thanks for putting this into perspective
Posted by nabil123 at July 11, 2005 03:34 PM
Thanks Eric, as ever your analysis is thought provoking. The tragedy that befell London is a human tragedy. Its important that who did it are identified in an objective manner. By assuming in advance without objective evidence who did it we r helping the perpetrators of this henious crime get away. Eric the key question to focus is Who did it not Why they did it?
As they say dont put the cart before the horse.
Posted by malik at July 11, 2005 10:01 PM
Eric as always, your article is very sensible and thought provoking in the current hateful and racist climate being fanned by fanatics on all sides. What the world currently needs the most, is visionary leadership not more Islamophobic hatemongering from Bush and Blair and other assorted toadies. The so-called war on “terror” is being conveniently manipulated by the US and other governments for their insidious racist, anti-civil rights agendas. It is absolute idiocy to believe that the US can “defeat” the serious global problems and challenges through military means. The whole premise of this “war” is based on lies and falsehoods. Firstly, even a cursory look at global demographics would reveal the Islamic world would have a population in excess of over 2 billion people in the next ten years and creating more hatred in Muslim countries is not a viable option. The largest pool of immigrants and young workers to Europe and Canada will be from Muslims lands, particularly Magreb countries of North Africa and Pakistan. The short-sighted incitement of Islamophobic knee jerk reaction is highly counterproductive. The media in North America also bears a heavy responsibility acquiescing to this paranoid and hateful neo-con propaganda. The most unlawful war in history (the invasion and destruction of Iraq) was never challenged in the mass media. The daily images of US torture and abuse of Muslim prisoners barely analyzed or reported. The US and Canadian media to some degree was a cheering squad for US barbarism.
Most people in the West have no idea what negative impact these daily images of US atrocities in Iraq and the targeting, profiling and humiliation of Muslims has had on the average person in the Islamic world. Even the recent US-centric PEW poll gave a glimpse into the global hatred being generated by these destructive US policies. These US hating young people around the world would be tomorrow’s leaders at a time when the US is facing both economic and geo-political decline. The paranoid US population is so brainwashed by the manipulative Bush administration that they are totally oblivious to their real national security and future in a shrinking inter-connected world. The squandering of resources on losing “wars” while emerging powers like China, India, Brazil, Iran and Russia take advantage of the global power vacuum. The complete failure of US warmongering is now quite obvious in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper tiger with the brains of a jackass has been exposed once again.
Most Muslims, like any other community want to live a peaceful, productive and harmonious life. Bush administration’s bankrupt racist Islamaphobic policies, invasion and destruction of Muslim countries, blind support of Israel’s expansionist policies, legitimizing an illegal occupation, double standards and finally the blatant racist profiling of almost a quarter of the world’s population is hardly the way to seek peace and global harmony. Hatred only breeds more hatred. What really needs to be addressed is the root cause of this insanity. US support of dictatorships in the Middle-East and elsewhere, blatant disregard for human rights and rule of the law, humiliation of Muslims, greed for transnational natural resources (including Canada’s freshwater and oilsands, it is indeed the crude dude) and a general combination of arrogance and ignorance is pushing the world towards a unmitigated disaster. The constant abuse and profiling of Muslims by the US and other western governments in the name of fighting terror only adds to more hatred, societal paranoia, divisiveness and suspicion, not to mention the huge economic and social cost of this idiocy.
Canada can play a major role in promoting a dialogue and understanding among nations to redress some of the symptoms of these serious problems. The only surefire way to guarantee public and national safety is not be parrot US’s delusional policies which incite hatred, but to actively promote dialogue, rule of the law, respect for human dignity and social and economic inclusion.
Bush administrations jingoistic hatemongering and divisive policies can not be sustained indefinitely and will only lead to a global conflagration. The US is in a dire economic and strategic geo-political quagmire and will probably take the rest of the world with it if not checked by decent peace loving people around the world. The only way to peace is through tolerance, understanding and justice and not through more Guantanomo Bays, Abu Gharaibs, extra-judicial “renditions”, torture, ethnic profiling, villification and suppression of human dignity and basic rights.
I hope the media can play a positive role in promoting a peaceful resolution to this serious threat to humankind being promoted by hateful and violent US policies. Millions of sane people marched in the streets in Canada and around the world to preempt this crazy war, however, the media and major western governments just ignored these calls for peace and harmony. Like you said in your SUN article today Eric, “what you sow is what you reap”.
Thanks for your thoughtful essay. Hopefully, these sad events will promote harmony and understanding rather than hatred in a world which is getting more multicultural and smaller by the day. We need and are entitled to a more visionary and peaceful leadership. All of us can make a positive difference in defusing this madness of George. Let’s build inter-civilizational bridges, all of us deserve a better, more humane and tolerant world.
Posted by Salcondor at July 11, 2005 11:14 PM
In Swedish we have a saying that “he ho joins the game should suffer it” - “den som sig i leken ger får leken tåla”.
Never before have I felt the truth of this saying as when I saw the comments by Blair and the other hypocrites. If they didn’t want to suffer the pains of war - why did they start it?
