Analysis/readtion to official responses to the Explosions in London. (Also general analysis thread)

But it's probably the most obvious explanation: you don't tell a bunch of commuters there's a bomb while they're still in an enclosed space.

someone sent me an email laughing at people buying water, but i got water when i got my lunch, mostly because i just watched 'batman begins'. i'm dumb.

surely they know that, and would recruit 'english' looking people for their cause?

NRQ, it sounds like there was only one suicide bomb, the bus. the rest of it was more traditional, or whatever.

"It's reasonably clear that there have been a series of terrorist attacks in London. There are obviously casualties, both people that have died and people seriously injured. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

It's my intention to leave the G8 within the next couple hours and go down to London and get a report from those who have been dealing with this.

Each of the countries around that table have some experience of the effects of terrorism and share our complete resolution to defeat this terrorism. It's particularly barbaric that this has happened on the day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa and the long-term problems of changes in the environment.

It's reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8. There will be time to talk later about this. It's important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world."

I'm not sure this is "reasonably clear," but I certainly wouldn't rule it out, and I wouldn't begrudge Blair if he's incorrect, as his reaction could be based on impulses that any non-world leader might share.

Otherwise, I think he's struck exactly the right note.

This is obv complete speculation as I don't know how much of London's resources have been diverted to Gleneagles, if any.

i think i watch too much tv and film. but these are the random thoughts that go through my brain, so i thought this might be the thread for them.

xpost-- colonel poo is looking at the flip side from me...

It is actually possible to do this; overloaded transformers and the like explode fairly spectacularly iirc. Arranging it would be an almost impossible problem.

Perhaps I play too many games, but I couldn't stop thinking of Half-Life 2 when I read that.

He said: "On the one hand, you have people here working to alleviate poverty and rid the world of AIDS. The contrast couldn’t be clearer between the hearts of those who care about human liberty [and those who would] take the lives of innocent folks. The war of terror goes on. We will not yield to terror. We will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate."

oh man, you're right...

Tony Blair is on a plane back to London right?

Where's Marwen!

"This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful; it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers; it was aimed at ordinary working class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christians, Hindu and Jew, young and old, indiscriminate attempt at slaughter irrespective of any considerations, of age, of class, of religion, whatever, that isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it's just indiscriminate attempt at mass murder, and we know what the objective is, they seek to divide London. They seek to turn Londoners against each other and Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack," said Mr Livingston.

He then had a message for the terrorists who had organised the explosions.

"I wish to speak through you directly, to those who came to London to claim lives, nothing you do, how many of us you kill will stop that flight to our cities where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another, whatever you do, how many you kill, you will fail."

I don't think you can really say this is Islamist terrorism's motivation. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq may have formented the latest wave, but 9/11 predated those and they don't make simple "We'll stop this if you get out of x country" type demands and that's the scary new thing I guess.

Get the West out of Muslim lands - or at least reduce their (military) presence and influence there

Yes, that's what I'm saying, that 9/11 is odd-man-out here.

Good point about the lack of warning. Though didn't someone say they deliberately manipulated this for the Omagh bombing?

Yes, I am probably too influenced by 'The Power Of Nightmares' but nothing I've read since has really suggested otherwise.

al-Qaeda is not in any shape or form even a loose organisation. It's much more dangerous than that, it's an idea. If you're looking for a name the Zawahiriism's probably the closest thing to a correct moniker you'll find but as well as being unaesthetical with to "i"'s next to each other it's far more dangerous to publicly define it as an idea rather than a terror organisation as a terror organisation is real and can be caught, an endgame is concievable, a victory scenario is possible. Whereas if it's an idea then you'd have everyone coming to the old realisation that you can't kill an idea. And that's scarier.

Here's how it went - Islamic thinker sees an embracing of Western ideas and materialism in prominently Islamic countries and sees it eroding moral codes. He calls for the creation of Islamic states that use the Qu'ran as the basis for all law and social structure but retains the benefits (technology etc) of a western society. Many people pick up on his ideas and an election is fought in Egypt where the Islamists say they're going to end elections if they win and set up a permanent Islamic state. The military step in when it looks like the Islamists are going to win and put them in prison. Including Al-Zawahirii. Zawahirii's ideas intensify into the idea that political assasinations are now justified. A lot of these happen.

