The Day After

“Intelligence officials were braced for an offensive - but lowered threat levels” reads the headline to the story in today’s Guardian, the implication clearly being that something nefarious was afoot. And yet is this really the case? It seems to me that the fact that British intelligence officials knew that at some point London would face some sort of attack does not mean that the general threat level would not vary according to specific evidence that the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre (JTAC) had at hand. There may have been intelligence failings, but the threat level here for the last few weeks has still been listed as “substantial,” which, while down from “severe-general,” nonetheless implies that the possibility of attacks was still fairly significant. It is one thing to get to the bottom of this awful incident. But pointing fingers of blame without full details is untoward and will prove ineffective. (For my money, which is not worth much these days, the best coverage of the attacks has come from the Times of London.)

It seems more and more clear that the attack did come from that heretofore unknown al Qaeda sleeper cell, the Secret Organisation of the al-Qaida Jihad in Europe. In the statement in which it claimed responsibility, this loathsome and foul organization implied that Italy and the Netherlands might be next, and revealed once again the sort of evil, nasty figures with whom we are dealing:

Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen carried out a blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west. We warned the British government and the British people repeatedly. We have carried out our promise and carried out a military attack in Britain after great efforts by the heroic mujahideen over a long period to ensure its success. We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all crusader governments that they will receive the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beyond the tortured logic of it all – doesn’t al Qaeda recall that their declaration of war against the west, which culminated in the attacks on 9/11, antedated our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan? – this is a pretty good indication that we are far from winning this war on terror, or terrorism, or terrorists. It also ought to remind us that we need to continue to wage that war, stepping up operations as necessary.

I went out last night to get a feel for the British reaction. I was a bit taken aback by how little the attacks were even a topic of conversation. At the first pub I visited, there was a table of Brits sharing limericks in a devil-may-care fashion, an American couple whingeing about the details of their summer course here at the university (the woman was especially lamenting that they are not looking kindly on her desire to leave classes on a Thursday to jet to Italy to meet her parents. We all have different crosses to bear.) and a lot of people just talking about anything in the world but the attacks. I moved on and went to another pub a few minutes away. Same thing. There was a Canadian, an Irishman, and a Briton (there is a punchline in there somewhere, maybe something about potatoes) trying to preserve their space at the bar amidst a gaggle of American college students hoping to catch a few last pints in the waning moments before last call. They told me they had been talking about the attacks, but the conversation gravitated elsewhere. We went out and wandered to a club and then a kabob shop, and people simply were not obsessed, they were not morose, they did not seem at all bothered, even cognizant, of the awful events of the day.

I am not certain why. Part of it might be that they had spent the day dealing with it and wanted to get away from such thoughts and conversations. Part of it might have been that the crowds I saw and immersed myself into were not British, but rather an amalgamation of folks from various nationalities. Maybe in the wake of 9/11, and with a further experience in dealing with IRA terrorism for three decades prior to the relatively recent cease fire, people here are more inured to it all. Maybe Oxford, like many university towns, is something of a bubble that is hermetically sealed off from the real world. None of these seems especially satisfactory as an answer. Andrew Sullivan has been putting forth the stoic British character as a factor in the response, which is one of those stereotypes I referenced yesterday, but I am not certain how far that takes us either. And don’t get me wrong – I am not being critical with these observations. I do think there is something healthy about getting on with things and I do believe that the British authorities have handled this quite well. From what I can tell, London (and the nation) seems to be going about its business today, somber and sorrowful, but also determined and uncowed.