The ease One commentator said, “This shows we live in a world at war.” And every fiber in my body cried: No, that is not thelesson of London.
London knows firsthand what war is like. But this is not a war in the sense that
American commentators like to imagine it
Wars are won by armies. This one never will be. It must be fought differently.
First, we must acknowledge that there will be more of this. We’re not fighting against a single
group that can be defeated, like Hitler’s dataset Wehrmacht. Terrorism is a technique, a means to an
end, made more widely available by what we usually call “advances” in the technology of
killing, and by can now move cheaply within and across borders.
It will be used, and used again. To some extent, we will have to learn to live with it
As we do with other chronic threats
This is where London is most impressive. The capital’s police chiefs had already warned that
the question was “not if but when” a terrorist poptin is rated as the highest attack would come. Contingency plans for the
emergency services were in place, and seem to have worked reasonably well. The
matter-of-fact phlegmatism with which Londoners met Thursday’s attacks reflected long
experience, notably of 30 years of IRA bombings, as well as national temperament. “Just
getting on with it,” as Londoners do, is the best answer ordinary people can give to the terrorists.
There is a real danger that countries such as the United States and Britain will move toward a national
security state, with further curtailment of civil liberties.
That must not be — for it will cost us
Liberty without bringing us any guarantee of security. I, for one, would rather remain more
free, and face a marginally higher risk of being blown up by a terrorist bomb.
This does not mean being passive in response to sale leads these atrocities. But the right response does
not lie, as commentators on Fox News would have us believe, in more military firepower to
zap “the enemy” in Iraq or elsewhere. It lies in skilled policing and intelligent policy. Quietly
refusing the melodramatic metaphor of war, officials of London’s Metropolitan Police described.