They had obviously been planning this for a long time. The British government had just set out their plan to reduce the number of troops in Iraq.

Coordinated bombings in London, England

The terrorists want all foreign troops out of Iraq so they can take it for themselves. Pushing Britain in this way will backfire on their stated goal. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of troops increases now.

It will be interesting to see if there is any action on the part of the recalcitrant French and German governments.

Two Americans Injured In London Bombing

UPDATE On Injured Knoxville Girls

I don't think bubba's comment is a cheap political partisan shot at all. He made a valid criticism of the dept. charged with keeping the homeland secure (man, that word 'homeland' gives me the willies)

Bubba's comment didn't come across to me as a cheap political point. He was pointing out how long it took Homeland Security to respond -- six hours.

Well, that's the way I read it. Perhaps if over the last 3 years Bubba hadn't criticized HomeSec as a proxy for criticizing Bush, I wouldn't have read it that way.

But I guarantee you if HomeSec had raised the threat level minutes after the first London blast, the Left and folks like Bubba would be accusing the Bush administration of cynically using the London tragedy to divert attention at home from some alleged Bush failure by raising the threat level despite the lack of specific and credible threat info.

When it comes to the HomeSec threat level, the Left criticies the Bush administration no matter what.

Worse than Bubba's post was the comments from some of his commenters blaming Bush for the London blasts.

I concur some of the comments were bad. However, we should all be wondering why the threat level wasn't raised prior to the bombings. It is a valid criticism.

I don't know what you mean by "turn tail" but the UK announced yesterday they are planning to pull a significant number of troops from Afghanistan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1522222,00.html

It is interesting that, in an election season, the threat level seems to be raised regularly (coincidentally helping the president politically), but when a real attack occurs, it takes several hours for the threat level to be raised.

The bodies aren't even cold yet, and South Knox Bubba is trying to score a cheap political point.

Sounds like YOU are the one taking a "cheap political shot" Bill. Does the word hypocrite mean anything to you? You are so full of yourself Bill...get off of your high horse.

(Im sure you will delete this post as it dares to criticize you)

...in which Bill Hobbs criticizes "the Left" for something they haven't even done, but which he personally guarantees they *would have* done.

If "the Left" is so despicable and easily taken apart, why not stick to criticizing things that have actually taken place or have actually been said by real people?

Hobbs, why isn't this question valid: What are the root causes and aims of Islamic terrorism? Why doesn't the Bush administration ask that question? Why do they rely on thoroughly debunked cultural analyses such as those trotted out by David Pryce-Jones? You want to know why? Because if they ask it, they'll get an answer they won't like at all. It has everything to do with the contradictions and ironies of global capitalism. Yikes. I said IT.

As for calling SKB out, you are either trying to drive traffic to your for-profit lame site or just trying to spin the very valid point that SKB makes: What good is a terror alert system if it is a post hoc mechanism? Answer that one.

Brittney: Spain withdrew from the War on Terror after al Qaeda bombed the Madrid trains. Worse than that, the Spanish people were so spineless that they elected an appeasement government after the bombings.

Justin: Your post is still there. I guess you were wrong.

Kevin: The Left has often criticized changes in the "threat level" warning, up or down, and for transparently political motives. All last year, the administration was accused of playing politics with the threat level rather than issuing warnings based on good intel. Now, they are being slammed for taking a few hours to review the intel and the situation before raising the threat level.

Metulj: You call it "post-hoc," but the U.S. threat level warning system is about threats to the U.S., not to Britain, and raising it was not "post hoc".

In fact, they raised it despite there being no specific and credible intel suggesting a similar attack planned for the U.S. That they waited a few hours didn't bother me - I'm fairly certain that security authorities on all U.S. transit systems were responding to the London bombings with heightened efforts here even in the absense of an official increase in the threat level.

As for the "root causes" of terrorism, the primary root cause is the lack of freedom - more specifically in the case of Islamic terrorism, it is tyranny and Islamofascist brainwashing forced upon the populace, especially the kids, by the jihadist mullahs, sheiks and dictators. Replace tyranny with freedom and democracy and Islamofascist brainwashing with education that teaches respect, tolerance and similar values, and Islamic terrorism will largely cease.

But it will take a generation or two.

If you don't believe me that the lack of freedom is the biggest "root cause" of terrorism, you'll have to argue with Harvard researcher and professor Alberto Abadie, who did the research and found there is no data to support a link between poverty and terrorism, but plenty of data showing a link between tyranny and terror. Harvard Gazette reports:

Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences.

"In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism, as previous studies have shown, but perhaps more surprisingly also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin," Abadie said.

Instead, Abadie detected a peculiar relationship between the levels of political freedom a nation affords and the severity of terrorism. Though terrorism declined among nations with high levels of political freedom, it was the intermediate nations that seemed most vulnerable.

Like those with much political freedom, nations at the other extreme - with tightly controlled autocratic governments - also experienced low levels of terrorism.

Though his study didn't explore the reasons behind the trends he researched, Abadie said it could be that autocratic nations' tight control and repressive practices keep terrorist activities in check, while nations making the transition to more open, democratic governments - such as currently taking place in Iraq and Russia - may be politically unstable, which makes them more vulnerable.

"When you go from an autocratic regime and make the transition to democracy, you may expect a temporary increase in terrorism," Abadie said.

So, America can do one of two things to reduce the threat of international ISlamic terrorism. It can support highly repressive, highly autocratic regimes in the Islamic world, or it can push for a free and democratic Islamic world.

Oddly, the Left, which once opposed America's backing of dictators, now opposes America removing dictators and replacing them with democracy.

Oh, Metulj, as for your suggestion that I'm trying to increase my traffic via linking to Bubba's site, uh, my site already gets more traffic than Bubba's on a fairly consistent basis, so that would be a rather stupid strategy. And my site is not profitable. The revenue from ads barely covers the cost of hosting and the value of my time that I put into it. But even if it does make money, why is that such a problem for you? What does the Left have against making money?

Is this Great Britain?

Maybe the threat level in these United States didn't need to be raised immediately--or at all.

And Metulj--we've heard it all before. Lefties would absolutely side with anyone who agreed with your Marxist view of the world being divided between the oppressed and the oppressors.

The aims of the Islamic terrorist is to impose Islamic law on the entire world as is necessary to achieve his idea of redemption. These radicals could care less about distinguishing between your disdain for America and my love for it---we're both the same--infidels in the eyes of Muslim extremists. In the meantime, you're just the propoganda horse he's riding to up the media attention.

The real sadness here is that you would not only sympathize, but seemingly align yourself with such terrorists who strap bombs to 11 year old boys---all for the cause of promoting your workers of the world unite socialist propoganda.

Bill, I don't think there's any evidence that Al Q bombed Madrid. Spain's leaders think it was the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group or maybe ETA. There's no hard evidence linking those two either, though.

Al Qaeda, or an offshoot/affiliate/subsidiary of al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings. It hardly matters if it was official al Qaeda or Islamic terrorists inspired by and supportive of al Qaeda, does it?

A little levity: "I'd forgotten that I had another cousin now loving in London..."

At least the trip won't be a total disaster.

I fixed that.

Bill- you said "So, America can do one of two things to reduce the threat of international ISlamic terrorism. It can support highly repressive, highly autocratic regimes in the Islamic world, or it can push for a free and democratic Islamic world."

How do you feel about the US relationship with the Saudi government? Do you think that our current alliance is appropriate, given that they are a repressive Islamic monarchy and the home of the terrorists who performed the acts on 9/11/01?