I contacted my friends who live and work around downtown London this morning and they and their loved ones are, fortunately, all in good health. I want to post here the comments of Prime Minister Blair:
It’s important… that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations around the world.
…and the Mayor of London’s comments to the terrorists. His directness, while causing him some problems locally over the past few years, more closely mirrors my own sentiments:
I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange to taking others … but I know you do fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society … in the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations … you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world, will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dream and achieve their potential … whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.
Ben Johnson has a poorly written, but informationally dense and worthwhile read at frontpagemag. Reads like he was in a rush to piece it all together. But it’s interesting to note the socialist European groupthink go through its tortured logic re: terrorism.