sisyphusshrugged | the flypaper strategy is apparently a huge success

so there were these bombings

Two truck bombs exploded minutes apart outside the British Consulate and a British bank Thursday morning, killing at least 27 people and injuring 450 in the second double bombing in the city in six days, Turkish authorities said.

The bomb blasts shocked a city that had just begun to recover from similar attacks on two synagogues last Saturday, prompting Turkish officials to put Istanbul security forces on their highest state of alert and to close the nation's stock exchange. The U.S. Consulate here was shut down for all but emergency services, and the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, warned Americans in Istanbul to drastically restrict their movements.

Turkish, British and U.S. officials said the coordinated bombings matched the patterns of al Qaeda-sponsored suicide attacks but conceded there was no concrete proof as to who was behind the attacks.

but apparently Bush and Blair have better information

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared Thursday that the invasion of Iraq was not to blame for the recent wave of terrorist violence and that the bombs that devastated two British facilities in Turkey proved the need to press ahead with the military campaign.

"Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary, and no act of thugs or killers will change our resolve or alter their fate," Bush said at a joint news conference with Blair, as tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered on the city's streets to protest the Iraq war. "We will finish the job we have begun."

The two leaders spoke hours after Britain was stunned by the news that two truck bombs aimed at British targets had killed at least 27 people in Istanbul. British civilian facilities had until now escaped being targeted in the terrorist attacks that have followed those of Sept. 11, 2001.

Blair echoed Bush's remarks, calling for attacking terrorists "wherever and whenever we can."

Bush and Blair spoke as Britons absorbed the news of the attacks in Istanbul, which demolished the British Consulate, killing its top diplomat, and the local headquarters of the London-based HSBC Bank.

The two leaders appeared in an ornate room in the Foreign Office headquarters beneath a large pewter chandelier and behind lecterns with the royal motto "Honi soit qui mal y pense," or "Shame on him who thinks evil of it."

Shame nobody thought to have one of those cool powerpoint backdrop tarps made up to say that.

Amongst other folks less well informed than Messrs Bush and Blair about the motivations of the bombers: al Qaeda

A statement purporting to come from a unit of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network says the group has carried out the two suicide car bombings that ripped through Istanbul on Thursday, killing 27 people.

The statement by the Abu Hafz al-Masri Brigades -- which earlier claimed responsibility for Saturday's bombings of Turkish synagogues -- said it had targeted British interests in Turkey to "shatter the peace of Britain... which battles Islam".

this attack, however, we're fairly sure has to do with the war

Insurgents deploying rocket-launcher-equipped donkey carts attacked symbolically important and well-fortified buildings in Baghdad Friday, just hours after a top U.S. commander proclaimed progress in the military's newly aggressive high-tech counter-insurgency operation.

The donkey-cart offensive hit the Sheraton and Palestine hotels here, which house reporters and American contractors, including employees of a subsidiary of Halliburton, Inc., as well as the Iraqi oil ministry, where bureaucrats displaced from a number of government departments do their work.

The damage to buildings and the injuries to people were relatively contained. Few people were at work early Friday, a holy day here.

The damage to the military's reputation here could not be measured.

this, we're reasonably certain, had little or nothing to do with al Qaeda or the war in Iraq

The White House was evacuated and Vice President Cheney was moved briefly yesterday morning when an air-defense radar system erroneously showed a plane in restricted airspace, authorities said.

Fighter jets were scrambled to look for the plane, thought to be less than five miles from the White House, but they could not find it, authorities said. The alert ended after about 15 minutes, and Cheney and other White House staff returned safely to work.

which suggests to me that what the people of the islamic world need is an undisclosed location.

Maybe Hallburton can set one up for them.