Posted on 11/21/2003 4:42:21 PM PST by Pokey78
Sometimes events hundreds of miles apart coincide to illuminate a bigger central truth. President George W. Bush was in London on the day when Islamic fanatics struck British targets in Istanbul. Their bombs were detonated as tens of thousands of people were gathering to march through London to flaunt their contempt for the American President and their opposition to the coalition's mission in Iraq.
Most of the marchers were decent people - even if we happen to think they are misguided - and it is good to see crowds assemble peacefully to enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted, and that al-Qa'eda's terrorists so despise.
However, the culmination of the rally in Trafalgar Square, where a statue of Mr Bush was ceremoniously pulled down and stamped upon, even as Britons and Turks still lay dead in the rubble of Istanbul, was ugly and puerile.
We fear that many of the London marchers will draw the wrong conclusions from the terrible loss of life on Thursday. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, rightly rushed to Turkey to show support for the shocked diplomatic corps, yet it did not take long for wrong-headed questions to be asked of him. Mr Straw bristled when asked on Radio 4's Today programme yesterday if the bombs should be seen as some sort of payback from Islamists for our involvement in the occupation of Iraq.
He was right to describe that argument as "utter and palpable nonsense", for it ignores the obvious fact that al-Qa'eda has been striking against Western targets since long before the Iraq invasion.
This week's events have not revealed the universality of the terrorist threat we now face, but they have underlined it. It may have been that Thursday's atrocities were timed to coincide with Mr Bush's presence in London, but it is absurd to suggest that they were caused by our close alliance with Washington.
Perhaps through good policing or simple good fortune, we have thus far been spared our own September 11 on British soil. But there was never any reason why we should long be immune to the global threat when al-Qa'eda and its surrogates have already displayed their deadly intent against New Yorkers, Africans and Americans in Tanzania and Nairobi in 1998, Australians in Bali, Israelis in Mombasa, as well as Arab workers and Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
That is why it was so timely that Mr Bush was in London this week. He gave a thoughtful, well-pitched speech at Banqueting House on Wednesday, and he offered elegant comfort to the families of Servicemen lost in Iraq.
If the public did not see enough of him on the capital's streets, that was because of legitimate security concerns and an understandable desire not to encourage confrontation with protest groups. But overall, the state visit can be classed a success, certainly against the very modest expectations many had for it.
What the visit lacked in arresting visual imagery, it made up for in the symbolism of the American President being in London at the moment when Britain was confronted unmistakably with the challenge we now face.
No one is immune to this global virus of nihilistic fanaticism - not Arab or African states, and certainly not those European countries that currently appear to believe that standing aloof from confrontation with terrorist states guarantees them safety.
The whole world has been unwillingly sucked into this fight against terrorism, even if some governments have been slow to realise it. Confronting this challenge alone would be intolerable, which is why it was so important that Mr Bush was in London this week, reinforcing our enduring ties with America and its people.
What an ugly and horrible question. That is like asking a rape victim what she did to lure the rapist to her.
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