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Terrorist atrocity in London
Terrorism
http://www.marxist.com/Europe/london-terrorist-attack070705.htm
Terrorist atrocity in London
By Alan Woods
At approximately ten to nine this morning London was rocked by a series of explosions in underground trains. Blasts were reported at Aldgate East, Edgware Rd, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Moorgate and Russell Square tube stations. A bus was ripped apart at Tavistock Square and London’s transport network was paralysed. The capital was in a state of chaos. Scotland Yard declared the emergency a “major incident”. The Home Secretary Charles Clarke reported that the explosions had caused “terrible injuries”.
Eyewitnesses reported “multiple casualties” at Liverpool Street. One witness who had been in a train at the time of the explosions reported seeing bodies everywhere in the carriages and limbs lying on the floor. She said the carriage where an explosion happened was “black on the inside”. She saw people who appeared to have their clothes blown off, and she saw bodies lying inside the carriage.
There were many more stories of horror. Shocked passengers spoke of victims covered in blood. People were seen streaming out of one underground station covered with blood and soot. Passengers were evacuated from stations across the capital, many in shock and with their clothes ripped to shreds. Hospitals have said they are no longer accepting non-emergency cases. They report serious head injuries, loss of limbs and injuries caused by smoke inhalation.
Loyita Worley, who works for a City law firm, told the BBC she was on the underground train when an explosion took place in the next carriage, while it was in a tunnel. The 49-year-old said: “All the lights went out and the train came to an immediate halt. There was smoke everywhere and everyone was coughing and choking, but remained calm. We couldn’t open the doors.”
The entire system was shut down and major thoroughfares were blocked off by police and ambulance services. Police sealed off large areas around other underground and mainline rail stations. Firemen donned chemical protection suits before rushing into stations. Emergency services crews were attending wounded passengers outside Aldgate station, and there were reports of passengers covered in soot emerging from King’s Cross.
British Transport Police initially attributed the explosions to power surges but the electricity company later stated that nothing in the electricity supply could explain such a thing. The self-evident truth soon became clear: London was the target of a savage terrorist attack. It appears there were up to seven blasts. Officers were sent into the network to assist with rescue operations and were working at tunnel and platform level to help get people out. Travellers emerged from tunnels covered in blood. A British Transport police spokesman said that two trains remain stuck in tunnels. The effects of an explosion in a confined space, with flying shards of glass can only be imagined.
The first bomb on a bus exploded near Russell Square not long after several blasts were reported on London subways. A witness said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed. A passenger said the bus was packed with people: “It was a massive explosion and there were papers and half a bus flying through the air,” she said. One caller to BBC Five said his friend had seen “the bus ripped open like a can of sardines and bodies everywhere”.
The causes of the incidents are so far unclear. But following the Madrid atrocity of last year, a link to the Middle East cannot be ruled out. As in Madrid, it was a well-planned coordinated attack. As in Madrid, no warning was issued. As in Madrid, the target was indiscriminate and calculated to kill and maim the maximum number of people. This has all the hallmarks of fanatics of the al-Oaeda type. Arab websites linked to al-Qaeda have apparently stated that the terrorist organization was behind the attacks. Though this has not yet been confirmed, it is entirely probable.
The explosions on the underground were timed to go off at a certain time, when a large number of ordinary working class people were travelling to work. This was then followed by an explosion on a bus. The bombings occurred one day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics and the sense of collective shock was even greater as a result of the cruel contrast with the scenes of popular jubilation the day before. It also occurred as leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations met in Scotland. It seems probable that the attack has been planned to coincide with the latter.
The London attack is intended as a message. The content of this message is quite clear: you claim that the war on terror is being won, that the world is now a safer place, and the invasion of Iraq has succeeded, but all these claims are false. The identity of the terrorists is unknown, but whoever was responsible showed no mercy to the innocent victims of their actions. Such activities are utterly repugnant to anybody who defends the cause of socialism and the working class. This kind of action serves only to bolster the forces of reaction. There is absolutely no justification for it. It must be condemned outright.
Our condemnation of terrorist atrocities has nothing in common with the hypocritical condemnations of Bush and Blair. In his statement Tony Blair said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” In the next breath he then reiterated his determination to “defeat terrorism”. These gentlemen shed no tears over the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children slaughtered in Iraq as a result of their policies. That is also terrorism – terrorism on a far vaster and more inhuman scale. They have no moral right to condemn violence when they themselves are responsible for spreading wars and violence throughout the world in search of their own cynical agenda.
