Posted 2:50 PM by Paul
Terror in London

“and as the low aggress the high
all we can do is sit and cry"*

Lets All Make a Bomb Heaven 17. 1982

The first bombs went off on 7 July (the day after George Bush’s birthday and the Feast of San Fermin) as I was in a cab on my way to SkillCity, a training and education exhibition I helped organise in London's Docklands. At first the BBC spoke about "power surges" but very quickly it was clear that London was going through something like what Madrid had suffered 18 months earlier.

Watching on TV that evening in the hotel we learnt that 58 people had died as four suicide bombers carrying explosives in their ruc sacs had staged a co-ordinated attack on London, placing a burning cross of destruction across the capital. The CCTV photos released the next day showed them meeting up at Luton station. I have been there many times. It is possibly the most boring place on Earth. The three young Asians and one young black man looked relaxed. They were on their way to paradise.

Tears and recriminations followed. The politicians wheeled out the platitudes. "Condemn this evil act...they are trying to destroy our British Way of life." Bush looked bewildered, something he does brilliantly. Blair did a good job as a latter day Churchill.

We all responded by giving up the TV after two hours of depression in the hotel bar and then going out to a Chinese restaurant and getting drunk. The place was packed with people exhibiting at SkillCity, all in various stages of inebriation. The bombers handlers would have seen this as proof of the Decadence of the West. We would view it differently. There was a bit of the Blitz spirit in the air. “We’ll show the blighters! Waiter.. another bottle of Burgundy!”

I had spoken to Heather several times that day to let her know I was OK. She summed it up neatly by expressing a strange sense of relief. It was something that was hanging over us since 2001 and now it had finally happened.

Then Alice called.

"Those stupid fundamentalists spoiling everything. And on the day after we won the Olympics!"

She was indignant. If she could have found them she would have got right in the face of the bombers supporters and had it out with them girl to man. Emily was a little frightened but Alice assured her that nobody would bomb anywhere as boring as Peckham. This was something that turned out to be wrong when two weeks later the Al Quaida terror network tried to blow up a bus in Hackney. But Alice was scared for me and we exchanged several texts over the evening. She wanted me to come home but I couldn’t. There were no trains, no taxis and I was getting drunk along with abut 100 other people in Docklands.

The next day the Prime Minister then mounted a pre-emptive attack on anyone claiming that the bombings were in any way linked to the Iraq War. With his usual legal brilliance and Oxford rhetoric he pointed out that we had been a target for years and that September 11thh happened before the invasion of Iraq. This is true. There is clearly no direct cause and effect link between the bombings on London and the Iraq War.

But this is not the point

Millions of people across the western World believe that Al Qaeda staged the September 11th attacks exactly to force Bush into invading Iraq and see who else followed. The new Saladin needed the Crusaders to come and invade Arab lands. Somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan Osama Bin Laden is ticking off “Objectives Achieved” like a CEO implementing a change management strategy.

No - the Iraq War did not cause the bombings but it created the perfect environment in which terror could flourish. The sense of grievance on which the terrorist sympathisers feed. This is no longer a controversial view. A number of Conservative think tanks and military analysts have said as much over the last few days.

The power vacuum caused by "Shock and Awe” let the Muslim extremists into a part of the world where they had been ruthlessly and successfully persecuted before. Car bombing were unknown in Iraq before we came into town.

A small but well organised group of ruthless terrorists was turned into a mass movement with its own legitimacy by the pictures from Guantanamo (something I initially supported after 9/11) and the organised sadism of Abu Graib. It is Bloody Sunday times 10,000.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of resources of the world’s only super power and its faithful deputy are now tied down fighting a guerrilla war. We are stuck in the mud like the French in Indo China. Resources that of course could have been spent fighting terrorism are wasted creating an environment in which terror flourishes.

It is as if FDR had responded to Pearl Harbour by attacking China.

Then the second wave of thankfully unsuccessful bombings came. I was on my way to Kings Cross on a bus when I heard the news. I got off quickly and went back to the office. It's what Lononders do best. Go to work. Nothing heroic about it. It is just ordinary life. It all felt unreal. Like being a minor character in a Len Deighton novel.

So we are where we are, as the Prime Minister might say. What’s the solution? Mine is to book a holiday and plan some trips with the kids. I have almost stopped buying newspapers and try not to watch too much much TV news. It’s just too depressing.