Terrorist Attack on London

[Juan Carlos]

First of all, I want to send my condolences to all my British colleagues.

As a Spaniard from Madrid, I can understand quite well what you feel now.

Actually, here in Madrid and Spain everybody is really shocked and sorry for Londoners. Yesterday there were rallies at every Town Hall in Spain and people kept five minutes in silence for the British people who were so awfully murdered.

John, Christopher and Andy have brought up an interesting debate on the causes of the terrorist attacks on London and other places. I will try to come back later on that.

Just let me reply to one of John's sentences.

The people of Britain are frightened. They have every right to be. Can you imagine what it will be like for them travelling on the London Underground in the future? In time they will become very angry. They will realise why they are targets (these bombs will not be going off in France, Germany, etc.). They will also note what happened after the Madrid bombing took place.

After the terrorist attacks, people spend several weeks in awe and frightened when entering the underground, then you forget it. You have to forget it, although what happened in London makes everybody remember the horror.

John, I am not so sure that these terrorist attacks won't happen in France or Germany. Actually, people in Spain don't feel more secure after our government's pulling out the troops of Irak.

[Juan Carlos]

After discussing over and over the topic, I have to admit that I am a bit puzzled. However, some points seem to be clear:

1. There are evident links between terrorist attacks and the invasion of Irak. Mr. Bush and Blair's adventure (and the pathetic support given by Mr. Aznar or Berlusconi) has provoked a more dangerous situation. At least in Europe.

I wonder if the American administration would have launched a military campaign against Mexico or other big Latin American country. I am sure that Mr.Bush would have taken into account the existence of large Hispanic communities in the US.

"Londonistan" and a lot of European cities have huge Muslim communities.

2. We have to read what terrorists claim and try not to filter their words through our (Western) mental framework. After Afghanistan war (against USSR invasion) and Algerian cruel civil war there are thousands of islamist militants spread all over Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

They don't complain about "Western Imperialism" or "the growing gap between poor and rich countries". They complain about the "Not believers" and they include in this term the current authorities of most of the Muslim countries (as Egyptian ambassador to Irak), the "Rai" (a youngsters music very popular among Muslim European youth) singers who were murdered one after one in Algeria , the Shiite communities who are being attacked cruelly in Irak and other Muslim countries ... and Western countries.

They fight for building up a new "Caliphate", they are not waging a war against capitalist powers. In this sense, I agree with Christopher that the main aim of Al-Qaeda is to unseat Muslim governments.

3. Who on the hell advised Mr. Bush that invading Irak (a cruel, fascist regime but not an islamist fundamentalist government) was a good idea? Had the oil something to do with it?

[John Simkin]

Julian Borger in Washington

Saturday July 9, 2005

The Guardian

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel was under fire yesterday for comments by some of its leading journalists in response to the London bombs.

Speaking about the reaction of the financial markets, Brit Hume, the channel's Washington managing editor, said: "Just on a personal basis ... I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought 'hmm, time to buy'."

The host of a Fox News programme, Brian Kilmeade, said the attacks had the effect of putting terrorism back on the top of the G8's agenda, in place of global warming and African aid. "I think that works to our advantage, in the western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened."

Another Fox News host, John Gibson, said before the blasts that the International Olympic Committee "missed a golden opportunity" by not awarding the 2012 games to France. "If they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?" He added: "This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics - let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."

Media Matters for America, a watchdog and frequent critic of Fox, criticised the comments on its website. "I think it's absolutely sickening three Fox anchors had such callous reactions to the bombings that took dozens of lives," said the Jamison Foser, of the group.

The Fox News media relations office had not responded by the time the Guardian went to press yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...1524852,00.html

[John Simkin]

After the terrorist attacks, people spend several weeks in awe and frightened when entering the underground, then you forget it. You have to forget it, although what happened in London makes everybody remember the horror.

John, I am not so sure that these terrorist attacks won't happen in France or Germany. Actually, people in Spain don't feel more secure after our government's pulling out the troops of Irak.

I am just assuming that the terrorists are thinking logically. Their short-term objective is to get “Christian” troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore it makes sense to target those countries that are contributing troops to this occupation. As the bombers announced afterwards, the targets are the UK, Italy and Denmark.

I know Spain have problems with other terrorists and so will always remain concerned while travelling on the underground. However, countries like Germany and France are safe. If a bomb does go off in one of these two countries, I would immediately suspect CIA assets of being involved.

