Day: July 7, 2005

London Attacks Bring Terror Back to Britain

Jon Ponder

It’s almost seven o’clock on the West Coast, and details about the multiple terror attacks in London this morning are still unclear. All we know for certain is that the characteristics of the offensive resemble the bombing in Madrid last year. As in Madrid, the terrorists attacked the commuter transportation system at rush hour – except that this time instead of one bomb on a train there were multiple, simultaneous explosions in the subway and on buses.

A group with alliegance to al Qaida has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Whether this is coincidental with recent statements coming the network’s leadership urging attacks outside of Iraq and Afghanistan is also uncertain.

Another aspect that remains to be seen is the effect the new wave of attacks will have on public opinion. I, for one, have cringed every time the Republicans have repeated their mantra about the war in Iraq that it is better to fight them over there than over here. It seemed to me that terrorists who heard these statements would feel they were being taunted.

There’s also this: The UK has had a lot more experience dealing with terrorist attacks than we have. The hostilities between the British government and the Irish Republican Army and its predecessors and adjuncts went on for decades – even centuries.

In the 1990’s, these hostilities all but vanished – or at least the violence did. I mention this because it is a clear example of how terrorism can be vanquished. How did the British end the reign of terror against them? I think the answer is, they didn’t. Decades of escalating violence and retaliation just prolonged the horror and made it worse.

The major factor in resolving terrorism in the UK was economic development in Ireland. Newfound prosperity helped ease the root causes of the conflict: poverty and its effects on the health and well-being of the society, and the lack of opportunity that caused the poverty.

Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Washington Post Notices Poll Favoring Impeachment of Bush

Jon Ponder

The Zogby Poll that found that 42 percent of Americans would approve of impeaching President Bush if he lied about the reasons for going to war finally found its way into the Washington Post. What’s next, the New York Times? (I know, silly me!)

Was Bush motivated more by personal animosity toward Saddam Hussein than by a post-Sept. 11 desire to protect America from a grave threat? Did he exaggerate that threat? At what point was war inevitable?

More than four in 10 Americans, according to a recent Zogby poll, say that if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment…

The poll results certainly illustrate the intense polarization of the American electorate — not exactly news. But they also suggest an appetite for more investigation into Bush’s reasons for war and specifically — in light of the assertions in the Downing Street memos — whether his public rationales were in fact at all like his private rationales.

One topic for further inquiry, for instance, could be whether in private conversations Bush expressed the same kind of reticence about war that he advertised publicly. Some evidence — stories like this one in Time, which quotes Bush saying in March 2002: ‘[Expletive] Saddam. we’re taking him out.’ — suggests otherwise.

More people are waking up to the fact that we went to war on one man’s whim. The politics of this rising awareness will be uncontrollable by Rovian spin.