Mumbai prompts this question

[five bellies]

What if it happened here??

 

Say on a Saturday afternoon in Bluewater, Lakeside, Arndale etc.

 

Are we as a country ready for so an event??

 

How soon could we expect the Police, Army or SAS to get into action?

 

Do any of these places have contingency plans for such an event?

 

It's a bit worrying if they don't!!

 

 

Colin this was what I eluded too in my post the other day!

 

In its simplist terms No ! we would be as caught cold as the authoraties in Mumbai were, also we would have no dought allso engaged in rounds of attempted negociations, wich would give the protagonists a even greater stage than they had in India, This as a senario will now be being thrashed out by our authorities,

 

A handfull of similar incidents in differant areas of the capital simultaneously would tie up the Mets armed responce units impossibly.

 

even then semi auto carbines ,Shot guns and side arms would be hard pushed against fully automatic Weapons, Grenades, and a total disregard for who gets shot.

 

I think home defence will be reinvented in the next few months.

[greg long]

to win we have to be just as ruthless as them ,long gone is the empire and quelling revolt by blowing the trouble makers away on the mouth of a cannon,they no longer fear us

 

Therein lies your problem, you cannot rule by fear, it will always backfire.

Nor can you legislate for extremism, extremists don't give a fig for the rules.

[greg long]

in real wars armies used uniform so we knew who to kill (very civilised) not in a terrorist war though all the people look the same except us so they know who to shoot at.

the chindits knew how to fight and turned the tide against the japs ,we need to learn from history ,firstly the chindits then why were interfering anyway.

 

Not intended as a swipe at you Chesters, just that your points are the relevant ones...

 

but the allies were quite happy to use terror tactics alongside the resistance groups in WW II. This showed how effective the tactics were in a larger field of operations.

 

It must be remembered that the UK were largely responsible for terror tactics. With the use of the Black-and-tans in Ireland originally. The murder and torture of civilians in Dublin (Notably driving an armoured car onto the pitch at a sunday football match and opening up on players and fans with machine guns) was pure terrorism and created the original idea of terrorism, which in turn was used to great effect against the English secret police by Micheal Collins. Prior to this the Irish seeking home rule fought as an army, even though they were hopelessly out gunned and out numbered.

 

As for the problems emanating from the middle east....It also should be remembered that after WW II the Allies decided that the Jews could have Palestine as their homeland with little regard to the palestinians who lived there already. How would the English react if the Americans decided to give Britain back to the descendants of the Angles and Saxons ie. Germany, and they tossed most of you back to Normandy? ..... You were not too keen when Hitler tried it.

 

Now hastily ducking for cover

[chesters1]

i completely agree with you ,i'v always said the real terrorists are the west themselves.

i can sympathise especially with the Palestinians and their fate today is mostly the american theme that isreal is beyond reproach whatever they do!

we went to war with iraq on the pretence he broke a couple of un mandates isreal has and still is breaking well over 30 ,are we insisting on peace keepers in palestine ,perhaps not isreal tends to kill them as they did in lebanon? .the west bank is no more than a concentration camp will we be going over the border like when serbia had a few ,you know the answer.

and ofcourse suicide bombers and operatives are not solely the possession of the moslems and executing prisoners not the sole property of serbs we did both in ww2 the difference is we won and winners can rewrite history to their version

Edited November 30, 2008 by chesters1

[Ken Davison South Wales]

i completely agree with you ,i'v always said the real terrorists are the west themselves.

i can sympathise especially with the Palestinians and their fate today is mostly the american theme that isreal is beyond reproach whatever they do!

we went to war with iraq on the pretence he broke a couple of un mandates isreal has and still is breaking well over 30 ,are we insisting on peace keepers in palestine ,perhaps not isreal tends to kill them as they did in lebanon? .the west bank is no more than a concentration camp will we be going over the border like when serbia had a few ,you know the answer.

and ofcourse suicide bombers and operatives are not solely the possession of the moslems and executing prisoners not the sole property of serbs we did both in ww2 the difference is we won and winners can rewrite history to their version

 

I am not sure where to go with this one, take Israel, our boys died out there trying to stop the Jews from setting up a state but world sympathy for better or worse went against us, so how does that make us the bad boys?

