[X] My Assistant

[dvandorn]

I just wanted to check in with all of our valued members in the U.K. -- to make sure none of you were riding the Tube in London this morning. Or perhaps were on one particular double-decker bus.

I'd hate to lose anyone in this forum to such senseless acts.

-the other Doug

[Bill Harris]

the attack that occurred yesterday can not be wholly put down to a lack of security

Short of turning countries into totalitarian states, there is no way to provide adequate security from these attacks. In many ways, the current adventure in Iraq has been beneficial to the terrorist cause.

--Bill

[Bob Shaw]

Having worked regularly in London (I was also born there but live in Scotland) what I found most disturbing was the assault on familiarity - these incidents all happened in places I know, on corners I've passed. The World Trade Center was iconic in many ways, and as such was on the Big List; Woburn Place, however, was almost home. As Ken Livingstone (almost) said, attacking the Pentagon, the G8, Tony Blair etc is quite different from going up against unprotected innocents on their way to work.

I suppose some scapegoats for the 'errors' in intelligence (there's bound to have been some, somewhere!) will be found in due course, but really that's just a sideshow - if someone wants to attack an open society, then it'll happen. When the IRA came close to blowing up the Thatcher's Conservative Cabinet at Brighton in the 1980s (oddly, in a hotel I also knew well!) the IRA issued a chilling statement after the event, which went more-or-less like this (they didn't get very many of them): 'Today you were lucky - but you'll have to be lucky every day from now on, and we to be lucky just once...'. Sadly, that remains true today, and all across the world.

Ah, well...

[dvandorn]

...if someone wants to attack an open society, then it'll happen.

That's a point I've made since even before 9/11/01. The price of liberty is vigilance, someone once said -- you have to be vigilant. As an individual. But any effective way of keeping such attacks from happening, *ever*, inevitably ends up destroying so many freedoms that, frankly, I'd rather risk such attacks to retain the freedoms I've enjoyed all my life.

For all you Christians out there, remember that Jesus told us to turn the other cheek when slapped. Absorb the pain, and go on. Not to hide in fear, and not to blindly attack anything that even remotely looks like it might slap us again...

Even though I'm not a Christian, those are really good words to live by. Especially in these troubled times.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that all of our UK friends here seem to be OK. A good friend of mine just passed away this morning after a long struggle with ALS -- I'm glad I only have one friend to mourn today.

-the other Doug