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One small attack doesn't justify using the word terrorism for the whole article though, unless you can prove all the bombs mentioned within the article were with intention to terify, or complying with any of the rest of the
definitions. Terrorism, or terrorist is a POV nightmare of a word to use. London underground attacks would be a better title for this article. To go further, I'd suggest that this article should be turned into a 'List of' style page rather than an article as you could pick any place to write an article on the attacks. For example the Europa hotel in Belfast has been bombed more than any other place in the world, yet still doesn't really deserve an article. --
Pauric (
talk-
contributions)
17:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)reply
From the very page you cite:
"On March 17, 2005, a UN panel described terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." "
I can't see any of the IRA attacks being intent to injure, apart from perhaps bombs during the 40s or the early 70s, a couple of times when the organisation was under quite secterian leadership. As for the first two, I can't say as I don't know anything about the bombs, bit of a lack of information. To be pedantic, the Brazilian man shot could fall under this article, as there is suspicion it wasn't entirely a misinformation fault. --
Pauric (
talk-
contributions)
18:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Bombs left in public places have the inherent capacity to injure members of the public (i.e. "civilians or non-combatants"), even incendiary devices. The 1976 Wood Green bombing in particular could very easily have resulted in great loss of life, but for a lucky fluke of timing. As regards
Jean Charles Menezes, it notable that I did include it in my own page on the subject (in the links - I've actually held off contributing to this page until today), which someone else used as the basis for this page, although they omitted that particular incident.
Nick Cooper21:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Stop guessing and stick to facts. I will ask the question again as you avoided it last time - In ALL of the attacks listed on the page was it the intention to "cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants"? If not then I am going to change the page name as it is POV--
Vintagekits21:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Stop being so disingenuous. I did not "avoid" the question at all. Nobody plants a bomb in a public place thinking that it can somehow magically explode or ignite, and yet fail to injure anyone who happens to be in the vicinity. In virtually every bombing incident listed, the placing of the devices in public areas were self-evidently a risk to members of the public or Underground staff. For example, if the train at Wood Green had exploded five minutes earlier or five minutes later there would have been passengers on board and some would have been injured or even killed. It was sheer luck that it was empty and in the process of reversing, but the car it was in was wrecked and had to be partly cut up before it could be removed. It doesn't take a genius to work out what would have happened had people actually been in it at the time.
Nick Cooper22:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Except that it's wildly ambiguous. Such a vague name would merit the inclusion of
WW2 bombing incidents, criminal damage, vandalism, etc. I see the title has now been changed to "List of terrorist attacks on the London Underground" which is better than the previous "London Underground Terrorism" and the unsuitably vague intermediate name.
Nick Cooper13:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)reply
right - go through each of the attacks and if each one was ""intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." then we can talk - not sure why you would phone is a warning if you intention was to harm civilians!--
Vintagekits18:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Plainly "the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act" is a given in every single IRA operation. All devices that didn't actually cause death or injury were placed on trains or in public or staff-frequented areas of the Underground, all of which posed a de facto threat of death or injury to members of of public and Underground staff. It's hardly rocket science.
Nick Cooper18:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Remember the criteria you set out yourself - "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm" - be neutral and not be biased in your assesment or were we are just going to have to get a mediator to settle it or of you really want to keep the list I could just remove the sections which are not terrorist.--
Vintagekits22:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Let's not kid ourselves. We're not talking about bombing trains stabled in sidings in the middle of the night, or incendiaries set to go off when stations are closed. Bombs left in public places cannot be divorced from a potential - and therefore an intention - to cause death or injury to members of the public.
Anyway, I see that the title has now been changed to the woefully misleading "List of attacks on the London Underground" which - as I've already pointed out above, is so vague that it merits the inclusion of everything from WW1 & WW2 bombings to vandalism. I was going to suggest a compromise of "List of paramilitary and terrorist attacks..." but will take a back-seat now and see how things pan out.
Nick Cooper23:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)reply
That's just being silly. It's useful, not least for contextualising the 7 July attacks, which in some quarters were reported in terms which suggested the Underground had never been been bombed by terrorists/paramilitaries/whatever before. 23:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Nick (or anyone), please do change the title, just dont re-add the word terrorism and almost anything else will be fine by me,
SqueakBox23:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Surely all we need to do is not use terrorism in the title, but then in the particular articles put something along the lines of "often referred to as an act of terrorism" and give references, such as to the many newspapers, articles, etc. This is a practice suggested by
Weggie in the
Omagh bombing article after
Vintagekits removed the word "terrorism". See [
[1]]
Logoistic
Nick Cooper is the one that wanted terrorism included in the title and provided this reason - "On March 17, 2005, a UN panel described terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." if these criteria are proven then and only then should the term ever be used. There is a whole page on the wiki policy about using the term--
Vintagekits19:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)reply
As I've said, personally I would favour "Paramilitary and/or terrorist attacks..." and let readers make up their own mind. Just plain "attacks" is far too vague, but I'm not bothered enough to get into the current ball-kicking contest with the title, although plain "Bomb attacks..." is another possible compromise. Oh well, at least Weggie hasn't turned up (probably needs a lie down after my work on
Shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland).
