In the news...

This morning on the BBC, one of the top stories was the news that the United States military had banned its service members based in England from traveling to London. This was supposedly due to the danger they faced from the terrorist bombings.

(After an intital, cynical thought of, 'sure...since London isn't safe enough, let's send them to someplace safe, say....Iraq,' I moved on to George Bush's words: 'In this dark hour, the people of Great Britain can know that the American people stand with them.' and 'We will never yield to terrorists and murderers. In the face of such adversaries, there is only one course of action: We will continue to take the fight to the enemy, and we will fight until the enemy is defeated.' Sure, let's stand against the enemy...from as far from London as possible.)

Anyway, after some criticism that the travel ban sent the wrong message, the travel ban has been lifted. Now, American service members are now free to travel to London.


Now, in all fairness, I need to add this bit from the BBC web site: Conservative defence spokesman Andrew Robathan said: "I suspect that this was a decision made when London was not a place to visit, on Thursday and Friday. "I also suspect it was a decision made by somebody who was rather risk-averse - perhaps a middle-rank commander, not one of the top people."