Today, London was attacked. Latest reports say 6 explosions in 4 different locations. The final figures for loss of life are yet to be know, but are esitmated at 40 dead and near 1,000 injured.
I want to take a moment and comment on something I saw on another forum. Someone called this attack "7-7" in reference to our own 09/11/01 attacks at the World Trade Center. For some reason this really pissed me off, and I wasn't sure I knew why. I almost responded out on anger on that other forum, but then remembered, "Hey, I have my own Blog!"
The loss of life and property of "9-11" (I hate this term) is several magnitudes greater than what has happened in London today. Don't get me wrong, I feel for anyone that lost family and friends in today's attacks. But our 9-11 was vastly different to their 7-7. I don't claim to be any sort of terrorism expert or history buff. But I do know that London has been been shrouded in terror and fear in the past: WWII and IRA attacks. These things should have prepared the mindsets of those that live there for the type of destruction that happened today.
As Americans, we were pretty smug in our false sense of security, thinking no nation could touch us on Our Soil. And we were right to an extent. It wasn't a nation that reached out and touched us, it was an ideology. The attack on the World Trade Centers ripped the veil of security from our faces, and made us see our surroundings through the eyes of the rest of the world. We were taken down a notch, given a reality check. It was probably something we needed, but did not deserve. I'm going off track... to compare "7-7" with "9-11" is just plain worng in my mind. It dilutes everything that happened in New York, and what America is trying to achieve in other parts of the world.
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Just an update on this event:
Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King's Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district, Russell Square in central London, near the British Museum, Aldgate Station and Leicester Square, which is the equivalent of New York City's Times Square. A police official also told reporters there was an incident on a bus in Tavistock Place.
The first explosion on a tube train in a tunnel on the east side of London's financial district occurred at 8:49 a.m. local time. The second blast went off on a train sitting in the Edgware Road station at 9:33 a.m. The third occurred at 9:40 a.m. on a tube train between Russell Square and Kings Cross stations. The fourth blast happened at 9:50 a.m. on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square near Russell Square in central London.
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