Afghanistan - the US fund the Taliban in a fight against the Russians. Zawahirii gets involved as this is pretty much the cutting edge of people trying to set up an Islamic state. The Russians lose when their economy collapses. Zawahirii thinks Allah has just shown them they are right and the fight can be won, even though they had pretty much no influence on the outcome, Russia collapsing from within.

Then he/they gets difficult-second-album trouble. There are no obvious battlefronts. Disgust grows at Arab and otherwise nations that have a prominently Muslim community but don't seem to want to create an Islamic state for themselves. A-ha! They are all clearly brainwashed by that Western influence, they've rejected their religion and now are legitimate targets of violence themselves. It's a stupendously idiotic mutation of an idea that was, at its heart, meant to improve and advance a society. This is what happens when you bind the idea that violence is justified to any socio-political idea ding ding bang bang.

So where next? Stuck for existing wars to latch onto they decide to strike at the cause, the west. The doctrine is now set - Violent Acts Will Eventually Bring About Islamic States. The Russian victory appeared to come against incredible odds - Allah made it work once, he'll do it again. There were probably a hell of a lot of people worldwide who agreed with the Islamic state part of the idea and now the Afghan fight is the only time they can see that it has come about (not through democracy - the military stepped in in Egypt). So people are drawn to the cause.

It doesn't need a network, organisation or anything like that. It's an idea whose evidence is empirical if you wear tight enough blinkers. But these are religious types - so blinkers aren't really a problem. All it needs are people aggrieved enough with a percieved decline of civilisation (which is a fairly common human trait in all peoples and in all ages), a dedicated religious mindset and an example (Afghanistan) to follow.

This is where motives for the American invasion of Iraq become interesting if you're into a bit of revisionism. How do you think the setting up of a democracy in Iraq was percived by Zawahiriist thinkers? Herein strides Americuh and sets up a democracy through violence. Kind of pisses of your chips in a 'Our God's Bigger Than You're God' way. This is why the movement has taken the fight Iraq. Well, that and the fact they've got no country of their own either so they have to by their nature latch onto other existing conflicts.

The fact that we're chasing a chemistry student from Egypt is a bit suss, but I severely doubt there is anything in the way of logistics coming from a main base. A terrorist act like the one in London is easy to plan, easy to get the resources for. There will be no central command who have given the order. No organisation. People will make the crazed-logical jumped from becoming wary of Western culture and morals, to wanting an Islamic state, to hearing about Afghanistan, to planning an attack. A few people seemed shocked upthread that the people involved are educated people. Of course they are, this isn't the angry-loner-with-sniper-rifle-in-tower thing. It's a fairly complex idea that requires a lot of theological and political analysis, however blinkered.

No comment required I think

seriously: given that you've provided the most succinct and well-thought-out analysis i've read ... anywhere, really ... can i trouble you to ask what you think the solutions might be?

honestly, they should fucking teach from that post in schools.

I haven't seen any stories or coverage like that. It's really more a case of hysterical self-involvement: lots of stories about whether American subways or buses will be struck next, stories about Americans who were somehow involved in the explosions.

The reason why we have the smokescreens, the myth of al-Queda, the militaristic pushing of democracy abroad etc is so that it appears that something is being done. So the masses can sleep at night. If there's a problem its ok as long as we're fighting it. Because we're good, they're evil and the cowboy always catches the cattle rustler.

Unfortunately these same actions are fuelling the fire. So we do nothing? Fucks us up just as much. It'd be healthier as the only thing that can heal this is time. Unfortunately for us this won't happen soon, maybe not in our lifetime.

(P.S. Come again Dada? I don't get you)

The main source of Zawahirii's righteous anger isn't Neo-Con America - I imagine he has some begrudging respect for the attempt to bring faith into socio-political structure, the aggressive military pursuit of their governmental form of choice and their impressive propaganda. What that mentality hates is the freedom of the individual. Personal choice. Materialism. Tolerance. Tolerance of Faith where Muslims have every right to become lapsed-Muslims. They'd be more angered at a more liberal West than a right-wing one. Sucks, dunnit. This is why I loathe the current status of our reaction - we're giving them what they want, they're winning.

