Charmaine Yoest has been “Janey on the Spot” this week, first blogging the G8 Summit and then becoming an eyewitness to history as she arrived in London immediately after the bombs had gone off. Her nose for a story had her interviewing young Brits about the bombing. What she found was both depressing and expected:

Directly outside I saw Davy D, a hip-hop DJ from Oakland. Together we went over to interview a group of young men standing together by the barricades. After they recognized Davey, they were happy to speak right up. We asked them why everyone seemed to be reacting so calmly and they all just shrugged. One said: “I was expecting this—sooner or later it was going to happen. I knew something was going to happen.” Then he continued: “Everyone thinks they know why it happened. . .”

Why?

Well, because George Bush and Tony Blair need to make it easier to go to war.

Davey and I glanced at each other. The interview moved on to other topics. Finally, as we wrapped up, I stopped the young man, just to clarify his comment. Did he mean, I asked, to imply that there was some sort of conspiracy by the government involved in today’s attacks? Just to generate support for the war?

“Definitely,” he said. “Definitely.”

Charmaine and her companion moved on and interviewed two young women:

It’s Tony Blair’s fault! They’ve killed 100,000 people—it’s like a boomerang.” Later she repeated this, talking about “killing innocent people” and “invading other peoples’ country . . .”

When we asked her the question about the calm, she shrugged too. “We’re used to it,” she replied. “Americans get patriotic over anything silly.”

We were starting to see a pattern

After another “Blame Blair-Bush” interview, Charmaine approached the “quintessential” British businessman and asked similar questions:

Spied him talking on the phone near the barricade and moved in. Warily, he agreed to talk.

No, he wasn’t surprised. “It’s been due to happen. Sooner or later.” He got the talking points, too.

Bu then he pointed out something very interesting that I had noticed only on a subconscious level. “This is the heart of Little Beirut” he said. We were indeed surrounded by people, like the young men, who appeared to be Arab. A strange and exceptionally cold-blooded choice of targets for Al Quaida, even by terrorist standards.

Finally, I asked him the Tony Blair question. He looked at me puzzled: “How can you blame Tony Blair?”

Those young Brits were mouthing the slogans and regurgitating the tripe they hear everyday from pop culture icons, left wing politicians and media, and a host of personalities whose ever escalating rhetorical flights of fancy with regards to the War on Terror have evidently done enormous damage to the spirit and ability to resist the Islamists among the young.

Too small a sample? Here’s more:

Four young British Muslims in their twenties – a social worker, an IT specialist, a security guard and a financial adviser – occupy a table at a fast-food chicken restaurant in Luton. Perched on their plastic chairs, wolfing down their dinner, they seem just ordinary young men. Yet out of their mouths pour heated words of revolution.

“As far as I’m concerned, when they bomb London, the bigger the better,” says Abdul Haq, the social worker. “I know it’s going to happen because Sheikh bin Laden said so. Like Bali, like Turkey, like Madrid -I pray for it, I look forward to the day.”

“I agree with you, brother,” says Abu Yusuf, the earnest-looking financial adviser sitting opposite. “I would like to see the Mujahideen coming into London and killing thousands, whether with nuclear weapons or germ warfare. And if they need a safehouse, they can stay in mine – and if they need some fertiliser [for a bomb], I’ll tell them where to get it.”

All day long on Sky News, the refrain was repeated over and over. The attacks were Bush-Blair’s fault. If we weren’t in Iraq this wouldn’t have happened. Charmaine noticed something else; a curious lack of outrage and sorrow:

As our group re-assembled and walked back toward the hospital in a sudden grey London rain, we compared notes. We all agreed that we were observing a striking difference between English and American reactions to this kind of disaster. Perhaps later the impromptu teddy-bear memorials that characterize our American communal grief in the wake of tragedy will appear.

But, for now, the English we met were putting on the stiff upper lip.

I certainly hope so. From much of the reaction I’ve seen, with the exception of most politicians (who will probably wait until after the funerals to begin their Bush-Blair bashing) the reaction of the average Brit has underwhelmed me and left me with a sense that the Great Britain of today is a far cry from the Great Britain of my father’s day.

Would the British population of today stood up to Hitler? Would they have stuck with Churchill? Or would they have accepted Hitler’s “peace” offer that the Nazi dictator gave prior to the start of the Battle of Britain which guaranteed British sovereignty?

The Brits back then didn’t even bother to respond. In fact, the BBC gave an eloquent response rejecting Hitler’s offer without even consulting the government. Now that was a spirit of resistance.

Blair’s government won’t fall as a result of this tragedy. Nor will British troops be pulled from Iraq. But unless we see some signs over the next few days that the British people are beginning to wake up to the fact that George Bush didn’t bomb them but rather implacable, bloodthirsty Islamists, it may be time to start worrying about our best and closest ally in the War on Terror.

UPDATE

The quotes from the four Muslim youths wishing for nuclear armageddon in London were NOT given in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombing. As I just discovered, the quotes appeared in NRO’s The Corner on 7/7 and were taken from an Evening Standard article from April, 2004.

I regret the error and apologize for the confusion.