Innocents?
 

Why do they (terrorists etc.) always blow up innocents on a train or bus, or those in a building.

Why don't they blow up something useful?

I.E.- The queen, Tony Blair, The french, Leshy, etc.

Any thoughts?

Re: Innocents?
 

It's because your dad touched you at night.

Re: Innocents?
 

those things are well-protected.

It's possibe that by blowing up innocent people it will have a more prefound affect on the public who will put more pressure on the government to change certain policies
i.e.
in Spain where the voted in a new party who pulled their troops from Iraq after the Madrid bombing

Re: Innocents?
 

Don't diss the leshy.

I guess civilians are much easier and more vulnerable targets than the queen or tony blair.

Re: Innocents?
 

The public care more when it strikes close to home.

"That could have been me"

"I hope my friends/relatives are ok"

etc

If they know who has died, it isn't as shocking.

Re: Innocents?
 

There's a small statistical chance that Janet Street-Porter will be killed in a terrorist attack and I for one want in.

Re: Innocents?
 

I'm being named in a list with the Queen of England, the French and Tony Blair.

Anyone know where to sign up as a suicide bomber?

Re: Innocents?
 

careful

we take our queen seriously

(**** the rest)

Re: Innocents?
 

Well, things happen to lets say civilians more so than to the military or to high office holders, because a greater effect is gained by mass casualties. There is only 1 George Bush, so you can only kill him once, but you can kill 1000's of civilains at a time. And also generally, military/goverment people are expendable, i.e they sign up sighing life insurance because they know they have a big chance of dying. Killing 10 civilians is a far leap ahead of killing 10 military people. Its just the eye of society.

Re: Innocents?
 

You seem to have given this a lot of thought. Hmmmmmmm......May I see you ID card?

Re: Innocents?
 

Well there's not much terror in blowing up non-innocent people is there?

Re: Innocents?
 

also guys were was the attack at London. London has more banks and financial groups then anywere else, and as I recall London was pretty much shutdown, how much money did that cost? 1mil, 2 mil 340mil, anybody have that figure yet? That seems like the most likely reason to attack a city in such a way, after all these bombs are small compared to what has been used before. Look at the buss bomb. Suicide bombers gerneraly totaly demolish a building let alon a buss. I think theses bombs were under power more about disturbance then killing

Re: Innocents?
 

Im pretty sure the assassination for George W Bush or Tonly blair, or any world leader for that mater, would have greater effect than a couple of suicide bombings...

If they can kill our leaders, how can our leaders protect us

versus

Those weak ass terrorists picked the softest target, and only got 4 of the hundres of trains that run...Were going to get those bastards who attack the defensless.


*not to downlplay the loss of the day, this is just to illustrate

Re: Innocents?
 

Its because they're lazy.

Re: Innocents?
 

stfu. we don't take you seriously at all.

Re: Innocents?
 

Killing high profile people is not that easy. If it was, you'd get a new President every few weeks.

To take the obvious extreme example, someone like GWB is defended by a group of heavily armed well trained man who would die (and kill) in an instant to save their man. Everywhere he goes is carefully planned first, and everyone in the area is (generally) security cleared.

And because of the highly centralised nature of politics (in the UK at least) there's little point killing many other people but the top few. I mean, they could assasinate local officials (say, a mayor or something) but these people have very little power and outside of certain high profile individuals (e.g. Ken Livingstone) I doubt many people would notice.

Re: Innocents?
 

I think it would be quite effective to attack somwhere more remote. If you bomb some people in a small, relativly insignificant town, then its much scarier for people al over the country. At present, I feel very safe, because I live nowhere near a major city.
Of course, its harder to kill lots of people, but you could still take out a few if you bombed somthing like a town fate or festival.
Any ideas?

Re: Innocents?
 

I support fully the idea of bombing your town to try this theory.

Re: Innocents?
 

A fair number of people live in cities and larger towns dude.

Re: Innocents?
 

I reckon that completely eradicating Milton Keynes would have a much larger psychological impact than levelling some of London or Manchester. All we need to do is get some decent propaganda going on to the terrorists that Milton Keynes is a site of huge social importance then sit back and watch the chaos with a bitter. Flawless

Re: Innocents?
 

Might have been easier if they had stolen a better football team.

Milton Keanes Dons ffs.... :/

Re: Innocents?
 

I wonder if they actually wanted to kill a lot of people or if that is a sideeffect.

Not many people died, compared to for example the Madrid bombings.

Re: Innocents?
 

Yes, but those that don't can feel safe. Coming from an insignificant town of 70,000 people, I don't fear these terrorists whatsoever.

If they started striking places more randomly, hitting smaller towns as well as London, there would certainly be a feeling that you never know if they could strike you next.

Re: Innocents?
 

**** YOU

Re: Innocents?
 

Well, a lot of people have said "they could have killed more people" which seems reasonable if you look at compared to the Madrid/New York events. But I think it might also be over-estimating the skill / ability to control things on the behalf of those responsible.

One of the things I always felt about 9/11 was how fortunate the bombers were. Any number of things could have happened (e.g. one of the Twin Tower's headed plane hijacks failed, the buildings didn't collapse, the air-force shot them down, etc) which would have made their plan dramatically less sucessful (in terms of numbers killed).