Horrific as they were, compared to the eleventh of September, the London attacks were on a relatively small scale. That was a spectacular attack that struck at the heart of the USA. But what was the end result? Only the strengthening of the most reactionary right wing elements of the ruling class, the strengthening of imperialism, the victory of George Bush, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. In cases of murder the lawyers ask the question: cui bono? – who benefits. The only people who benefit from terrorism are the worst enemies of the working class, democracy and socialism.
We condemn the methods of the terrorists not only because they slaughter innocent people. We condemn them because they play into the hands of imperialism and reaction. We condemn them because they provide all the excuses Bush and Blair need to continue their criminal policies. It is a present to those right wing elements who are trying to restrict civil rights. The police will be given new powers. The state will be strengthened. Public opinion will be softened up for new acts of repression and military aggression with the excuse of “fighting terrorism” that will, in turn, increase the risk of terrorist attacks.
This is horror without end. It is a disease that is spreading like a global pandemic from one country and continent to another. Nobody is safe. No country is secure. The speeches of the leaders to the effect that “we are going to win the war on terror” ring hollow in the face of this.
The picture is still very confused. The population is stricken by shock and grief. It is natural that people are shocked and horrified. But when the smoke from the explosions finally clears, and when minds clear, some hard questions will have to be asked. It was clearly only a matter of time before the terrorist madmen would attack London. By his actions Tony Blair has placed his people in the front line of this madness. The result was entirely predictable.
The latest atrocity may seem to demonstrate the efficacy of the methods of terrorism. A small group of fanatics with bombs can paralyse a great city. Yet in the last analysis, the terrorists cannot succeed. These insane and barbaric acts only serve the interests of imperialism. Terrorism and imperialism feed off each other. The barbarities of the one serve as the pretext for the barbarities of the other. And it is always the ordinary people who pay the price.
The mass media will now have a field day. Blair and Bush will use this atrocity to try to justify their policy in Iraq and at home. But when people begin to reflect calmly on these events they will draw very different conclusions. The war on terror has not been won. The invasion of Iraq has destabilized the whole Middle East and made many new recruits for terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. And the world is a far more dangerous place than it was before the invasion of Iraq.
London, 7 July.
See also: In Defence of Marxism - http://www.marxist.com
Madrid atrocities: Who is responsible? by Alan Woods (March 12, 2004)
Terrorist Atrocity in Madrid By Alan Woods (March 11, 2004)
The bombings in Istanbul - The reactionary face of terrorism - Editorial statement (November, 21, 2003)
September 11 - two years on By Alan Woods (September 11, 2003)
US Suicide Bombing - Terrorism Aids Reaction By Ted Grant and Alan Woods (September,11, 2001)
Why Marxists oppose Individual Terrorism by Leon Trotsky (1909)
Terrorist atrocity in London
By Alan Woods
At approximately ten to nine this morning London was rocked by a series of explosions in underground trains. Blasts were reported at Aldgate East, Edgware Rd, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Moorgate and Russell Square tube stations. A bus was ripped apart at Tavistock Square and London’s transport network was paralysed. The capital was in a state of chaos. Scotland Yard declared the emergency a “major incident”. The Home Secretary Charles Clarke reported that the explosions had caused “terrible injuries”.
Eyewitnesses reported “multiple casualties” at Liverpool Street. One witness who had been in a train at the time of the explosions reported seeing bodies everywhere in the carriages and limbs lying on the floor. She said the carriage where an explosion happened was “black on the inside”. She saw people who appeared to have their clothes blown off, and she saw bodies lying inside the carriage.
There were many more stories of horror. Shocked passengers spoke of victims covered in blood. People were seen streaming out of one underground station covered with blood and soot. Passengers were evacuated from stations across the capital, many in shock and with their clothes ripped to shreds. Hospitals have said they are no longer accepting non-emergency cases. They report serious head injuries, loss of limbs and injuries caused by smoke inhalation.
Loyita Worley, who works for a City law firm, told the BBC she was on the underground train when an explosion took place in the next carriage, while it was in a tunnel. The 49-year-old said: “All the lights went out and the train came to an immediate halt. There was smoke everywhere and everyone was coughing and choking, but remained calm. We couldn’t open the doors.”