[John Geraghty]

I was quite appalled to see that immediately after the attacks all of the major news channels in ireland and britain had economic analysts on talking about how this would effect the market, have we become this greedy that the first thing we think of is "hows my money doing" when something like this happens. Balls to the money, what about the people.

If a bomb does go off in one of these two countries, I would immediately suspect CIA assets of being involved.

Thats quite a statement John, any ideas why they would do this, perhaps to get them to act in Iraq by helping via the UN.

John

[Christopher T. George]

I was quite appalled to see that immediately after the attacks all of the major news channels in ireland and britain had economic analysts on talking about how this would effect the market, have we become this greedy that the first thing we think of is "hows my money doing" when something like this happens. Balls to the money, what about the people.

If a bomb does go off in one of these two countries, I would immediately suspect CIA assets of being involved.

Thats quite a statement John, any ideas why they would do this, perhaps to get them to act in Iraq by helping via the UN.

John

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi John

I think protecting assets is certainly a concern to Western countries. I am going to Britain in October for a Jack the Ripper convention in Brighton, and there is come concern that attendance by North Americans will be affected by the bombings in London. On the other hand, I attended a similar convention in Bournemouth soon after 9/11 and there was a good representation of Americans and Canadians. A conspicuous absentee, however, was the American writer Tom Clancy, who was to be a guest of honor at the convention. His advisors told him not to travel. An asset too valuable to lose.

All my best

Chris

Edited July 11, 2005 by Christopher T. George

[John Geraghty]

It must be well known in the US that Brighton is a huge terrorist target so.

John

[John Simkin]

Tony Blair gave an interview on Saturday’s Today programme. I suppose this information has been sent out to all party activists about the line that is to be taken. However, it does not stand up to critical analysis.

In the interview Tony Blair constantly talked about “we”. It reminds me of the way monarchs used the term (it is often known as the “royal we”). Margaret Thatcher also was a great one for the use of the “royal we”. It probably has something to do with being in power for a long time.

1. “We were a target of Al Qaeda terrorism long before the Iraq War.”

I assume Blair meant that the UK was a target for Al Qaeda before the Iraq War. In the interview he provided evidence for this point of view. The evidence of course was not of attacks on the UK before the Iraq War. It was about attacks on the US (9/11) and on buildings owned by the US in foreign countries.

This is of course true. The US was a target of Al Qaeda before the Iraq War. The reason for this was that the policies of the US were extremely pro-Israel and anti-Arab. The objective of these attacks was not to try and change US’s policies in the Middle East. It was instead used as an attempt to draw the US into making retaliation attacks. This is a common tactic used by guerrilla forces (see the book War of the Flea). The idea behind this strategy is that those innocent people punished by the US will now join the resistance movement. Studies of guerrilla activists show that they are often related to innocent people killed by the “oppressor”. After all, this is what turned Lenin into a revolutionary.

2. “Doing ANYTHING to try to end Al Qaeda terrorism would have 'made us a target of terrorism': this fact does not mean that we should not try to end it.”

The UK was not a target before the Iraq War. In reality, the UK was considered an irrelevance. Tony Blair changed all that. In his desperation to be seen as a world leader responsible for the defeat of “terrorism” he grabbed hold of George Bush’s coattails. In doing so, he made us a target of terrorist attacks. The same thing happened in Spain and Italy (also both led by right wing politicians).

These countries became obvious targets for Al Qaeda. In the case of Spain, the bombing took place before an election. The government changed and Spanish troops were withdrawn from Iraq. This enabled Al Qaeda to show the world’s Muslims that terrorism works.

The situation in the UK is very different. Both main parties are in favour of British troops being in Iraq. The have exploded bombs in London before the election would have been pointless. The election was allowed to go ahead and the British people were able to show by voting for the Liberal Democrats that they opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq.

For the UK the bombings had to take place after the elections. The objective is to create what happened after 9/11. That is an increase to our commitment against terrorism. This includes a greater clampdown on suspected terrorists. This will create even more Muslim martyrs and will increase recruitment into Al Qaeda type organizations. It will also be used as an excuse to bring in ID cards. Already the UK government is spreading the lie that ID cards helped trace the Madrid bombers.

