affect the station and the London Underground as well.
By the way, on another level, there is already concern about how London winning the Olympic Games will impact the East End with a probable major influx of tourists, new buildings in the East End and adjoining communities being built coincident to the city hosting Olympics and new road traffic patterns in the area, etc.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
See "Jack--The Musical" by Chris George & Erik Sitbon
The Drama of Jack the Ripper Weekend
Charlotte, NC, September 16-18, 2005
http://www.actorssceneunseen.com/ripper.asp
|
Candy Morgan
Sergeant
Username: Candy
Post Number: 20
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 3:22 pm: |
|
Yes, I just followed the thread from the first Aldgate bombing post to the olympic thread and read about those concerns as well. I'm not sure of the geography of London, but it will be an upheavil for any slums that might be in the line of sight of visitors. Atlanta was the same way - lots of new construction and destruction before the games and now from what I hear things are falling apart again.
I was wondering what the heck NYC was thinking to try to fight for the Olympics to come there. I guess the shine of gold blinds most politicians to the other matters involved.
On a somewhat related note, aren't most of the circa 1880's buildings still standing in the East End and outlying districts covered under some kind of Historical Preservation law or such? I would personally prefer to see a city that looks like itself rather than some mass-marketed concrete maze that looks like every other city in the world.
Feh, though, what do I know? When my husby went to Germany (a great many years ago), he asked the locals where he could find a restaurant. He wanted to try the local food and style. Every single person he asked directed him to McDonalds, Burger King, etc...
"What did you do to the cat? It looks half dead." ~ Mrs. Schrodinger
|
George Hutchinson
Chief Inspector
Username: Philip
Post Number: 586
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 5:32 pm: |
|
Candy - you saw right. Most of the footage is of Aldgate tube entrance, though there has been a little of Aldgate East as well.
PHILIP
Tour guides do it loudly in front of a crowd!
|
Chris Phillips
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 1144
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 5:37 pm: |
|
Philip
It's very strange. The BBC can't seem to make up its mind whether the train was between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, or LS and Aldgate East, and other online news sources seem to be equally divided. I even saw one site supposedly quoting an eyewitness claiming the train had just left Aldgate East en route for Tower Hill, in which case it wouldn't have gone near Liverpool Street at all!
It only goes to show how unreliable news reporting can be, even in our technologically advanced 21st century.
Chris Phillips
|
Candy Morgan
Sergeant
Username: Candy
Post Number: 21
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 5:49 pm: |
|
Ah, good to hear from you, Phillip (Hutch) as I knew you are in London. Saw your post over on the other thread and it must be an unnerving experience, to say the very least.
Chris - doesn't surprise me, remember 9/11 when we had reports of, what, 20 or 30 planes missing and mass destruction? The competition between the news agencies is so heavy they're willing to go live with the rumors and save the mea culpas for the morning after...
Candy
"What did you do to the cat? It looks half dead." ~ Mrs. Schrodinger
|
George Hutchinson
Chief Inspector
Username: Philip
Post Number: 588
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 6:01 pm: |
|
The thing is that Aldgate and Aldgate East are on different tube lines so one of them is wrong! If it happened only yards from Liverpool Street, the tubes might have been close by, but from LS one goes South and the other goes South East. However, for those of you in the US who might not be so familiar, the tube entrances are only about 2 minutes walk from each other on the same road.
PHILIP
Tour guides do it loudly in front of a crowd!
|
Chris Phillips
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 1145
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 4:09 am: |
|
Well, in some places (but not all) on its website, the BBC has corrected Aldgate East to Aldgate, and most reports say it was a Circle Line train, so Aldgate it must be.
I'm sorry to have posted misleading information.
Chris Phillips
|
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 2751
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 7:22 pm: |
|
It was Aldgate.......not Algate East.........Aldgate East would have been a lot worse with its myriad exits though
Suzi |
Maria Birchwood
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 2:36 pm: |
|
Dear Stephen:
I hope that all is well with you in the U.S. Over here, we are still reeling from the bombs in London. My son Hector lives only 500 yards from the bus explosion, but very luckily, he had left his flat (apartment) very early that morning for a T.V. show he is presenting for the BBC and he found himself in the West End of London when that bomb went off.
The rescuers have just finished clearing up the last remaining bodies and shattered trains from King's Cross Station where we have the deepest tube tunnel and the conditions have been simply atrocious down there, with the hot temperatures and all. I did want to write something on the boards, but unfortunatelly I cancelled my account with you, round about this time, when Peter had problems with Caz and it was all very unpleasant for him, especially having just come out of hospital, so I cancelled my own account too just for solidarity.