The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level during the Democratic Convention may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said..

OOOPS.

uh, there was this little thing called GULF WAR I in which the US stationed troops, for the first time EVER, on Muslim Holy Lands. Pay attention please.

x-post

I just wanted to point out that this is not true. I mean I haven't watched Fox News so perhaps that's how they're dealing with it, but this is just a ludicrious statement when talking about the "American media" as a whole, which, AFAICT, has been pretty sympathetic and...well, I won't say reasonable, the media never is, but as reasoned as they get about things. I've yet to see this "de rigeur" whose-dick-is-bigger competition personally (besides, yes, you know, people like Kate's brother, but that doesn't seem very common and I'm sorry Kate had to put up with that conversation) and I have fuck all to do all day besides watch tv and read online news sites.

Maybe another revisionist idea is that Saddam courted Zawahirii's men and not the other way around. A handy situation for the Bush administration as it could be seen to be the reverse.

I've seen just the opposite. "The English went through much worse times in WWII than we ever have, and their stiff upper lip allows them to deal well with things like this".

british pluck, new yorkers coming together as one, etc etc.

Coz saying "you get thru this because you have absolutely no choice otherwise" doesn't make for as good a column.

Well, the more lasting impact was troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, which was one of bin Laden's rallying points for a while. (Remember those stories in the early '90s about Saudi officialdom objecting to U.S. military women driving vehicles off-base, etc.? They seemed kind of funny at the time, like 'Oh, those silly backward Arabs,' but they represented some much deeper social and political resentments.) And part of the neo-con justification for invading Iraq was that it would allow them to remove troops from Saudi Arabia (which we've mostly done, I think) and establish them in a nice secular country where it wouldn't be such an issue. Or so the thinking went.

But yeah, Lynskey's thumbnail sketch is very good. I got in a stupid online debate a week ago with a guy who was droning on about the inherent violence of the Quran and citing shit from the 13th century or whatever, and I kept asking him if he'd ever even heard of Sayyid Qutb. He clearly hadn't. It amazes me that almost 4 years after Sept. 11, most people haven't even bothered to do a fucking Google search to try to figure out wtf is going on. I've always thought that one of the first things any halfway decent president would have done after Sept. 11 was stage a weeklong series of prime-time seminars on the modern history of the Middle East. People would have actually paid attention for a few days. Instead we've spent four years listening to doofuses go on about the inherent violence of Islam.

Another interesting factor in the whole picture is Iran, which has pursued a parallel but separate theocratic vision. And I suppose it galls the Sunni Islamists that the only functioning Islamist state is Shiite. (And that Iraq might become the second Shiite state, too.)

But that's the thing, there are so many different agendas -- Sunni and Shia, the secular Arab nationalists (mostly autocratic bad guys) vs. the fundamentalist Islamists (even worse guys), the Palestinian issue which really spins somewhat on its own axis...it's immensely complicated, and you get very little sense of that from any of the rhetoric, which is why we still have an appallingly ignorant population trying to decide whether or not to "support" a "war" in a part of the world they barely comprehend.

That's simply not true. "Drink driving is OK" was an idea. "Cigarette smoking is safe" was an idea. Mullets were an idea. Apartheid was an idea. Communism was an idea.

If al Qaeda is a dangerous viral meme, treat it as you would any other virus. Isolate the afflicted, innoculate the weak, warn the strong.

As I mentioned upthread, the US has done this once before. Under MacArthur, postwar Japan was forcibly liberalized and democratized. A feudal and warlike nation was transformed into a modern capitalist democracy in under ten years. This was more than the reorganisation of the state, it was a battle for minds. In 1944 the Emperor of Japan was a human god for whom millions would have leapt to their death. In 1946 he was an all-too-human "spiritual leader" with almost no power. An entire religion disestablished and replaced. An economy transformed. An education system was ripped up and rebuilt. Even the way people *wrote* was changed.

Of course, it took two atomic bombs and utter military humiliation to weaken that meme's hold to the point where it could be replaced, but al Qaeda presently is nothing compared to Japan in 1938.

If lynskey is right, and I think he is apart from on the potential for a solution, al Qaeda will never be defeated by military action, just as Japan would have fought to the last man. Instead, the idea of al Qaeda will have to be discredited and replaced with something better. (How badly that notion of 'better' will play today).

