here is Scotland Yard's transcript of events, which gives a basic summary of what's happened. Four separate explosions over the course of 45 minutes and 33 fatalities. I've heard figures as high as 50 fatalities.
So, that's it really, then, in terms of actual event. A branch of Al-Qaeda's claiming responsibility, and it was done with bombs with timers, which implies an at least somewhat organized operation.
Now, implications. This drives home what we should have already known: no matter how much we try to gather intelligence, no matter how zealously we protect our airplanes and guard the doors of our great buildings, terrorists will always be able to find targets. As long as these people are willing to blow themselves up to prove a point, there are going to be places where they can do it, and where they can hurt people in the process.
Of course we should take precautions and minimize our risks, but it is impossible to totally eliminate the risk, and so the "War on Terror" can go on forever. The "War on Terror" will go on forever, if the definition of victory continues to be the total eradication of terrorism.
We can't continue to let terrorism exist as a catch-all, absorbing all criticism in the name of national security. We can get an infinite amount of national security and still be hungry for more. That's a reasoning that will never run dry. What we have to do is weigh each decision or measure on it's merits, and not against a back-drop of some grand 'War on Terror.' You can't think about a 'War on Terror' in terms of the Revolutionary War, everyone lining up and shooting each other. You can't justify the War in Iraq as the centerpiece of the War on Terror, and we were wrong to allow ourselves to go in there with that as our justification, or even as part of our justification. It needed to be something like 'Democracizing' or 'Nation-building.'
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Article comments
1 - LegendaryMonkey
Well said.
2 - berkeley joe
agreed, nicely done. it's a never ending battle, almost akin to the crusades, but with a more solid reactionary excuse. we will never, ever, as you say, be done with the war on terror. and there is a distinct possibility, disputed or not, that the more we wage this war against the "enemy" the more the "enemy" will multiply.
althought there's something to be said for standing up and fighting and not showing weakness, there's also something to be said for recognizing reality and understanding that throwing rocks at a lake just fills it up with stones but doesn't make the lake go away, flimsiness of metaphor aside.