Wisdom
Funny. Just last night I turned on the radio for a few minutes and heard Tariq Ali telling Seattle about Iraq, oil, one thing and another. Then he went a bit sarcastic about al-Qaeda – saying it’s a tiny organization, it’s a few thousand people at most, what can it do? Well that’s a fucking stupid question, I thought; it can do a lot; thanks to advanced technology and communications it can do a lot. Then he went on to say (near exact quote) ‘These things don’t happen every day.’ ‘Well it only takes one, Bub!’ I shouted furiously. And that was last night. Two hours before the first bomb went off.
No, these things don’t happen every day. That’s fine then. Not a problem.
Have to say that I didn’t expect anything on this scale. You get used to the risk of terrorism living in the UK and working in London. For most people this isn’t even their first terrorist attack they’ve been caught up in in London. But maybe you’re right, maybe the technology is just making it too easy. Previously you needed big trucks full of fertiliser bombs, military grade explosives were hard to come by and timers and detonators unreliable.
Yeah. That’s what Jeremy told me around four hours ago – that people in London are used to this kind of thing because of the IRA. And I know that, I’ve lived in London during IRA campaigns myself. But they weren’t like this. (In fact, rather sickeningly, they seem almost benign in comparison.)
Me, I did expect something on this scale – only because that seems to be the drill: do something big if you’re going to do something at all. One bomb may be okay for Bali, but when hitting one of the biggies – one is not enough.
The pIRA had (have) all the kit to do this, they just didn’t want to: they weren’t in the business of killing as many people as possible.
I did expect something on this scale. I kept catching myself thinking ‘Is it today?’ when I turned the radio on in the morning. Now it’s happened, it’s nearly a relief – they’ve killed scores of people, but not hundreds.
Livingtone has got it largely right this time:
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/mayor_statement_070705.jsp
“They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”
“The pIRA had (have) all the kit to do this, they just didn’t want to: they weren’t in the business of killing as many people as possible.”
They’re also highly infiltrated. Unlike these Islamic fundamentalist groups.
“they weren’t in the business of killing as many people as possible.”
Just so. That’s why they seem almost benign in comparison. Or perhaps it’s why al-Q are so disgusting in comparison. They’re not making ‘demands,’ they don’t have a ‘grievance,’ they just want to kill as many people as possible, for the pure sake of it.
Good Livingstone quote.
What is really scary is that, prima facie, they got 4 relatively powerful remote-detonation devices onto London transport, and no one noticed them do it, or the devices.
Alternatively there were four people coordinating to blow themselves up to get London commuters, and no one noticed.
Either way, I think a personal safety reassessment is in order.
Re: technology, the IRA had a fair bit of trouble getting explosives, were always cocking stuff up and having detonators fail etc. That is why the current well coordinated attack is so worrying, not quite Setember the 11th, but more organised than anything we’ve seen in the UK so far.
Regarding Tariq Ali…I’m beginning to see Hitchens’ point about the so-called “left” in this country. Over at truthout.org there is much paranoia in the discussion page about Bush and Blair orchestrating this as a distraction to all the other shit happening around them! Reason and critical thinking doesn’t seem to be a strong suit for those folks. (I say this as a strong liberal Democrat, by the way.)
Then again…regarding Hitchens, I’ll be interested in his first response to the London bombings. You can bet his will be an eloquent tract against the horrors of religion and faith, but will he also find a way to praise Dubya once again for his brilliant execution of the distraction in Iraq? Should be interesting.
Chris, I know what you mean. I keep feeling this sensation which isn’t exactly relief – how can a death count relieve – but something I’m poor at expressing that comes with the recognition that the other boot dropped, and while it broke through the floor the house is still standing.
I must say that to me Tariq Ali seems to have half a point. Not necessarily about Iraq, oil, one thing and another – but about Al-Qaeda. It may well be a tiny organization, with little leadership structure and whatever – which is why they’re so hard to get at. And they may have well inspired dozens of other tiny, little, decentralized, essentially untouchable organizations. That’s his half of the point. The other half, which is missing, is that however chimeric Al-Qaeda may be, a group that pulls off this sort of coordinated attack is very dangerous indeed.
Yeah, but the real point of what T.A. was saying was that Al-Q is just no big deal. Can’t do much, can’t do it everyday, not important.
Today’s attack could have been pulled off by one terrorist with three bags and a suicide kit, putting the bags on tube trains at King’s Cross, then getting on a bus. Which might explain why it wasn’t stopped.
Hmm, true believers. Perhaps one day we as a species will prove that blind faith is unavoidably hardwired in some particular people’s brains. We can then make them all do 2 years more mandatory service in MSF than anyone else.
I’m not sure that ‘us’ being ‘in’ Afghanistan is making much more difference to women’s rights than the Soviet occupation did: we’ve already seen the first post-‘liberation’ stoning to death for adultery, for example. The Yanks kicked out the Taliban, then handed the place over to the Muj. Way to go – even the tankies did better.
This argument has got sod all to do with whether a bunch of sick fucks want to bomb the Tube, of course.