Are up at Salon if anyone’s interested. Not very coherent, but not notably wrong, either. I do wish I had been closer to the action. I know it sounds callous, but that’s what journalists do. I want to see, not watch things on television.
I note that Salon, just as much as everyone else, immediately fitted the bombs into their preferred narrative: in their case, that warmongers will be punished by the peace-loving electorate for their crimes.1 I don’t think that’s going to happen. Even if it did, I don’t think it would diminish our danger much. Though it is true that there are now far more and better-trained terrorists than if we had not invaded Iraq, it doesn’t follow that there will be fewer if we pull out. It may just encourage them.
1 Dr Baber, who should know better, said much the same. But if Blair is replaced, it won’t be by an anti-war leader. We’re too far in for that.
You may be right about Tony’s prospects insofar as the market has already factored in possible terrorist incidents.
Sad thing is that terrorism is a lever for boosting obnoxious policies–in the UK the anti-religious hatred law and national ID cards, in the US the whole conservative agenda.
Didn’t Sir Humphrey once bamboozle Hacker into promoting national IDs in order to get him to emabarrass himself on a TV show?