For geographical reasons the US has always been a difficult target for Al Qaeda. Europe is a different matter. The ease of getting terrorists into European countries has been helped by European government’s decision to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. They have done this to keep down the wage rates of people working in the “unskilled” sector and to reduce the power of the trade union movement. We therefore have several thousand Al Qaeda-supporters in the UK. According to a leaked government document entitled “Young Muslims and Extremism” about 3,000 British-born Muslims have “passed through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps.”

Unfortunately the UK can now expect a series of terrorist outrages. It is absurd to argue that better “intelligence” will bring an end to this terrorism. The latest technology cannot defeat terrorism. How can you stop people leaving bags full of high-explosives on trains during the rush-hour? I was on the same King’s Cross train that blew up last Friday. I can assure it, it was so packed that I did not have the opportunity to look to see if anyone had left a bag next to me.

3. “Pulling out of Iraq will not stop us being the target of Al Qaeda terrorism.”

You might believe this. New Labour Party loyalists might believe this? But who else believes this? I am sure people will give the example of Spain to illustrate that withdrawing troops from Iraq would change Al Qaeda type organizations attitudes towards the UK. Can we really expect bombs to be placed in underground trains in Paris, Stockholm or Berlin?

4. “I do not think it is appropriate at this moment to try to make political capital out of this tragic event, either re the war or identity cards.”

This of course was Tony Blair's position following the death of David Kelly. I am aware such discussion is very inconvenient to Tony Blair who is currently trying to repackage himself as a world leader bring to bring an end of world poverty. However, the truth is that he is a warmonger who is the main reason for 7/7.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Not to down play these atrocities but there were 6,000 deaths last year from terrorist attacks (source the Gaurdian) Worldwide, Whilst 30,000 starve to death in Africa every week. How is that not a terrorist act,when most of these deaths are preventable. Also, if as Mr Blair and others of his ilk claim that the terrorists want nothing less than the destruction of Western civilisation,it strikes me, at this rate,they may as well P*ss in the sea and wait for it to change colour.

[Gary Younge]

Shortly after September 11 2001, when the slightest mention of a link between US foreign policy and the terrorist attacks brought accusations of heartless heresy, the then US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice got to work. Between public displays of grief and solemnity she managed to round up the senior staff of the National Security Council and ask them to think seriously about "how do you capitalise on these opportunities" to fundamentally change American doctrine and the shape of the world. In an interview with the New Yorker six months later, she said the US no longer had a problem defining its post-cold war role. "I think September 11 was one of those great earthquakes that clarify and sharpen. Events are in much sharper relief."

For those interested in keeping the earth intact in its present shape so that we might one day live on it peacefully, the bombings of July 7 provide no such "opportunities". They do not "clarify" or "sharpen" but muddy and bloody already murky waters. As the identities of the missing emerge, we move from a statistical body count to the tragedy of human loss - brothers, mothers, lovers and daughters cruelly blown away as they headed to work. The space to mourn these losses must be respected. The demand that we abandon rational thought, contextual analysis and critical appraisal of why this happened and what we can do to limit the chances that it will happen again, should not. To explain is not to excuse; to criticise is not to capitulate.

We know what took place. A group of people, with no regard for law, order or our way of life, came to our city and trashed it. With scant regard for human life or political consequences, employing violence as their sole instrument of persuasion, they slaughtered innocent people indiscriminately. They left us feeling unified in our pain and resolute in our convictions, effectively creating a community where one previously did not exist. With the killers probably still at large there is no civil liberty so vital that some would not surrender it in pursuit of them and no punishment too harsh that some might not sanction if we found them.

The trouble is there is nothing in the last paragraph that could not just as easily be said from Falluja as it could from London. The two should not be equated - with over 1,000 people killed or injured, half its housing wrecked and almost every school and mosque damaged or flattened, what Falluja went through at the hands of the US military, with British support, was more deadly. But they can and should be compared. We do not have a monopoly on pain, suffering, rage or resilience. Our blood is no redder, our backbones are no stiffer, nor our tear ducts more productive than the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those whose imagination could not stretch to empathise with the misery we have caused in the Gulf now have something closer to home to identify with. "Collateral damage" always has a human face: its relatives grieve; its communities have memory and demand action.

These basic humanistic precepts are the principle casualties of fundamentalism, whether it is wedded to Muhammad or the market. They were clearly absent from the minds of those who bombed London last week. They are no less absent from the minds of those who have pursued the war on terror for the past four years.

