London's Burning

I literally have been watching the rolling news on Sky / BBC for the last 48 hours. I don't know about anyone else but I am glued to my screen. I was surprised actually when I looked on my blog list and no-one had made an entry about the rioting already. I am looking at aerial footage of London right now and it looks like it is in the aftermath of a world war. I don't believe any of the people out on the street being criminals in this way have any political message or genuine motivation for this action. I appreciate it began following the shooting on Thursday evening but what is happening now is so far removed from that and I am sure Mark Duggan's family are appalled by all this. I personally have not watched the news as much as this since 11 September 2001.  For me it has led to a number of questions:-
1) Why had BBM not been shut down already? If that is the way the thugs of today are organising themselves (as reports have suggested), why don't Blackberry just stop it working for a while. 
2) Why were the army not bought in on Saturday/Sunday to deal with the problems before it got so bad? Don't get me wrong I am still a liberal hippy and not an advocate of the rubber bullet / tear gas / water cannon plans but surely the armed forces are better equipped and trained to deal with something on this scale than the Met alone. Not that the Met didn't do a great job, putting their lives at risk. 
3) What is the difference between a looter and a burglar? I thought looting happened after like a natural disaster, once shops have already been damaged anyway? Maybe I got that wrong but in my opinion these morons are just vandals, burglars and thugs. 

Hope everyone is safe in their part of the country. Fingers crossed that we wake up and this is all over.