I had this thing I was mess­ing with, try­ing to learn how to fit a time series on the fatal­i­ties from Iraq, when I heard about the bomb­ings in London. 

It’s absolute­ly hor­ri­ble. Crooked Tim­ber has an open thread for peo­ple from Lon­don to leave mes­sages for their non-Lon­don friends, so you may want to stop in there.
I’m sure the UK’s Red Cross will know what to do with any mon­ey you can spare. A Fist­ful of Euros is where I’m look­ing for updates.
Luck­i­ly, ear­ly reports on the death toll are pret­ty low. Any deaths are awful, but this could have been much worse. That’s cold com­fort to those affect­ed, but it’s all the com­fort that can be extracted. 

I vis­it­ed Eng­land with my par­ents in 1992. We spent a cou­ple weeks, most­ly in Lon­don, see­ing the sights, enjoy­ing the “Mind the Gap” warn­ings in the Tube, tour­ing the muse­ums, and try­ing to deci­pher the indige­nous culi­nary style.

Those were the days before the Good Fri­day accords, and signs of ter­ror­ism were every­where. Not in dam­aged bus­es or rush­ing ambu­lances, but in a per­sis­tent state of caution. 

When we arrived at Gatwick, we got our lug­gage and head­ed to the train into the city. As we were sit­ting there, anoth­er pas­sen­ger asked whose bag was sit­ting above our heads. No one claimed it, and every­one got a lit­tle ner­vous. A porter came, looked at the bag, and scratched his chin. Then, as we all stared fear­ful­ly, he grabbed it and walked briskly off the train. With­in min­utes of our stay in Britain, we were indoc­tri­nat­ed into life in a ter­ror­ized nation.

All over the town, signs warned you to beware of aban­doned pack­ages. Garbage cans in the Tube were sealed “for your pro­tec­tion.” It did­n’t affect you every moment, but the “con­stant vig­i­lance” you’ll hear about from our lead­ers was very taxing.

Our mis­ad­ven­ture in Iraq has allowed Osama bin Laden to escape and rebuild his com­mand struc­ture. His lieu­tenants are using Iraq as a train­ing ground, more effec­tive by the CIA’s account­ing than Afghanistan ever was.

These bomb­ings can only be read as OBL throw­ing Bush and Blair’s fail­ure back in their faces. That this is how he pranks his ene­mies tells you some­thing about his depravity.

The scari­est thing for me as an Amer­i­can (and an erst­while New York­er) is that this can and will hap­pen in New York, Boston, Wash­ing­ton, Atlanta, etc. I doubt that Lawrence, or even Tope­ka, Wichi­ta, or Kansas City, need to wor­ry too much. 

That’s what struck me so pow­er­ful­ly about The Inter­preter. There’s a scene where assas­sins blow up a New York City bus, and I could­n’t stop myself from won­der­ing why that had nev­er hap­pened before. It will, mark my words. 

I fear for what will become of this coun­try then.