The Bombing of London

Less shock than resigned inevitability is how the world seemed to treat today's terrror bombings in London; an altogether appropriate response. For the West is at war against Islamic Fundamentalism; a war that can never end in a stalement or peace treaty, but with one side soundly defeated. While coalition soldiers battle their foe in Iraq and Afghanistan; the enemy occasionally makes sucessful forays into our territories, striking soft targets to slaughter the innocent. They know that besides civilain casualties and mass disruption of life, the media will do their propoganda job for them by broadcasting their momentary murderous glory worldwide; amplifying the effects by a magnitude. This is the world they want; can the will of the West stand up to such an implacable foe?

For my part, while al Qaeda probably played some role in today's attacks, I believe that this may be the work of not foreign terrorists, but Britian's own home-grown militants. Britian's Muslim minority has been vocally anti-Britian and anti-Semetic; aided by the liberals whom defended their views and appeased them with legal buyoffs, their cause became, to them, legitimized. Christopher Hitchens notes Britian's...

...role as a host to a large and growing Muslim minority. The first British citizens to be killed in Afghanistan were fighting for the Taliban, which is proof in itself that the Iraq war is not the original motivating force. Last year, two British Muslims pulled off a suicide attack at an Israeli beach resort. In many British cities, there are now demands for sexual segregation in schools and for separate sharia courts to try Muslim defendants. The electoral strength of Muslims is great enough to encourage pandering from all three parties: The most egregious pandering of all has come from Blair himself, who has promised legislation that would outlaw any speech that could be construed as offensive to Islam. Since most British Muslims are of Asian descent, a faint sense exists that criticism of their religion is somehow racist: In practice this weak-mindedness leads to the extension of an antiquated law on blasphemy that ought long ago to have been repealed but is now to cover the wounded feelings of Muslims as well as Christians.

To those whom believe that we can appease, settle, or make peace with these Islamic Fundamentalists, learn the lesson of Britian.

My heart goes out to Britian's victims of this enemy attack. For my part, I work practically next door to the British Consulate in New York. I saw no books of condolences to sign; no flags at half-staff, and only two paltry NYC cops sloppily standing guard (I was surprised by this lack of vigilance as this building has been attacked before; later in the day my pair of loafer cops was supplemented by a few on horseback; a little better, not much). I gave an interview to an Italian TV reporter and crew, in which I warned viewers that they'd better realize there was a war on, although I'm sure my words were in vain. I think the British people deserved more respect than their consulate personnel were offering, and more protection than the NYC police were giving. The British Embassy in New York: Another target, on another front - let us remain vigilant; for we are at war....

I'll update tomorrow.


Link to Hitchen's article here: http://slate.com/id/2122186/?GT1=6666#ContinueArticle
At the bottom, there are links to other articles, including one praising Britian's legal system for its practice of "speedy trials and fast aquittals" for terrorists (link here http://slate.com/id/2069991/).

How about this claim( http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/):

7 July 2005; 12:54 ET: Preliminary reports from a source inside the Pentagon indicate that one of the operatives involved in this morning's bombings in London was recently released from the prison at Guantanamo.

Hard to believe - but what would Dick Durbin say?

The Belmont Club is more optimistic; I hope Wretchard is right:

...most important hard fact to grasp is that this Al Qaeda strike, their first against an Anglosphere city since 9/11, has caused much less damage than that on New York. This despite the fact that Al Qaeda has had nearly four years to brood on its humiliations and losses and to plot its revenge. The reasons for this are simple: the enemy is now operating in a much more hostile environment. The accessible methods of mass destruction, such as wide body aircraft, have been secured; not perfectly, but for a defense to work it must only be sufficient to blunt the onslaught of the enemy. Increased surveillance, tighter controls on movement, etc have all played their part. The second reason the enemy is weaker is Iraq. It is widely accepted that thousands of Al Qaeda fighters, the cream of their rancid crop, is fighting to expel the American infidel from the Land Between the Rivers. A moment's reflection will show that if they are there they cannot be elsewhere -- in London, Paris, Rome or Boston -- sowing bombs on buses and trains. Furthermore, fear in formerly smug circles within Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Libya at sharing the fate of Saddam have left terrorists have fewer powerful confederates. Thirdly, allied forces are in contact with the enemy all over the world, buying intelligence with their blood, just as a SEAL team in Afghanistan did. Nothing yields as much information as the act of grappling with the enemy. Liberals often talk about the need to improve intelligence capability without admitting that you can't gather it without being in action against the enemy.

Read it all; link here: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/07/blessing-and-curse.html