The entire system was shut down and major thoroughfares were blocked off by police and ambulance services. Police sealed off large areas around other underground and mainline rail stations. Firemen donned chemical protection suits before rushing into stations. Emergency services crews were attending wounded passengers outside Aldgate station, and there were reports of passengers covered in soot emerging from King’s Cross.
British Transport Police initially attributed the explosions to power surges but the electricity company later stated that nothing in the electricity supply could explain such a thing. The self-evident truth soon became clear: London was the target of a savage terrorist attack. It appears there were up to seven blasts. Officers were sent into the network to assist with rescue operations and were working at tunnel and platform level to help get people out. Travellers emerged from tunnels covered in blood. A British Transport police spokesman said that two trains remain stuck in tunnels. The effects of an explosion in a confined space, with flying shards of glass can only be imagined.
The first bomb on a bus exploded near Russell Square not long after several blasts were reported on London subways. A witness said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed. A passenger said the bus was packed with people: “It was a massive explosion and there were papers and half a bus flying through the air,” she said. One caller to BBC Five said his friend had seen “the bus ripped open like a can of sardines and bodies everywhere”.
The causes of the incidents are so far unclear. But following the Madrid atrocity of last year, a link to the Middle East cannot be ruled out. As in Madrid, it was a well-planned coordinated attack. As in Madrid, no warning was issued. As in Madrid, the target was indiscriminate and calculated to kill and maim the maximum number of people. This has all the hallmarks of fanatics of the al-Oaeda type. Arab websites linked to al-Qaeda have apparently stated that the terrorist organization was behind the attacks. Though this has not yet been confirmed, it is entirely probable.
The explosions on the underground were timed to go off at a certain time, when a large number of ordinary working class people were travelling to work. This was then followed by an explosion on a bus. The bombings occurred one day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics and the sense of collective shock was even greater as a result of the cruel contrast with the scenes of popular jubilation the day before. It also occurred as leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations met in Scotland. It seems probable that the attack has been planned to coincide with the latter.
The London attack is intended as a message. The content of this message is quite clear: you claim that the war on terror is being won, that the world is now a safer place, and the invasion of Iraq has succeeded, but all these claims are false. The identity of the terrorists is unknown, but whoever was responsible showed no mercy to the innocent victims of their actions. Such activities are utterly repugnant to anybody who defends the cause of socialism and the working class. This kind of action serves only to bolster the forces of reaction. There is absolutely no justification for it. It must be condemned outright.
Our condemnation of terrorist atrocities has nothing in common with the hypocritical condemnations of Bush and Blair. In his statement Tony Blair said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” In the next breath he then reiterated his determination to “defeat terrorism”. These gentlemen shed no tears over the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children slaughtered in Iraq as a result of their policies. That is also terrorism – terrorism on a far vaster and more inhuman scale. They have no moral right to condemn violence when they themselves are responsible for spreading wars and violence throughout the world in search of their own cynical agenda.
Horrific as they were, compared to the eleventh of September, the London attacks were on a relatively small scale. That was a spectacular attack that struck at the heart of the USA. But what was the end result? Only the strengthening of the most reactionary right wing elements of the ruling class, the strengthening of imperialism, the victory of George Bush, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. In cases of murder the lawyers ask the question: cui bono? – who benefits. The only people who benefit from terrorism are the worst enemies of the working class, democracy and socialism.
We condemn the methods of the terrorists not only because they slaughter innocent people. We condemn them because they play into the hands of imperialism and reaction. We condemn them because they provide all the excuses Bush and Blair need to continue their criminal policies. It is a present to those right wing elements who are trying to restrict civil rights. The police will be given new powers. The state will be strengthened. Public opinion will be softened up for new acts of repression and military aggression with the excuse of “fighting terrorism” that will, in turn, increase the risk of terrorist attacks.
This is horror without end. It is a disease that is spreading like a global pandemic from one country and continent to another. Nobody is safe. No country is secure. The speeches of the leaders to the effect that “we are going to win the war on terror” ring hollow in the face of this.
