Personal Ramblings

London after the terrorist attacks.

Some personal thoughts on the current state of London, and terrorism in the city, written one month after the explosions.

I work close to Aldgate, so I was pretty close to one of the explosions during the first attacks. These happened as I was approaching the office. I did not know what was going on, but it was clear there was something odd, as people were pouring out of the underground stations, and buses were stopping and telling everyone to get off.

People in the area seemed to have a much clearer idea of what was going on, and were speaking of explosions and attacks long before the news had anything to say...

No one I know was hurt in any way, though quite a few people were very worried when they could not contact people on the phones.

My own reaction, and it does not seem unusual to me was to refuse to let it affect my life, I did what was required to get in through the disrupted public transport, and got on with my life.

Then, of course, something similar was attempted 2 weeks later. And despite the failure of the bombs to go off, I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering if this is going to become a way of life...

Again like many I am sure, I was extremely impressed by the speed with which the police were on top of things, and after the main suspects. It really was all very impressive - maybe it helped that unlike George W. Bush, the police here were Able to interview the families promptly, rather than having them quietly and quickly flown out of the country.

Then there was the Brazilian man, shot dead by the police. I have very mixed feelings about this. There were, and still are, all sorts of rumblings and suggestions that his visa was not in order - like this somehow makes things better. Similarly, suggestions that it was unreasonable for him not to stop when challenged. Well, something I have not seen on the news is that gun crime is a serious problem in that part of London, and if someone (not wearing any kind of uniform) pointed a gun at me in that part of the world, I would NOT automatically assume that he must be a policeman, and no need to worry.

The police have quite rightly pointed out the difficulty of the decisions they must make in these circumstances, and the possible consequences of not acting. But it does leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

And now there are also complaints from British Moslems, that the police are unfairly targeting them for stop and search. Well, I really can't see a way around this - the UK is under attack by the Moslem lunatic fringe. It's hardly going to help if the police start searching other visible religious groups - Hari Krishna's? Mormons? Orthodox Jews? Of course it should be done with sensitivity and respect, but it must be done.

Politicians.

In the immediate aftermath I was impressed by the way politicians acted. There was rapid consensus on a way forward, and they said things that needed to be said. I was powerfully moved by the words of Ken Livingstone, promising that they would fail, and saying that you would see this by the way that more people from all over the world would continue to come and build lives here in the weeks to come.

But then people start looking for causes, and 'New Labour' start trying to claim that there is no connection between the war in Iraq and the terrorism. I find this flat, plain, ridiculous.

Not least because it comes from the same people who were not so long ago telling us that the war in Iraq was key to the war on terror.

The main thing they present as objective evidence is that Al Qaeda were active and killing before the Iraq war. Well, this demonstrates that Al Qaeda were not formed as a result of the war in Iraq. But it tells us nothing at all about if the war in Iraq made things better or worse.

And my opinion is that the failure to deliver a better life for Iraqis in terms of security, or basic amenities has made it much worse. The atrocities in London killed 50 something civilians. That's not even a particularly bad week in Iraq.

By far the most catastrophic event though was Abu Ghraib. If someone set out to present Al Qaeda with the most effective possible recruitment material, they could hardly have come up with something more powerful. Can anyone make a case that this is not the case?

And saying that with 9/11 'they started it' is just not good enough.

The west needs to go for the moral high ground, and fast. This means dealing with and acknowledging the mistakes of the past.

As a closing note, yesterday was the first time I felt actually frightened by all this. It was not a suspicious figure, a possible bomb, or anything like that. It was a policeman, in the middle of a busy Liverpool St Station, with a large automatic rifle. The idea that automatic weapons fire might be necessary in a public place seething with office workers, scared the crap out of me.