UK - The London bombings: one year on

"We haven't absorbed the lessons".

"Finally, there is widespread confusion as to what the attacks are really about. While opponents of US/UK military intervention took the bombing to be a reaction to the Coalition invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, defenders of multiculturalism saw alienated and dispirited youths reacting to the condescending cultural isolation in which they felt imprisoned in Britain. Both these reactions capture something of the reality of the context for the terrorists, but they miss completely the meaning and moment of the terrorist struggle. The attacks were, very simply, about democracy. They were an attempt to impose an answer on this question: will democratically elected governments be able to pursue their policies on the basis of the judgment of their institutions or can their leaders be tempted into ransoming their population when the public is hostage to violence? As al-Zawahiri and al-Zarkawi have openly testified, it is democracy that renders civilians legitimate targets; it is democracy that rejects the demands of a messianic minority; it is democracy that is at stake."

Somehow, the Islamist apologizers on the left just don't get it.
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