The picture is still very confused. The population is stricken by shock and grief. It is natural that people are shocked and horrified. But when the smoke from the explosions finally clears, and when minds clear, some hard questions will have to be asked. It was clearly only a matter of time before the terrorist madmen would attack London. By his actions Tony Blair has placed his people in the front line of this madness. The result was entirely predictable.
The latest atrocity may seem to demonstrate the efficacy of the methods of terrorism. A small group of fanatics with bombs can paralyse a great city. Yet in the last analysis, the terrorists cannot succeed. These insane and barbaric acts only serve the interests of imperialism. Terrorism and imperialism feed off each other. The barbarities of the one serve as the pretext for the barbarities of the other. And it is always the ordinary people who pay the price.
The mass media will now have a field day. Blair and Bush will use this atrocity to try to justify their policy in Iraq and at home. But when people begin to reflect calmly on these events they will draw very different conclusions. The war on terror has not been won. The invasion of Iraq has destabilized the whole Middle East and made many new recruits for terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. And the world is a far more dangerous place than it was before the invasion of Iraq.
London, 7 July.
See also: In Defence of Marxism - http://www.marxist.com
Madrid atrocities: Who is responsible? by Alan Woods (March 12, 2004)
Terrorist Atrocity in Madrid By Alan Woods (March 11, 2004)
The bombings in Istanbul - The reactionary face of terrorism - Editorial statement (November, 21, 2003)
September 11 - two years on By Alan Woods (September 11, 2003)
US Suicide Bombing - Terrorism Aids Reaction By Ted Grant and Alan Woods (September,11, 2001)
Why Marxists oppose Individual Terrorism by Leon Trotsky (1909)
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There is a war going on – a war of which the Axis' brutal occupation of Iraq is the most visible part. It is perfectly right and proper that the violence of the imperialists be countered by violence against the imperialists, including in the imperialist metropoles.
What is not right and proper, however, is that such violence be targetted against those in the imperialist homelands who have the least involvement in or say over what the imperialists do! No serious anti-imperialist would shed a tear if, for example, someone had succeeded in blowing up the British cabinet or the stock exchange. (Nor would there be much cause for complaint if someone had blown up a munitions plant, even if workers at the plant had been killed.)
What happened in London today – leaving aside the possibility that it was an intelligence-agency provocation – is not supportable. But our main task now is to hammer home that the real criminals we need to protect the world against are not a handful of "terrorists" who have managed to kill fewer people in the last decade than the imperialists kill in the average day by economic as well as military means.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1120702711778&p=1074657885918
The Israeli parasites (who had advance warnings of the bombings) are now calling for a world war. Wow, that was quick! Who benefits? Who has been calling for war with Iran and Syria? Whose pro-war agendas does this make possible?
Then don't do it. Oh, too late, you already did.
People all over the spectrum are already exploiting the dead to score cheap political points, and it sucks. Don't add to it.
@%<
These people didn't die to bolster your arguments, folks. Their families are grieving. Can you at least wait until they're buried before you try to turn them into talking points?
@%<
by gehrig Thursday, Jul. 07, 2005 at 5:43 PM
It sucks as much to exploit their deaths for cheap anti-Islamic points as it does to exploit their deaths for cheap anti-Israeli points.
These people didn't die to bolster your arguments, folks. Their families are grieving. Can you at least wait until they're buried before you try to turn them into talking points?
@%<]
you might want to direct you attention to Bush, Blair et al. instead
they never do you what you suggest, as they are already immediately seeking to propagandistically exploit what happened, and, unlike the posters here, their message is being amplified around the world by the media
just like when Marla Ruzicka died, and pro-occupation Democrats like David Corn immediately lionized her for her purported practicality in accepting the occupation of Iraq as an irrefutable fact
right now, it is essential that the hypocrisy of people like Blair, who has described the attacks as "barbarism", be identified and condemned
it will be interesting to see if he does with the US usually does after a bad day in Iraq, and launch some kind of attack on some people somewhere and kill some of them, so he can claim to have "taken action"
--Richard
@%<
by gehrig Thursday, Jul. 07, 2005 at 5:59 PM
Sorry, I refuse to turn the dead and the suffering and the grieving into mere marks on "my side" of the casuistry, even against folks like Bush. Not now. There will be time enough to point fingers later. To do so now is ghoulish.
