7/7
I don’t know what Al Qaeda was thinking on this one. The Brit’s have been dealing with IRA bombings for decades. The Brit’s endured The Blitz from 1940 through to V2′s landing on London as late as 1944 – and they didn’t crack.
Maybe they were trying to get Blair overthrown. Not bloody likely. Even if he is unpopular for his support of the war in Iraq, no way the British would cave in and change their government as a result of such an act. If that was the plan, it will backfire.
Maybe it was a statement to the G8. Again, backfire – it engendered more solidarity and made the civilized countries look more, well, civilized by the contrast of what was on their agenda that week.
If they make the attacks on countries like Denmark and Italy, as threatened, that could be a turning point. There’s still enough backbone in Europe that if it looks like they’re all going to get attacked anyway, then we may yet see a substantial UN military effort in Iraq.
One thing I agree with W on, though, is that the way to end terror around the world is to spread democracy. In a democratic country everyone is too busy working 12 hours a day and worrying about their taxes, their health, how to pay for their kid’s private school, etc., etc. to have time or energy or motive to build bombs, much less use them.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
