London Terror Bombings Kill 37, Wound 700

[Crissy]

UK and Australia are just puppets for Bush, he pulls the strings any which way it pleases him.
It wouldn’t be too long before something happens to Australia.

Now, UK wants Australia to take control of South Iraq.

Sometimes it makes me wonder if London’s bombing was not their own doing, just another reason to send more troops over.

[karoaper]

Just wanted to make comment on Iraq and what I think is going to happen there, whether US stays to finish the job or not. Actually US will not stay to finish the job. Rumsfeld recently said that to root out the insergency it could (which prob means it will) take till 2015. Certainly, American public will not stand for US presence in Iraq till 2015. So US WILL leave with the job unfinished and Iraqis will be left to fight the crazies by themselves. So two things can happen in near future. Years and years of civil unrest based on religious struggle between Shi'ites and Sunnies, with a crazy fanatical Mulah (prob Shi'ite) taking over and ruling Iraq like Khomeini ruled Iran. Another possibility is Iraq gets a new Saddam, no less ruthless than the old Saddam, who crushes the insurgency with brutalality and sadism by killing all the insurgents, their families and their tribes (a la Saddam). Except this Saddam will get weapons from US and will be able to operate with America's blessing (sounds familiar). I think US can't have another Khomeini in Iraq, so I'd be willing to put my money on the second case.

Btw, do folks see that the Iraqi war now is the continuation of the old "white man's burden" ideology that ratified the colonization of Americas and Africa and Asia. Exept this time replace "white" with "free". "We are there to spread democracy and freedom to less fortunate people. Before we do that though we'll need to kill couple of hundred thousands. But, that is a small price to pay for the freedom we give".

[skhara]

Ok so what is wrong with condemming all the atrocities? This was a criminal atrocity. And so was Serbia, and so is Iraq. Besides why do you guys automatically assume that it was Moslem Arabs who did it? I for one, automatically assume that it was the Jewish Mossad that did it, and until it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they didn't, I will continue to make this assumption.

[Red Brigade]

There is a religious war , and such wars are holding for too many time.Thus Iraq might be divided in three parts.Kurdistan, a country for the Shiites and another part for the Sunnites.They can't co-exist together.
It is worth to note that even if the Kurds are Sunites , they support the Shiites of Iraq, who are ''ruling'' currently the country.

PS*By the way the Brits have been present in modern Iraq for more than a century , starting from the British Mandate.Those people never enjoyed a healthy political system.They have been ruled by the Arab Sultans, then under the rule of the Ottomans and exactly after that under the rule of the British.. until their recent dictator Saddam.

[bezjian]

man pamooshjian, you wiped the floor with these guys! i already made this statement somewhere else but this pretty much sums up how i feel about the whole situation. some americans have some sense:

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Blowback Hits Britain
Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Do you feel safer now that George Bush's and Tony Blair's barbaric attacks on Iraq have brought barbaric attacks to London?

Coordinated attacks on London's transport system have apparently killed 38 and injured 700. It is a terrible thing but hardly surprising. Did Londoners really think that the British people would not be held accountable for electing and reelecting Tony Blair--a war criminal under the Nuremberg standard--who aided and abetted George Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq on false pretenses?

Did Londoners really believe that Muslims would have no response to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the slaughter, torture, and detention of Muslims?

Blair and Bush are on their high horses claiming the morality of "civilized nations" and denouncing the retaliation they have provoked as "barbarism."

Their hypocrisy plays poorly in the world. Far more innocent Iraqi civilians, especially women and children, have been slaughtered than British and Americans. Why do Bush and Blair believe they should be praised for slaughtering civilians and only Muslims denounced?

Why do Americans think it is heroic and honorable for our troops to massacre Iraqis with bombs, missiles, gunships, tanks, and heavy machine guns, but cowardly and barbaric when our victims fight back in the only way they can?
The US and Britain started this fight, not Iraq. We should be ashamed that Bush and Blair deceived us, tricked us into a pointless and unjust war, and that innocent people on both sides are paying with their lives and limbs for Bush's and Blair's lies. Our real anger should be directed at Bush and Blair who are responsible for the deaths and destruction.

The American and British people had better wake up, depose their immoral leaders, and put a halt to this war.

There are 1.3 billion Muslims. The Iraqi insurgency has proved that Muslims are not intimidated by a "superpower." Unless the American and British people want a 30-year or a 100-year war with domestic police states for "security" reasons and a draft that will bleed their populations dry, this war needs to be wound up quickly with due apologies and reparations.

No more bluster and heroic talk from the two war criminals. The war is breeding terrorism and cannot be won. Only an even-handed diplomacy that breeds trust and ceases to rule Muslims with puppet governments can isolate and reduce terrorist acts. Muslims are not a few scattered Indian tribes with no place to hide who can be exterminated. America has no chance of imposing its will on the Muslim world. Muslims have their own will.

As long as Bush continues to operate with Mao's belief that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, terrorism will prosper and people will die for no reason except their refusal to hold corrupt leaders accountable.

