Here's the Condi/Bush line on the London bombings: 1) this is part of an evil plot that has gone on since the 1980's and the Iraq invasion has nothing to do with it, 2) there is something abnormal with people in the Middle East (Condi made this argument this morning on the BBC). They are right in this sense, if they are making a historical argument it should go like this: the US and less so Britain (at least lately) has sent troops to the region for decades and their support for Israel and the sultans and kleptocrats has created an anti-imperialist impulse that has expressed itself in Jihadis because the local regimes have eliminated the left nationalists. If that's what they mean I agree but they don't. They want to be selective in their historical analysis only looking at reaction not causality. On the Arabs/Persians/Kurds are abnormal because they use suicide bombers, as the Algerians said, if you give us the tanks and airplanes....
The debate on the BBC is sophisticated and not to simplify splits over despicable but predictable and part of the war on terror (not the same as the US argument however). On NPR the debate was between the war on terror/evil and we need to spend more on train and boat security, pathetic.
Galloway v. Clarke on Iraq and the bombings.
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3 comments:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4678211.stm
yeah, i love how a story like this made you know, HEADLINES in the west. Underreported black deaths as always. Terrorism ranks probably 5th or lower on the major worries of this century....AIDS in Africa, China, India, other curable diseases in these areas... Global warming, fucking tsunamis... Poverty, feeding people, Corporations hijacking the powers of constitutions and popular sentiment across the world.... wooot! america number 1, yeah, its all bullshit. im at rag39@cornell.edu , feel free to send me an email. It would be good to hear from mr. anton.
I think this is a huge story and should get lots of coverage. Not that the one's that you mention are not under covered but the media just by its nature needs to cover "news" or events of the moment.
I was really struck by this list (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4668245.stm) of the victims. Immigrants, workers, mostly young who many were probably against the war and oppose British and US imperialism generally. The other striking thing for me is the "ordinary" lives the killers led (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4678837.stm). These guys, like the 9/11 murderers, were fairly bright family men who feel so angered by imperialism and such that they want to kill there own to make a political statement.
This has got to be disconcerting foe intelligence services. The parents and wives of these guys didn't even have an inkling of their activities.
The lesson for me is less money for MI-5 and the CIA and no more imperialist ventures.
ironic how the gun-toting conservative leader in this country hates gays and loves to spread um, democracy and all because didnt the greeks, preodominantly pederasts, plow the fields and plant the first seeds of democracy? Socrates would probably get the same treatment other white talented boy-loving males like say jackson get in this country. Conservative democratic evocaitons and passionate rants always remind me of the true founding fathers of representative goverments in the name of the demos (greek for people)...hmm
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