I don't know how to re-apply or if you will even have me. Now that the worst nightmare has happened and the anger has kicked in, I would very much like to express them there.
I just wanted to say thay any reasonable person can see that London has never been attacked by suicide Islamists extremists before in its history. Nor had Madrid until last year, this is not a coincidence.
Saying that this invasion has no bearing to the bombings in Iraq is a fallacy. The fact is, that Iraq hadn't been bombed by Islamists radicals either until after this ill conceived invasion. Every single day doesn't go by without without a suicide bomb there, only two days ago 130 people died on a suicide bomb in just a single event on the same day. On another event, 25 children died too. I do not believe for one moment that they are better of now in Iraq than they were before the invasion. The Anglo-American " War against terror" has had the effect of multiplying the number of terrorists, and it has served as an effective recruiting incentive among some of the British Muslims, a few of whom have been involved in Thursday's bombings. Most of us feel a good deal less safe than we did before the invasion of Iraq. I'm not confident to say that there will not be a repeat of these bombings in London or our main cities in the U.K.
Is there any way that I can get this through there? I would very much appreciate other people's reactions, even though, it probably a waste of my time. It is all very sad and frustrating, to know that there is so much anger there, that its not being addressed until it happens in our own shores.
My thoughts are with the ones that were lost.
By the way, I was in Spain when the ETA bomb went off in Madrid last month. We were staying at the Crown Plaza in la Gran Via, just two roads away from the blast and we heard it explode when we were preparing our things in the room for our flight to Granada. Then when we got out of the hotel, the taxi driver told us that the quickest way to the airport, was were the bomb had just exploded, and the other route to the airport would take longer. The driver explained that the theory is that the perpetrators go back to the scene of their crimes to survey the damage, so with that premise, they check everyone's documents travelling through that road, he thought if we did that, we might lose our plane, so we travelled through the long route to the airport and it turned out to be all empty so we got there with plenty of time to spare.
I can see that the dairy ontroversy has not gone anywhere, since I last posted a year ago. Whether is genuine or not. The endless discussions do not lead anywhere, either it gets tested or not. But sitting on the fence, year after year, making people believe is the real thing is not for me, and I can see that I have not missed anything since then !
I must go now, as I have to have my climate control checked in a service for my BMW.
My very best wishes for you.
--Maria Birchwood |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1951
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 5:47 am: |
|
Hello Maria,
I'm so sorry to hear that Peter had problems with my posts at a time when he had just come out of hospital.
What Peter and I have in common, I'm sure, is a heartfelt wish that the diary's true origins had been successfully uncovered a long while ago, and its author identified beyond doubt. Neither of us would then have got ourselves involved in the first place, and Peter would have been saved any unpleasantness due to my lack of tact and diplomacy when it comes to digging for possible new information.
I was up in town on Friday, at the London Museum, and spent the afternoon in a smashing restaurant in Soho. I'm happy to report that everywhere was buzzing with summer life and laughter, and the buggers will never grind us down.
It's easy to imagine that 7/7 might not have happened if we hadn't gone into Iraq, but then 9/11 is always there to remind us. We have no idea what sort of plans there may have been for London a long time ago, that were nipped in the bud by the Intelligence Service.
Sometimes cause and effect are not as black and white as they look.
Lots of love,
Caz
XX |
D. M. R.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 12:27 pm: |
|
Ms Birchwood,
Please explain how the current situation is different from that of 1938. In that year, PM Chamberlain obeyed Hitler's directives so as to obtain a nonaggression pact from him. Despite this, Hitler attacked England when it became apparent that not to do so would frustatre his larger objectives in Europe. What makes you think the terrorists will do any different? How are they better, more trustworthy people than Hitler? After all, they are mass killers with an agenda who hate England, same as did Hitler. Why would doing as they ask change their larger plans, or make them stop hating England, and the West in general?
Appeasement can be a trap, perhaps even for both sides. If you want to deal with a threat, you at least have to have a side. Going over to or appeasing the other side is usually only briefly and narrowly effective. Al Quaeda stopped attacking Spain when it pulled its troops out of Iraq, but notice England and the U.S. were still holding up their ends of the bargain. If everyone pulled out of Iraq, then there would be no reason for Al Quaeda to hate Spain any less than England and the U.S., which would thereupon reopen Spain for further terrorist actions. The rewards of appeasement are a relative thing.