@%<]
. . . . .only when they are British, but not when they are Iraqis, after all, we don't count those, do we? and we shouldn't grieve, should we?
and we shouldn't point out how nauseating it is when someone like Blair has the gall to talk about "barbarism", should we, with all the blood on his hands?
no, we should just let them get away with it, so they can exploit it for some future military venture, or new round of Guantanamo detentions, but then, I guess that's just "mere marks on my side", because, again, after all, they aren't British, are they?
that's what Tariq Ali, a long time London resident, has been talking about very bluntly today, in a number of interviews, most recently on "Flashpoints"
to their credit, the Spanish got angry after Madrid, they didn't sit quiet to mourn while Aznar was trying to politically survive by exploiting the railway deaths
it may be too much to hope that the British have a similar reaction, but I suspect that some of them aren't going to let Blair get away with it
yes, there are a couple of "vampires" in the UK, and their names are Bush and Blair
--Richard
somehow, I think that there are a lot of people in the UK who aren't going to allow it
What the fuck? Can you drop the self-righeousness for even a moment, or does nothing matter except to score rhetorical points using the bodies of the dead as poker chips? If you've paid any attention at all you know I've been against Bush's moronic Iraq war since before it began, but -- call it a character flaw or whatever -- my first reaction upon hearing of these bombings wasn't to rush to the keyboard and exploit them to grind my particular axe.
@%<
You're a funny little cockroach of a man, Joel.
> and it sucks.
Gimme a break. That's weapons grade hypocrisy, of the first order and the highest degree. Can he possibly be so out of touch that actually thinks it's convincing?
One of the differences between us is, I never gloat over death.
I have no problem killing people with weapons in their hand, but take no joy in it. However, there seems to be a certain smugness in the posts here about the deaths in London.
You may blame this on whoever you like, just be aware that this will happen again and again and again. As long as you have young men that don't fit in and hate the world they live in.
Actually, the Germans and their European and Arab Allies own the Holocaust.
Notice that the many, many, many lists of dead Palestinians that have appeared here -- including ones that he himself has posted, if I'm remembering right, although I have _never_ published lists of dead Israelis or of Holocaust victims, for exactly the reasons I give above -- have been strategically Alzheimer'd out his his head. Convenient, ain't it.
Notice also by the way that, to nessie, I'm a "they," not a "he." He does that consistently. Why? Because his goal isn't enlightenment or dialogue but demonization.
nessienym: "That's weapons grade hypocrisy"
This from someone who tells you that the principles of antiracism tell you to hate 99.5% of American Jews.
@%<
Of course, it's in your interest to depict all who resist the imperial invader (that's you, fool) as the epitome of evil. I don't buy it.
It seems to me that far from suppressing "terrorism" the invasionary force you're a part of has exacerbated it hundreds fold.
Apparently you've bought Bush's (or I should say, Karl Rove's) brain-dead slogan that it's "better to fight the terrorist in the mideast than in the midwest." This only makes sense if you believe there are a finite number of "terrorists."
It's disgusting to me that you would say categorically that you have no problem killing those who would take up arms those who invade their country. Sounds like something a red-coat would say--and you know what side the red-coats were on. Ha.
Readers of this site have seen me attack anti-Arab racists _and_ anti-Jewish racists, as nessie conveniently "forgets." What they have not seen is any reason to accept a whack definition of "racism" so bug-eyed and wild that nessie uses it to attack nearly every Jew in America.
@%<
Do the Algerians, Morrocans, Egyptians and Saudis in Iraq qualify as invaders? I'm just curious.
Are you excusing the bombers? Does it make any difference to you that the bombers in Iraq are trying to kill off the iraqi government to place a minority group in power? Is it okay to use violence to ensure religious domination? Iraq is Sunni Arab against Shia Arab.
I don't listen to Bush or Rove. I don't listen to speeches or political addresses. They never say what they mean anyway. It's usually pandering to one crowd or another.
Aaron, I'm in the protection business. If anyone makes a hostile move,it's a bad day for them. Or me if I'm too slow. That's just the way it is. If you behave in my company, then we all get to go home that day. Nothing more to it.
Funny thing is I've been studying the koran for a few months now, don't see how the people doing the terrorist acts are justifying themselves. Seems to be a fairly tolerant book.
