From today's New York Times, London Is Hit by String of Rush-Hour Blasts:
London was struck by a series of apparently coordinated terrorist explosions in subways and buses during the morning rush hour today. The explosions ripped apart at least one double-decker bus and caused officials to close and evacuate the entire subway system.
By now you know that 3 subways and a double decker bus have been attacked with bombs in London.
Speigel Online English site reports Purported Al-Qaida Letter Claims Responsibility for Bombings. They have the contents of the letter on their site. In the letter, a new group, Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe, claims to be responsible for the attacks:
"Rejoice, community of Muslims," the letter states. "The heroic mujahedeens today conducted an attack in London," it continues. All of Great Britain is now shaken and shocked, "in the north, the south, west and east." "We've warned the British government and the British people time and again," the letter adds. "We've kept our promise and have carried out a blessed military operation."
"We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all other crusader governments." We demand that all countries pull their troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, states the letter, which has been signed by the "Secret Organization -- al Qaida in Europe."
This morning I took some time to review the first response at the Daily Kos, a popular left-wing website that, unfortunately, carries a fair amount of weight with the Michael Moore side of the Democratic Party.
(I tend to rank the left-wing sites from Kos to Atrios/Eschaton to Democratic Underground as going form left to furthest left, though I am sure there is a lot of overlap and my ranking is based on small, intermittent snapshots rather than any particular study of the sites.) While some cautioned not to make quick assessments, one strain that ran through the comments was that now was the time to work even harder against Bush to get us out of the Iraqi quagmire which was creating more Jihadis and making us less safe. It is worth some commentary and dovetails with my recent comments on Political Correctness.
As I have been stressing, PC involves looking at reality and denying the existence of parts of the picture that do not coincide and reinforce a pre-existing template. [For more on how I use the word template, see Changes: Part I] The al Qaeda message is very straight-forward: all Westerners should leave Afghanistan and Iraq or suffer their wrath, yet the Daily Kos commenters discern hidden levels of meaning as they deconstruct the text.
From Daily Kos discussion of the attacks in London, there have been many responses. Most seem to focus on the attacks either being caused by Bush (indirectly, by distracting us all with his invasion of Iraq and creating more hatred and more terrorists) or directly, in a Hitler-Reichstag fashion (though this was shot down pretty quickly.) A commenter called Lupin wrote:
Thought #1: It will happen in the US. It's only a matter of time. Get ready. If MI5 who's 10,000 times more efficient than the FBI couldn't stop it, what chance is there for BushCo despite all their fascist leanings to succeed?
Thought #2: Whether we think it's fair of not, we the people always end up paying the price for the egregious actions of their leaders. How many good pople died in Dresden, Hiroshima, New York or Baghdad? Rather than use this to feed the cycle of violence, work to overthrow Bush and Blair.
Fabian responded:
If the idea is to radicalize the Western response to the AQ threat, it is far more useful to never attack the United States directly. If Osama Bin Laden wants a permanent ongoing war in the MIddle East to drive people over to his cause, then he wants the Western countries to have as an extreme military response as possible. Despite what some people think, withdrawal of troops from Iraq(howver small) does not aid OBL and AQ, it hinders them. Attacking America's allies can cause anxiety here without causing a demand for real and measurable results.
It appears that these two (and many, many others) take it for granted that al Qaeda wanted the United States to overreact and go into Iraq. This requires, among other things, deconstructing the claim of responsibility posted on the internet by the Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe. It is quite possible that this is not a genuine al Qaeda message, however, it does agree with many things Zarqawi has been saying recently (that they are having a difficult time in Iraq, that they have disagreements about whether or not to abandon the Iraq theater, etc). The Jihadists agree that Iraq is the key theater in the war between Islamic Fascism and Western Civilization; they know that the second most important front is in the Western MSM and political elites. They cannot win in the first theater but still believe they can win in the second. Daily Kos and the like are important as vanguards of the Democratic party. After some period of silence where we are all Londoners and stop the war on Bush for a short time, the sniping will pick up again, and these arguments are likely to be trotted out by the Howard Deans, Dick Durbins, et al of the Democratic party.
In order to believe these attacks are Bush's fault and the war in Iraq is exactly what al Qaeda wanted, it is necessary to turn meaning upside down. As the great sage, Humpty Dumpty once said to Alice:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
This is the core of Deconstructionism and the philosophical basis for Political Correctness.
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