Blasts in London

A friend asked me if I could believe what happened in London this morning.

My answer? "Yes."

Since the first WTC bombing in 1993, I have been aware of terrorist designs on the west. As embassies and ships were attacked over the next several years, it was clear that this was not going to stop. When I heard about the first plane hitting the WTC in 2001, I knew immediately what it was and who was behind it without even turning on the news.

I see already that apologists are playing the "blame ourselves" game. God, what easy targets the west are. Kill a bunch of innocent civillians -- and we ask ourselves how we could behave differently to appease people with no respect for human life. We bend over backwards to accept people from all beliefs into our societies -- but what if one of those belief systems is hell-bent on destroying our society in the first place? This clearly is where "tolerence" needs to end.

We tolerate everyone but ourselves.

from the BBC site:

Respect MP George Galloway said the attacks were "despicable but not remotely unpredictable".

Mr Galloway said Londoners had "paid the price" of the government failing to heed warnings from the security services that attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan would increase the threat of a terrorist attack in the UK.

I agree with the first part of the statement, but what the hell does he mean by the second part? That going in to Afghanistan, especially, after the heads of the perps who doing these deeds shouldn't have been done .... because we might make them mad?

For the most part, terrorism is pretty much unstoppable. Anybody who thinks that if we just increase our security laws and expenditures enough we can be "safe" needs to pull their head out of the sand. We really, in the end, can't control the terrorists as long as they are willing to die or get caught after the act. The only control we have is in our response to it.

We can "be nice to them". But we lose that one, in the end. "Being nice" only works with people with a conscience and an ability to empathize with you, and these people clearly have neither. On top of that, "being nice to them" is what allows them to live in our midst in the first place.

If you give a dog a biscuit every time he barks, what do you think the dog will be doing more of in the future?

"Stay out of their countries" -- again, a reward, and again, a huge misunderstanding of their goals. They want control of the countries they live in, too. And a majority of the people who live in "their" countries don't want those people in control, either. In addition, most of the people who THINK they want them in control would quickly change their minds once they gained that control.

Remember Afghanistan? Remember the Taliban? Forget the wonton destruction of ancient artifacts and mandatory head covering -- hell, BODY covering for women. How about football stadium executions, public dismemberments, torture (real torture, not cheerleader piles of naked bodies of enemy fighters and common criminals or Koran kicking)? Systemic, openly sanctioned torture for simply saying the wrong thing.

Such are the values of these people. They believe they have the word of God, and they believe it is up to them to enforce their interpretation of His Will.

Or -- we can go after their butts and refuse to give in to their will. This way we don't reward them, we don't encourage them to "bark" again for another biscuit, and we actually do our best to punish the behavior. Can we stop them from blowing us up at random? No. If we fight back will we piss them off? Yes -- but they're already pissed off. Will their numbers grow? Perhaps, unless we can act as some sort of deterrent.

So we must fight on, like antibodies against the disease that is this fanatic breed of Islamist.

I noted this from the BBC article:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said he had joined with Muslim
leaders in condemning the attacks during a visit to West Yorkshire.

My question is, who are the anonymous "Muslim Leaders" and what did they say, and why aren't they and their words in the story instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury's?

Where is the outrage from these peaceful Muslims? Actions speak much louder than anonymous words, but I'd just settle for some substantive words from identifiable clerics. If Islam really is a religion of peace, how about a little help from the rest of Islam?