more things i don't understand

we'll start with the obvious: why, exactly, did they bomb the london underground? i mean, there are so many options. the g8 at gleneagle, the olympics, being a rich country in general... who are they, anyways? so many groups could get away with it at this point in time, because the west (or most of it... how much can i speak for, really?) will blame islamic millitants. it'd be an excellent time to do some damage without reprocussion.

but, self-centered creature that i am, i'm going to take for granted all of the usual comments about the horror of a tradgedy and wonder about my reaction. this comes dangerously close to making me cry every time i think about it. it really scares me. allow me to copy the media here and compare this incident to 9/11 as if they're really related (they might be, no one knows yet). if this scares me so badly, that had to be worse, right? i mean, i'm american. but, um, it didn't. of course i spent 9/11 watching tv and trying to call relatives like the rest of the country, but i was horribly fascinated rather than actually sad or frightened. maybe it's because my dazed little mind coming out of class that morning had decided it was some sort of war of the worlds hoax broadcast to start with. i dunno. but this... this one registers with me. and i don't understand why. i keep thinking that maybe it's that the circle line is real to me, it's something solid that i have actually touched, whereas i've only ever seen the towers (from pretty close up, but still). that's too easy, though. perhaps, as a person who prefers when things fit into neat little boxes (not that anything ever completely does, but a lot of the time you can pretend pretty well), i am just not able to deal with the (current?) lack of a why. what are they saying? does the tube symbolize something? what? were those people somehow more than "folks who use public transportation to get to work and play instead of big expensive polluting cars"? what am i missing? does this kind of act, this kind of statement, ever do anyone any good? enough to justify the ruined lives?