It's sickening what happened in London today. Of course, it's just as sickening that cilivian-targeted bombings are happening in Iraq on a regular basis, but at least the people there are constantly braced for it. And people elsewhere in the world are braced to hear it. (It feels like every international news report begins with: "________ were killed in Iraq today.") I'm grateful that my London correspondents were both lazy arses this morning and luckily missed a dangerous commute.
The governor of New York declared in a reaction speech that the war on terrorism is not over, but it is one that will be won. First of all, terrorism is a method. How can you win a war over a method? Secondly, terrorists have metastasized throughout the world. They are nimble, not a nation that stays put on a map. They have different motivations, even though A.Q. gets the most press. How will we ever be able to declare victory on a legion of loosely networked jihadists who only need a wired backpack to make a horrible impact?
If only a fraction of the billions being spent to fight in Iraq had been funneled to fund undercover operations, the U.S. could be working on dismantling these factions from the inside out and saved so many lives on the battlefield. Instead it has set off more hostilities worldwide and given extremists recruiting fuel for years. Not to mention failing to shore up national security on U.S. soil. I hope this ends the naive argument that the battle in Iraq ("taking the battle to them"--oops! wrong country) is distracting potential terrorists from other targets in the world.
Amazingly, Pablo is still able to wrestle a laugh from this mad, mad world.
1 comment:
Hey - thanks so much for your note and sensible thoughts! I think Bush and Blair are sharing speech-writers. And don't believe them when they say we're all stoic and strong - some of us [me] don't want to represent something we don't really believe in, and just really want a safe journey to work. Sigh.
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