Nick Cooper19:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Fair enough, unless someone comes up with a good arguement someone should change the page name. The only thing is that
Astrotrain may change it back. I have already changed it once and so has
SqueakBox so if someone else does it this time then that shows a clear concensus. In my opinion
Astrotrain only changes back to try and wind me up, as one day he just went around following what edits I made and then he would simply revert it - its interesting that he doesnt bother to discuss the issue - that speaks volumes--
Vintagekits19:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)reply
I would opose changing the name very strongly to anything including terrorism. The fact that Astrotrain refuses to engage in the talk page while changing the title name against the oppositon of more than one user may show bad faith on his part and I urge him to engage here before changing the name back again, otherwise further action(such an rfc) will have to be considered,
SqueakBox19:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Proposal
I started this article some time ago with the word terrorism in it. If you look up
terrorism on wikipedia it says
Terrorism is a term used to describe certain violent or otherwise harmful acts or threats of such acts. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are: intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated for a political goal (as opposed to a hate crime or "madman" attack), deliberately target "non-combatants", and are not conducted by a "legitimate" government.
In my opinion all the acts described were violent acts intended to create fear and with a political goal (the first two occasions are not really known, The suffragettes wanted women's rights, the IRA wanted the UK to give Northern Ireland and the muslim extremists wanted the UK government to pull out of Iraq), they all deliberately targeted non-combatants (public transport and it's users) and they were not conducted by a legitimate government.
I propose to keep a redirect page from
London Underground terrorism to this article. In this article a brief text will be displayed at the top of the page stating something along the lines of "Although these events can be construed as terrorsim, for the encyclopedic qualities of this article these acts are called attacks"
Totally disagree, 1. "non-combatants" were not targetted in all the attacks, 2. Who's definition is that - there are 100's of definitions, 3. Is totally POV and therefore not in keeping with
WP:NPOV--
Vintagekits13:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)reply
Agree with Squeaky. I personally don't like the definition mentioned there, as it more or less says governments can't be terrorists. Although that's getting off topic. --
Pauric (
talk-
contributions)
19:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)reply
When first created this page correctly dated the Wood Green incident as being the day after the 15 March 1976 incident at West Ham, i.e. the 16th. This is corroborated by all the usual sources - e.g. Croome & Jackson's Rails Through the Clay, Day & Reed's The Story of London's Underground, etc. For some reason,
Vintagekits substantial re-editing of the page at 22:22 on 8 January 2007 resulted in it being erroneously dated as the 14th, rather than the 16th. This would make it the Arsenal/Newcastle match according to
Qwghlm's information, although it also means their source is wrong in dating it as the 18th. I am therefore reverting Qwghlm's edit and amending accordingly.
Nick Cooper22:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)reply
OK, fine but please add in a reference to the book & page number - as it stands leaving it unreferenced when it previously was runs against
WP:CITE etc.
Qwghlm11:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)reply
As the intro states: "This is a list of deliberate attacks on the infrastructure, staff or passengers of the London Underground". Although the Underground did suffer considerable bomb damage during WW2, none of it was the result of deliberate targeting. In addition, the page was originally called "London Underground terrorism" but was changed due to objections to the use of the word "terrorism".
Nick Cooper17:22, 29 September 2007 (UTC)reply
Bishopsgate
Taking "deliberate attacks on the infrastructure, staff or passengers of the London Underground" into account, should this really be on there? It wasn't a deliberate attack on any part of the London Underground. Granted part of it was damaged, but setting off a bomb that size in the centre of London is always likely to cause some damage to the London Underground. It definitely wasn't deliberate targeting of the underground like other attacks. One Night In Hackney30315:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)reply
I would tend to agree. Given that the incident
main page states that, "
St Ethelburga's church was situated seven metres away from the bomb, and that it was outside 99 Bishopsgate (HSBC), this puts it some 200 metres away from the mainline station. It is notable that the standard reference work on LU stations (London Underground Stations, David Leboff, 1994, Ian Allen Ltd.,
ISBN0-7110-2226-7), although even with the explosion in April 1993, it might have been two late for inclusion. Even so, given that the various elements of the Underground station are fairly spread around, and mostly inside the mainline station, a claim that the explosion "wrecked the Underground station" cannot possibly be true. It may be that there was some damge to some parts of the station, but as you say, it wasn't a direct targetting, and so shouldn't really be here.
Nick Cooper (
talk)
12:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)reply
Apparently, the act of "terrorism" has been glorified. The explosion on the bus took off the roof, and probably wrote off the bus from a safety point of view, but wasn't destroyed by the bomb as pictures after the incident clearly show the bus almost whole minus a roof. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.13.184.47 (
talk)
19:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)reply