Trains and Terrorism

I'm not sure when I started having these thoughts, but I know the beginning must have come after I moved to the city. Whilst sat in Nuneaton waiting for a connection to Coventry I never thought about this, yet every single time I set foot in Leeds station - regardless of whether I am boarding a train or not - I cannot shake these ideas. Perhaps, though, the seed was in fact laid in Nuneaton, when I first discovered that now train stations don't have any bins in them. I can't think of any reason for this beyond some kind of attempt to prevent terrorism, to make it more difficult to hide an object on the platform. Coupled with the ubiquitous signs informing you to report "suspicious packages"¹, I cannot reach any other conclusion. At face value, it seems a logical measure. If there is no way to easily hide a bomb, that should discourage extremists from blowing up train stations. Yes?

Well, aside from the fact that this wouldn't stop a suicide bomber, possibly the most ridiculous job description² in the history of ever, I just don't see how it's really going to be that effective. Whenever I'm sat in a train station, all I can think about is how damn easy it'd be to blow it up, with no risk to myself. An actual train would even easier, because they do have bins, and we all know that these objects are the greatest ally of the twenty-first century terrorist. When I have these thoughts it makes me wonder - why do terrorists not target train stations? Why is it always airports or tall buildings?

The tube attacks³ notwithstanding, why the aversion to trains? In America, I can understand how trains may be viewed as useless things next to internal flights which can get the job done much faster, but as 7/7 proved we are a target too. I know if I wanted to plunge Britain into transport chaos, my number one target would be Kings Cross. Admittedly this would just result in typical British complaining about train delays whilst ordering another cup of tea, but my point is less about the effect of terrorism on Britain and more wondering who exactly is planning their operations. If you've got suicide bombers on-call then there's just no excuse, but even if your operatives do have a greater sense of self-preservation than a terminally ill lemming whose wife's just left him there's plenty of options.

Which brings me to another thing... Terror in general. I'll save the idea of declaring war on an abstract concept for another blog⁴, but am I the only one whose thinking that these supposed terrorists don't really have their hearts in it anymore? As we enter the second decade of the new millennium, does anybody really care? The whole thing is just one big joke and a reason to tighten up things in the west, approaching ever closer to that 1984 holy grail. This is not rocket science, and it makes me think that the "terrorists"⁵ have just stopped caring. I can think of a dozen different ways to destabilise this country,⁶ so are these people just ignorant, apathetic, stupid or all three? Or am I destined to be some kind of super-terrorist?

I'm very much aware that by posting this, I'm probably likely to show up on a few government databases. At least that's one way to increase the traffic figures.

Kedge

¹That's "left luggage" in normal-speak.
²Most suicide bombers don't put it on their CV. They may be diabolical extremists, but lying on one's CV is a kind of evil that even they would not stoop to.
³Which were, of course, followed a day later by people shaking their heads and sighing "The bloody underground's late again" in a characteristically British manner.
⁴If I can really stretch it out into a whole one, there's not much more to be said than "Christ, George W. was an idiot, wasn't he?"
⁵Referring to an enemy as "the terrorists" makes about as much sense as referring to them as "the soldiers", but there we go.
⁶If the democratic system wasn't already doing such a stellar job of that on its own.