Palast: Bush and Blair exploit amateurish bombings

[Mairead]

The tooth fairy, Santa Clause, WorldCom profits, the Easter Bunny, al-Qaeda.

The cruel, evil jerks who blew up the London subway last week, despite appropriating al-Qaeda's name for their website and T-shirts, have about as much to do with al-Qaeda as a Beatles tribute band has to do with the Fab Four.

For all the horror, hoopla and hair-pulling, this was no September 11. Timmy McVeigh slaughtered a heck of a lot more people in Oklahoma City with his cow-poop bomb.

I'm not belittling the heartbreaking hideousness of this crime, but let's get the facts straight. If al-Qaeda is the Panzer Division of terrorism, these London bombers were terrorism's Cub Scouts. We're talking a few pounds of nitro wired to a clock -- a design badly copied off the Internet.

...

Al-Qaeda this ain't. All the evidence is that this half-assed attack was the work of some poor young Muslim schmucks, possibly whipped into a frenzy by the mewling mullah of Finsbury Park, Omar Bakri Mohammed, a cleric who enjoyed the comfortable middle-class dullness of England during the week while on weekends preaching, "a 9/11, day after day after day" to punish his Western hosts.

It's not al-Qaeda, but for George and Tony, it's good enough. Blair's Foreign Secretary dramatically dashed out to tell us that the explosions had the "hallmarks of al-Qaeda." Our Commander in Chief, looking as commanding as possible (no reading of kiddie stories this time), could not have been more satisfied.

http://www.gregpalast.com/

[ewagner]

1. Ooooohhhhh..nice catchphrase!

FDR calmed a nation when he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." But the Bush and Blair slogan is, "We have nothing to sell but fear itself."

[bigtree]

2. I don't fully agree here

These bombers are outgrowths of a movement, initiated by the al Qaeda New York attack, and later fueled by Bush's military aggression. The fact that we are creating more enemies than we are disposing of should not be lost in the desire to downplay the London attacks. Fact is, people are still being killed by violence associated with groups and individuals who are committed to vengeance against Americans and our allies. Bush and Blair are committed to using these incidents to escalate our military involvement in Iraq and elsewhere, as Palast says, but to downplay the effect of the attack because it was "was no September 11", or Oklahoma City is foolishness.

It's more than necessary to restrain Bush and Blair from the direction they took after 9-11. Blair was justifying the Iraq invasion just a week before the recent attack as a reasonable "show of force" following the attack on the World Trade Center.

But, there is folly in disregarding the fact that we have just experienced another attack from yet another outgrowth of Bush's failed response to the initial attack on America. Many more could have been killed, many more may yet die because of the enimity that we have created with our war on Muslims.

I just don't agree with his strident talk about the failures of al Qaeda in generating support among Muslims for more violence. Maybe that is true of all Muslims, but it was never suggested that the majority of Muslims supported bin Laden at any point. It is not in dispute, however, that our 'war on terror', and Bush's wars of opportunity, have had the effect of creating more enemies of the U.S. and have made us more vulnerable to these bombers, many of whom are so committed that they are willing to give their lives up front in the attempt to kill us.

That's nothing to shrug off, no matter how much we want to dissuade Bush.

[ewagner]

3. I understand your point

and, to some extent, I agree.

But I think Palast obscured the most important point by downplaying Al Queda. That important point is that the misdirected "International War on Terror" has spawned so many "free lance" terrorists that it's like trying to contain a shattered vile of mercury. Maybe Al Queda has become a titular figurehead of the the anti-US movement in the extremist community. Maybe it's not necessary to Osama and his core lieutenants to give direction to the free lancers anymore. Perhaps we've spawned a hundred Al Quedas operating independently of each other.

What do you think?

[bigtree]

5. That's the point that's obscured by downplaying events.

This is the latest attack in Bush's perpetual war. Mission accomplished.

We can slow the enimity down with a change in admimistration and a change in policy, like withdrawing our troops from Iraq. There will always be those who will use violence against us for their own aim or ambition, but I believe that we have more than aggravated the situation and encouraged more reprisals with our occupations and indiscriminate bombings which have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in the Middle East.

[rman]

4. "bombers are outgrowths of a movement"

That's theory, supported mainly by conventional wisdom (or widely accepted world view, if you will).
It may be true, but what actual evidence is there, other then what governemnts of western nations say about it?

That's the trick with widely accepted world view. Any claim that fits that world view is often accepted practically without evidence.

[bigtree]

7. Okay, I'll play

Let's pretend that we haven't invaded and occupied two Muslim dominated nations.

Let's pretend that there hasn't been a call by an increased number of Arab actors in that region for violent resistance and reprisals against Americans, and our allies and agents.

Let's pretend that our military hasn't indiscriminately slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent civilians in that region with carpet bombing, search and destroy missions, and sponsored attacks by Iraqi and Afghan forces against towns and targets.

Okay, now I'm dumbed down enough. But, hey. Why are these groups and individuals still popping up, committing their resources, and often their lives up front, to kill Americans and our agents?

[rman]

8. You seem to start with the premise

that these groups are who our leaders say they are.

I think that given the circumstances it is only likely that there are indivdual actors who feel as you describe, and that they could act accordingly.
One question is if they have enough resources to pull of these big acts, and if they would be sensitive to help from outsiders who have much more resources and who would also benefit from the fear and chaos that terrorism creates.

[bigtree]

9. I don't think it matters a wit whether these bombers are al Qaeda

outside of our efforts to identify and capture the perps.

I do feel that they represent a wave of resentment and reprisals that is an outgrowth of our blundering slaughters of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a resistance to our continuing military occupations.

It could be that they are just the work of uncalculating murderers, nothing more. But I doubt it. And, I doubt that they are unconnected from major violent resistance actors in the Middle East.

[K-W]

10. I think as long as we scapegoat some evil organization

the American people will never recognize the truth that the fuel for the jihad movement comes from individual muslims around the world who are angered by very real conditions of oppression and marginalization and very real US actions that contribute to those conditions.

As long as we insist on keeping our boot firmly on the chest of peoples around the world, some of them are going to try and kill us.

[Swede]

6. He's jumping the gun on this one.

Wait til the investigation is complete before you call it anything.