I'm surprised that the US isn't playing a much stronger psychological war presently. Sure, the shitkickers like bombs and missiles, but that hasn't been how wars were won since 1918. Sod sticks and stones, it's the names that you have to watch for these days and the administration must surely know this. Is psychology not macho enough for the NeoCons? They bandied about "the battle for hearts and minds" a lot before the invasion of Iraq ... did they think it meant "scare everyone with the big bombs"?

nope. remember; their version of strength is a very simple (& massively insecure) one. Strength is overt displays of physical might and physical might alone. Blatant violence, and never, ever altering your course of action, even when better avenues present themselves. Never apologize and never admit a mistake. Any sort of suggestion that you could have been wrong has to be forcibly extirpated, if need be. Or else others could question your resolve.

Any ideas? Since the answer to this question is kind of the the key issue here. You disagreed with Lynskey over the possibility of a solution, but this is where a solution needs to come, and there's nothing there.

Stet's right in theory but as the Boylester doth protest, there's still no solution being put forth. Yes, the theory is that we educate against and expose the idea, but how does that work in practice? Most of the parts of the world where that needs doing are out of our control and hard to penetrate through the current schoolyard oneupmanship contest of international diplomacy and relations. And if we got in these places and performed a sort of innoculation program then you'd never catch it all. People still drink drive and smoke cigs.

I don't think the analogy of Japan works either because there's no one self-contained nation state to deal with. And as well, a huge part of Zawahiriism is that Western influence is eroding traditions. Coming in an asking people to adopt new ways of doing things to our liking will only reinforce this idea. Using violence to achieve that will only reinforce the idea that violent revolution is the shiznit.

Psychological War? I think the US are going at it hard, but they're still using the rules and tactics of the Cold War and they simply don't apply for this. There's far too much fire with fire. Setting up democracy through violence in Iraq and Afghanistan only serves to reinforce the meme that changes in government only happen through violent revolution. I think the great danger is a continuation of Cold War thinking applied to the problem as it promotes bad solutions that appear to work at this end as they come in a form that the public understands. I think current political modes aren't suited to tackle this issue as the end emphasis will always been on placating the home crowd when it's the away end we've got to win over to try and placate.

Key terror law talks set to start

If we left everyone else alone, say the conservative pessimists, then they'd leave us alone. It's all this doing stuff in the world that leads to trouble. So, don't give us the Olympics, it's too expensive and we don't want it. Don't spend all that time on bloody Africa, because it's too complicated and we'll probably only make things worse. Get out of Iraq as soon as possible and the chances are that we won't get bombed. Oh (some add) and do we really have to be quite so welcoming to all these foreigners? You want to be active? Join English Heritage and help us in the never-ending business of making the country as much like it was in 1750 as we possibly can.
Let's just do the bombings first. And forgive me a little scepticism about some of the claims here, not least those made by certain colleagues in the British press. Yesterday I read the categorical "invading Iraq clearly made us a target" from someone who continued, "it diverted our attention and resources from the very people that we should have been fighting - al-Qaeda", but who just after 9/11 argued that if the US starts bombing Afghanistan, young Muslims will almost certainly rally behind the Taleban and Osama bin Laden in a new jihad. In other words Iraq diverted our resources away from something they shouldn't have been dedicated to in the first place, because that first thing would lead to a new jihad.

But OK. Inconsistent but not necessarily wrong. The proposition is that we probably wouldn't have been bombed last Thursday if we hadn't been in Iraq, and we probably won't be bombed in the future if we pull out.

I want us to agree one thing first. Someone would have been bombed. The jihadist campaign outside the Middle East first started when the omens for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement looked good, not bad. Then, just under seven years ago bin Laden's people attacked the US embassies (no Bush back then) in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and killed 225 people, the vast majority of them local Africans. That was before 9/11.

In November 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, 54 people were killed in a series of bombings in Istanbul. We remember the death of the British consul-general, which was described yet again as payback for Iraq. We forget the attacks on the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues a few days earlier. What exactly was that payback for? Attending bar mitzvahs, perhaps.