Now, it could be that the organisers of such events plan in such meticulous detail that they can see every outcome, but it seems likely that you'd be thinking "Well, we'll put three bombs on the Underground, used by three million people every day, and explode 'em at rush-hour - that's bound to kill quite a few people" rather than specifically targetting a number of casualities.

As I understand it, a couple of trains crashed at Kings Cross, and since those trains carry hundreds of people at rush hour, you can easily imagine how the death-toll could have been much higher.

Re: Innocents?
 

According to the radio those bombs were only about 10 pounds of high explosives each, so I guess they just didn't have access to enough boom boom to get a higher death toll.

Re: Innocents?
 

Yes, there's always the element of the unknown but an intelligent terrorist can offset that to some degree by using redundancy and excess capacity (i.e., more and bigger bombs) to help compensate for the inevitable glitches and things he can't control or anticipate. For example, the Madrid bombers planted 14 bombs on 4 trains, each with 10-12 kg of high explosives; 3 of the bombs were duds or disabled by other bombs (fratricide) and one was set for the wrong time (T+12 hours)--but that still left 10 bombs. The London bombers apparently used fewer and substantially smaller bombs so their 'margin of error' was far less.
And yet one of their planes never reached its target--they could have been even more successful than they were. Shit happens, even to terrorists; but by hijacking four planes at once they increased the odds that at least part of their plan would succeed.
I'd look at it more as problem of maximizing their expected return. The terrorists' resources are limited, they have only so many bombs, so many agents, so much time to carry out their plans. Where do they put the bombs to get the most casualties? I'm sure they do try to maximize the casualties, but not at the expense of a plan that's so intricate that it has little chance of success.

Re: Innocents?
 

Oh absolutley, I was just rejecting the notion that we can tell out what their intentions were purely from their results. People are saying "There aren't many casualties so obviously they didn't want there to be" which seems misleading and giving those responsible too much credit.

Re: Innocents?
 

A group of alleged terrorists were recently arrested in Lodi, California (pop. 60,000)

One of the group admitted that he had been trained in Pakistan and was to target a Safeway.

Re: Innocents?
 

The Times has a theory (I'm not sure from who) that they deliberately didn't kill that many because if they do, people side with the government, however, if they cripple a city and still hurt a few people go "Why the **** are we siding with America". Make of this what you will.

Re: Innocents?
 

If I'd been planning it, the whole thing would have been a plot to get Tony B in a helicopter making an unplanned flight from one known destination to another.

Re: Innocents?
 

That's hilarious.

Re: Innocents?
 

That's a theory, but it doesn't really go with what happened on 9/11 and in Madrid.
Although it was different people doing it so maybe they have different ideas on how to go about these sorts of things.

Re: Innocents?
 

I think that 50 for three small bombs is a high number .... Its better than what they get usually in Iraq.. Road side bombs usually get 2 or 3 people and suicide bombs usually get 10-11 people..

Re: Innocents?
 

i dont know, doesnt sound very convincing. as i see it they just failed with their attack. you dont target subway stations and the like if you want only a few casulties.
and i dont think it makes any difference to the people if 50 or 500 people are killed, theyd still rather side with the government than show weakness and demand to pull the troops out of iraq. it worked in spain, but the people were pretty mcuh opposed to the war to begin with.

Re: Innocents?
 

I think most people in most countries were opposed to the war.

It's just that different populations react differently to acts of terror.

Some vote to remove theeir leaders, others go to war.

Re: Innocents?
 

I doubt that in Iraq there are so many people in such a concentrated area at one time. If Iraq had an underground railway serivce and that was bombed then their kill rate would be higher.

Re: Innocents?
 

They were non-suicide bombers (apparently) so they had to plan smaller to avoid detection.

Re: Innocents?
 

by definition there aren't any 'innocents' in a democracy,

except perhaps those incarcerated.

and they didn't bomb any prisons (yet), so quit bitching

Re: Innocents?
 

I remember a thread i started on that a few years ago, i only remember because its one of the few good threads ive ever started.

But weren't some points made that the point of democracy is that you put the executive in charge and make the buck stop with them?

Re: Innocents?
 

No loss there then Safeway stores are teh crap

Re: Innocents?
 

I dont know, probably not.. but i was thinking when they are standing in line to get a job ect..

Re: Innocents?
 

Yes, job queues have been targeted; also clinics and mosques.

Re: Innocents?
 

Under 18s, non-voters, gypsies probably.

Re: Innocents?
 

i'd have non-voters just as 'guilty' as voters whose candidates always lose, tbh (tho i'm not sure never voting for a winner is as possible in parliamentary as it is here).

but i'd say you've got a point about gypsies and children.

Re: Innocents?
 

lords lunatics and convicts as well ...

Re: Innocents?
 

why aren't Lords 'guilty' ?

Re: Innocents?
 

Whose definition exactly? Is it one that would be accepted by a majority of English speakers?

Re: Innocents?
 

'government by the people'
'rule by the people'

what have you. i'm sure most english speakers would accept that. some wouldn't. some can't be helped.

Re: Innocents?
 

I meant whose definition of 'guilty'. You're using the word in a strange way if you want to equate it with 'everyone of voting age in a democracy'.