While the inevitable political point-scoring has started after the London bombings - including a delightfully malicious and pathetic bastard telling me that he hopes "the next target of these murdering bastards is Lowensteins (sic) Mums' house - surely it's time to take a good, long, hard look at why these attacks may have happened. Robert Fisk has a few ideas:
""If you bomb our cities," Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, "we will bomb yours." There you go, as they say. It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush's "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned. The G8 summit was obviously chosen, well in advance, as Attack Day.
"And it's no use Mr Blair telling us yesterday that "they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear". "They" are not trying to destroy "what we hold dear". They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, from his alliance with the United States, and from his adherence to Bush's policies in the Middle East. The Spanish paid the price for their support for Bush - and Spain's subsequent retreat from Iraq proved that the Madrid bombings achieved their objectives - while the Australians were made to suffer in Bali."
As Fisk rightly asks, "If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us think insurgency won't come to us?"
The concept of Western culpability is beyond many people. Much easier to simply label the murderers as "terrorists", issue a call to arms and continue the "War on Terror." The current tactics have been a complete failure. Time for a shift. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise, including our infantile Prime Minister. "I want to make it very plain that this kind of attack will not alter the attitude of the government of Australia towards terrorism and towards the commitments we have with our American, British and other friends to Iraq to Afghanistan", he said. What needs to happen for our leaders to take a reality check? That time is now.
Meanwhile Fox News, on the media's frontline in the "War on Terror", featured a remarkable interview last night. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade:
"...And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. 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 political victory in the Trans-Atlantic battle. Watch the ratings fly.
Back on planet Earth, we are experiencing a massive, contagious case of historical amnesia. Western culture is not simply superior because we say so. Bombing civilians into smithereens does not bring calls of "liberation" from those obliterated. And most importantly, why do we think we're immune from attack when we launch a war on a defenceless country seen by millions around the world as an attack on Muslims?
We need more than a better PR campaign to understand London, July 7, 2005.
""If you bomb our cities," Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, "we will bomb yours." There you go, as they say. It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush's "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned. The G8 summit was obviously chosen, well in advance, as Attack Day.
"And it's no use Mr Blair telling us yesterday that "they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear". "They" are not trying to destroy "what we hold dear". They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, from his alliance with the United States, and from his adherence to Bush's policies in the Middle East. The Spanish paid the price for their support for Bush - and Spain's subsequent retreat from Iraq proved that the Madrid bombings achieved their objectives - while the Australians were made to suffer in Bali."
As Fisk rightly asks, "If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us think insurgency won't come to us?"
The concept of Western culpability is beyond many people. Much easier to simply label the murderers as "terrorists", issue a call to arms and continue the "War on Terror." The current tactics have been a complete failure. Time for a shift. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise, including our infantile Prime Minister. "I want to make it very plain that this kind of attack will not alter the attitude of the government of Australia towards terrorism and towards the commitments we have with our American, British and other friends to Iraq to Afghanistan", he said. What needs to happen for our leaders to take a reality check? That time is now.
Meanwhile Fox News, on the media's frontline in the "War on Terror", featured a remarkable interview last night. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade:
"...And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. 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 political victory in the Trans-Atlantic battle. Watch the ratings fly.
Back on planet Earth, we are experiencing a massive, contagious case of historical amnesia. Western culture is not simply superior because we say so. Bombing civilians into smithereens does not bring calls of "liberation" from those obliterated. And most importantly, why do we think we're immune from attack when we launch a war on a defenceless country seen by millions around the world as an attack on Muslims?
We need more than a better PR campaign to understand London, July 7, 2005.
8 Comments:
No wonder you are so keen on Fisk. He is as much of a fucktard as you. Grow up and read some proper books you wanker.
By the way, you don't seem to ahve many friends to come to your defence, do you?
With verbage like that, one wonders what kind of books you read mate. 'The Collected Sayings of George W Bush' perhaps?
I've struggled to hear or read either of the following words in the media: Iraq or Afghanistan (ok that's three if you count 'or'). Most of the references I've located have been online sources from non-Western media. There's a few on ABC online, but their television news has totally skirted away from the issue. An astonishing omission.
The standard Western arrogance will now dictate that we avoid any serious analysis of the reasons behind the attack. Several important questions remain to be answered. Here's one I've been twisting in my mind all day. Quite apart from the British government's deliberate decontextualisation of the attack ('terrorist just attack for its own sake), is the average punter interested in causality? They certainly were in Spain following the Madrid terrorist attack.
Notice also the plethora of dispassionate 'terrorism experts' on television. Apart from the oxymoronic job description (how does one become a terrorism expert exactly, other than committing several terrorist attacks?), all these experts have focused on the logistics of terrorism - how to protect (Western) cities from terrorist attacks, is Australia next?, and so on.
Aside from the pathetic abuse above, it is indeed true that Iraq, Afghanistan et al has been all but completely erased. Media amnesia.
This may change in time, but I agree, not likely.
Much easier, as I've discovered today through my blog and Darp, that even raising the question of 'why' is unacceptable. And we wonder why they hate our policies......
Anthony talks about abuse. He should know. He has practiced self-abuse for long enough.
His side is losing - here AND in Iraq.
Ant! Who are the wankers responding to your article? My goodbess, a bunch of closet Michael Tottens! Listen you neocon wanker apologists-if some pricks invaded Australia and killed 100,000 civilians (as per John Hopkins/Lancet survey) I would be out there bombing the fuck out of 'em. Here is my favourite current riddle Q) How many US Marines does it take to change a light bulb? A) As many as possible, it's really a freakin' I.E.D!!! Regards Grinna.
'The concept of Western culpability is beyond many people'
That is the whole problem in a nutshell. Examples above. Unfortunately there are more of us who tend to that childish reactivity than to a sober weighing of options. Any halfway useful analysis must contain honest self-examination, an even handed coverage of both sides, the exercise of reason rather than emotion (principally fear).
I don't know that I would expect such maturity from Osama and friends, but it is deeply frustrating that it's so far removed from, almost anathema to, the leaders and the institutions of power in our 'civilised' democratic West.
Osama poses a simple relativity, one with which our limited friends above will refuse to engage. If you bomb our cities (for no good reason) and kill thousands of our innocents, we will do the same to you. And just as the US decided to make pay a country which had nothing to do with 911, so Osama and his mates are happy to revenge the Shock and Awe that missed him by thousands of miles, upon London, whose hapless citzenry for the most part detests Britain's involvement in the illegal war and occupation of Iraq.
This kind of lethal imprecision is what you can expect if you aren't grown up enough to apply the ethical paprdigms you insist on in others, to yourself.
That was me; name dropped off for some reason.
The neo-con dimwits are like personal computers of the earlier 80s: their brain is so slow that they can’t do two tasks at once. They can’t condemn the terrorist AND in the meantime try to understand what is the motive behind the attacks. To them, any reasoning beyond dear leader’s rant “they hate us for our freedom” will certainly crash their little CPU.
Post a Comment
<< Home