Blowback
Never made my second post as we were putting up a guest for the night. Ironically, we were going to be doing that any way. And now the dust has settled a little, and the number of explosions have shrunk from seven to four. A lot of the commentators have stated that such attacks are the price we pay for a free society. Tony Blair1 made a statement from the G8 summit stating that Britain would not bow to terrorists; that we would not change our way of life. His statement stuck like a fish bone in the throat and was just as uncomfortable.
His government has sought consistently to weaken our way of life - removal of juries from certain trials, the provision of prior charges in jury trials2, tracking every vehicle in the country, putting every native and visiting citizen under surveillance, putting people under house arrest, holding people without trial; I cannot help but wonder exactly what it is we're protecting (I think it's something to do with purchasing ring tones), and whether by "protecting our way of life", Blair means he is putting it in a little box for safe keeping. Less than 24 hours after the attacks, Charles Clarke finds himself on the Today programme talking about how it may become necessary to further curtail civil liberties. Fighting fascism with fascism.
What irritates the most is the sense of guilt I feel by typing this in the first place, the notion (and Blair and Clarke have both said this too) that it is too soon to discuss such matters. However, Blair and Clarke are keen not to have the discussion at all - the ID Cards Bill goes to show that the government consider debate to be the thing that happens once the decision has been made, and you can assure yourself that the Home Office is even now looking at ways in which to further their control over the sleeping public, long before anything is discussed openly.
Whilst walking to Victoria yesterday from Baker Street I saw two kids on in-line skates in the road, and although it almost seems cruel that they should take the advantage of the emptied streets to experience things they could not under normal circumstances get away with, they also appeared as an image of hope, courage and defiance, not just of the terrorists but also of the authorities whose first response is to request voluntary curfews. The world will not be won by staying at home.
I've been puzzled a little by the expert analysis. I can swallow the possibility that the particular "cell" responsible for the action could consist of between 20 and 30 people (suicide bombers tend to be peer pressured weaker members of individual groups, bring less to the table than the bomb-makers and the networkers), but to describe the attack as ruthlessly well organised seems peculiar. This notion has stemmed from the fact that, once the bombs had gone off in the tube trains, people were then bombed on a bus. If, however, these were suicide bombers, then the whole thing could have been played more or less by ear. Once someone has the bombs, you just pick a date and you do it.
I suspect the plan had been to detonate the bombs on the tube, but with the bombers spread out, and bombs going off at varying times (presumably because the goal is to kill people, not to give a syncronised display) at some point one of the bombers was unable to get into the underground, and so went for the next best thing. We have a tendancy, us humans, to look on the events that have happened and wonder at the curious acts and decisions that led to those events - the future is uncertain, but the past is changeless. Because everyone, not just the Blairs and the Clarkes of this world, wants to feel they can control the universe around them, we tend to assume that everything happens for a reason and that invariably there is a will involved, if not ours, other people's; if not other people's then a greater power. Thus a random, loosely organised plan to detonate four bombs in London becomes a cunningly planned effort to exploit the transport network. It was as much the network itself that determined that a bomb would go off on a bus as it was the deluded sod with the finger on the detonator.
1 George Bush, fresh from his push bike accident, made a speech pausey enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Blair's. Listing the great things that G8 were getting up to, he stumbled a bit when reaching a particular issue. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see which words he would opt for - sadly "climate change" was euphemised to something about the environment.
2 I had a chat ages ago with someone who knows, and I stated that this sort of thing should only go on where the m.o. of the crimes were incredibly similar - to a serial killer level of invariance. She shocked me by saying that the courts already have such a power. The courts are better at this than a lot of politicians and citizens give them credit for!
His government has sought consistently to weaken our way of life - removal of juries from certain trials, the provision of prior charges in jury trials2, tracking every vehicle in the country, putting every native and visiting citizen under surveillance, putting people under house arrest, holding people without trial; I cannot help but wonder exactly what it is we're protecting (I think it's something to do with purchasing ring tones), and whether by "protecting our way of life", Blair means he is putting it in a little box for safe keeping. Less than 24 hours after the attacks, Charles Clarke finds himself on the Today programme talking about how it may become necessary to further curtail civil liberties. Fighting fascism with fascism.
What irritates the most is the sense of guilt I feel by typing this in the first place, the notion (and Blair and Clarke have both said this too) that it is too soon to discuss such matters. However, Blair and Clarke are keen not to have the discussion at all - the ID Cards Bill goes to show that the government consider debate to be the thing that happens once the decision has been made, and you can assure yourself that the Home Office is even now looking at ways in which to further their control over the sleeping public, long before anything is discussed openly.
Whilst walking to Victoria yesterday from Baker Street I saw two kids on in-line skates in the road, and although it almost seems cruel that they should take the advantage of the emptied streets to experience things they could not under normal circumstances get away with, they also appeared as an image of hope, courage and defiance, not just of the terrorists but also of the authorities whose first response is to request voluntary curfews. The world will not be won by staying at home.
I've been puzzled a little by the expert analysis. I can swallow the possibility that the particular "cell" responsible for the action could consist of between 20 and 30 people (suicide bombers tend to be peer pressured weaker members of individual groups, bring less to the table than the bomb-makers and the networkers), but to describe the attack as ruthlessly well organised seems peculiar. This notion has stemmed from the fact that, once the bombs had gone off in the tube trains, people were then bombed on a bus. If, however, these were suicide bombers, then the whole thing could have been played more or less by ear. Once someone has the bombs, you just pick a date and you do it.
I suspect the plan had been to detonate the bombs on the tube, but with the bombers spread out, and bombs going off at varying times (presumably because the goal is to kill people, not to give a syncronised display) at some point one of the bombers was unable to get into the underground, and so went for the next best thing. We have a tendancy, us humans, to look on the events that have happened and wonder at the curious acts and decisions that led to those events - the future is uncertain, but the past is changeless. Because everyone, not just the Blairs and the Clarkes of this world, wants to feel they can control the universe around them, we tend to assume that everything happens for a reason and that invariably there is a will involved, if not ours, other people's; if not other people's then a greater power. Thus a random, loosely organised plan to detonate four bombs in London becomes a cunningly planned effort to exploit the transport network. It was as much the network itself that determined that a bomb would go off on a bus as it was the deluded sod with the finger on the detonator.
1 George Bush, fresh from his push bike accident, made a speech pausey enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Blair's. Listing the great things that G8 were getting up to, he stumbled a bit when reaching a particular issue. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see which words he would opt for - sadly "climate change" was euphemised to something about the environment.
2 I had a chat ages ago with someone who knows, and I stated that this sort of thing should only go on where the m.o. of the crimes were incredibly similar - to a serial killer level of invariance. She shocked me by saying that the courts already have such a power. The courts are better at this than a lot of politicians and citizens give them credit for!
posted by Hamilton's Brain | 4:02 pm
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