...

Billmon:

You knew it was coming even if you didn't know where it would hit. And while the shock isn't as great as 9/11 (how could it be?) the feeling of being trapped in a nightmare that just won't end is even stronger now. Because you knew.

The cold blooded murder of Londoners is no more horrifying than the murder or New Yorkers or Madrilenos -- or Baghdadis. But today's target still has a special hold over my emotions. If your mother tongue is English, and you loved stories as much as I did as a child, then London is the city of your imagination, of Mary Poppins and David Copperfield, of London-bridge-is-falling-down and the prince and the pauper. And if you've been there, and visited the places you dreamed about as a boy, and ridden the tube to Picadilly Circus, and climbed the stairs of the Tower of London, and strolled through Hyde Park in the morning fog, then what happened today hurts more than maybe it should, logically.

We are all New Yorkers, we are all Madrilenos, we are all Baghdadis. But I was a Londoner from the time I learned how to read. I know it shouldn't make any difference, but it does.

And so we return to the real war -- the one that can't be fought with F-16s and Abrams tanks, the back alley war of sleeper cells and pipe bombs and coded messages left on Internet chat boards. Of paid informants and "extraordinary reditions." Of torture and hit squads. The dirty war.

The next few days would probably be a good time to stay away from the TV. On top of the televised gore and the stunned faces of the survivors, we'll have to endure the canned Churchillian rhetoric of Messrs. Blair and Bush. Blitzes will be remembered; blood, sweat and tears promised, ultimate victory predicted. The babbling heads of cable news will babble even louder. Conservative con artists will figure the angles and work out the attack lines to use against the liberals -- whatever it takes to drown out the fact that, nearly four years after 9/11, Bin Ladin still lives and Al Qaeda is back in business. Mission unaccomplished.

The same old nightmare, in other words, this time with an English address. And the same sinking feeling as before. Because you know it will happen again, even if you don't know where.