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The importance of not over-reacting USAF personnel in the UK have been told to stay out of London because of the bombings. Sorry but this is not just a propaganda gift to the enemy, it is just plain daft.
Firstly, the US was not the target of these bombs, Londoners were. Secondly, London is always full of American visitors and US military folk do not really stand out from the crowd all that much. In fact Americans are probably more likely to form identifiable ‘target clusters’ in the rural communities around the US bases in the UK.
It was a terrible atrocity but we have seen it all before in London at the hands of the IRA, so please, telling US service personnel to avoid London is foolish and plays to the often held stereotype of Americans as easily scared by such incidents. Methinks USAF people are made of sterner stuff and more than capable of assessing the risks for themselves.
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They’ve rescinded it today – common sense seems to have prevailed.
I think they were afraid that Londoners would lynch them because Americans are at fault for this war, or so some think… maybe they were afraid of a backlash.
More likely it’s the usual American over-reaction to events. Nothing sinister or paranoid.
EG
Yeah, it’s just typical bureaucratic CYA.
That is just about the most off target notion I have read in quite some time. If anything it will pull us together. It certainly reminded me that we are on the same side regardless of what the idiotarian-class might think.
I have just come back from a business meeting full of American fund managers, who clearly are made of stern stuff, all of them praising the sang froid of we Brits. Many of the U.S. guys flew over to London today determined to show they were not afraid. Good for them.
Fair enough, after all, we pulled our troops out of Washington in 1776 for their own protection (after we had burnt the place down).
That’d be 1815, I guess, what with Washington being nothing but a swamp 40 years earlier.
Are you suggesting it isn’t a swamp there now? Have you been there in the summer? I would prefer to be in Miami.
I was an American Airman who enjoyed a wonderful two-year assignment in England (RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, 1987-89). I would assure Mr. de Havilland, et alia, that my peers were – and current incumbents certainly are – possessing of the sterner stuff necessary to see through the latest unpleasantness.
Oh, one more bit – Gabriel’s opening salvo was pure pap.
I guess the fear of reprisal is less surprising when you learn that on this side of the water, at least some media have gotten sound bites from George Galloway and let them appear to represent mainstream British opinion. Fortunately, most coverage over here is more accurate.
As I have spent a good chunk of the summer on a consulting job in DC, I can relate the swamp remark. I’m working outside the beltway just a stone’s throw from the canal and river.
I must admit I was a bit surprised by hearing about such a silly order btw. Very bad PR and I hope the officer responsible has been suitably chastised by those of the Right Stuff fraternity.
James, I sympathise. One of my cousins-in-law, served at Bentwaters and Woodbridge on the A-10 tankbuster aircraft in the late 80s. Those guys are not wimps.