Thursday, July 21, 2005

London in terrorist thrall again

London is struck again. It looks to me like copycat terrorism, not
the sophistication of the July 7 attackers. This time there are nail
bombs and detonators and things which don't go off. There's a
rucksack thrown into a train by a man who runs away - runs for his
life. The fundamentalist Islamic terrorists don't run for their
lives. They give their lives as acts of political and religious
martyrdom. Oh, cringing humilation. Failed martyrdom. They will be
the laughing stock of the fundamentalist world. Albeit that chaos has
ensued - and fear. For terrorism's aim beyond sheer cruel destruction
is to engender a pervasive sense of terror. These no-hopers have
succeeded in this, if not in devastation. And certainly they have
succeeded in disrupting the city. But for the stoic old Londoners,
it is just another rash of terrorism. It was going on when I lived
there in the 70s. Bombs and constant bomb scares. Then, as now, the
Londoners had a stiff upper lip.
Now, more than then, however, London is a strongly Arab city - and
one can only feel compassion for the good Moslems, of which there are
many, who will be the social collateral of this fundamentalist malice.

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