David
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4723
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 4:42 pm: |
|
David, just on a pedantic point : it was Britain that declared war on Germany (in response to Germany's attack on Poland).
Hitler found Britain's refusal to accept a peaceful settlement a constant puzzle and irritation.
Robert
|
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1555
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 7:49 pm: |
|
As usual, I have no desire to get into a multi-day argument about politics per se, but a couple of points should be made here it seems to me.
First, in response to this:
"It's easy to imagine that 7/7 might not have happened if we hadn't gone into Iraq, but then 9/11 is always there to remind us."
We know who flew the planes into buildings in New York on 9/11. We know where they came from. We know where they trained to be terrorists. We know who funded them. We know who planned the operation and who set it up and the network that put it into place.
And it had nothing to do with Iraq.
I'm sorry, but that's just true. In fact, the Hussein government had a rather antagonistic relationship with Al Qaeda and Bin Laden and Iraq under Hussein, as brutal and horrible and iron-fisted as his government was, was not a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda terrorists. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon yes. But not Iraq under its secular tyrant.
Of course, it is now.
We hit Iraq for completely different reasons.
And a quick look at last week's death toll of locals by locals over there should tell any careful observer that Iraq is now engaged in a full-scale civil war. That was easy to predict, of course. Hell, it should never have been made into a country in the first place. But that's all ancient history.
Second point, a brief response to this false analogy:
"Please explain how the current situation is different from that of 1938."
Actually, it's entirely different. Al Qaeda and the rest of the international terrorist network are not a nation. They have no country. They have no government to speak of. They have no standing army. They have almost no conventional weaponry. They are NOT conquering countries in a military fashion. They are not marching or fighting in any was remotely similar to what the German army was doing in Europe in the 30s, nor will they ever. No, they are breeding, training, promoting and funding international terror and violence in a completely different way and we cannot think of them as an "it" against which we can simply and naively declare a "war."
There is no such thing as a "war" on terrorism, any more than there can really be a "war" on drugs or a "war" on crime or a "war" on poverty. These are not the sorts of things you fight wars against. Wars are fairly formal events, with rules of engagement and recognizable enemies, and territories and clear indications of victory and defeat.
The fight against international terrorism is something completely different -- and bombing the crap out of Iraq will do nothing in that fight.
The streets of Baghdad are its sewers now. Electricity is barely back on or not back at all in large parts of the country. The country is basically a disaster area. Most importantly, the civil war between Shiite and Sunni is just getting started and we will be completely unable to prevent it.
But terrorism in European capitals is a different matter entirely. We could pull out of Iraq tomorrow and it wouldn't stop or even slow down. But what we've done in Iraq, or, more precisely, the careless, unplanned, stunningly naive and ahistorical way we did it, hasn't helped the situation one little bit. And now it's too late. Stay there, pull out, it won't matter a whit either for the country or for the struggle against international terrorism. The country has a decade or two of death and violent religious civil war ahead of it (as is so often the case when brutal dictatorships are brought down with little or nothing to replace them but bombs and devastation).
So don't believe the hype. 9/11 was an attack by a completely different enemy than Iraq. And the war against terrorism doesn't exist. Our struggles with it now look nothing like and can look nothing like the situation we faced in '38. And "appeasement" is an irrelevant term in this discussion. It's an impossibility no matter what we do. Whether we stay in Iraq and watch the chaos from close up or pull out and watch it from a distance won't make a lick of difference to the terrorists. It's far too late for that. Of course, the choice might make some difference to some American and British families who might, if we choose to keep our courtside seats, lose a member or two in the meantime for no real reason. But that's business as usual when you're the biggest baddest military machine on the planet (even if you can't manage to find a six foot muslim wheeling a dialysis machine around the mountains).
Just a thought for a quiet Monday night,
--John |
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 966
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 2:21 pm: |
|
Hi all,
Speaking of Iraq, I think the Institute for War & Peace Reporting does a good job--their purpose is to strengthen local journalism in conflicted areas like Afghanistan and Iraq, training journalists, etc. I like the Iraqi Press Monitor which presents a selection of stories and editorials coming from a myriad of Iraqi newspapers.
So if you're like me and are fed up with the very limited (and useless) pro/con press coverage of Iraq that we get in the States, this is a good place to go. Lots of voices here, so reports are often troubling, sometimes inspirational, and always enlightening. I think the reporting has really improved over the last year or so.
Dave |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1608
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 11:32 am: |
|
Y'all might enjoy this lighter view of the terrorist threat.
