What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Special Issue: the Collapse of America
Paul Craig
Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is
happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class,
white collar jobs. Roberts'
stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy
is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead.
Plus Mike
Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
each month! But
remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the
print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation towards the cost of this
online edition.
Remember contributions are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
And yet another menacing terror plot
was thwarted 10 August, with the arrest of 24 suspects, all British
Muslims. It was an ominous conspiracy aimed at committing "mass
murder" on an "unimaginable" scale, British authorities
quickly concluded. US authorities hastily joined the action,
too claiming a decisive victory over the plotters, thanks in
part to the quick thinking of and awesome coordination between
US security and intelligence branches. Britain congratulated
the US; the US thanked Britain; both saluted Pakistan and its
ever-loyal leadership, itself conducting a brutal war against
undefined, shadowy groups that emerge and vanish, all too conveniently,
and too neatly.
Moments after the shocking
announcement, as security threat levels reached their peak in
the US and Britain, the debate commenced and it relentlessly
continues: Why would a British Muslim choose such a destructive
path while living in a democratic society, where change, at least
theoretically, is possible through peaceful means?
The media also sprung into
action. Ready-to-serve answers were deftly provided by all the
usual experts, instantly infusing more conventional wisdom upon
a vulnerable public. Attempts to contextualise terrorism within
a political milieu were decidedly torpedoed. Despite years of
war that seem to have achieved nothing but "mass murder"
on an "unimaginable" scale, no one should dare explain
the true roots of terrorism; one may explain why poor neighbourhoods
in America yield greater crime rates than others, or why abused
children become abusers themselves, or even why US soldiers in
Iraq often "snap" and massacre entire families, but
terrorism that involves Muslims should not in any way be discussed
outside its useful parameters of a misguided generation with
a radical interpretation of religion: the Islam that produces
"Muslim fascists" as President George W Bush termed
it.
Very few moderate, or sensible
voices are consulted in such debates. British media proves no
exception, examining the viewpoints of the utterly fundamentalist
or the utterly liberal. The first wants a return to the Islamic
caliphate, with London as its capital, and the latter dismisses
as hogwash the attempt to examine the government's foreign policy
as a reason of radicalisation searing among an already embattled
and alienated young Muslim generation.
Expectedly, a letter that was
signed by three Muslim MPs and 38 organisations accusing Prime
Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy in Iraq, and his support
of the Israeli carnage in Lebanon, of "putting civilians
at increased risk both in the UK and abroad" hardly changed
anything. British Home Secretary John Reid found the mere suggestion
of a link unacceptable. Many others followed suit. If anything,
the terror plot will strengthen the argument of those eager to
harden terror laws, widen the gap between peoples from different
religions, but most dangerously give yet more leash to those
who champion war as a solution to conflict.
One week before the alleged
plot was impeded, 100,000 people in London marched in protest
at the British government's position -- particularly that of
Blair in support of Israel's war of "self-defence"
in Lebanon. Hundreds of protesters threw children's shoes near
the doorsteps of the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing
Street. They were meant to symbolise the number of children killed
in this war, mostly by the Israeli army. I gazed at the impromptu
memorial as I held Lebanese and Palestinian flags. Thinking of
the tiny bodies of hundreds of children, mingled underneath tons
of concrete in Lebanon and Gaza gave me that ever-familiar chill
of dejection. Only the nudge of a police officer to my shoulder
forced me to move along.
What is radicalisation but
a culmination of bitterness, resentment and anger that lurk desperately
inside, which often translate to despicable behaviour: terrorism?
But if terrorism is killing innocent civilians to achieve political
ends, then how else can one explain the American-British war
on Iraq with a death toll that has long passed the 100,000 mark?
Or the ongoing war in Afghanistan? Or Israel's wars in Palestine
and Lebanon, and the funding or abetting of these wars by the
US and British governments?
Is it not rational to deduce
that "mass murder" in the Middle East, happening at
such an "unimaginable" scale, could lead to a culmination
of bitterness, resentment, anger and radicalisation that would
unavoidably yield terrorism? And since Muslims seem to be the
primary target of this mass murder, is it not equally rational
to expect that the perpetrators of such terrorist acts might
mostly be Muslims?
The insistence on disallowing
this argument as one imparted primarily by terror "apologists"
is often induced with equal determination to prolong the terrorising
wars, of which civilians are the primary victims. A change of
course might be understood as bowing to terrorists, as Spain
is often accused of doing. Thus the carnage in Palestine, Lebanon,
Iraq and Afghanistan must continue. This seems to be the underlying
logic in refusing to acknowledge the urgency of a fundamental
shift in foreign policy, in Britain as well as in the United
States.
Those who cautiously attempted
to link the terrorist acts of 11 September to America's political,
financial and military support of the State of Israel were dismissed,
even shunned, whenever they disseminated their logic. Only the
drums of war were to be heard. Now, nearly five years later,
are we any closer to global peace and tranquillity? How many
more lives must be wasted, how much more blood must be shed,
and how many more children's shoes must be piled up on Downing
Street to realise that cluster bombs don't hold the keys to peace,
nor do the torture camps of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?
One must not accept the logic
of those who believe that blowing up innocent travellers is a
prudent response to blowing up Lebanese children seeking shelter
in a half standing building in South Lebanon, however inhumane.
But to continue to pretend that those who carry out acts of "mass
murder" at an "unimaginable" scale in Iraq and
elsewhere in the Middle East are not perpetrators of terrorism
themselves -- whether directly or by inspiring a cycle terrorist
responses -- is to resign to doing nothing in defence of the
innocent, British, Palestinian or Lebanese, which, I believe,
is equally repugnant.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