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: [email protected]

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the ululating moralizing you see from right-wingers right now is almost comical when you consider that these people didn't say a word or lose a minute's sleep when u.s and british forces slaughtered men, women, and children in fallujah, samarra, basra, and dozens of other cities in iraq over the last three years. nobody said "we are all iraqis today" after fallujah, they just treat these deaths as if they're roadkill. what is the difference between the murder of an innocent person in iraq and the murder of an innocent person in london? they will devote millions of dollars and thousands of hours to bringing the killers to justice, do they do the same for american and british terrorists who kill in iraq? why do we have the death penalty in the u.s. for for americans who murder in the u.s., but not for americans who murder in iraq? there isn't even any punishment for them, because the u.s. has immunity from the world criminal court, and doesn't prosecute itself. crimes must be punished. when injustices are not punished (and those of the u.s., britain, israel never are), people will sooner or later take matters into their own hands. my only bias in the world is against double standards. yes i'm sorry that innocent people were killed in london (my dad was born and raised there) but i am equally outraged when innocent people in iraq, afghanistan, and palestine are killed, and even more so when the killers are not brought to justice.

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Marine Cleared In Killing Of Unarmed Iraqis

A marine who shot and killed two unarmed Iraqis at point blank range has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by the military. Immediately following the decision, the soldier, Lieutenant Ilario Pantano, said he did not regret killing the men. Prosecutors alleged that Pantano intended to make an example of the men by shooting them 60 times and hanging a sign over their corpses that read "No better friend, no worse enemy." Pantano did not deny hanging the sign or shooting the men repeatedly after stopping their vehicle at a checkpoint. He admitted emptying one magazine of bullets into the Iraqis, then reloading and firing 30 more rounds. Pantano will continue his work training marines at Camp Lejune and his lawyer says he hopes to return to Iraq.

[Anonymouse]

Just wanted to make comment on Iraq and what I think is going to happen there, whether US stays to finish the job or not. Actually US will not stay to finish the job. Rumsfeld recently said that to root out the insergency it could (which prob means it will) take till 2015. Certainly, American public will not stand for US presence in Iraq till 2015. So US WILL leave with the job unfinished and Iraqis will be left to fight the crazies by themselves. So two things can happen in near future. Years and years of civil unrest based on religious struggle between Shi'ites and Sunnies, with a crazy fanatical Mulah (prob Shi'ite) taking over and ruling Iraq like Khomeini ruled Iran. Another possibility is Iraq gets a new Saddam, no less ruthless than the old Saddam, who crushes the insurgency with brutalality and sadism by killing all the insurgents, their families and their tribes (a la Saddam). Except this Saddam will get weapons from US and will be able to operate with America's blessing (sounds familiar). I think US can't have another Khomeini in Iraq, so I'd be willing to put my money on the second case.

Btw, do folks see that the Iraqi war now is the continuation of the old "white man's burden" ideology that ratified the colonization of Americas and Africa and Asia. Exept this time replace "white" with "free". "We are there to spread democracy and freedom to less fortunate people. Before we do that though we'll need to kill couple of hundred thousands. But, that is a small price to pay for the freedom we give".

In the words of Gore Vidal, what Rumsfeld is advocating via Orwellian newspseak, is "perpetual war, for perpetual peace". The whole "war on terror" is a sham in the sense that its premises, its goals, are illusory. Much of the current Middle Eastern state-systems owes its origins to Great Britain's political maneuvering post-WWI. Certainly, it was article 22 of the League of Nations creating the mandate system which created the present boundaries of the Middle Eastern states, with minor alterations throughout the 20th century.

In recent events, from the perspective of Muslims, American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq hasn't produced bliss, but more chaos, more destruction, and more suffering. Unconditional American support for Israel, along with regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan have added further flames for the populations living under it. Of course, a popular complaint of the usual war supporters are that "Islamo fascists" threaten "our way of life", or are "fundamentalist nuts that hate us for our freedom". But the fundamenalist Christians in this country are not much different from the fundamentalist Muslims when it comes to trying to control the lives of others and telling other people what they can or can't do. They have found in the form of Bush their "prophet" of catharsis against the Muslim pariah. "They hate us for our freedoms" is a bunch of crap. They wouldn't care at all about our freedoms if we weren't over there playing games of intrigue and "Bomb the Brownies" for the last 60 years.

There is also similar comparisions of the "War on Terror" (which is vague, and against an amorphous enemy), to the Soviet Union during the Cold War (which was a clearly defined state-empire). In the latter the U.S. sought to control a single, clearly defined entity from spreading. In the initial the U.S. seeks to control a broad movement within Islam that has no clearly defined shapes and forms. It's not a centralized institution with clear boundaries. Instead, the U.S. is trying to impose the values of Western modernity on the Middle East, within the "War on terror". Militarily speaking, it is foolish to declare war on a tactic - terror. Terrorism is a tactic and no more the monopoly of "Islamo-fascists" than America in it's bombing campaign of "shock and awe" which the aim was indeed, to terrorize. Therefore, we need to understand that discontent with the U.S. is because of foreign policy, not freedoms we possess.