The British press has spent the last five days concentrating its coverage of the London bombings of July 7 on the human cost and the immediate political fall-out, with the underlying commentary themes of Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq and the suitability of counter-terrorism measures.
From a more distant perspective, the American press has taken an early opportunity to do something it felt incapable of on September 12 2001, and apply analytical distance to the events.
For a Londoner reading major articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and The New York Times this weekend, it was difficult to recognise the city being described. In Friday’s Wall Street Journal Europe the paper’s reports of events opened thus:
"For years, London has stood as an extreme example of Europe’s problem of fighting Islamic terrorism. The British capital was home to so many extremist Islamic groups and its bookstore so chock full of Islamist tracts that law enforcement officers across the Continent referred to it derisively as Londonistan".
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