Keith, first, let me say for everyone that we hope that fatalities and injuries will be minimal, under the circumstances. I now see the headlines have updated the fatalities to 33 and injuries around 1000. The phrase "worst attack in London since WW2" has been used.
They have changed their minds here and raised the terror alert to Orange on mass transportation. I'm so glad you mentioned the IRA experiences, because one of my first random thoughts was that it's "a good thing" this happened in the UK, already tested for their response to bombings on their home territory. An attack like this in the US would be seized as justification for increased militarization, bring out the crazies (many fully armed) and abused for all its worth politically (again). On that note, did I read that recent elections in Spain reversed or turned back the last post-Madrid bombing elections? It isn't as clear to me as you think that the attacks were aimed at sullying Bush per se; it would seem that if planned in advance they could easily have been timed to discredit Blair for being Bush's 'co-pilot' on the Iraq war faked intelligence and military offensive. I wonder how coincidental it is that I found a headline today stating that "there were nearly 3,200 terrorist attacks worldwide last year, a federal counterterrorism center said yesterday, using a broader definition that increased fivefold the number of attacks the agency had been counting." (numbers include Iraq) * As Blackmore was speculating earlier this morning, one has to wonder what reaction governments take towards immigration. The EU is launching and the US reinstituting one-way airplane flights to deport illegal aliens.** We like to think that we've made significant progress here against racism, but events like this force us to examine just how shallow or real those changes are in the face of fear, real and manufactured. In my readings and writings about the separation of church and state, in pointing my shame finger at religious cultural wars, I keep thinking how much goodwill it might generate if the President attended church in different faiths, perhaps quarterly (to allow the Secret Service to prepare). It could allay much of the suspicion in the Muslim world that American imperialism is really a jihad against Islam, and it would discourage or at least quiet the zealots of Christianity from the language that has been used to justify imperialism. It wouldn't deter real terrorists, of course, but advance the image of traditional American values promoting diversity and democracy. Unfortunately, if these were just photo ops to counter sagging polls, the message would be superficial at best. Mr. Bush has a credibility problem with too many of us that even his reasonable, comforting statements are no longer taken seriously. They say we are revealed by our reaction to events. Bush has been running on one track since 9/11 but the 'political capital' has been running low. His response to this and events unfolding in the next 6 weeks will tell us whether or not the summer of 2005 will become what the summer of 1968 was for another earlier troubled Republican president. It'll be interesting to see how Blair/Brown respond, as well. Karen * Revised Terrorist Attacks Numbers http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05187/533434.stm ** Now departing for Mexico, one-way flights for illegals http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0707/p01s04-woam.html I've been looking at BBC TV for the past two hours as reports have been coming in about the deaths and injured. The whole London Underground has been shut down, there are no buses and many roads are jammed. The latest count for the injured is 190. The official figure of deaths so far is 2, but Italian radio is talking of 50 which I would guess is more nearly correct as a proportion of the numbers of injured coming into the individual London hospitals. Even so, the number of deaths may not be as high as might be expected. I think that some significant features are already emerging even as injured are still being brought in. Six underground stations have been attacked, but only one bus and this was a tourist bus (the top of which was blown off completely). In the latter case this must have been caused by a suicide bomber and relatively many deaths will have resulted from this. However, the attacks on the Underground give me the impression that their intention was to disrupt London rather than to cause the maximum number of deaths. The lack of evidence so far suggest that the bombs in this case were tripped off by mobile phones, possibly in the entrances of the tunnels and not on board the trains, as in Madrid -- where the number of deaths was very much higher. So this attack on London was probably originally planned when it was known weeks ago that Bush was going to attend the G8 Conference in Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. At the same time, however, the attack on the tourist bus and the nature of the attacks on the Underground, seem to have been designed to have maximum economic effect. I think Al Qaeda are now learning the lessons of the IRA when the latter stopped personnel bombings in Northern Ireland and blew up the Armitage shopping mall in Manchester (one of the largest in the country) and the Baltic Exchange (which was unusable afterwards) in London. One or two more of these sorts of attacks on financial buildings in London and the city might have been in danger of losing large numbers of foreign banks and finance houses and its high position in world finance (and very high export earnings from its services). The IRA thereby gained negotiations with the government for the first time. I think Al Qaeda have now learned this from the IRA and this will strengthen the Sunnis' hand in the secret negotiations with America in Baghdad. Blair intends to do what I intimated in my earlier message that he ought to do and that is to fly down to London this afternoon to co-ordinate (or be seen to coordinate) the emergency services. This attack on London will be a major embarassment to him, just as concern about British troops in Iraq was beginning to die down and B lairthoughthe'dweathuredtheworstofit. Blair has already appeared on TV saying that we will not be defeated by terrorism. But the economic cost of these seven bombs will have cost billions in lost tourist revenue and incidentals and might even put the London location of the 2012 Olympic Games in jeopardy unless the Iraq situation is sorted out within the next couple of years. It is almost certainly Al Qaeda behind these attacks. Frank Gardner, the BBC Foreign Correspondent (still paralysed after being shot in Saudi Arabia within two hours of filming in Riyadh) and as knowledgeable about Middle East affairs as anybody, thinks that Al Jazeera's opinion on its website is correct. What else can be said at this stage? If President Bush were the sort of person who would be sensitive to other countries' and other politicians' feelings then he ought to be mightily embarrassed for the disaster he has now brought to this country. As it is, the 20,000+ security guards and police already ringed around Gleneagles Hotel (except for the guard who was knocked over by Bush's bicycle yesterday) will probably be augmented and, who knows?, Bush might even fly home before the G8 Conference gets under way. But, of course, the most important person in the US who was immediately protected after 9/11 was Cheney, so he's safe in the US and Bush's minders and PR people might decide that Bush will 'bravely' stay where he is for the time being. Incidentally, in one of the UK papers this morning (I've forgotten which) it is reported that Saudi Arabia says it cannot ramp up the supply of oil as it promised only a few weeks ago. So it certainly looks as though Iraq's northern oilfields are now the largest reserves in the world -- potentially, that is, when they get developed. Anybody who thinks that the invasion of Iraq was anything to do with any other motive than oil must be very naive indeed. Keith Hudson Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org> _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
