FOR THE KING AND COUNTRY!

It is said that the world will end with a whimper not a bang. Sadly for fifty plus Londoners, their world had ended with a bang. Many more are injured, facing what for some may be devastating future, lifelong debilitating injuries.

There are those who will scream for more blood. Vengeful lashing out at anyone at other end of a video game sanitised destruction. A minute long bleep of destruction wiping out lives innocent or not in a land that most of us can not locate on a map. Packaged in patriotic colors, blood stirring music and glorious and just narrative. Squeezed in between the shampoo commercial that will fix your low self esteem and the gladiatorial games results.

I am uplifted by those, especially those of religious community who are advocating addressing the root causes of the violence. Initially I was heartened by Tony Blair, and our own wannabee leader, the Honourable Mr Costello saying those very words.
Problem can only be solved by addressing the roots. I was never yet let down by a politicians ability to dissapoint me and once again, on this occasion they came through with flying colors. The way to address the problem is to inflict democracy on the regimes. Little heed is given to the fact that the idea of democracy is an alien notion to these nations. The tribal and religious goverments will resist the imposition of democracy with the fervor that us, Westerners would resist Communism.
Much less the fact that to the outsiders we look extremely shaky lauding the benefits of democracy while actively supporting dictators like Sharif in Pakistan and the monarchy in Saudi Arabia.
Our credibility about the goverment by the people for the people looks laughable given facts like the 800 million in campaign donations by the drug industry in the US.

Blair and Costello talking about addressing the root of the problem is simply a codeword for more destruction and death in the name of our belief system. Our holy war, our own jihaad. We shall bring the holy flag of Democracy to others, even if we have to pin their still twitching body to the ground with it. For in the word of George W. Bush (never would think I would quote the man) 'Democracies do not make wars on their neigbours'. At the same time as the US and its 'coalition' is spending untold billions of hospital, infrastructure and education expenses on a wasteful war.

President Bush was positively gleeful after the explosions saying 'War on Terror goes on'. The man who asked 'Bring it on' and got it in spades could not be happier if he planned the explosion himself. A fanciful notion that some of the less cautious commentators have already picked up alleging a false flag attack. What better way to lift his sagging public opinion and diverting media attention (wait, what attention) from this smoking gun.

I am relieved that my friend M. who lives in London has escaped injury and the death toll was relatively low. I have a vague feeling of uneasy hearing proclamation of politicians, the queen included urging the massess to 'Show the terrorists we will not be cowered'. Urging the frontline charge of the bloody mass of humanity onto the railway stations that have become the frontlines of this 'Terror war'. 'We will show them how resilient we are.'. Brave words indeed spoken from behind a multi million dollar security cordon. Somehow I do not think the Queen nor Blair will be seen in the transit system any day soon.

I have hoped I will never see the madness we, the people have seen in WWI where waves of humanity were thrown into the meatgrinder of artillery and machine guns for the sake of ideology. Once again we see those who have chosen to go to war above and beyond other solutions hide behind the flag and walls of citadels whilst sending the people to the frontlines. Trully the history had show that we are bound to repeat it. The people of London will not be exploited by these cheap theatrics. They are no braver and no more cowardly than any other people under fire. The people of Dresden, Warsaw, Hiroshima and Tokyo have all lifted themself from the charred husks of their cities with equal determination. They get up and go not because of pandering words from the politicians by because there is no other option. The trains will be ridden not because of hollow patriotism but because bills have to be paid and to lie down is to die.

Already some of the solutions suggested to prevent future bombings are continuous email and phone monitoring. More surveilance will bring more security. More war will bring more peace. More fornication will bring less pregnancies.

Are we winning this war on terror when $253.43 in explosives and timers strikes unanounced in the heart of a military multibillion dollar giant? Note to intelligence agencies, if the dollar figure happens to be right, for the love of god, don't haul me in as 'an enemy combatant' its just a guess.

Is it perhaps too premature to start thinking that this 'War on Terror' might be the last where the military was used. Can war be peace? A perfect enemy that is, the terrorist. An enemy that can never be defeated. For as long as there is one man who wills us ill out there, we have a legitimate enemy. Each bomb that we drop that blows up 'enemy compound' and 'terrorist safehouse' cuts off one head of the hydra beast and in its place sprout two more. Like a legendary beast, each strike caues more enemies not less. Those who witnessing the death and destruction that we have wrought in the name of our idea of what is right can not help but be moved to hatered.
The same emotions flowing through the veins of Londoners wiping the remains of their brethern off the walls. Violence begets violence.

We can never defeat them with weapons of destruction. We can defeat them with intelligence. Intelligence which is more than ephemism for new brand of chains not wrought from iron but woven from fiberoptics and copper of communication circuits.

Let us focus on the good that might come out of the tragedy.
More people might wake up and realise that this war, like all the wars before it is causing the rich to grow richer and the poor to be chewed up and spat out by the beast of ideology of either side.
We are but chesspieces and we are not even sure when the rules of the game changed.