Main focus of Friday, August 11, 2006

The fear of terrorism surges up in Europe

A year after the terrorist attacks on London's public transport system the British police has apparently been able to prevent another devastating attack. According to the police, a group of British Muslims planned to blow up several passenger jets simultaneously within the next few days. This has reignited the discussion about how to deal with home-grown terrorism.

The Independent - United Kingdom

It is a strange sensation, living through a day in which the big story is something that didn't happen," writes columnist Joan Smith. "Most of us still enjoy the luxury of going about our business without the likelihood of being killed or injured by a bomb. London isn't Baghdad or Beirut, nor are we likely to see death and destruction on anything like the scale being experienced in those two cities ... This is an unpleasant fact, whose causes we can and should debate, but it's not a reason for panic. There was no terrorist attack on the UK yesterday, a situation most Iraqis would be immensely grateful to find themselves in. And with such ghastly news from the Middle East each day, isn't it a bit distasteful to get so worked up about a sequence of events which resulted in nothing worse than disruption at British airports?" (11/08/2006)

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Népszabadság - Hungary

Endre Aczel explores the terrorists' likely motives: "Either they have suffered too much as members of a minority or they were under the influence of mosques that preach against progressive views and against European and Christian culture. For these would-be mass murderers, the country in which they were born was not their homeland. But they hold this country – and white America – responsible for the situation in the homelands of their parents and grandparents; for backwardness, poverty and wars." (11/08/2006)

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Le Temps - Switzerland

According to Stéphane Bussard, "this murderous plot that nothing can justify can be seen as sanctioning both a foreign policy and public speeches. The speeches were delivered by the British prime minister and the US president, who spoke of an 'arc of extremism' and 'axis of evil', thereby giving substance to the much feared concept of a clash of civilisations. The plot is also a rebuke for Blair's self-styled, declamatory policy that owes more to his ethno-religious vision than to national interests. Downing Street's focus on the 'special relationship' with Bush has overshadowed domestic problems. The Great Britain of Tony Blair seems to think that passing anti-terrorist legislation is enough to protect itself. Yet that is treating consequences, not the cause." (11/08/2006)

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All available articles from » Stéphane Bussard

The Times - United Kingdom

Gerard Baker rejects the idea that the United Kingdom's is answering for the errors of its foreign policy. "I will grant you that the Iraq war has been characterised, in conception and execution, by blunder after blunder. And it is certainly possible that, in their failures there, the US and Britain have made the world more unstable, not less. But we should not, in our frustration, confuse the real enemies here. We should not mistake the unlooked-for dangers caused by blunders and arrogance in Washington for the targeted threats posed by nihilism and hatred in much of the Middle East, and in some of our own cities. Yesterday provided us with yet another glimpse of the awful reality of our long war and associated miseries. We must be very careful not to ascribe their creation to our own errors." (11/08/2006)

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Svenska Dagbladet - Sweden

Following the events in London yesterday the newspaper calls for the constitutional state to be given increased powers to prevent terrorist attacks. It notes that the arrests were the culmination of months of police surveillance, but also stresses the need to preserve an open society. "Terrorism is not about class, but about ideology. Militant Islamism is a doctrine which contains the same elements of violence and glorification of death as National Socialism and communism. Once we understand this, we also understand that the police cannot win the battle against this ideology on their own. We must defend open society and drum up more support for its values, because freedom is stronger than its enemies like to believe." (11/08/2006)

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Delo - Slovenia

Chaos and anxiety have taken hold at international airports, but also pervade other areas of everyday life, Mitja Mersol comments. "All this is nothing new, because history repeats itself. Take, for example, the British and Irish, who have lived with the threat of terrorism (IRA) for years. But what's really missing now is an answer to the question of where exactly we went wrong in this battle against terrorism, which has reached the point where we're sent onto planes practically naked. All this still hasn't opened our eyes." (11/08/2006)

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La Repubblica - Italy

For leader writer Paolo Garimberti "al-Qaeda is a sort of historical benchmark for terrorists, a do-it-yourself manual for terrorists acting alone or in groups, with no need for orders from above. The terrorists arrested yesterday [Thursday, August 10th] drew on the historic memory of Al Qaida for inspiration. But they can no longer be fought with the same weapons as those used by [US president George] Bush. As the United Kingdom showed yesterday, it is possible only to attempt to prevent the terrorism that grows in our cities and daily lives." (11/08/2006)

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