This morning I’m riveted to the news of the London Bombings via web radio. Readers who do not wish to be exposed to my political opinions but instead would prefer some more fun scans of Star Wars Characters should skip this entry. Expect a new scan before the end of the day.
The Wikipedia entry: 7 July 2005: London bombings is excellent and thorough. After reading through this (took about 4 minutes), much of what the radio says is redundant, and the new bits and pieces stand out. It’s astonishing how fast flickr images, news, and blog postings have spread news of this. kottke.org as usual has an excellent array of links.
The irony is that reading about this is in a sense precisely what those claiming responsibility want. Or wait, is what they want actually knowledge about the attacks, or terror and fear. From the Wikipedia article, there’s a quote of a claim of responsibility.
The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with *fear, terror and panic* [emphasis added] in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.
Extremist Islam that inflicts itself on other people is a force that must be dealt with, in some cases with eye-for-an-eye style justice. That means killing and carnage.
It’s a pity that the American government chose to divert attention away from Extremist Islam, who also were responsible for the attacks of September 11th in New York.
Instead we have made the focus Iraq. This appears to have been a terrible mistake. I am happy for the newfound freedom of Iraq, but the cost, of thousands of lives of Americans, of tens of thousands of Iraqis, this cost is troubling. I wish the Bush administration had been more honest and forthright about all of this. I do not have the confidence in my government that I think I should have.
My deepest condolences and best wishes to all in London.
two comments so far...
There is only one solution and it can’t be done by Americans or Britons. It has to be done by non-extremist Muslims themselves, these “good and decent” people we keep hearing about.
Until the Muslim community learns to address the cancer within their culture, until the good and decent people take some responsibility for the extremist element which has thrived among them for years… there will be no change. I don’t see how a government can make this happen without creating oppression of the Muslim community-at-large.
In the end, these people learn their rhetoric somewhere, in schools, mosques, neighborhoods. It’s up to the law-abiding Muslim to stand up and cast out these people from their midst. I fear that this will never happen… as the Muslim community at large harbors much support for Islamo-fundamentalism.
An excellent point Sassy. Thanks for sharing.
Let’s hope for improvements along those lines.
And, let me add, the sooner we can not be DEPENDENT on oil from unstable and hostile regions of the planet, the better.