• Friday, 8 July 2005


Some on the left (and not just on the left) have talked of the invasion of Iraq as creating the conditions for the carnage we witnessed in London this week but I question the logic behind this argument.

I am reminded of a statement made some time back that 'if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist if would have been necessary to invent him’ for if, as I contend that to justify the 'war on terror’ it was necessary to invent the terrorist threat first, then come hell or high water, acts such as the London bombing are a necessary and inevitable result of the larger strategic mission of the USUK to justify their even greater acts of carnage and aggression. Thus whether directly or indirectly, I contend that the governments of Bush and Blair are complicit partners in these acts of terror.

People need to ask themselves whether an organisation allegedly dedicated to driving the 'infidel’ from Arab countries is likely to succeed by blowing up ordinary working people on the streets of London? Everything about 'al-Qu’eda’ stinks of set up, from its origins in Saudi Arabia to its alleged role in 9/11. Then there are the bizarre actions of the US government preceding and following 9/11 that even has millions of Americans wondering what the hell their government is up to.

Blair was quick to say that it was timed to coincide with the G8 meeting but equally, it could be argued that the timing was a mite too convenient. The bombings have succeeded in pushing the G8 off the front page and have given Bush and Blair a ready-made reason to justify the continued occupation of Iraq and to up the 'war on terror’. One writer has even suggested that Britain was about to announce a date for a pull-out from its occupation of Iraq, an action that the atrocity this week would surely halt.

By comparison, Bush’s statement that

On the one hand, we got people here who are working to alleviate poverty and to help rid the world of the pandemic of AIDS and that are working on ways to have a clean environment.

is not only staggering in its hypocrisy, the bombing makes Bush and Blair appear to be squeaky clean when in actuality it stands reality on its head. Bush goes on to tell us

And on the other hand, you’ve got people killing innocent people. And the contrast couldn’t be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who’ve got such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.

Of course, the media will not remind us that the man who made the statement is responsible for destroying a country, killing tens of thousands of innocent people. A man hardly in any position to tell us about contrasts!

So who stands to gain from the bombings? Surely not al-Qu’eda unless that is, al-Qu’eda is in actuality a US creation. There are lessons to be learned from the US 'war on drugs’ that followed a somewhat similar path insofar as under the pretext of eradicating cocaine production in Colombia, it not only supported a regime that was inextricably connected to trafficking in cocaine, it gave the US a pretext to set up bases and wage a war not on cocaine but on the liberation movement that threatened its investments.

Earlier still, during its war on the people of Vietnam, the US through the CIA and Air America trafficked in heroin and later, the CIA performed a similar role in its illegal support for the contras in Nicaragua using the sale of cocaine to fund its operations in the 'guns for drugs’ operation run by Colonel 'Ollie’ North.

The big difference of course is the impact of using a terrorist organization as a pretext for the US war on the planet. Smuggling cocaine into the US to destabilize and suppress dissent in poor black communities doesn’t have quite the same impact as a bomb on a bus or in a crowded train, nor can it be used to justify the state’s crackdown on dissent or civil rights.

The media frenzy that is accompanying the latest outrage doesn’t leave any room for thinking about who really stands to gain from the latest bombings. Seamlessly, from Downing Street to 'Fleet’ Street, the headlines scream al-Qu’eda and who is to gainsay this tidal wave of propaganda. Without a shred of proof as to who is really behind the awful bombings, the public is led to believe beyond all shadow of a doubt that it’s 'Islamic fanatics’ and in doing so creates a hysteria that impacts so disastrously on the Muslim communities of the UK and elsewhere in the West.

Labeling the terrorists as 'Islamic extremists’ or 'Muslim fanatics’ exploits the xenophobia and racism that is never far below the surface of our allegedly multi-cultural society. Would the media label the far-right neo-Nazis as 'Christian extremists’ or 'Protestant fanatics’ I wonder? And imagine the outcry were anyone to link neo-Nazis to the Church of England, yet those who preach and practice hate and violence against black people would undoubtedly identify themselves as Christians.

The important aspect of the way the state and the media present this outrage is the role it plays in justifying a policy of increasing repression at home as well as the actions of the state abroad, for the two go hand-in-hand. In demonizing Muslims it dehumanizes them, thus justifying acts of state terror. Shorn of their humanity makes it easy to persuade the populace to go along with a programme of state terror that is, after all the logic behind the ideology of racism.

And no doubt within a short while I won’t be able to board a bus or a tube without a body search and a demand for some id. In short, the carnage serves to justify the creation of a 21st century fascist state, for it is no accident that the bombing occurred just as the actions of Bush and Blair are being questioned as never before, not only its occupation of Iraq but their policies viz the poor of the world and climate change.

If we need to find culprits, look no further than Bush and Blair for if anyone is to be blamed for this week’s carnage, it is surely these two barbarians in blue suits.