 

We were asked to go into Northern Ireland by the catholics and then they turned on us, yes there were some misjudgments but again we were put into a difficult situation.

 

Falklands who started that?

 

9/11 so some total barstewards used any excuse they could to justify mass murder.

 

Saddam slaughtered millions of his own people and invaded Kuwait but I guess we started that one to.

 

Please explain how you came to the conclusion we are the terrorist????

[Elton]

Therein lies your problem, you cannot rule by fear, it will always backfire.

Nor can you legislate for extremism, extremists don't give a fig for the rules.

 

Bugger! Do you REALLY mean that the proposed I.D. cards won't stop them?

[chesters1]

I am not sure where to go with this one, take Israel, our boys died out there trying to stop the Jews from setting up a state but world sympathy for better or worse went against us, so how does that make us the bad boys?

 

We were asked to go into Northern Ireland by the catholics and then they turned on us, yes there were some misjudgments but again we were put into a difficult situation.

 

Falklands who started that?

 

9/11 so some total barstewards used any excuse they could to justify mass murder.

 

Saddam slaughtered millions of his own people and invaded Kuwait but I guess we started that one to.

 

Please explain how you came to the conclusion we are the terrorist????

we formed iraq ,we put in puppets ,we armed saddam ,we ignored completely everything he did until he went into kuwait.

it was the brits and france that divided up the middle east putting borders where borders didnt exist and played off tribe against tribe.

 

there thats the middle east buggered up then just as it all settled down we gave in to terrorists and made a nice shiney new country slap bang in the middle where totaly alien foreigners can live (forget the biblical promises its rubbish) who not only worship a different god they have some mad notion that they are the only humans allowed to live there then alienating any pro brits out there by letting them do it and sell them the means to do it whilst turning a blind eye when they do. "world" sympathy didnt come into it we just rolled over to mass murderers and gave them what they wanted hardly an example to our new terrorist threats

we did the same in ireland instead of withdrawing (its no use to us) we rolled over and gave in another fine example we like terrorism and follow their wishes.

any sane country would let them get on with it both were as bad as each other

 

wheres we dont use terrorist methods you can bring terrorism by many forms and by that britain especially is very well versed.

i cannot see though how the falklands come into it though?!

Edited December 1, 2008 by chesters1

[kleinboet]

Coming back to the original question - IMPO, there is not a country in the world today that could stop a half dozen determined terrorists doing damage in a population of 1million+!

The terrorists, by their very name, are only there to do one thing TERRORIZE.

Could you see them negotiate a peace deal? The only thing the world can do at present is to make sure that those who cause these abominations are killed, and that we carry on as normal after the event.

This sends two messages to the terrorists.

1 - You better believe that a terrorist attack is a sucide attack!

2 - You are not achieving your aims!

 

I know we have suicide bombers, but IMPO they will become scarce when they find that the attacks are not causing the mayhem desired.

[*Ant*]

If you ask me they are taking these hotel murder mystery weekends too far.

[DavyR]

It must be remembered that the UK were largely responsible for terror tactics. With the use of the Black-and-tans in Ireland originally.

 

I'm not suggesting that the Black & Tans weren't a particularly brutal bunch (although many were traumatised WWI veterans out of work following their return to "A Land Fit for Heroes", so the prospect of signing on for service in Ireland at double the normal army rate of pay was quite attractive), but the reason they were formed in the first place was because the Royal Irish Constabulary was unable to cope with sustained attacks from the IRA.

 

As brutality towards (and indeed massacres of) civilian populations in countless previous conflicts throughout history is a matter of record, it's hardly accurate to claim that "the UK were larely responsible for terror tactics".