If we shrug off the London attack does it mean we're used to the killing?

[bigtree]

I'm confused by the attitude that's passing around our community that the London attack was no big thing, not even the real al Qaeda. And there's the line that goes with the stiff upper lip approach that says the low number killed makes the bombing almost a non-event. Greg Palast

Many more could have been killed in the attack and the lives lost are not insignificant. We have been yoked to a campaign of perpetual war by Bush and Blair's policy of aggression toward Arab/Muslim states. We are seeing the effect of that war in the recent attacks in London. I don't care how much we can degrade the group or individuals who committed the attacks. People died.

Fact is, terrorism has taken on a new dynamic that we will reap for generations because of Bush's blundering, manufactured responses to the initial 9-11 attack. Blair was justifying the Iraq invasion just a week before the recent attack as a reasonable "show of force" following the attack on the World Trade Center. The London attack was just the latest outgrowth of the campaign of reprisals for our military aggression and expansionism.

We can puff up and strut around all we want with talk about gettin' 'em, and defiance, but we haven't yet come to the realization of the effect of our own country's violence and its relationship to the continuing targeting of Americans and our allies. I fail to see how downplaying the fact that yet another group or individual with a grudge has struck in this perpetual war. I would use the incident to encourage our leaders to change our approach to that region. That's not a recipe for surrender or appeasement, but it would be an acknowledgment that our present course is creating more enemies than we are disposing of.

Just one step beyond stoicism is complacency, and worse, an unwillingness to change course.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. We shrug it off because it didn't happen HERE.

If it didn't happen in the good ol' U. S. of A., it isn't important. :sarcasm:

[BurtWorm]

3. Palast shrugs it off too, though.

It's kind of an odd column he wrote about it. Almost unfeeling.

[aquart]

6. No. If it happened here ...

Aside from White House hysteria screaming for permanent martial law and permanent Patriot Act and, oh yes, shouldn't we crown Bush emperor, we'd really be pissed off and unimpressed.

After 9/11, the follow-up act better be at least as impressive or we'll just spit. We were pretty shocked out by 9/11. We'd never taken a civilian hit like that. But, EXCEPT for the hysteria from the White House, what actually happened? We maintained order, we went back to work, we cleaned up the mess. And that was with 3,000 dead and many more feared dead.

We also got back on subways even though they were frequently evacuated for suspicious packages. We got back on planes. We went about our business.

Which is WHAT PEOPLE DO. It doesn't make the death acceptable. But if it's a part of life, it's a part of life. If it happens every day or so, like in Israel, we might begin to be a wee bit nasty after a while, a wee bit unsympathetic and vengeful. Because it is annoying to blow up on the way to work. I mean, how do you dress for having an arm or foot torn off?

[aquart]

2. No, it means they failed to terrorize us.

Which was the goal.

[bigtree]

9. Am I wrong to fear another attack here in the U.S.?

I'm convinced that the military policies of our present leaders will continue to fuel the animosity in the Middle East toward Americans and our allies. That's a frightening prospect. An endless cycle of violence fueled by our leader's arrogance.

[aquart]

12. Well, if they have any moxie at all, it'll happen.

BUT...as my sister pointed out, WHERE ARE THE CAR BOMBS? If we were riddled with terrorist cells, as Bush wants us to believe, then there would be unnerving blasts going off all the time. Yet...nada. Funny about that.

If, as some believe, BushCo had way too much to do with 9/11, then an attack in the US could backfire because it would undermind him as a protector against the bad guys. So, if BushCo did it, then I think we're probably okay. Too risky.

If al qaida or any other terrorist bunch is looking to attack us, they have a HUGE problem: anything less than 9/11 will be shrugged off and FAIL TO TERRIFY. They have the problem of many successful people and organizations: they have to top their own achievement. A very good reason NOT to have the Olympics here.

There's something else. George Bush chose to respond to 9/11 as if America were Israel, a small, weak nation. A weak nation has to use immediate and definitive force in response to any attack. It's just too vulnerable. That's why so many have the bizarre idea that Israel is a strong power. They always hit back. A STRONG nation has other options. George always reacts as if America were a weak nation. The result has been that we are BECOMING a weak nation. Strong nations are doing what strong nations do and using their other options to marginalize us and reduce what is left of our power.

Basically, a terrorist attack is the LEAST of our worries, but George will never tell you that. He keeps you focused on the mosquito, so you aren't looking at the elephant about to step on us. And, baby, that is not just one, but a HERD of elephants.

[bigtree]

13. The problem with "immediate and definitive force in response to any attack

is the perps have no country of direct alliegance that we can flatten as a " show of force" like Blair used 9-11 to justify his support for the invasion of. The apprehension of the perps will take regional cooperation which is a joke in the face of our arrogant aggression there.

We need more than force alone to stop the cycle of violence, lest we do this death dance for generations to come. At this point it appears that our heavy hand is creating more combatants faster than we can dispose of them with our military.

[aquart]

14. Since we were NOT a weak nation at the time of 9/11...

We had other options than war. A surgical strike? Who could say nay to us? Stopping bin Ladin's money? All kinds of things the powerful can do by lifting an eyebrow, which has no effect when tried by the weak. But George is a weak man who only reasons from that position.

He made it clear to the world that we were DEVASTATED by the WTC attack. Yeah, I remember being in shock and a whole lot of other things. But the WORST thing he could have done, AND DID, is insist that the entire world had changed because of it. The amount of power that gave to bin Ladin, al qaida, and terrorism in general is incalculable. Bush basically insisted that terrorism was an effective method of dealing with a problem.

I remember being shocked that people didn't get that Bush was empowering the terrorists instead of us.

But he needed an archenemy so he could have an excuse for war. So he elevated first bin Ladin, then tossed him in favor of Saddam. Neither were more than mosquitos. Cockroaches. Insects. We went to war on an issue of pest control?

[non sociopath skin]

4. Believe me, nobody's complacent over here.

But culturally, we are not prone to raging hysterics in the face of hostile acts.

The Skin

[bigtree]

8. I'm not suggesting we be hysterical in the face of terror

But it seems folly, and cruel, to downplay the significance of the London bombings in the face of the continuing leadership of the U.S. and Britain which has unquestionably made the animosity toward us worse.

We can act responsibly out of fear. We should be afraid. We should be afraid for future victims of this enmity we have fueled in the Arab world.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[aquart]

7. Yup.

Terrorists are cockroaches. You can't kill all the cockroaches in the world. You can't. If cockroaches invade a kitchen, you don't blame the cockroaches. You blame the housekeeper.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. We shrug off the deaths of thousands every day.

Starvation, disease, genocide, but those are in Africa so they don't count because they're not of the proper tint.

The endless bombings in Iraq get scant attention for the same reason and would be unnoticed completely except that some of them kill Americans.

[bigtree]

11. true

sad to realize how much needless death around the world we fail to properly address. No wonder that the deaths of a handful of Britons and one American get swept behind our strident determination to carry on with whatever else preoccupies us.