Saturday

This news is one day old, but I thought it was appropriate here, so I'm putting it in. Yesterday, at six am Greek local time, militant factions attacked the second-floor bathroom of the US Embassy in Athens by firing a (possibly Soviet-made) rocket-propelled grenade through the front window.* Possibly they were aiming for the large blue and white eagle seal hanging near the bathroom window on the outside of the building. No one was injured; even the bathroom is expected to recover. Backseat pundits across the media landscape immediately suspected some sort of fundamental Islamic group to be behind the attack, but it turns out that it was actually terrorism: local Greek leftists with November 17 envy blowing attention-getting shit up. Who? There have been two different phone calls claiming responsibility, and I am loath to advertise the groups involved within this forum. Then why? There are many possible reasons,* but probably it was a "war on terror" reprisal, offering destructive criticism of our treatment of "prisoners" in Guantanamo Bay. Official US governmental reactions are trying to play the silly little attack down, possibly because it is embarrassing. While we blocked off traffic in the Greek capital for hours, we have not called for any military response. Good. It is flabbergasting that any little nobody with a legitimate beef can now lob, fire, drive, or otherwise transmit destructive force. It is a shame that they are willing to. Certainly it is sickening that a military response to a handful of neighborhood criminals is getting to be so rote that we are actually appraised, by international newspapers, when we decide against one. Were this to have happened in another country--African, say--it is all to easy to imagine our Blackhawks razing a few terrorist city blocks in reprisal. [Cavin]