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Edited on Sat Aug-12-06 01:34 PM by tenshi816
Honestly, it's like chasing a bloody ghost, don't you think? Nobody knows for sure exactly who the bad guys are anymore, and it's even highly likely that some of the so-called "good guys" are bad guys, if you see what I mean (and I think you do).
I wish I had an answer about "why the airport". Another poster brought that up as well, asking why terrorists seem to be focused on the air. Maybe it's because they're banking on airport security becoming lax after a long time without an incident, and I believe there's certainly something to that. Just a few months ago I flew from Manchester (England) to Calgary with a nail file in my handbag. That's not supposed to happen, right? I know it's a minor thing, but still...
The last couple of times I've been to the States, security has seemed more for show than anything else. Maybe I'm wrong, and I hope I am, but it's certainly a perception I've had.
Maybe the focus being once again on planes is because the fifth 9/11 anniversary is coming up soon.
I'll tell you what makes me much more uneasy than planes in the UK: trains. Virtually everybody uses the railways in Britain. A few weeks ago I was travelling from Leeds to Sheffield late on a Friday afternoon (about an hour, with stops). The train's final destination was Plymouth, way down in Devon from Leeds, and it was a long train - lots of carriages - absolutely heaving with passengers and their luggage. My two sons and I couldn't even get into a carriage where the seats were - the carriages were all full, as was all the standing room in them, and we were stuck in the area between carriages where the toilets are, packed in like sardines with loads of other people. We literally couldn't move anywhere else. Now, bearing in mind that there are no security checks of any kind before you board a train in Britain, it would be easy for a suicide bomber to wreak major havoc on a jam-packed commuter train, killing hundreds of people in the explosion and subsequent derailment (damn, I'm a regular "Little Mary Sunshine", aren't I?). It's only a matter of time - I mean, surely I'm not the only person whose mind this thought has crossed. So, my question is: why has this never been addressed by the powers-that-be? There's all this focus on air travel, but none on another mode of transport thousands of people in Britain use every single day.
Having said all that, though, I've gotta say that the British don't as a rule live in fear of terrorists. It's got to do with being bombed relentlessly during WWII followed by years of living with bombs and the threat of bombs from the IRA. I remember once asking my mother-in-law how her family coped with the constant bombing during the Second World War and, in her understated way, she replied "well, we just had to get on with it, didn't we dear?". I took her words to heart. Over the years I lost count of the number of times I was evacuated from trains and train stations because of IRA bomb threats. Eventually my fear turned to annoyance.
The current situation has slowed people down, but they're not cancelling their flights en masse and staying away from the airports. They're just, as my MIL said, "getting on with it".
Edited to add that if you're really curious about why Muslim terrorists would target Britain, you might want to read up on the history surrounding the partitioning of India in 1947 when it achieved independence from Britain. That was when the country of Pakistan was created, and also when the doors to the UK were opened to the citizens of those countries for mass immigration.
The UK is a tiny country with about 60 million residents; about 50 million of those live in England, which is roughly the size of Georgia (the US state). Roughly 1 in 30 residents of the UK are Muslim. Most have assimilated; some haven't. Some were, and have now decided they don't want to be anymore. Add to all that the idiots like those in the British National Party. We're a melting pot here, and it's boiling. And no one knows what to do about it. We all have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but we also have the right to freedom from religion and the reasonable expectation not to be blown up because we don't subscribe to a particular view.
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