Posted by Jan Wiklund at July 12, 2005 09:04 AM
I’d like to remind Mr. Margolis that terrorism in America didn’t start on September 11 2001, but in 1993, when the WTC was bombed, and even before, when the Muslim Brotherhood begin it’s downward spiral into terrorism and hate (against Egypt and so forth).
Why not mention how the group that was responsible for that bombing (Al Gama Al Islamiyya), lead by that crazy Blind Cleric, was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood (which started as a peaceful entity btw), but soon adopted an ideology of hate and terrorism, back in the 1950s or 40s.
Al Quaeda and terrorism existed before Sept 11, one of the leaders from (Ayman Al-Zawahiri) Al Gama Al Islamiyya (aka the Islamic group), joined into Al Quaeda later on, to radicalize it. Terrorism didn’t start with Bin Ladden.
My point is that this terrorism dates back to 50 years or more, it started with the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt was at war with terrorists for decades, the SAME people who targetted egypt then decided to “Take on America and the West”. It was only a question of time before they “took it to the west”.
The Iraq may or may not have “fanned the flames”, but this confrontation with terrorism was un-avoidable imo. That’s the policy of Bush.
Would you rather have had Al Gore as a president, and have had no war in Iraq, and have Saddam’s hussein blood thirsty sons take power in 20 years and run things in a more “hardcore fashion”, perhaps getting real ties with terrorists, and perhaps acquiring a nuclear weapon in the mean time and nuking out an American city in 2015 or 2025?
Who knows what the future holds. I think it’s very presumptious to try and forecast what can be based on the Iraq war. No one knows.. Just a few thoughts
Posted by mhex at July 12, 2005 02:49 PM
Mr. Margolis,
Thank you as always.
mhex,
“my point is that this terrorism dates back to 50 years or more…” I’d agree with that. But, are you being selective in your research?
——-On July 22, 1946, members of the Jewish underground military organization [terrorist group] Irgun Tsvai-Leumi in the British Mandate of Palestine exploded a bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). 91 people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured.
The attack was initially ordered by David Ben Gurion, who was in the United States, but he later changed his mind and ordered the bombing to be cancelled. But Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, went ahead anyway. Both Ben Gurion and Begin would later become Israeli Prime Ministers. The attack was commanded by Yosef Avni and Yisrael Levi.
more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
—————
Lest we forget, it’s all barbarism, terrorism by any other name. :(
Posted by impatiens at July 12, 2005 08:37 PM
Excellent analysis Mr. Margolis. I wish there were a thousand journalists out there with your credentials (unembedded reporting, of course) and integrity.
Keep it up.
Gaod bless you and your family.
Posted by TheFoob at July 12, 2005 09:16 PM
Mr. Margolis,
Your article, definitely, expressed the feelings of many conscious people. And the perception you had of last week’s events was enough fair to make many conscious people happy to see a western talking openly about the real motivations of this attack.
But I would like to highlight two points that didn’t have enough luck with you, even though you did mention them.
Obviously, the US media is, currently, the shame of journalism. However it’s necessary to mention people like, Jon Stewart, Morgan Spurlock, Michael Moore and few others who are daily fighting and defying and powerful evil machine destroying two powerful civilizations. The North American media has been, purposely, successful in brainwashing people with their futilities between reality shows, which is making them dream about an inexistent American Dream, and “molester” story who’s even though innocent no one of us will let his child spend a night with him. The Trial the most famous pop star in the US did more harm to this nation than what it did to all the children, people were liberating white pigeons in front of the court, I guess pigeons themselves were ashamed since they use to fly between War and Peace and not after a molester trial. This is not to show us anything but how these Americans are being used and abused.
Abused by taking their essential and most important right, the right to the information, it’s true that you talk freely in the United States and even as louder as you can but no one will hear you. Media is not controlled but possessed by the evil, and is actually accomplishing its main objectives, changing the customer, totally changing the customer. Notice these childish things you see on TV from white pigeons to reality shows, News will show you sharks found on beaches and cats on trees but won’t go broadcast anything beyond London. London is even good news for them, they got the paranoia shot for the White Midwestern American.
Used by all this evil power, convincing them about an “Arab conspiracy” (a movie with Sean Connery), an Islamist fundamentalist Organization named Al Qaeda that wants to touch the values, their lifestyle and their freedom and they are enough arrogant to get people praise the name of God and Jesus Christ and claim “The war on Terror” to the evil enemy.
True, Mr. Margolis, the G8 summit could be perceived as pop star evangelism if we didn’t witness these atrocities in London. But I do not think that that’s how the G8 could be perceived in the Middle East even though these terrorist attacks. You and Salcondor did mention the horrible images that Middle Eastern are watching every day or even living in their every day. But the loss is beyond imagination, it’s a civilization being changed, humans being hurt and most of all dignity of fathers and moms being touched, which is difficult to forget and forgive but it will be carried by their children as it is the most important heritage of an Arab. Obviously Jews did never forget about the holocaust, Arabs will make them pay the current holocaust they are subject to, but I hope that the Moslem side of every Arab will remind them of the forgiveness of Allah, especially to his people Moslems, Christians and Jews. And if Allah could forgive then his humans can’t not forgive.
