For the foreseeable future, those who covet such jobs at President of the United States and Prime Minister of Great Britain are entering prime be-careful-what-you-wish-for territory. Two days after installation, Gordon Brown was faced with a potential attack that PJM Barcelona editor Jose Guardia told me on IM when I woke this morning would have been “Madrid-level or worse”. And he should know. (Jose did his usual superb job of providing the important links to the event – while California slept).
I imagine most of us wish this stuff would just go away and we could return to what passed for our normal lives. I know I would. Unfortunately, it’s not. The most logical prediction is that it only is going to get worse. And it has been brewing for a long time – long before the Iraq War and 9/11 or even the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. If you’re looking for benchmarks, you’re more likely looking at the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. But even that is just one bump in a road going back centuries. Where will it stop?
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11 Comments
1. quickrob:Sadly, it will stop when one of two thresholds gets crossed:
Jun 29, 2007 - 7:46 am 2. quickrob:1) moderate Muslims become an outspoken majority, causing a cultural shift, or
2) the major Western nations quietly, fully acquiesce and alter our host culture to satisfy our incompatible ideological enemies in a naive attempt at multicultural inclusion
Sheesh, I am stinking up the joint, huh? I comment and the place goes dead! Sorry, all, I’m out to check on some friends’ houses while they are on vacation now!!!
Jun 29, 2007 - 7:55 am 3. Lem:My first impression (obviously not knowing much about it) is that we are still reacting mostly. Oh yes, I’m sure we have thwarted perhaps dozens of these. But still this shows some attacks will regrettably slip thru the nets.
Brit nets are tighter than ours, and yet look at what’s happening.
This one slipped thru.
Jun 29, 2007 - 9:27 am 4. Lem:The PJM headline “Major terror attack in London Thwarted” doesn’t jive with what appears to be eyewitness accounts. Not as to the size of the would be attack but as to its dastardly would be success. I mean, this looks more like a bungled attack. Not a ‘thwarted’ attack.
Correction in order perhaps?
Jun 29, 2007 - 10:14 am 5. MarkD:It will have to get bad enough that Americans demand an end to it. Think Manzanar and Hiroshima. I figure a series of attacks killing thousands, or one WMD attack on a city will cause irresistable consensus for such action.
I’d much rather see quickrob’s 1. I think the collapse of the immigration bill pretty much proved that the American people have a point beyond which they will not be pushed.
Jun 29, 2007 - 11:32 am 6. TomTom:“Where will it stop?” is surely Roger’s high rhetoric. The answers, however painful they are to swallow, stare us all full in the face, and we know what they are. But denial is a powerful force; it begins with “Oh NO, NOT again”, and is usually followed by time-consuming hand-wringing and the reciting of platitudes.
Jun 29, 2007 - 11:38 am 7. Steven E. Ehrbar:Yes, the third option, which quickrob missed, is the point where we have to worry about ⁹⁰Sr buildup in children’s bones.
Jun 29, 2007 - 2:00 pm 8. rverdi:What is amazing the amount of silence you will get from those who believe as an article of faith that terrorism is cooked up and exploited by Karl Rove. This reminds me of Nora Ephron’s post a couple weeks ago where she pointed out terror threats are created by the government. Its sick, and shows how there are Americans who have no doubt in their minds that the only people on the planet who are evil are their fellow Americans.
Jun 29, 2007 - 2:55 pm 9. Cap'n Billy:On the bright side no one was hurt. At the end of the day that was the most important fact of this terror attack.
I’m not so sure there are that many “moderate Muslims” available to “cause a cultural shift.” I’m suspecting more and more that the Muslims who want to conquer and subjugate the West are in the majority, but are keeping their heads down until they believe the wind is blowing their way.
The question is, will the West grow enough balls to suppress the weak sisters among us and use its superior force to stop it? I’m getting more skeptical every day.
Jun 29, 2007 - 2:57 pm 10. ricpic:None of the Democrat candidates, not one, seems overly bothered by fears of Armageddon. In fact, to hear them talk, they’re not concerned at all. It just doesn’t fit their version of reality. So it’s not gonna happened. I’m so relieved.
Jun 29, 2007 - 4:49 pm 11. political forum:Well, the arbitrary use of force is not going to stop this clash between terrorists and the US and UK. Terrorists have to be wiped out, but the US has to be fair in its foreign policy, which means playing the honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians. We also need to take into account how Muslims around the world feel. When we ignore their feelings about the US, then that leads to them favoring extremists.
Jul 2, 2007 - 1:17 am