Why London, Why Now ?  

TomPaine has an article up on the London bombings and how they relate to middle east oil, global warming and third world poverty.

We must remember that fear is the primary objective of terrorist attacks. Violence is merely a means—and it works. In the best of circumstances, it is difficult for elected representatives to effectively address the fears of a terrorized constituency and produce effective policies. That's because when people are insecure, they want to see action, and counterterrorism requires an incremental strategy of covert intelligence and law enforcement work that targets active terrorist cells combined with political and economic development strategies that drain the swamp of support for the terrorist networks. It's slow, under-the-radar work.

It's also difficult because most people only understand traditional military operations that are designed to destroy or control a given objective. A terror attack in a democracy is much more complex: It uses fear to distort debate and decision making. Look at America: after 9/11, we went to war in Iraq without questioning the president. To make matters worse however, the Bush administration has tried to conflate the Cold War nuclear threat and the war on terror in order to create an existential fear that, so far, has resulted in a blank check from Congress.

For the moment, I am assuming this was the work of Al Qaeda. If that is the case, the timing of the attack is significant. The G8 Summit has, as its primary focus, two issues that could strike at the heart of Islamic extremism by draining the swamp: climate change and poverty.

Addressing climate change requires radically improving transportation fuel efficiency and transitioning off fossil fuels as a source of energy. To the extent that the United States and the rest of the world adopts sensible climate change policies, the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf diminishes and America has more room to promote real democratic and economic reform in the region. Al Qaeda's strategy, however, requires American dependence on Persian Gulf energy, to ensure that America continues to wage war to protect its energy supply.

To show just how dire our global energy situation is, Saudi Arabia announced today that OPEC will not be able to meet Western demand for oil by 2015, only 10 years out. Given the timing, this is Saudi Arabia effectively saying that the time has come to turn toward more efficient use of oil, which is also one of the main ways of dealing with climate change. Saudi Arabia just undercut the Bush administration's position in Gleneagles. That should have been a major blow to the United States, but it will now be swept away by the bombings.

Addressing poverty in the developing world, particularly in Africa, also hurts Al Qaeda's side. To the extent that America is seen as an imperial aggressor, planting strings of military bases to protect access to economic resources, the Al Qaeda propaganda is reinforced. Significant progress on global poverty, however, also "drains the swamp" of the recruits, resources, territory and cooperation that these groups need to operate.