Tony Blair is not responsible for the more than 50 dead and 700 injured on Thursday. In all likelihood, "jihadists" are. But he is partly responsible for the 100,000 people who have been killed in Iraq. And even at this early stage there is a far clearer logic linking these two events than there ever was tying Saddam Hussein to either 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.

It is no mystery why those who have backed the war in Iraq would refute this connection. With each and every setback, from the lack of UN endorsement right through to the continuing strength of the insurgency, they go ever deeper into denial. Their sophistry has now mutated into a form of political autism - their ability to engage with the world around them has been severely impaired by their adherence to a flawed and fatal project. To say that terrorists would have targeted us even if we hadn't gone into Iraq is a bit like a smoker justifying their habit by saying, "I could get run over crossing the street tomorrow." True, but the certain health risks of cigarettes are more akin to playing chicken on a four-lane highway. They have the effect of bringing that fatal, fateful day much closer than it might otherwise be.

Similarly, invading Iraq clearly made us a target. Did Downing Street really think it could declare a war on terror and that terror would not fight back? That, in itself, is not a reason to withdraw troops if having them there is the right thing to do. But since it isn't and never was, it provides a compelling reason to change course before more people are killed here or there. So the prime minister got it partly right on Saturday when he said: "I think this type of terrorism has very deep roots. As well as dealing with the consequences of this - trying to protect ourselves as much as any civil society can - you have to try to pull it up by its roots."

What he would not acknowledge is that his alliance with President George Bush has been sowing the seeds and fertilising the soil in the Gulf, for yet more to grow. The invasion and occupation of Iraq - illegal, immoral and inept - provided the Arab world with one more legitimate grievance. Bush laid down the gauntlet: you're either with us or with the terrorists. A small minority of young Muslims looked at the values displayed in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and Camp Bread Basket - and made their choice. The war helped transform Iraq from a vicious, secular dictatorship with no links to international terrorism into a magnet and training ground for those determined to commit terrorist atrocities. Meanwhile, it diverted our attention and resources from the very people we should have been fighting - al-Qaida.

Leftwing axe-grinding? As early as February 2003 the joint intelligence committee reported that al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent "by far the greatest terrorist threat to western interests, and that that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq". At the World Economic Forum last year, Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister and head of the International Crisis Group thinktank, said: "The net result of the war on terror is more war and more terror. Look at Iraq: the least plausible reason for going to war - terrorism - has been its most harrowing consequence."

None of that justifies what the bombers did. But it does help explain how we got where we are and what we need to do to move to a safer place. If Blair didn't know the invasion would make us more vulnerable, he is negligent; if he did, then he should take responsibility for his part in this. That does not mean we deserved what was coming. It means we deserve a lot better.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Colum...1525754,00.html

[Christopher T. George]

Hi Gary

Welcome to the Education Forum. I enjoyed your well-considered and well-written article, as well as the earlier article that you referenced, "In a warped reality. Two years on, the occupiers justify the war by embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient". Excellent points made in both essays.

Best regards

Chris

Edited July 12, 2005 by Christopher T. George

[Jonathan Freedland]

The realisation that Britons are ready to bomb their fellow citizens is a challenge to the whole of our society. One security source I spoke to yesterday, before the police revealed their findings, presciently guessed that the culprits were "a UK group, home-grown, having bypassed al-Qaida training camps". He reckoned they would have drawn on the pool of young Muslims so disconnected and disenfranchised that they are easy prey to the extremist sermons heard in some mosques, to the wild, conspiracy-theory packed tapes sold outside and to the most fire-breathing websites. The proliferation of that material represents a deep challenge to British Islam; that disconnection and disenfranchisement is a challenge to Britain itself.

How will this revelation affect London? Some may be reassured by the knowledge that the bombers are dead, rather than at large. Others will hope that, if there are more jihadist cells in Britain, the police will now have the leads to find them.

But the truth is, it is still too early to tell what exactly it is we are dealing with. Is this a one-off, as 9/11 and Madrid turned out to be? Or is this the beginning of a campaign of suicide bombing, like the one waged on Israel for nearly10 years? My hunch is that the much-discussed stoicism and resilience so far displayed by Londoners is the fruit of the first assumption: that this is a horrible event, never to be repeated.

That might explain the calmness which has so surprised Israelis and Spaniards. The Spanish newspapers have been stunned by the British failure to take to the streets, to stage a mass demonstration like theirs last March. Israeli reporters in London last week marvelled at the absence of a crowd of passers-by, bellowing into a microphone, demanding revenge - the scene that so often follows a suicide bombing in Israel, like the one that hit a shopping mall in Netanya yesterday.

