The London Bombings

Glenn has lots of links, and be sure to scroll up.  Memeorandum has lots, too.

Comments are open, natch.  A thought - if this is Al Qaeda, perhaps NATO will want more troops in Afghanistan.

Comments

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Karl Rove's revenge: They do want to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

A sampling of comments from Semi-Daily Journal:

'Shouldn't we be pledging to bring those responsible to justice, rather than to carry out revenge killings?'

and,

'An anti-terrorism strategy based on reducing attention and alarm produced by attacks, rather than primarily on saving lives, might do much to make terrorism more pointless.'

and,

'Western gov'ts should principally be concerned with bringning the terrorists involved in this attack to "Justice". As in: captured wherever they may be, extradicted to Britain, tried in a British court of Law, and punished according to the Letter of the Law--if found guilty. One of the big problems I have had with the American response to 9/11 has been the vigilante attitude that has been bandied about concerning the Al-Qaeda perpetrators and their supporters: "Dead-or-Alive, Bring'Em On", etc. These people are criminals, not super-villains in some comic book or Hollywood movie. They should be treated as criminals, albeit suicidal ones, no more and no less. Western societies have Laws and Courts, we left behind the need for "Wild West" style justice in the 1880's.'

and,

'We, the white, English-speaking, "first world" nations are the evil here. We fully support the evil; both the U.S. and Britain have had a chance to oust the leaders who started these attacks on a sovereign, non-combatant nation; and both the U.S. and Britain have chosen instead to stand behind the warmongers.

'You started this war. You support the killing of Iraqi children every day with your tax dollars. You don't like the consequences? Should have thought of that earlier, shouldn't you. If you can't do the time - or in this case can't take Islamic retaliation in the only way available to them - don't do the crime.'

[creepy dude]

Josh Marshall's post- July 07, 2005 -- 04:12 PM- at TPM says it all for me.

Peace out -I'm silencing for awhile.

Thanks for the hospitality TM.

[SteveMG]

Josh Marshall in many ways reminds me of Tom Friedman. Both will make several interesting points, a couple of debatable arguments, and then tie everything together with a reactionary liberal riposte against the idiot or evil or corrupt or fill in the blank (depends on the month) Bush Administration.

So we see here him making the jejune observation that this terrible event was likely committed by a home grown Islamic group consisting of disaffected and deracinated young Muslims. Duh. Of course, Marshall never asks the question as to WHY these individuals have not been assimilated into Western society. Wouldn't that be an important question to ask?

But he averts the reader's attention from this vital query; for to do so would be to direct the spotlight away from Bush's "folly", i.e., Iraq, and onto the policies advocated by the liberal/left both in Europe and here. I.e., multiculturalism, expansive welfare state subsidies, et cetera.

How Bush's folly (didn't Blair join us?; why not "Blair's folly"?, no enemies on the left, I suppose) plays into today's attacks escapes me. Radical elements in Islam have been on the move for decades. And the movement has taken hold in Europe. Loose immigration policies, a failure to acculturate young Muslims into mainstream society, state handouts without any reciprocal obligations, have all contributed to this lost generation of individuals.

Nah, let's just blame Bush.

I'd like to think this is a one shot horror. But I'm afraid it's the future.

May the victims rest in peace.

SMG

[Joe Mealyus]

PRS: "A sampling of comments from Semi-Daily Journal:"

Why didn't the "enjoy your heirloom tomatoes" comment make the cut? Has there ever been a PRS comment on that blog with one tenth the zing?

[Joe Mealyus]

"So we see here him making the jejune observation that this terrible event was likely committed by a home grown Islamic group consisting of disaffected and deracinated young Muslims. Duh. Of course, Marshall never asks the question as to WHY these individuals have not been assimilated into Western society. Wouldn't that be an important question to ask?"

Well, also missing from his analysis is any sense of the structure and beliefs and goals of the larger Islamist movement to which these individuals have apparently attached themselves. Marshall closes his post with a call to "defend our innocents from such religious fanaticism and the violence it spawns." Is "religious fanaticism" truly an insightful description of the motivating force behind the bombers?

I'm also wondering if Marshall's endorsement of "implacable resistance to terrorists' desire and aim to disrupt the rhythm of our daily lives and our civilization itself" - which may or not be one of their actual aims, I have no idea - in a post preoccupied with how the London bombings will affect the status of the debate over the war in Iraq, while saying nothing about whether we should or should not resist their somewhat more tangible political aims, isn't just a tad wishy-washy?

[EMPIRE]

THE EMPIRE IS RISING AGAIN AND MUSLIM BLOOD WILL RUN ON ENGLANDS GREEN AND PLEASENT LAND!!!