Got the bastards. According to the latest reports, all the failed London suicide bombers have now been captured alive. This is good news. It’s been scary knowing they were on the loose and could strike again, any time.
Good on the Met. Brilliant police work. Great job lads ! Let’s hope these bastards sing like canaries and give up all they know about radical Islamic groups and al-Qaeda cells in Britain and elsewhere. This could blow any UK terror networks apart and lead to more arrests and the crucial capture of the masterminds, bomb makers, indoctrinators and financiers.
Once they’ve extracted all the information possible, try them and jail them for life. I’m not in favour of the death penalty for people like this. They need to spend the rest of their natural lives rotting in prison. There’s no room for plea bargains, deals, amnesties, parole or one of those arrangements where murderers get out in less time. They should never be released. They should be incarcerated for decades to contemplate the enormity of their crimes.
London seems a different place now. We’re all on edge. I was on the tube the other day and, although an outward sense of calm, you could tell people were nervous. An Indian man listening to an ipod sat by the door with a large box on his knees. He was treated with real suspicion. People are genuinely worried and fear more attacks. We are a huge, resilient, diverse city. Like New York, Bali, Madrid and all the other places defiled by mass murder, we will recover.
The random nature of the bombings is so appalling. The terrible shock and disbelief at such deliberate slaughter. Another attack could happen anywhere, anytime. Just looking around at trains, buses, shopping centres, you can’t fail to see how vulnerable an open society is to suicide bombers intent on mass murder.
There’s a terrible lottery about these atrocities. Some squeezed onto the doomed carriages while others casually turned away, awaiting the next train. Stories have emerged of people late for work, missing the bus or stepping off minutes before it exploded. The randomness adds to the terror and compounds the unbearable pain of the bereaved.
It was British-born and British-raised Muslims who attacked London. They came from among our own people. That’s so hard to understand. Unforgiveable. What happened to these young men that would turn them so violently against their own society ? How were they so radicalised to murder the innocent ? It seems designed to spread terrible fear and mistrust, and tear communities apart. It’s wicked. Truly wicked.
These people are ghosts. Appearing from nowhere to bomb and kill. Unconcerned for their own lives. Indoctrinated to comit terrible mass murder. Unbelievably, they can walk among their victims, oblivious to their humanity. This murderous ideology is an evil virus. Nurtured by deranged fanatics hell bent on a warped revenge. Their belief is hate. The antitesis of any true faith. No God would condone what they do. All know that. They are the true infidel. The enemy of our age.
How do we defeat them ? How do we stop their attacks ? How do we stamp out the virus of Islamic fundamentalism and Al-Qaeda terror ? How do we deal with the suicide bomber ? There is no country to invade or territory to bomb. No place to strike back. They are everywhere and nowhere. We have to realize this is a new enemy which will take years to understand and defeat. There will be further plots, more recruiters and planners. They must be defeated.
The answer is not to build new Guantanamo Bays or invade suspect countries. We have to treat murderous fundamentalism as an ideological virus. Kill it by focussing on the cultures that nurture it and the conditions that let it grow. Deny it sustenance and stamp it out wherever it appears. We must understand how it mutates, transforms and spreads. How it’s transmitted through the internet and how it evolves. Opposing it calls for a new, international response.
We must therefore reassure moderate Islam. They must understand we do not blame honest, hardworking Muslims for the actions of a deranged minority. To lash out at the wider Islamic community would be senseless. Like burning a local church in response to a fundamentalist Christian murdering an abortion doctor. Moderate Islam must know we do not blame them for the attacks.
We cannot forget Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian electrician gunned down by the London police. They surely believed he was a terrorist racing towards a packed train. He is a victim, like all the others. We mourn him, as we do them. It’s more painful knowing his innocence. A Londoner going about his work, like us all. I hate the fact he died. I hate the bombers for creating the conditions of his death. I cried on hearing his innocence. To him and all the victims I devote In Paradisum (Requiem) by Gabriel Fauré, sung by the choir of Westminster Cathedral.
Radicalism and extreme Islam are the enemy. We need new ways to fight and defeat it. It is a new, brutal and truly terrible phenomenon. The glorification of suicide bombers is a perverse crime. We need to devise new policing and intelligence methods, the nature of which we are just beginning to understand. We need to develop new skills in detective work, firearms, training, forensics and intelligence gathering. Today, there are more questions than answers.
The lingering fear is whether this is the terrible beginning of a campaign of attacks. The first of many bombings in London and across the country. The authorities have consistently said, ‘the threat remains and is very real’. Oh God, I hope not. How many attacks can we take ? When ? Where ? Who ?
Hooray ! Yes Yes Yes ! London has won Olympics 2012. It was close, but we did it !
I’m going through an experimenting with food phase. I love cooking, food and general gastronomic ambience.
So yeah... 