Shlonkom Bakazay?

New York and Washington. Bali, Riyadh, Istanbul, Madrid. And now London.

When will it end? Where will it all lead?

The experts aren’t encouraged. One prominent terrorism researcher sees the prospect of “endless” war. Adds the man who tracked Osama bin Laden for the CIA, “I don’t think it’s even started yet.”

An Associated Press survey of longtime students of international terrorism finds them ever more convinced, in the aftermath of London’s bloody Thursday, that the world has entered a long siege in a new kind of war. They believe that al-Qaida is mutating into a global insurgency, a possible prototype for other 21st-century movements, technologically astute, almost leaderless. And the way out is far from clear.

In fact, says Michael Scheuer, the ex-CIA analyst, rather than move toward solutions, the United States took a big step backward by invading Iraq.

Now, this is true...

Now, he said, “we’re at the point where jihad is self-sustaining,” where Islamic “holy warriors” in Iraq fight America with or without allegiance to al-Qaida’s bin Laden.

The cold statistics of a RAND Corp database show the impact of the explosion of violence in Iraq: The 5,362 deaths from terrorism worldwide between March 2004 and March 2005 were almost double the total for the same 12-month period before the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Thursday’s attacks on London’s transit system mirrored last year’s bombings of Madrid commuter trains, and both point to an al-Qaida evolving into a movement whose isolated leaders offer video or Internet inspiration — but little more — to local “jihadists” who carry out the strikes.

...and here's the evidence from the communique following the London attacks:

Community of Islam: rejoice at the good news! Community of Arabism: rejoice at the good news! The time of revenge has come for the crusader, Zionist British government.

Billmon connects the dots as usual.

The original Arabic word for "Community of Arabism" is 'urubah – a term which has extremely negative connotations in the "Salafist" ideology that underpins Al Qaeda's world view. (I put the term in quotes because the concept of salafiyya, or respect for the "pious ancestors" of Islam, has other, far more benign, interpretations than those of the jihadis.)

Arabism is usually associated with the secular nationalism of Nasser, the PLO and – in extreme fascistic form – the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. While some Islamic thinkers, such as the late Palestinian scholar Isma’il al-Faruqi, have tried to reconcile Arabism and Islamism, militant Salafists have regarded the two as mutually hostile, at least up until now.

Suffice to say, the Cheney administration helped make the split between the two disappear. Meaning, they helped make the world less safe. And you could almost make the point that they did this deliberately, as to justify racism and violence against all Arabs and Muslims no matter what their aims were. It's the very sick irony and utter folly about falsely linking Saddam with Al Qaeda as far as I see it. In destroying Iraq and making it into a recruiting ground for terrorists, it has become exactly what proponents of the war should have hoped to avoid creating: Summer camp for terrorists heading to the global insurgency. Of course, there should have been some forethought about what reaction such a foolish and illegal war would unleash upon the world. Like Scheuer, I believe the richer nations of the world will most certainly need to address the underlying causes of terrorism through alterations of their foreign policies if there is to be any hope in all of this death and darkness the future holds.

So, to the Cheney administration and all other people out there who still having delusions of grandeur: Please stop blowing sunshine out your asses and start paying attention to what is actually occuring.

Bob Herbert is not amused either.