While Israel supporters on this site exhibit brazen anti-palestinianism, they shift focus from the central issue of terrorism in the Middle East and in the U.S.::::
Judahismic terror cells:
the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee,
the Anti-Defamation League (a witch hunt group creating Jewish persecution stories to promote Israel under the guise of "fighting bigotry");
the World Zionist Organization;
the Zionist Organization of America;
The Jewish Federation of America;
Hadassah-Israel;
B'nai-B'rith;
Hillel House;
John Henderson, noted author of "Terror in America," and "The Danger of Middle East Fundamentalism in America", Professor of History, University of Chicago, consultant to the Ford Foundation, former US State Department official - Reagan Administration
LOL!!! Hey look out!! They're preparing Mazel Tov Cocktails!!!!
(Shapiros Malaga Wine with a schpritz of seltzer)
at the request of a government installed by the US, with a president known for CIA and oil company connections
not an invader, just a mercenary
--Richard
Since priests of that religion own virtually all the media, those deaths were not reported.
http://kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=14
Davey's East End interviews were the ONLY interviews I heard on radio/tv yesterday -- especially from corporate tv -- that weren't interviews of, typically, white yuppie or older upscale white Londoners. It was also refeshingly different from the otherwise implicitly racist corporate media commentary about how, implicitly, white Londoners react better than anyone else (well, except for, I'm sure, white-Americans): all those white people actually *help* each other in the midst of such emergencies and, if they can't get public transportation home, they'll actually start "bravely" *walking* home. I guess that the innocent people who are bombed or shot everyday in Iraq just leave all their fellow human beings there to die where they fell out in the streets and, otherwise, just sit around waiting until the buses might eventually start runing again to take them home. No, instead, Iraqis and Palestinians pick up their wounded civilians while, respectively, Americans and Israelis are *SHOOTING* at them from helicopter gunships and tanks.
The Londoners were innocent victims of Tony Blair and George W.
Hopefully, the British will do to Blair what the Spanish did to their former head of state.
Martin Luther King said that, "WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND."
Chalmers Johnson and Tariq Ali simply called it, "BLOWBACK".
King also said, "WE HAVE A CHOICE TODAY: NON-VIOLENT CO-EXISTENCE OR VIOLENT CO-ANNIHILATION."
That was just one of his many many terrorist acts about which he occasionally even boasted to journalists.
Today, the Bush regime is protecting him from Venezuela's request for extradition.
I know there are some hot-blooded "patriots" whose blood would start boiling at the thought of Bush/Blair/Israeli involvement in the London (and Madrid) bombings. That, I think is just the height of racism to think these kinds of actions can only be taken by Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists (many of whom were organized, trained, and armed by the CIA, Pakistani intelligence, and Saudi money). Want to stop daydreaming and look at some earthly realities? Here they are: Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Emmanuel Constant, ... all tied to US intelligence.
When? Where? I've been seeing your shit on various IMCs for two years and I have not once seen you do this. If you ever did, it was solely to stash away an ace in the hole for occasions like this. Watching you pretend to have any sympathy for Arabs is enough to make me puke!
Thomas Friedman's simple-minded, inane op-eds, along with more than half the comments in this forum, continue to amaze me. Friedman would have us believe that the "Muslim Community" needs to "take responsibility" for the bombings. This is like asking the Pope and hundreds of thousands of Catholics in London to take the blame for the IRA bombings in the 1980s.
Of course, as a citizen and former government official of the human rights destroying Israel with hundreds of UN resolutions against it, he has a vested interest in making comments like this. Comments that demonize and trivialize the innocent. I believe it was Voltaire who said, "Those who have the power to make us believe absurdities have the power to make us commit atrocities."
In the US we have 13,000 Arab and non-Arab Middle Easterners detained without trial, murdered, tortured and disappeared. The Middle East is a complex, diverse area long persecuted by America, France, and Great Britain. When Great Britain miraculously created a political solution to the IRA problem after 700 years of occupation, instead of a military one, the bombings and killings decreased dramatically. Of course there are still problems but nothing like before.
The addle brained Mr. Fiedman would do better by reading the NYT op-ed "Al Qaeda's Smart Bombs" (7-9-2005) by Robert A. Pape. This astute writer from the University of Chicago comes with a complete set of brains and serious analytical skills not the fake kind. He looks at the nationalities of suicide attackers world wide analyzing all the attacks in 2002 and 2003. The list is a who’s who of brutal regimes endorsed and supported by the usual suspects.
