Reflecting on London

SW: Casualties of Bush and Blair’s war. Socialist Worker's concise way to view the London tragedy. A PDF version with a reverse side featuring statements from Mike Marqusee and George Galloway.

GNN: So you want to stop the suicide bombers? This is a reasonable discussion that provides actual proof of what the real left has been saying all along. If you want terrorism to stop, then stop occupying and supporting occupations. Pure and simple. Telling is the finding that "Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop..." Robert Pape's book will certainly be ignored by the corporate press, because it proves the stereotypes and vilification of Islam completely wrong. The U.S. ruling class needs the mythology of 'freedom hating islamofacists' intact to justify its policies of mass murder and colonialism abroad, while keeping dissent to a minimum at home.

AP: Al-Qaeda has changed; Bush strategy also needs to shift. Wesley K. Clark sums up the liberal view of the situation. Notice how the focus is to 'encourage "moderates" in Islam,' in other words, perpetuating the entirely false notion that this is somehow tied to religion and not U.S. imperialism. The 'stay the course,' but involve moderates attitude reflects the liberal democrats' stance that they can somehow support invasions, occupations, and wholesale dismantlement of civil rights at home, but they are different than the administration because they have a different approach. If the Democrats were a real opposition party they would have unified in total opposition to the continued occupation. Since they serve the same masters all they can offer is slightly more "humanitarian" version of occupation.