The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
London is drowning-and I live by the river
I had planned to talk about some pop-culture nonsense with this post, but the events of the day demand some attention I think. Now before I start into it, don’t for one second assume that I am being crass or unsympathetic. 
I know what a tragedy this bombing is, but my heart goes out to all Britons for their loss.
That being said, I am utterly amazed at the levels of shock, surprise and fear that this attack has generated. The last time I checked, we were engaged in a “War” (using said term loosely) on Terrorism. Now, this war is supposedly targetting “terrorists.” So lets review the major events so far in this war, starting back in September 2001:
- Sept. 11th: Two planes crash into the World Trade Center buildings, one into a field, and one plane/truck is blown up outside the Pentagon.
- November: The Taliban is deposed in Afghanistan.
That’s it. There have been no major triumphs since then; no surrenders, no cessation of hostilities, no victory declarations. True, there was that Dog and Pony Show 
aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, but that was both incredibly premature, and connected to an entirely seperate conflict. The sort of people who resort to international suicide bombing, the sort of people who engaged in the September 11th attacks are called Salafists; in particular Salafist jihadists. They are a branch of Islam which seeks to restore the Caliphate and return to a more traditional, “correct” form of Islam. Some of these people are violent, many are not. But this is the ideology that underlies the actions of all the Al-Queda bombers of that fateful day. Why am I talking about this sect of Islam, the War on Terror, and London? Because the violent Salafists are the ones that pose a true threat. They are the ones that have attacked in the past, and the ones that will continue to attack in the future. And almost nothing has been done (at least publicly) to counter this philosophy. What we have done is attack Islam in general, deposed a regime that is almost as reviled by the Salafists as George Bush, and continue to foster the resentment and anger that fuels this extremist movement. In spite of this, people are still shocked when bombs rip through buses, planes, and other sites of innocent “western” civilians.
I’m not suggesting that we have no right to be angry, or that what happened is in any way justified. But I just want to put things in perspective for everyone out there who is looking and saying “how could this happen?” Right now the threat-level in the United States is higher than it was when Iraq was invaded. Right now the people who planned the September 11th attacks are still alive and in hiding. Right now the leaders of Al-Queda, Al-Queda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam, Islamic Jihad, The Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe, and any number of other violent groups are still at large. If you think fingerprinting, biometric passports and increased luggage inspections has somehow “won” this war, or even made headway, you are horribly mistaken.
I’ve seen two 11-year old children make a grenade using sand, a rusted tin can, and crude explosives in a bombed out building with a sheet of cardboard the closest thing resembling “equipment” in the entire room. If history has taught us anything it’s that people can and will fight with any and every weapon at their disposal. You can exhaust an enemy’s supplies and armaments, but unless you exhaust his will to fight, the war will never end. One only needs to look at the major conflicts of the last fifty years to see that this is true: Japan, Germany, Iraq, the Soviet Union, Vietnam (with America losing) and Korea are all example of armies/governments who lost their will to fight; not because of inferior weaponry, but because of dissillusionment. Now can anyone actually say with a straight face that an enemy who is willing to blow him/herself up, kill their own countrymen, and generally make statements such as “Allah says in the Quran, fight them as they fight you, lay in wait for them and smite them at their necks…Allah gives us this right” is going to be dissuaded by military might and financial pressure? I can’t help but laugh at the sorts of people who think that way, and I have personally lost a great deal of respect for some friends who reduce Islamic extremism in this way. If you think that the way this “war” is being waged is a success then you are operating on the assumption that these extremists are just bloodthirsty, powerhungry barbarians, and their followers are more of the same. Nothing could be further from the truth, or more dangerous. Until people start to realize this, the “war” is a hopeless one, and the events that we saw today will continue to happen, however isolated.
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Who’s claiming that there have been “major triumphs” in the war against terrorists? Who in the Bush (or Blair) administrations promised people like you instant gratification in this fight? Bush is on record saying that this war will be “incredibly difficult” and will take “a long time”. He’s also said that Iraq is “only one theater” in this war.
The people running the US right now don’t have their heads in their sands like the incompetents who infested the Clinton administration and who failed to confront terror and terrorists in any meaningful way for 8 long years.
This war is being conducted in the only way that we can. Are their more “effective” ways? Of course. But that would trample our vision of freedom, democracy, and our core values. We could make Islam illegal, imprison anyone who practices it, suspend free speech for Jihadist sympathizers, indiscriminately bomb areas where terrorists may be, and unleash death squads to kill the mullah’s who are winding up the young bombers in the first place.
The Bush people are not “attacking Islam”. In fact, they’re going to great lengths to do exactly the opposite. If anything, they are erring on the side of caution on that topic. They have, over and over and over again, distinguised the Jihadists from Islam in general.
And how are we “fostering the anger and resentment” that is fueling this movement? That’s a fallacy. Are we creating more enemies BECAUSE we confront them? What utter and complete nonsense. You yourself spell out the religious motivations of these people and then turn around and blame the US for creating them in the first place!?? They hate us because of what we ARE not what we’ve done. Clinton tried to appease these people and we got 9/11. It’s a mistake to project our values onto them and attempt to understand them. We just need to destroy them and their movement.
The war on terror is not like a war against a “state”. It’s different. It’s more difficult. And it takes patience and wisdom. Refusing to fight is not an alternative. The Islamist fanatics are the ones who declared Jihad, not the US (or the UK). These bombers are not the poor and the downtrodden. The London bombers (and the 9/11 terrorists) were upper middle class young people. They were relatively well-to-do people who were infested with a nutbag religion.
Also, who says we’re not targeting the “Jihadists”? What level of US security clearance do you maintain that allows you to declare this as fact?
Iraq? You claim that the Jihadists hated Saddam as much as George Bush? That’s an incredibly simplistic view of that reality. Guess what. Saddam provided state support for the Islamists and a wide range of anti-American terrorists and the Jihadist GLADLY accepted that support. The US needed to confront Iraq and that was a score that needed to be settled for the US to have ANY credibility in this fight. You know, the credibility that Clinton pissed away in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, and ignoring the actions of Saddam Hussein for 8 years and through his utterly feeble responses to previous terrorist attacks and even an attempt to assassinate a former US president (and Bush’s father).
Bush had no choice. Clinton, the UN, and the French doomed us to the Iraq war due to their incompetence and corruption. But, our war is not limited to Iraq. We have operatives and troops deployed globally in this fight. We’re in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas.
Keep laughing at us, Joe. All you do is betray your youthful arrogance. What’s your plan? What specificially what YOU do to fight terrorism and terrorists? Have you thought it through? Do you know how you’d put that plan into action in the face of a government of divided power and an entrenched political opposition that was intent on attacking your every move, your every word, and undermining your strategy EVEN when your country was at war?
Before you attack Bush and his experts, put your own “plan” to the test under the same conditions. I’d be happy to review your plan when you finally create it.
Comment by lordhelmet — July 13, 2005 @ 9:24 am