In fact a group called the Abu Hafz al-Masri Brigades in claiming responsibility made a series of demands on the Turkish Government, should it wish to avoid future attacks. "Listen to us, you criminal," the statement began emolliently, "the cars of death will not stop until you concede to our demands . . .", which included the freeing of unspecified prisoners from Guantanamo and everywhere else and stopping the war against Muslims. Demand No 3, however, was for the Turks to "purify all Islamic land from the filth of the Jews and Americans, including Jerusalem and Kashmir". Jews out of Kashmir is quite a tall order, since you'd have to find them first.

A year earlier a whole lot of German and French tourists were blown up outside the synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. A few months later a Spanish restaurant and a Jewish community centre were blown up in Morocco. The chap who did it had been trained by bin Laden in Afghanistan. The radicals have blown up Shia mosques in Pakistan, before, after and during Iraq. They have blown up Iraqi Shias for being apostates. Closer to home, in spring 2003, two boys, one from Derby and one from Hounslow, travelled all the way to Gaza and then to Israel so they could blow the arms off a French waitress in an English bar in Tel Aviv.

What does all this tell us? First, that if they aren't blowing us up, then they'll be blowing up someone else. And you don't get to choose who. Secondly, who or what they blow up is largely a matter of what's available. Jews anywhere, Americans after that, Shia next and Brits probably a distant fourth. Africans for fun.

On Sunday night's Panorama it was reported that new jihadis all over Europe are being turned on by snuff videos shot in Iraq. It was suggested that this was evidence for the contention that Iraq was inflaming would-be bombers. But back in 2001, I recall, they were being similarly aroused by material shot in Algeria and during the war against the Russians in Afghanistan. You have to ask about what kind of person sees a film of a hostage being beheaded, and wants to do the same thing. The explanation may be psychological, psychosexual, ideological even, but it doesn't seem to me to be political. If someone is getting their jollies from fantasising about cutting throats, I don't think geopolitics is the problem.

Even so, it is possible to argue that the Iraq war might have pushed a few more young men from the video-watching phase to the re-enactment - though it can't be argued with any certainty. And so, prima facie, you can make out a self-interested case for standing back when New York gets attacked or a few Jews or Shia are exploded in some faraway place.

In fact only yesterday some East Europeans were celebrating the tenth anniversary of just such a bit of bystanding. Over in Bosnia many thousands turned out to mark the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men after the fall of Srebrenica to the Bosnian Serbs. Before the ceremony our Foreign Secretary apologised for permitting the worst massacre on the European continent since the Second World War. "It is to the shame of the international community," said Jack Straw, "that this evil took place under our noses and we did nothing like enough. I bitterly regret this and I am deeply sorry for it."

Conservative pessimism was the phrase that Simms invented to describe the policies of men like Douglas Hurd, who was then Foreign Secretary, towards Bosnia. The Polish Prime Minister later recalled that: "Any time there was a likelihood of effective action, (Douglas Hurd) intervened to prevent it." It would make things worse; it was a complex conflict in which all sides were suspect; we should try to ease things through diplomacy. In December 1992 Britain abstained on a UN resolution comparing ethnic cleansing to genocide.

Oh well, that was bad and sad, but Bosnians don't bomb, and nor do Tutsis. Nasty things happen, but worse occurs when you try to sort things out. Fools rush in, and so on.

No. All through the Hurd and Rifkind years, the years when conservative pessimism was triumphant, the ingredients for al-Qaeda stewed away, emerging here and there in the occasional explosion. When some of the 9/11 bombers met up in Hamburg, one of their teachers was a veteran jihadi. He had fought in Bosnia, where, he said, the West had betrayed the Muslims.

Africa? Iraq? 2012? An international city full of foreigners? Give me liberal optimism any day, with the chance of changing the world. Because, either way, you still get bombed.

OTM I'd say. Be interested to hear otherwise.

but in a sense you have to get beyond that now, and the idea that pulling out would automatically end either terrorism or the civil war in iraq is almost cerainly misguided. that said, bush and blair at some point need to be brought to justice for their probably malign negligence and stupidity.

oh, saudi officialdom 'represented' the grave 'social' resentment against women drivers?

I commend the statement - linked to above - and have signed it. Some of you may wish to as well.