"Four Blasts in London, 50 dead." All of yesterday, aside from teaching, the only words that mattered. As if Thomas Pynchon had reached out from beyond his scrim and sent the screaming not from across the sky but underground in this oldest of all mass transit systems. His words, from Gravity's Rainbow, still feel a possible glimpse of the tunnel confusion:
Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the glass will fall--soon--it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light only great invisible crashing....Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits in velveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the carriage's frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old veterans still in shock from ordnance 20 years obsolete, hustlers in city clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could belong to anyone, stacked about among the rest of the things to be carried out to salvation. Only the nearer faces are visible at all, and at that only as half-silvered images in a view finder, green-stained VIP faces remembered behind bulletproof windows speeding through the city. . . .
Vaulting from a morning with Voltaire's commedia on state evil (see previous post) to an evening escorting my creative writing students over the Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Ferry, I didn't see (though I read some of) the coverage and commentary. I've therefore spent far too much time trying to make sense of it this morning from my web sources, and finding either solace, insight, or good snark that helps defend one from the sense that this incident is about to be used to play us, badly.
- Juan Cole's piece on Salon is a don't-miss. In addition to pointing out, as he does on his own site today, that what happened in London was what Iraqis go through every day, he actually analyzes the "al-Qaida" communique (from a group with no previous links to OBL or Zarqawi) and paints the bombs as direct blowback from the Iraq war:
In accordance with al-Zawahiri's focus on violence as the answer to the "marauding" of occupying non-Muslim armies in Muslim lands, the statement condemns what it calls "massacres" by "Zionist" British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of them Muslim lands under Western military occupation (and, it is implied, similar in this regard to Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli control). These bombings, it says, are a form of revenge for these alleged predations. The language of revenge recalls tribal feuds rather than Islamic values.
The terrorists refer to the bombings, which they say they carefully planned over a long period, as a "blessed raid." They are recalling the struggle between the wealthy, pagan trading entrepot, Mecca, and the beleaguered, persecuted Muslim community in Medina in early seventh century west Arabia. The Muslims around the Prophet Mohammed responded to the Meccan determination to wipe them out by raiding the caravans of their wealthy rivals, depriving them of their profits and gradually strangling them. The victorious Muslims, having cut the idol-worshipping Meccan merchants off, marched into the city in 630. Al-Qaida teaches its acolytes that great Western metropolises such as New York and London are the Meccas of this age, centers of paganism, immorality and massive wealth, from which plundering expeditions are launched against hapless, pious Muslims.
This symbology helps explain why the City of London subway stops were especially targeted, since it is the economic center of London. A "raid" such as the Muslim bombings is considered not just a military action but also a religious ritual. If the communiqué of Qaida al-Jihad in Europe proves authentic, the London bombings are the second major instance of terrorism in Europe directly related to the Iraq war. In March of 2004, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (French acronym: GICM) launched a massive attack on trains in Madrid in order to punish Spain for its participation in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, following on their bombing of Casablanca the previous year.
From the point of view of a serious counterinsurgency campaign against al-Qaida, Bush has made exactly the wrong decisions all along the line. He decided to "unleash" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rather than pressing for Israeli-Palestinian peace and an end to Israeli occupation of the territories it captured in 1967. Rather than extinguishing this most incendiary issue for Arabs and Muslims, he poured gasoline on it. His strategy in response to Sept. 11 was to fight the Afghanistan War on the cheap. By failing to commit American ground troops in Tora Bora, he allowed bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to escape. He reneged on promises to rebuild Afghanistan and prevent the reemergence of the Taliban and al-Qaida there, thus prolonging the U.S. and NATO military presence indefinitely. He then diverted most American military and reconstruction resources into an illegal war on Iraq. That war may have been doomed from the beginning, but Bush's refusal to line up international support, and his administration's criminal lack of planning for the postwar period, made failure inevitable.
(Dahr Jamail's piece on Zarqawi is worth looking at for context). Cole also points out that the Iraq war, rather than being "flypaper for terrorists," has become instead flypaper for U.S. troops and resources after 9/11. Go read it yourself.
- Tony Blair's beautifully blunt statement included so much missing from American discourse -- evoking an odd, mixed response best summed by an unusually sober Rude Pundit:
Sarasota, Florida is about 860 miles from Washington, DC, roughly twice the distance that Gleneagles, Scotland is from London. Forget for a moment that after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, President Bush continued to read to schoolchildren until he was taken on a multi-state flight around the United States, while Tony Blair yesterday rushed back to London to assure his nation before rushing back to Scotland to assure that the work of the G-8 Summit would be accomplished. Forget that Bush's first words to America on 9/11 were to thank the school children, declare it a tragedy, and offer a moment of prayer, while Tony Blair, before leaving for London, spokeBush's speech to the nation that fucked-up day was given by a man looking like a deer in headlights, including a reassurance that capitalism was fine and a Bible quote, while last night in England, Blair gave a speech to the UK about terrorism, resolve and the world that's been described as Churchill-like in its rallying call and was also compassionate towards Muslims.. Forget that.
Forget all that. And think about Tony Blair for just one moment: dicked over time and again by George Bush and the United States on every world issue except for the war in Iraq. Think about the Prime Minister, coming back to London from that fine resort in Scotland, ready to hear about and talk about carnage. And let us think that, for a moment, he may have wondered if he's been played for a sucker by the neocon right and the White House.
- Meanwhile, back in the U.S., responses range from Fox froth to Bush blather about "my resolve" to CNN going all racist right away (HT to Atrios) to Michael Chertoff's first "orange alert" -- this for mass transit systems, and which seems to have consisted entirely of a press conference. At least, there was no more security than usual on my eight subway trips yesterday (ahhhh, the life of s roving adjunct who insists on having a life), including our trip to the financial district and the farking Brooklyn Bridge.
- Roxanne makes a similar report here about D.C. transit. Alert we was not.
My guess is that Blair, while making all sorts of "solidarity" noises, will gently nudge the U.K. into a response more like Spain's two years ago, before his electorate does it for him. And we in the U.S. will be left with more noise to cover the sounds of the Plame investigation and the most bitter judicial fight in two centuries.
Update: My instincts were further confirmed by the following letter to the London New Review (thanks so much for the tip, Charles):
A Letter To The Terrorists, From London July 07, 2005
What the fuck do you think you're doing?
This is London. We've dealt with your sort before. You don't try and pull this on us. Do you have any idea how many times our city has been attacked? Whatever you're trying to do, it's not going to work. All you've done is end some of our lives, and ruin some more. How is that going to help you? You don't get rewarded for this kind of crap.
And if, as your MO indicates, you're an al-Qaeda group, then you're out of your tiny minds.
Because if this is a message to Tony Blair, we've got news for you. We don't much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We'll deal with that ourselves. We're London, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.
And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub.
So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city.
Now I need to go do some actual work. I'm no less distressed than I was before, but I don't feel quite as blindsided. And to chase Thomas Pynchon out of my ears I'll put on the song of the title, in tribute to the pluck and courage of Londoners and to the late, great Warren Zevon.
If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair
Better stay away from him
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
I'd like to meet his tailor
Werewolves of London.
Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's
His hair was perfect.
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