[Bitterness On]
Remember, when you talk about Thursday’s bombings in London, you must not mention 9/11 in any context. That’s how it works, right? I mean, every time the president mentions 9/11, he’s accused of co-opting it, hijacking it, and manipulating it to fit his own agenda. Obviously, as we’ve learned from the op-ed pages and the liberals in the house and senate, 9/11 is not linked in any way to terrorism, Muslim extremists, rogue nations in the middle east, or attacks on innocent civilians. Therefore, it has no connection whatsoever to the bombings in London either, and must not be mentioned when discussing them.

I mean, just because 9/11 was the defining moment of the last 60 years of our history doesn't mean that the president can actually talk about it. That goes for all of us.

The thing that puzzles me the most is how these imaginary, fictional (uh, excuse me, I mean “fictious”) phantoms managed to set off bombs in London, anyway. It just blows my mind. They don’t exist, they aren’t a real threat, they're just a device the Republicans cooked up to keep us in fear, right? RIGHT??!? And yet, these figments have managed to KILL PEOPLE AGAIN. Hmmm….
[/Bitterness Off]

Not everyone who’s written about the bombings is as bitter as I am, of course. I’ve found interesting and worthwhile ideas and observations from all kinds of sources.

Rhodster’s imagination is so good, I’d almost believe he was there. Read the whole thing, not just this appetizer:

…These people aren't carrying firearms or wearing flak jackets and steel helmets because they don't expect to have their lives snuffed out suddenly by maniacs. As the train rolls along, a young man is reading the advertisements posted above the window and thinking about how pretty the girl is in that picture. He doesn't even notice the brand of gum she's advertising because he's too fixated on that beautiful face and lovely figure. He hopes to marry a girl that pretty some day, but also he hopes she has a good personality, because that's even more important when it comes to marrying a girl…

I like the resolve expressed by Nile Gardner and John Hulsman, even if the cowboy imagery they conjure up seems a bit tired and silly:

The terrorists fail to understand the British bulldog tradition of rising to meet every challenge. They also fail to comprehend that when the chips are down the U.S. and UK, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, come out shooting together. This terrible atrocity will not alter these fundamental facts; rather, it will only strengthen the Anglo-American resolve.

Remember, London has seen this kind of thing before. There was the IRA... and, the air raids during the last world war took a terrible toll, and Londoners are as gutsy now as they were then:

"As Brits, we'll carry on — it doesn't scare us at all" said tour guide Michael Cahill, 37. "Look, loads of people are walking down the streets. It's Great Britain — not called 'Great' for nothing."

One of my regular blog reads, The Boiled Egg of Infinity, is written by a Scot in Glasgow. His response is humble, humbling, and profoundly real. This isn’t a world away for Fawndoo. This is immediate:

Bloggers, journalists and writers with a galaxy more talent than I can ever muster will be writing about these incidents now, so I'm going to wrap up and let you get away to do some actual reading about this horrible thing. Then I'm going to worry. And check the news.

The Write Jerry feels it, too:

Yesterday I was depressed at first, then angry, then dismayed. Today, I feel a bit snarky, but am resisting the urge to toss out comments like "why hasn't Bob Geldhof organized a benefit concert yet?" or "which actor or actress will be first to publicly condemn the loss of life, but not the goals of the criminals who bomb innocent people?"

Oh wait, I guess I didn't resist that urge…

The Wall Street Journal has crafted a hands-on response:

The best response would be for G-8 leaders to immediately expand their commitments to both countries (Iraq and Afghanistan). Islamists are most dangerous when they sense weakness. And they can be forgiven for detecting it as they've watched debates in Europe and the U.S. in recent months. The calls to close Guantanamo, the recriminations over rendition of terror suspects, the demands for a "date certain" to withdraw from Iraq: In the mind of al Qaeda these are all signs of the West's flagging will to prevail.

Peter Brown asks why we haven’t seen further attacks on our shores since 9/11:

… we might also consider the possibility that the U.S. government's response to 9-11 has been working. What if we have thwarted active terrorist plots or discouraged al-Qaeda's planners from focusing here, forcing them to concentrate their efforts overseas?

After all, it would seem that the New York, Boston, Chicago or Washington subways, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge or Los Angeles' freeways or shopping malls would be just as inviting for the low-tech kind of terrorism that occurred in London and Madrid.

If that is the case, then perhaps the Bush administration's efforts -- which have raised the hackles of civil libertarians who argue the stepped-up security endangers individual rights -- are working...

Or maybe opposing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq has used up al-Qaeda's men and money, forcing it to concentrate its battle against America there, since those parts of the world are closer to al-Qaeda's home.

Could it be? Could it be that the invasion of Iraq and the election of a free Iraqi government has actually damaged the resolve and resources of the terrorists, to some degree? Is it possible that there has been a generally positive outcome, on a world scope, from Iraq? One soldier, bound for Iraq, certainly sees a connection:

Finally I just wanted to state one more time, Iraq is the whole bag of marbles, if our ideas win there, then militant Islam will wither on the vine and eventually die. If we lose in Iraq, the world will become a much darker place where the evils of the past such as slavery and holy wars will become the norm. I ask the people of America this question; We are the last hope for this planet to realize its potential, the Europeans are too weak to do it, what kind of world do we want for our children to live in? I made my choice, and now I leave to do what I believe is my duty. God bless my family, God bless our brave men and women in uniform, God bless all Americans and God bless America.

I’ll wrap with Victor Davis Hanson, who sums it up succinctly, in terms I agree with:

Failed states in the Middle East — autocratic, statist, unfree, intolerant of women and other religions — blame the West for their self-inflicted miseries. Sometimes they are theocratic, like the late Taliban or the current Iranian mullahs. But more often they are dictatorial like the Syrians, Pakistanis, Saudis, or Egyptians, who all, in varying degrees and in lieu of reform, have come to accommodations with the terrorists to shift popular anguish onto the West and the Jews.

That is the Petri dish of Islamic fascism, an evil that will only disappear when the dictatorships that allow it or nourish it do as well. Whether the jihadists are in Iraq, the United States, or Europe, they all share a sick notion that someone else (the decadent Western oppressor and unbeliever) is responsible for their own poverty and backwardness rather than the fundamentalism, corruption, bias, and intolerance endemic to the Middle East….

In the short term, Bush and Blair will appear as islands in the storm amid an angry and anguished public. But as 7/7 fades, as did 9/11, expect them to become even more unpopular, as the voices of appeasement assure us that if they just go away, maybe so will the terrorists.

It is our task, each of us according to our station, to speak the truth to all these falsehoods, and remember that we did not inherit a wonderful civilization just to lose it to the Dark Ages.