We can congratulate ourselves on our phlegmatic cool so far. But we should start to wonder what would happen to us if these attacks became a fact of life, as they have long been in Israel (and are now in Baghdad). Would we find restraint as easy a policy to follow if there was a bomb on the tube or the bus every other day?

I hope never to know the answer to that question. I want it to stay hypothetical for ever. But a menace we have until now seen only from a distance has stepped right up to face us. The ground is still trembling beneath our feet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Colum...1527418,00.html

[John Simkin]

It is also worth the reading the views of Dilpazier Aslam. It is only by understanding his views will we be able to solve the problem of having British suicide bombers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1527323,00.html

If I'm asked about 7/7, I - a Yorkshire lad, born and bred - will respond first by giving an out-clause to being labelled a terrorist lover. I think what happened in London was a sad day and not the way to express your political anger.

Then there's the "but". If, as police announced yesterday, four men (at least three from Yorkshire) blew themselves up in the name of Islam, then please let us do ourselves a favour and not act shocked.

Shocked would be to imply that we were unaware of the imminent danger, when in fact Sir John Stevens, the then Metropolitan police commissioner, warned us last year that an attack was inevitable.

Shocked would be to suggest we didn't appreciate that when Falluja was flattened, the people under it were dead but not forgotten - long after we had moved on to reading more interesting headlines about the Olympics. It is not the done thing to make such comparisons, but Muslims on the street do. Some 2,749 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks. To discover the cost of "liberating" Iraqis you need to multiply that figure by eight, and still you will fall short of the estimated minimum of 22,787 civilian Iraqi casualties to date. But it's not cool to say this, now that London's skyline has also has plumed grey.

Shocked would also be to suggest that the bombings happened through no responsibility of our own. OK, the streets of London were filled with anti-war marchers, so why punish the average Londoner? But the argument that this was an essentially US-led war does not pass muster. In the Muslim world, the pond that divides Britain and America is a shallow one. And the same cry - why punish us? - is often heard from Iraqi mothers as the "collateral damage" increases daily.

Shocked would be to say that we don't understand how, in the green hills of Yorkshire, a group of men given all the liberties they could have wished for could do this.

The Muslim community is no monolithic whole. Yet there are some common features. Second- and third-generation Muslims are without the don't-rock-the-boat attitude that restricted our forefathers. We're much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks or not.

Which is why the young get angry with that breed of Muslim "community leader" who remains silent while anger is seething on the streets.

Earlier this year I attended a mosque in Leeds for Friday prayers. It was in the month of Ramadan, when Islamic fervour is at its most impassioned, yet in the sermon, to a crowd of hundreds - many of whom were from Iraq - Falluja was not referred to once; not even in the cupped-hands prayers after the sermon was over.

I prayed my Eid prayer in a mosque in Sheffield and, though most there were sickened and angry about events in Iraq, the imam chose not to mention Falluja either. We "youngsters" - some now in our 40s - had seen it before. This was deliberate silence, in case the boat rocked.

Perhaps now is the time to be honest with each other and to stop labelling the enemy with simplistic terms such as "young", "underprivileged", "undereducated" and perhaps even "fringe". The don't-rock-the-boat attitude of elders doesn't mean the agitation wanes; it means it builds till it can be contained no more.

[Christopher T. George]

Hi all

If there is any good to come out of the London bombings of Thursday, 7 July and the revelation that the suicide bombers were British-born Muslims, it might be that Muslims, at least in Britain, might be forced to face up to the problem in their midst and begin to take action against the radicals. It is less likely that Christian, western authorities can do this. The Muslim community itself has to act.

Best regards

Chris

[Graham Davies]

I was in London 12-14 July, attending a teachers' conference. I was most impressed by the way in which the 2-minute silence was conducted. Just before noon ve we all left the conference room in our hotel and stood outside with the other guests and staff. All the traffic stopped and the silence was observed by all for the full two minutes. It was a moving act of remembrance as well as an act of defiance showing that we all stand together and cannot be intimidated by bloody acts of terrorism.

It is remarkable how quickly London returned to normality following 7/7. But then we've been through the Blitz and suffered the onslaughts of the IRA for nearly 30 years. It takes more than a handful of radical nutters to break London's spirit.