The Danger of Abbreviations
"Tiny PCs goes into administration. . ."
Headline, BBC Business News, July 27, 2005
Tiny police constables in giant bobby's helmets swarm
over the London Underground! Must be a strategy
to get 'em to crawl under passenger seats,
bite the legs of terrorists as they get ready
to blow up their backpacks, their midget
incisors specially sharpened for the job.
Christopher T. George
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
See "Jack--The Musical" by Chris George & Erik Sitbon
The Drama of Jack the Ripper Weekend
Charlotte, NC, September 16-18, 2005
http://www.actorssceneunseen.com/ripper.asp
|
D. M. R.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2005 - 5:57 pm: |
|
Mr. Linford,
Do you think Hitler felt England and the U.S. would sit idly by indefinitely while he exercised a free hand in Europe? I can't imagine, in the larger scheme of things, that even he could feel this way. He'd eventually have to figure that England would at least be necessary as a shipping haven, and attack it. Big countries with armaments don't just go away.
David
|
Maria Birchwood
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 6:18 pm: |
|
Hi Caz:
My only observation here is simple, years have gone by, 12 to be precise and no proper tests from a reputable laboratory with the latest state of the art in technology have been done during all this time to prove either that the dairy is genuine or not. The analogy would be:
If I was boasting that I owned the Cullinam diamond, naturally I would like to show everyone interested a certificate from De Beers diamond experts that indeed the gem is valuable, without such a certificate to prove it, it would be dishonest for me to pass it as genuine. That's all.
About the London bombings, most racional people would realise that killing 100,000 Iraqis would not endear us to the Arab world. However some people prefer the line: "They hate our freedoms" which they merely repeat after hearing Tony Blair on T.V.
Isn't it interesting that there were never any attacks in Britain from Islamist terrorists before this invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq ?
Blair and Bush said that their "liberating" armies would be received with flowers and chocolates. But you have to hand it to those pro-war people, they were wrong about this invasion quickly bringing peace to Iraq.
So are they admitting they were wrong? Not a chance ! They are far too busy being wrong yet again - Only this time it's about the Iraq invation having no part in motivating these bomb attacks on London. Of course, It has nothing to do with our way of life at all. Just think for a moment How would you feel if your house had been bombed, your parents had been killed along with your brothers and sisters and you were left limbless ? Love ? I doubt it. Love ? towards the people who did this with massive cluster bombs or daisy bombs ? Oh come on, I'm tired of seeing Tony Blair ducking the question of the link between the bombings here and Britain's involvement in the foolhardy invasion of Iraq. How many more bombings will it take before he is finally forced to accept responsibility for the results of his disastrous liasion with Bush ? Unfortunatelly Blair's actions have unleashed a cycle of hatred for years to come aimed at us because of his failed foreign policy. The Intelligence and Security Committee warned him two years ago that invading Iraq could make the terrorist threat to Britain. Did he listened to the experts ? No. Just as the British Army's struggle against the IRA had political roots which led the British Government to conclude that it was militarily unwinnable and later led to political negotiations after years of bloodshed, so today's "War on terror" is also unwinnable, providing, providing our government turns a blind eye to injustics in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and elsewhere, and supports the U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tony Blair should this time take note of what his Intelligence Services and the public are telling him: That war in Iraq helps to fuel the feelings of injustice among Muslims worldwide which only aids the recruitment of suicide bombers. I personally don't want to see any more bloodshed and horror of bombs and the killing of innocent people whether in London, or Baghdad, or Afghanistan. I expect that our political leaders will understand that they now have a choice: to continue with this madness, fear, death and war or to negotiate a just world where people live without fear, without bombs and live with dignity, respect and peace.
All my best to everyone and please take care,
--Maria
|
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2400
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 05, 2005 - 4:37 pm: |
|
John,
I really appreciate what you say in your post about the madness of the invasion of Iraq.To know there are Americans such as yourself who can see through all the bullsh*t given out by the Bush/Blair team and wont have it-is more than reassuring!
Thanks
Natalie |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4935
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 05, 2005 - 6:11 pm: |
|
Hi David
Only just seen your post.
I wasn't arguing that Britain was right to pursue a policy of appeasement in the 30s. I was just pointing out that Hitler wanted to save Britain for later - much later. As far as he was concerned, we were a naval power, and Hitler never had much interest in naval matters. His primary goal was the conquest of the Soviet Union.
After that would come Britain.
Robert |
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
