After our evening of Australian Film Commission promotional shorts, we had a leisurely dinner out at our favourite Lebanese restaurant and then hailed a cab for the trip home. Even before we had opened our mouths to request our destination, our driver told us the news. While my first thought was for my friend, S., he’s up near Birmingham, and out of the immediate range of the attacks. Through him, we have acquaintances, however, in London, and of course many of the people I work with and whom M. and I know travel or have family and friends there, so unlike some other parts of the world where violence is nearly more expected than not, we have cause for concern and care, and the immediacy of the danger is greater than it might otherwise be. And while it is not unexpected, it is still unanticipated. Britain has a long history with terrorism, and seems to be coping very well with the situation, but they and the rest of Europe have been expected targets since 2001. Surely participation in the Iraq war has raised Great Britain’s profile among the barbarians who have now acted so brutally, but only insofar as other, neighboring nations were perhaps less prominent for not joining Bush’s coalition. Preparedness and alert levels only take us so far, however; little could have been done to prevent these attacks. Even in a country where the culture of suspicion for the unattended parcel has long been ingrained it was possible for terrorist bombers to act. Expanded police powers, such as those under the USA Patriot Act, those granted to ASIO, and those not long ago debated in Britain’s Parliament, were of no value, as anyone whose mind was unclouded by fear or revenge fantasies could have told you. These attacks, as much as they represent the savage hatred of the perpetrators and their own irrational fears, also shows the failures of our present course, the lack of imagination at work at the highest levels of government. The war on terrorism cannot be conducted as tank battles and air raids; this isn’t World War II. While states may be opposed in such a fashion, ideologies are not similarly overthrown. We suffer and will suffer more for our continued failure to address the root causes, for treating the symptoms and not the disease.