"As the world reels from another major terrorist attack, I wandered round the internet in an attempt to get a bit of a feel of the reaction to the London
bombings.
It seems that one of the most interesting (and serious) aspects of the response is
over the terrorists' motivations. Was it a protest against Britain's role in the
invasion of Iraq, as many commentators are predictably saying, or is it a much
broader statement by Islamic militants against what they see as depraved Western
values which offend conservative Islam? Maybe we'll never know.
But, here are some of the more interesting comments and stories that I stumbled across:
“Sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything
specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or
round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to
take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the
clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.” Amir Taheri
in The Times
“At 8.50am, Manjit Dhanjal was sitting on a
packed Circle Line train between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street station, on
her way to work in the City.” The
Independent
"There was panic and everyone was running for their
lives. I saw a lady coming towards me soaked in blood. Everyone was in
confusion." The
Times
“This is a conflict of values. But it is not just the
contrast between the hate of the terrorists and the labours of the world leaders
that will turn the tide. It is the contrast between the anger of the terrorists
and the decency of ordinary people, as Londoners so powerfully showed yesterday.
The
Guardian's editorial
“Most of us can only speculate at the
degree of Islamist penetration in the United Kingdom because we simply don't
know, and multicultural pieties require that we keep ourselves in the dark.” Mark
Steyn in the Daily Telegraph
“Clearly the masters of our
intelligence establishment will be feeling huge embarrassment today – in early
June the UK's central intelligence machinery reduced the threat posed to the UK
by "international terrorism" from "severe general" (the highest alert state) to
"substantial". The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre would have based this
assessment on an aggregation of all the clandestine and open-source material
available to it – tested rigorously by their analysts, and distilled into a
format designed to inform policy. But they were wrong.” Crispin
Black in The Guardian
“The number and simultaneity of
yesterday's attacks suggest localised surveillance and bomb making, requiring a
local support apparatus. We can presume that the bombers spent a considerable
amount of time in the UK and may have even been UK residents.” RP Eddy,
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow for Counter-Terrorism, in The
Times
“It is hard to knock a huge city like this off its course. It has survived many
attacks in the past. But once we have counted up our dead, and the numbness
turns to anger and grief, we will see that our lives here will be difficult. We
have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream. The city will not recover
Wednesday's confidence and joy in a very long time. Who will want to travel on
the tube, once it has been cleared? How will we sit at our ease in a restaurant,
cinema or theatre? And we will face again that deal we must constantly make and
remake with the state – how much power must we grant Leviathan, how much freedom
will we be asked to trade for our security? Novelist
Ian McEwan in The Guardian
“It's no use Mr Blair telling us
yesterday that "they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear". "They"
are not trying to destroy "what we hold dear". They are trying to get public
opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, from his alliance with the United
States, and from his adherence to Bush's policies in the Middle East.” Robert Fisk in
The Independent
“Assumed to be the work of al-Qaida, no doubt
this will again be greeted with glee in some Middle Eastern streets, as was the
fall of the twin towers. There will be renewed suspicion that fifth columnists
may also be punching the air in some extreme parts of Muslim communities around
Europe too. Yet in a way it hardly matters who did it or why. Polly
Toynbee in The
Guardian
“The attacks will reinforce the case for pressing on
with the long-term task, as defined by Mr Blair: the establishment of a stable
democracy in Iraq, peace between Israel and Palestine, and democratic reform
elsewhere in the Middle East. If that sounds rather close to Mr Bush's policy,
that's because it is. No terrorists can change that.” The
Economist
“Al-Qaida's new modus operandi is a combination of
strategy and necessity. After the US coalition destroyed its training bases in
Afghanistan, word went out, allegedly from Bin Laden himself, that jihadi
veterans should return home to their countries of origin, recruit locally and
prepare to attack domestic targets. The attacks in Casablanca and Madrid were
illustrations of this. What made the Madrid bombers so difficult to detect was
that some members of the cell were takfiris, Islamist militants committed to
jihad while continuing to live a western lifestyle, drinking, smoking and taking
drugs. The leaders of the cell deliberately set out to radicalise and recruit
street criminals so they could bring their expertise to the cause. Jamal
Ahmidan, the Madrid takfiri who got hold of the explosives, was a drug dealer.
One of the critical questions to be answered is: where did the London bombers
come from?” Peter
Taylor in The Guardian
“Yesterday's events do not look good
for the “al-Qaeda was all an invention” party. The bombings surely demonstrated,
to those who doubted it, that there really are people out there with the motive
and the capacity to inflict mass murder on the innocent.” Gerard
Baker in The Times
Tony pointed me towards the Wikipedia coverage, which is excellent, especially the timeline.
Also be sure to check this post from Londoner Johnnie Moore.