Geoff Arnold's Blog

Americans have been falling over themselves to spin the London bombings into arguments for Bush’s policies; to couple 9/11 with 7/7 and present America and Britain as joined at the hip. Here’s Bush: “Just as America and Great Britain stood together to defeat the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, we now stand together against the murderous ideologies of the 21st century.” But apparently “standing together” is for politicians, not the military. Yahoo! reports:

All 12,000 members of the U.S. Air Force stationed in Britain have been banned from visiting London because of last week’s bombings…. A U.S. spokeswoman was quoted as saying that military staff were not allowed to go anywhere inside the M25 orbital motorway belt surrounding the capital until further notice, “because the security of our people is our top concern.”

“Family members who are U.S. civilians and are not subject to orders are also being encouraged to stay away from London,” the spokeswoman, Cindy Dorfner, was quoted as saying.

The response of the British media was appropriately caustic. The Daily Mail said it best: “It was business as usual in brave and resilient London yesterday — though not if you were a member of the world’s most powerful military machine.”

I wonder how New Yorkers would have reacted if, after 9/11, the U.S. Air Force had banned all visits to the Big Apple because it was too dangerous. They have a legendary capacity for invective; I imagine that “chickenhawk” would have been the least of the epithets…

UPDATE: According to the Guardian, the ban has now been lifted – but not before it had disrupted U.S. participation in various ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War 2.

Some of the most incredulous comments came from Thomas Conlon, the UK director of American Citizens Abroad:

“These same people who are being restricted from London are being flown into Baghdad,” he said. “If they’re going into Baghdad, I can’t imagine why they aren’t allowed to go into London.”

He said he estimated that around 80% of Britain’s 250,000 expat Americans lived in London. “I’m surprised at the military that they would do this,” he added. “If you go to the city, the American expats are all back at work now.”

Indeed. But they’re doing really important stuff, like making money. Any comments from the Pentagon about this stupid decision?

I like astute observers like James Wolcott who have the knack of capturing an idea that has been hovering on the edge of my consciousness and hauling it out into the spotlight. Case in point, apropos of the US coverage on London in the aftermath of Thursday’s terrorist attack:

“The curious thing is that so many of the rightward bloggers and Fox Newswers who are hailing the Brits for their quiet stoicism and pluck don’t seem to realize they’re issuing an implicit rebuke to themselves and their fellow Americans. They’re saying, in effect, ‘You’ve got to admire the Brits for showing calm and quiet perserverence after these explosions–they don’t get all hysterical, overdramatic, and overreactive the way we Americans do.’ They don’t seem to realize the example shown by Londoners might be a lesson to them, a model they might follow instead of playing laptop Pattons at full volume every time they feel a rousing post coming on.”

My reactions on hearing about today’s bombings in London:

• “Oh, no – not again.”

• An almost visceral sensation of being transported back to 1976, to Platform 3 at Baker Street Station, waiting for a Metropolitan Line train, seeing a momentarily unattended bag, and being convinced that it was another IRA bomb. (It wasn’t. But to this day I scan for unattended packages or bags in trains, buses, and public spaces, as a matter of deep habit.)

• Are my colleagues at SunUK all right? (So far the answer seems to be yes.)

• Thinking how stupid Bush’s “We’ll fight them in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them at home” sounds now.

• A deep satisfaction that the cricket match between England and Australia went on without a hiccup. And England won by nine wickets: Australia 219-7, England 220-1 in 46 overs.

• A strong impulse to jump on a plane to Heathrow. (I guess that removes any doubt about where I think of as home.)

• Hollow laughter at hearing a survivor explain that “nobody in my carriage panicked when we heard the explosion and saw the smoke, because we assumed that it was just another technical malfunction.”

• Reading Tim Bray’s piece (linked from Chris’s), and remembering a group counselling session after 9/11 when I was shouted down for saying that I thought we needed to understand why people do these things better than we do. We still need to.

• Trying to imagine what it would be like to pack your briefcase (removing any unnecessary weight), get an extra bottle of water from the vending machine, and prepare to leave work in the City and walk five, eight, or ten miles home. And just doing it, without any fuss.

Here in Massachusetts the debate about gay marriage is proceeding in a remarkably restrained, civil, and thoughtful manner, in spite of the posturing of Mitt Romney. (He has no credibility, in part because everyone knows he’s just pandering to the various groups that he needs to make a run for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008.) But as Gene Stone writes at The Huffington Post, that doesn’t stop people from trying to stir the pot: “the right-wing British newsweekly, The Economist, is running a piece this week called ‘The Slippery Slope to Bestiality.’ (Now there’s a headline designed to placate all sides…)” Stone is right; it’s a pretty disgusting piece. I’ve subscribed to the Economist for most of the last 30 years, and I can remember when they were a respectable, fairly non-partisan journal of economic record. They used to be the scourge of dissembling politicians of all stripes, and no-one would have described them as “right-wing”. But as I noted early last year, those days are gone: the Economist may still have the best writers, but it has lost its soul.

As Stone suggested, I just sent a letter to the editor of the Economist. (If you’re a subscriber, I urge you to do the same.) Since I have no confidence that they’ll publish it, I reproduce it here:

Subject: Romney, bestiality, and bartenders.
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 12:22:50 -0400
To: letters@economist.com

Your story on Mitt Romney’s exploitation of the gay marriage issue was shameful. From the extravagant title to the closing sentence, you seemed determined to use extreme viewpoints to leave the impression that Romney is a moderate on this issue. By quoting those who “claim that it could open the door to legalised unions with horses” and Bob Pitko’s paean to rampant promiscuity, you ignore the majority of Massachusetts’ residents who are wrestling with this question. Why would you seek to trivialise their thoughtful debate?

Your correspondent missed the point that on this subject Romney is widely seen as irrelevant, because of his blatant pandering in advance of his run for the Republican nomination. Remember that Massachusetts is fundamentally a Democrat state; we elect Republican governors simply to keep the legislature in check, not because we like them.

This was well below the standard I’ve come to expect of the Economist over the 30 years I’ve been reading it.

Geoff Arnold
[address deleted]
[expat Brit, resident in the USA since 1981]

By “interesting” I don’t mean “reasonable”, “rational”, “fair”, “representative”, “democratic”, or (heaven forbid) “intellectually rigorous”. No, I mean, where do political rubber-neckers go to gawk, as they might at a train wreck or a runaway moose? Time and again it seems to come back to one place: Texas. Check out Seriously Kinky from the Dallas Observer: “This Texas Jewboy wants to be the next governor of Texas, and if you think he’s kidding, the joke may be on you.” You couldn’t make this stuff up. Screaming Lord Sutch, move over. (OK, he’s dead, I know.)

(Via GeneBob.)