By Lex, on Thu – July 7, 2005
Almost 40 killed and many hundreds injured in the latest assault on the west. The numbers on both measures of the butcher’s bill are likely to rise.
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“A series of coordinated rush-hour explosions blasted the transportation system across an arc of central London Thursday, injuring at least 700 people and killing more than 37 with the numbers expected to rise.
The explosives detonated on at least three trains moving through London’s vast subway system and on a double-decker bus, which had its roof torn off by the blast.” – Washington Post
This in a place which is as well-monitored and defended from terror as any democracy in the world could very well be, a legacy of years of Provisional IRA bombings during The Troubles. This in our most important European ally, the birthplace of the Anglosphere. We’ll keep the victims in our thoughts, while remembering that the Brits still know how to keep the upper lip stiff; whether being bombed by Provos, Junkers or Salafist jihadis. Each act of mindless terror only served to stiffen their resistance in the past, and I’ve no doubt it will do so going forward. Britain is not Spain.
And at a time when the blood is still dripping and the smoke has not yet settled, you would think that people could only unite in extending their prayers and thoughts to our allies over the seas. You would think that this would silence for a moment the vituperative local political discourse and cause everyone to lay aside for an instant, only an instant, the poison pen. But you’d be wrong: Some folks can simply not resist the reflexive impulse to snarl * . Oh, the paucity of soul, the poverty of spirit it must take to see every tragedy in the world through such a contemptible political lens.
Here Freedom stood by slaughtered friend and foe,
And, ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages; then, with eyes aglow,
Laid them to wait that future, side by side.
– Lines from a monument to the American and British soldiers of the Revolutionary War who fell in battle at Princeton, New Jersey – and were buried in a common grave.
* 07-10-18 Link gone; no replacement found – Ed.