(Shapiros Malaga Wine with a schpritz of seltzer)"
add your comments - - ok, I will:
Let's not forget Abu Nidal, Mossad agent responsible for scores of hijackings, bombings, etc. throughout the Mediterranean and Europe. I wonder what Spielberg will have to say about that. I've been reading that former agents of Mossad are quite queasy about the sensitive subject matter, especially considering that Spielberg isn't talking. That little matter about the Munich bombings could create quite a stir.
Congress voted to kill the US Patriot Act section dealing with the monitoring of library records. People might start loosening up and taking out books such as those by Patrick Seals on the subject.
Mossad retaliated for Nidal's bombings and murder, and yes a few Jews died in the bombings and retailiations, such as at the Goldstein Cafe in Paris but the overwhelming number of victims were non-Jewish Europeans.
And let's not forget about the state terror. 3 of the 4 major wars of Israel were wars of aggression, two of which resulted in a massive recession in the US due to the Arab oil embargo. Millions of Americans were thrown out of work during those "stagflation" days, many ending up in poverty and bread lines.
So much for our friend and ally, our strategic asset and a source of stability in the Middle East as Senator Feinstein would say (but not Senator Boxer).
By the way, the name is "Syrian" Heights, not "Golan" Heights.
Then, of course there was the little problem with the Stern and Urgan "gangs" and the genocide and ethnic cleansing and all. Since Israel wasn't crowned a "state" till months later, this would be terror, the privatized version. No state to blame here.
It's truly hypocritical to use the term "Islamic" terror with a broad brush and not use a similar regilious term for Israelis and their supporters (we could say "Jewish" terror, referring to the religious part of the ethno-religious meaning). Most of those supporters give dollar contributions over a billion each year in support for/of terror by Israel, a state with 100s of UN resolutions against it. It is also illegal to provide such support per domestic US law.
On what grounds can the US government APPOINT ITSELF as an "Honest" broker of "peace?" What hypocrisy: while $5 billion a year goes to murder Palestinians and ethnically cleanse them while $200 million is "promised" to the Palestinians, $50 million of the latter goes to the Apartheid supporting Hadassah (This pro-Israel organization has its own lobby in DC).
Israeli oppression thrives because of the world¹s indifference
by Greg Felton
"Covenants without the Sword are but Words and of no Strength to secure a Man at all." Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651
For those of you who believe that a rational, negotiated solution to the violence in Occupied Palestine is possible, I have news. It ain't gonna happen.
There is no "peace" to negotiate, and no amount of wishful thinking, pacifist sloganeering, earnest protestations or diplomatic niceties can disguise the cruel absurdity of the "peace process."
David Ben Gurion, Israeli's first prime minister, laid it out with brutal honesty. "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
Why indeed? Why should the victim of theft negotiate with the thief? All that does is legitimize the crime by making the victim and assailant moral equals. Yet, absurdly, this is precisely what the civilized nations of the world expect the Palestinians to do: Sit down with the criminal Israel and legitimize a decades-long theft of life, land and property.
In that light, what did Foreign Minister John Manley's visit to the region in mid-May really amount to? Officially, the trip was declared a success--no verbal blunders, no aggrieved parties, no lost luggage. All in all a much better show than the foot-in-mouth-plagued performance Prime Minister Jean Chrétien put on last year.
Realistically, though, it was an example of moral cowardice from a country that prides itself on its principles but has not the courage to stand behind them.
During his trip, Manley praised the report of the investigating team led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell. "I believe the parties should use the recommendations contained in this document as a basis to end the senseless cycle of violence," he said later in a ministry press release. "The path to ending such senseless acts lies not through escalation of the violence but through a negotiated peace settlement."
No amount of casuistry, dissembling or disinformation can lend credence to the fiction that Israel wants peace. It won't even define its borders, lest that hamper its creeping expansionism. What¹s more, Israel has accepted binding UN Security Council Resolution 242, which mandates that it give back all the Occupied Territories. What's left to negotiate? Nothing.
Manley also rightly praised one of the report's key findings: the cause of the violence is the building and expansion of (illegal) Jewish settlements on Arab land. At a joint news conference with Manley, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel has no plans to expand the settlements, but made it clear that the government did not rule out their natural [sic] expansion. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (né Shinerman) has made no such promise.
