The terrorist plot to destroy democracy from within.

By William Saletan, MSNBC - Slate, Posted Friday, July 8, 2005, at 4:12 AM PT

"Britain is burning with fear and terror, from north to south, east to west," the Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe crowed after yesterday's London bombings. "We warned the British government and the British people repeatedly."
Sound familiar? In a video released four weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden boasted, "Here is the United States. It was filled with terror from its north to its south and from its east to its west."
The terror talk and the compass points are just two of the patterns in al-Qaida's post-attack messages. A third is the pairing of Iraq with Afghanistan. A fourth is the punishment theme, which deflects blame from them to us. But the most telling pattern is a constant distinction between the "people" of the West and their governments. Last year, the bombers hit Madrid, hoping to turn Spaniards against their government and force a pullout of Spanish troops from Iraq. It worked. Now they're trying to do the same to the Brits and the rest of the G8.