Politicoholic

What was the G-8 Summit really about?

And does it matter? Anne Applebaum thinks the world has already forgotten terrorism:

It's not hard to explain why: Time has passed -- more than five years now. The Iraq war has distracted the American administration while failing to provoke sympathy or solidarity anywhere else. The Bush administration itself appears to be on its last legs, which means its agenda isn't taken seriously anywhere, not even in the United States.

Most of all, though, the world's divided attention proves once again that global Internet access and global television have not created anything resembling a global conversation. On the contrary, the BBC fights hard for its viewers, so it tells them what will interest them; the German press fights for its readers, who care most about climate change; and so on. It's not just that different readerships hear different opinions; the actual news events covered differ as well. For all the cant about globalization, the world is as provincial as it ever was, maybe even more so. Despite the terrorist attacks in Britain and Spain, the absence of another attack on the scale of the World Trade Center has meant that the world's attention is no longer singularly focused and that the perceived need for international unity has diminished. No doubt it will continue to do so -- at least until next time.

Source: Washington Post