From Deseret News archives:
Arm in arm with London
They can't set down the footprint for a skyscraper or shore up a subway tunnel.
They can't assemble a turnstile, install an elevator or sew a seat cushion.
They don't make anything. They only destroy.
They don't help anyone.
They don't alleviate hunger, cure disease, offer shelter or provide transportation.
They don't help. They only harm.
They have lumps of lead where their hearts should be and twisted wires where their minds belong. Inside they are an ugly mesh of impulses, fears, hatred, anger and cowardice.
And now they have attacked London.
The world is running out of words to describe the senselessness of terrorist bombings. Language fails.
In London the devastation and horror after the attacks are beyond description. Analysts say the attacks appear to be copycat acts by a fly-by-night terrorist group. But analysis offers little solace to the families, friends and fellow countrymen of the dead. The death toll is 37 and counting. As many as 700 may have been injured in the four, separate attacks.
The bombings immediately called to mind the subway explosions in Madrid on March 11, 2004. There, 191 lost their lives, and then Spain lost its nerve for the war effort in Iraq. The Spaniards decided the kitchen was getting too hot.
But such, we trust, will not be the case in Britain. True, debate about the war still rages there and Prime Minister Tony Blair was almost defeated because of opposition conflict. But the British do not take brutal attacks on their country well. The Lord Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in a moment reminiscent of Churchill, quickly set that sentiment down within moments of bombing, calling the perpetrators "mass murders" and their actions "indiscriminate slaughter."
"This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful," he said. "It is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners. We know what the objective is. They seek to divide London."
Unspoken in the comment one can also hear the words, "This will not stand."
The United States will not stand for such a slaughter. The nation will stand with England.
Spain got it wrong. There's no other alternative. At this point, soldiering on is the only option.
