So, the British seemed to have lucked out and stopped an attempted terrorist double bombing shortly before hundreds of people might have been killed and maimed. And, it seems as though it was little more than luck, with ambulance drivers attending a call outside a nightclub noticing smoke coming from an abandoned Mercedes which led to the discovery of the first bomb and prompting a police search leading to the second.
The scenario was a perfect islamist type attack pattern, very similar to the attacks in Bali several years ago, also in a nightclub district, that killed some 200 tourists, more than half of them Australian. The idea is that as people flee the first bomb they stumble right into the second, inflicting maximum terror and carnage on those who would have just a few minutes earlier been enjoying a night of revelry.
It seems likely this was meant to put new British PM Gordon Brown on the defensive, particularly as he vacillates over Britain's commitment in Iraq. The islamists are not stupid; they learned from their efforts in Spain that Europeans can be easily cowed in this day and age. They learned Americans can not nor can Australians. The jury remains out in Canada where we have yet to suffer such an attack so the reaction to same cannot be measured, and hopefully never will be.
At least one British official, with no evidence whatsoever, announced it the work of foreign terrorists. I'd be willing to give him odds - though I have no more proof as I write this than he did - that precisely the opposite will prove true. I'm betting this was the work of some more British homegrown jihadis.
One wonders if the Brits will ever learn. They have bent over backwards to accommodate islam. They have allowed all kinds of shenanigans that no reasonable people would put up with, agreeing to bigger and bigger mosques, radical clerics in their midst and societal changes to avoid "offending" muslims. Further, they are historically and currently anti-Semitic, from the halls of their governments to their media to their academic circles. Perhaps the average person on the street thinks differently but I have my doubts.
Yet, for all of this, the British have now been targeted at least three times in the past two years with the successful Tube attacks of July 7, 2005 about to mark their second anniversary.
The lesson is that the more we accommodate radical islam, the more its adherents will attack, the more ferocious those attacks will be and the less able we are to stem them. If the British want to be around in 50 years in any recognizable form, they'd best stop ignoring the wake up calls.
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4 comments:
Lex, I don't think it's a matter of tolerance; the Islamists would attack just as viciously if the Brits were determined to expel them.
I believe it is more a matter of poor tactics and a misunderstanding of the enemy. Really,it is the same mistake that Neville Chamberlain made in the 1930's: The British believe that appeasement policies can head of a war by "removing the causes" of war.
Sadly, in this case, the cause of war, in the eyes of Islamists, is the existence of non-muslims...
And, Michael, sadly, it's the same mistake Israel is making as it opens up the pursestrings for Abbas.
It seems that this weeks events in London are just another example of how people need to understand the enemy which has so far been underestimated.
I really do think the British are tolerant because it is part of their character - the stiff upper lip - the very reluctance to show emotion. In fact they are the opposite of the hot headed middle eastern types.
I think it's wrong to equate Neville Chamberlain's error of judgement with the mood of a nation,any more than you might equate Churchill's policies with the mood of a nation. Good leadership is successful leadership and those that fail will be judged by history.
Lex:
Interesting take on British character. However, I think you're slightly off on good leadership. Yes, it is successful, but it also does touch the mood of a nation; every politician worth his salt knows this.
What you're forgetting is that Chamberlain's appeasement policy, and Churchill's determination, were genuinely popular in their times.
1930s Britain didn't want to fight; the people remembered the trenches, and an entire generation slaughtered for no particular reason, all too well. Appeasement promised a way to prevent war by removing the causes, and that resonated with the people.
The people are making the same mistake now, wanting to avoid a war because they can forsee the length and loss it will entail. I don't think that all of the "appease Islam" we are seeing is purely naivete...
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