Hotel Bombings
Details on the bombings in Amman, Jordan, are as yet still sketchy, but they seem to be on the scale of 7/7, for example, or any number of daily occurrences in Iraq.
The war on terror does have another dimension, however, as illustrated by the opening paragraphs of this BBC report:
Chinese police have warned that Islamic militants could be planning an attack on luxury hotels in Beijing in the coming week, the US embassy has said.
The authorities pledged to investigate the threat and take appropriate action, the embassy said in a statement.
The warning comes 10 days before US President George Bush visits Beijing.
China is often accused of exaggerating the threat of Islamic militancy to justify its crackdown on groups such as its Uighur minority.
It would appear that the 'War on Terror' can be manipulated in a number of ways, depending on one's point of view. Terrorism is certainly unpredictable, as tonight's attacks demonstrate, and the targets as often as not are Westerners.
But the other side of the story takes us to that old cliché: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". It's the same situation in Russia, with Putin's crackdown on Chechen activities (these, it must be acknowledged, are far more visible and brutal than those of the Uyghurs). At the end of the day, however, the very people the West encourages to seek 'freedom' are often the very same as those it condemns.