Did Manley stand up to Peres and declare Israel the aggressor? No, but he did call upon the Palestinian authority to stop the violence. "I don't see how an Israeli government could sustain a unilateral cessation of the hostilities without something reciprocal... It's simply going to have to happen."
Manley never explains what the Palestinians have to gain by stopping, At least while the violence is overt, they can force Israel to demonstrate its cruelty to the whole world. (During the period of the "peaceful" Oslo agreement, we should remember that Israel quietly acquired 52 percent of its hold of the Occupied Territories.)
For an oppressed people, an honest war is preferable to an ignoble peace, and this politically inconvenient fact is what drives Israel and its American stooges to stop the fighting. They¹re trying to return to the advice Theodore Herzl gave in 1895 regarding the Zionist tactic for physically evicting the Arabs from Palestine: "[S]pirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried away discreetly and circumspectly."
Peace will only be possible when the world acts to compel Israel to be accountable to international law. But countries that are content to wring their hands in impotent indignation and utter banalities about "peace" and "negotiations," are abetting Israel's dispossession of the Palestinians. In short, Canada, by its inaction, is abetting a war crime.
Mr. Greg Felton is a Canadian editorialist on international politics, especially the Middle East. He can be reached at gfelton [at] mediamonitors.org
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I highly recommend the link, and go to the 7/7/05 show
[Bush & his bitch Poodle (Blair) bomb innocent people everyday in the Middle East.
by JA Friday, Jul. 08, 2005 at 3:51 PM
This is what Asian & Black Londoners had to say yesterday when Davey D interviewed them yesterday (July 7) in London on Hard Knock Radio.
http://kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=14
Davey's East End interviews were the ONLY interviews I heard on radio/tv yesterday -- especially from corporate tv -- that weren't interviews of, typically, white yuppie or older upscale white Londoners. It was also refeshingly different from the otherwise implicitly racist corporate media commentary about how, implicitly, white Londoners react better than anyone else (well, except for, I'm sure, white-Americans): all those white people actually *help* each other in the midst of such emergencies and, if they can't get public transportation home, they'll actually start "bravely" *walking* home. I guess that the innocent people who are bombed or shot everyday in Iraq just leave all their fellow human beings there to die where they fell out in the streets and, otherwise, just sit around waiting until the buses might eventually start runing again to take them home. No, instead, Iraqis and Palestinians pick up their wounded civilians while, respectively, Americans and Israelis are *SHOOTING* at them from helicopter gunships and tanks.]
The CIA does not need to finance Alqaeda or send in a hired gun to do this. MI5/6 don't need to do anything either. There really is a group of people that twist the muslim faith to their needs. This gruop wants you dead. This group gets money from rich saudis and muslims unhappy with their world. How hard is that to believe?
If Israel does something violent, it's israel's fault.
If muslims do something violent, they didn't really do it, or somehow israel set them up, since it makes muslims look bad when they are violent.
If no one knows who did something, just make up some reason to blame israel
This is a topic about the london bombings, which a few islamic terrorists did, yet almost all the posts are ranting idiotic crap about israel and "zionists"
In a Los Angeles Times column published October 13, Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote:
"The preponderance of responsibility lies with Israel and with an international media that continue to obscure the basic realities facing the Palestinian people, and continue to treat the death of Israeli soldiers enforcing a brutal occupation as somehow more outrageous and barbarous than the killing of many times as many Palestinian teenagers who were resisting the occupation."
See also http://al-awda.org/media/myths.html
If you want to tell me that the deaths in London are anyones fault but a group of misguided young men led astray by some hateful old men using god as a tool for their hatred, i don't hear you.
The same way I don't listen to a lot of senseless jabber. make a point w/o referring to the evil zionist plot, shadow governments, evil corporations or UFOs. I left out black helicopters, but you get my drift.
I agree to some extent...Comitting murder, trying to impose an ideology, is wrong...whether the terrorism comes from the US, or a group of misguided young men...but I would not put zionism in the same category w/ UFO/conspiracy theories--zionism is a very real issue that has had a great impact on world affairs today--but granted, that is off topic. I am confident that this incident in London wouldn't have happened without Britain's support in Iraq. ('misguided young men or not')