London.

Apparently, US troops have been banned from visiting London now - too dangerous. WTF ?

Dave Milne did pass the time by typing:

Typical bureaucratic cowardice combined with spineless leadership. I swear, there are a lot of high ranking military and civillians who spend more time polishing their bosses asses than doing what the country expects of them.

Well there you go. The French CAN do some military things right, assuming they sank the ship they intended.

I have thought for a number of years now that it would be expedient to have a member of the executive branch on the whaler/tanker/etc. that the Greenpeace terrorists are expected to ram or board. Then the navy of that country would be perfectly and legally justified in blowing it out of the water, arresting the few survivors and all the international officers of that terrorist organization.

Perhaps it is time for the UK to allow.... no demand... that all it citizens be legally armed.

That's what the world needs... football (soccer) hooligans with legal weapons!

hurrah, "plain clothes police" (i.e secret service intelligence officers probably) shot a suicide bomber dead today and captured another !

well, that's the third attempt in two weeks. Looks like our Intelligence service is very good as they were watching him.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

I think they will get the 4 from the second attempt ; wanted pictures are out already.

Are the members of these groups citizens, legal aliens, or illegal aliens?

Hasn't there been a large middle-eastern influx in the past couple decades?

There has been a large indian/pakistani/bangladeshi influx and these were their children who were born here. Despite that, many consider themselves Muslims first and British second. Terrorism is a good thing for us; it will force us to sort our stupid immigration policy (we are a very small island and while I and others welcome other races, that doesnt mean we want everyone to come to stay), and secondly it send a message that those who stay must integrate. (Incidentally, 9/11 did more in a day in stamping out the Irish Republican Army terrorists than we had been able to achieve in years by negotiation / blatent appeasement / letting mass murderers out of jail as they were 'political prisoners' ; they swiftly realised that they had better stop or else, and the misty-eyed "my great grandpappy was a leprechaun" Irish-Americans stopped funding them).

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

OTOH, it seems our intelligence is crap, as they admit they shot the wrong guy, and there is some debate as to whether they gave any warning.

Dave Milne did pass the time by typing:

The guy vaulted the ticket barrier and ran straight for the train.

Given all that's gone on there I'd have shot him too.

Then again if you go to any metro you find the odd person that jumps the gate. Some subways now use a checkpoint you can't jump.

Some people feel the need to do stupid things at the wrong time. These days being stupid can get you killed.

It's like security where I work. The signs that say "Deadly Force Authorized" used to be a laugh. Now it's no joke.

Operation Kratos (the authority on which we have a shoot to the head policy to avoid hitting a bomb strapped round the torso), is an intelligence-led system which requires them to identify the target in advance and take them out. Clearly they took out their target very professionally (no criticism of the officers at all), but someone in intell cocked up.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

Dave,

I was sporadically listening to these reports during my camping / off-roading visit to Canada. Part of the time the only radio reception was a French station so I had some difficulty following their rapid speech

Several questions came to mind when this occurred.

It "seemed odd" that there was such a delay in the identification of the man.

The contents of his rucksack and if anything was inside his coat was not mentioned.

The following day's brief report that the man was "completely innocent" did not address (or even mention) why he was in a house full of terrorists or was wearing a winter coat in July, or that the police were acting within current security rules of engagement.

No further mention of the victim's failure to comply with the 'police' order to stop, his running away, or his jumping onto a train to elude the 'police'

The victims brother (also supposedly Brazilian) ,in an interview, did not sound like any Brazilian (Portuguese) accent I have ever heard.

The whole story sounds fishy. Will we hear in a few days or weeks that this terrorist cell suspected they were being watched and sent a 'blocker' to gauge the 'police' response while the real terrorists went out the back door?

The truth may never be known. He may have been innocent. He may have been a red herring. He may have been used by the 'police' as a warning or example to terrorists. Hopefully he was not innocent and selected at random by the police to be used as a warning.

For what it is worth I was happy to hear that the 'police' in a country where the police do not carry guns were able to hit a target with 100% accuracy.

'political prisoners' ; they swiftly realised that they had better stop or

Weren't the Scots kinda upset about the British occupation of their country for a while?

It seems that he was an illegal immigrant (and immigrant checks are often done on tube stations). As our police don't normally carry guns he felt safe in legging it.He lived in the same apartment block as some terrorist suspects, but not in the same apartment. There is some question over whether these guys were policemen, but if they were they were marksmen trained by the SAS. Looks like they got him 7 times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

intelligence-led

We had several conventional wars over it. Ireland is a bit different; the northern irish (protestant) don't want to be one country with the southern irish (catholic). That's the conventional line; the truth is that the IRA and the ulster lot ran protection rackets using the above as an excuse. As long as everyone paid up to one side or the other, they were happy. Not really about occupation or religion.

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