In the Guardian, Polly Toynbee argues that the Olympics should be London’s memorial to the attack — and, stiff upper and all that, I can see Brits taking on the games with just such determination.
She also joins in the game of equivalencies that tries to make terrorism equal something. For Galloway, it equals retribution for Iraq. For her:
How barbaric, Tony Blair rightly said, that the terrorists should strike just as the G8 at least strives to do better on Africa and climate change. Yes indeed. But then barbarism is in the eye of the beholder and every act of war is justified in the warped minds of its perpetrators. Barbaric might also be 30,000 children a day dying in Africa while a mere 25,000 US cotton farmers keep their trade-denying subsidies. Or Bangladesh soon to be washed away in global-warming floods. Or arms sold to those who will force them upon child soldiers, or any number of worldwide atrocities.
Dangerous game, that. Cotton farmers… soldiers hunting down terrorists… and terrorist themselves won’t appear in the same sane dictionary under “barbaric.”
