Olympics

[Andy Mellon]

Originally Posted by Kirsty Harris

The sailing is going to be off Weymouth, I belive - which is belived to be an excellent venue for sailing, due to the currents and so on.

I hate Weymouth. Dead end town with severe traffic problems. Its on a peninsular and there's only two roads in. The main road in has a large school in it leading to severe congestion. Arggghhh! I hate Weymouth (nothing to do with having to commute there every day for the last 10 weeks - only 90 miles per day on one of the worst roads for caravans and tractors)

[Pete]

Some olympics photos..

[Lemming]

I feel sorry for that woman selling the shirts, if Paris had won she would have been minted. I bet there have been loads of merchandise printed in Paris to no avail.

[Beny]

Congrats London...

[greg]

You wonder if the bombs have gone off because we got the Olympics?

[Lemming]

I think this was probably planned well in advance Greg. At least, I expect it has taken more time than overnight to plan.

Probably it more more to do with the G8 summit in Scotland, the date of which has been known for some time. Maybe it was thought, by the terrorist organisation, that with all the attention from the police on the summit and controlling Geldof's "1,000,000 people" marching on Gleneagles, London may be left undefended or undermanned and therefore potentially more easily crippled.

As it turns out, it seems that the emergency services have done a very good job at getting the situation under control and performing the neccesary rescues, evacuations and medical operations.

[Milo]

The date of the Olympic result has also been known for years. It's not outside the realms of belief that two terrorist operations could have been planned (another one in Paris) and the terrorists were to go with the winning city.

What is undeniable is that when I lived in London (upto last year), the head of the Metropolitan Police continually told us that it was not a matter of 'if' but 'when' we were hit. You would expect the security services etc to have therefore had a list, given that they believed in the innevitavbility of an attack, and that G8 and any Olypmic related event would be pretty high up that list. That noone susepcted, or even worse, could do anything about it is very alarming. Were we not prepared for this???

We've continually heard about vigiliance, and yet, we heard nothing this week. We obviously have absolutely no idea of what these people are/were planning.

[Lemming]

Originally Posted by Milo

The date of the Olympic result has also been known for years. It's not outside the realms of belief that two terrorist operations could have been planned (another one in Paris) and the terrorists were to go with the winning city.

I think this is probably an attack not related to the Olympics, but more to the G8 summit. I'm not sure Al-Quaida, who have reportedly admitted responsibility, have a reason to attack France with the French not been involved in the Iraq war like Spain were before the Madrid bombings.

This sort of attack was inevitable, it is quite difficult for intelligence to predict where it was going to happen, even if they knew it was to happen today. It seems that what has happened is a small number of terrorists have simply got onto a number of buses and maybe an underground train, planted what seem to be simple, nontheless still destructive, bombs and allowed them to detonate. It would be a very difficult operation to foil. London is now crippled due to the fact everywhere needs to be checked out for further explosive devices and the tube is closed.

[greg]

We will probably never know why it happened now,sadly we all knew this day would come after our role in the "War against terror"

[Mongoose]

The signs point to the reasons it's happened being our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. A website claiming the attacks as the work of a branch of al-Qaeda say this. They have also warned Denmark and Italy that they are on the list. When will people learn? We all get annoyed by things. We all see injustice. But anyone who has wanted to influence people, and change the way they do things, has only ever made the situation worse by trying to fight them. Are Bush and Blair more likely to listen if you try to blow up their people? No. They'll fight back. And any chance of sorting out a complicated problem is lost, until the time when all parties, not just some, are prepared to talk about it in a civilised way.