Consequently this harm brought to these two civilizations is driving us nowhere else than to a huge cultural divide between them two. But as known and frequently done the winner and the most powerful will write history or even changed by hiding aspects of it. After all all what it is going to take is inform the ignorant and console those who lost lives and dignity by money. But I wonder what will be the price? I hope the price won’t be more lives but I doubt money will pay for this. Money consoled the Jews but probably not the Arabs.
I, also, would like to add a few comments around the history of terrorism, point brought up in few comments. I will recommend to those who believe that terrorism is to check the meaning of the word in the dictionary and read a bit more about history in the world, I am sure to that if the reader is North American, he will be shocked by the atrocities that his teacher didn’t tell him, especially about his own continent. That might give a much broader vision of terrorism. Another game that might be of great help for those who are blinded, changing the word “insurgency” on American media by the word “resistance”, results are impressive.
Thanks,
Amazigh Tounes
Posted by Amazigh Tounes at July 13, 2005 12:06 AM
“When we kill them in droves, some of them will strike back.
Calling on such avengers to fight fair is a waste of time.”…
I am a pacifist and a Conscientious Objector to war, after serving almost 3 years in the U.S. Army. I look at all of the war making methodology as not fighting fair.
The saying “All’s fair in love and war” seems to have disappeared from the current vernacular. Just who IS it that tells any individual or group what is fair and what is foul?
Someone once made the point that “The U.S. Constitution does not apply to me - I didn’t sign it.”
Does the signing of documents by politicians in some other era force everyone afterward to accept those rules? If so, who says so? And if so, how is that set of rules enforced? Usually, when one gets down to basics, those rules are enforced by force, sometimes deadly force. So, at their foundation, force dictates; those with the biggest guns, the most unstoppable weapons, tell everyone what is fair, what is legal, what is within the rules.
Libertarians sometimes define “government” as “a monopoly on the use of force”. A good illustration of this is when that monopoly is challenged by some insurrection, invasion or civil war. In that case, some group is actually challenging that monopoly, resulting in violence.
Another example of this being challenged is with what we currently are labeling “terrorism”. Some group(s) in some way make a statement - by their actions - that the monopoly is being challenged.
Car bombs, suicide bombs, sabotage, kidnappings, beheadings, commando attacks, incitements in fliers, training camps, raids on munitions sites - any of these make statements that the monopoly no longer exists.
All of these are ways of attacking superior conventional forces, done by inferior forces. Whenever these kinds of actions occur, the talking heads of the superior force - the government which has bestowed upon itself the only legitimate entity allowed to use force - come out and cry “Foul!”
The British in 1777 cried “Foul!” when the American colonists hid behind trees during a battle - because that was not the way it was done in “civilized” warfare.
The Nazis occupying France, the Benelux countries, and Norway cried “Foul!” when the rail lines were being blown up by the Resistance fighters, calling them “terrorists”, because they wouldn’t put on uniforms to be identified in battle so that the Germans could aim their Panzers at them or strafe them with Stukas.
They don’t cry foul when a uniformed foe, having established 100% air superiority, flies overhead and drops 500-pound bombs on their cities; that is alright - it is within civilized norms. If they sit in the air in their helicopter gunships and
pick off people exiting a building that has just been laid waste by air power, that is alright - it is done by uniformed people and therefore just “part of war”; young men will do things like that in the heat of battle.
In Israel, when uniformed young Israelis destroy a neighborhood or murder Palestinian politicians, that is alright - they are wearing uniforms, so their actions are condoned by their Parliament; any such attack against an Israeli neighborhood by any Palestinians is labeled “terrorism”. It seems the only real difference is that one side wears uniforms, while the other does not. Well, there is also the thing that, if any Palestinians put on uniforms they would likely be shot or rounded up and incarcerated a very long time. If you were a Palestinian, would YOU put on a uniform?
If the U.S. or U.K. were occupied by a far superior military force at some time in the (let’s say far distant) future, and the means of carrying on a conventional war were stripped from us, what would we do?
One option, of course, is to accept it and go on with life as best we can.
Another option is to lay low and organize some form of resistance force. Resistance movements historically have used pipe bombs, car bombs, booby traps, kidnappings, etc., to level the playing field. The LAST thing they would do is mount a frontal assault, in uniform, and take on the occupying military in a series of battles where the occupiers have all the advantages. People simply are not that stupid. In Iraq, every time the Iraqis directly confront the occupying force, they lose a lot of people. It was so in Vietnam as well.
Occupiers since time immemorial have run into this very problem. Ask the Romans who fought against the Jewish upstarts in the 1st century B.C.E. and 1st Century C.E.
Occupied populations use whatever is at hand to fight back. They do not so narrowly define what is fair or foul. They never have, and they never will. If they can get some external power to supply them with the means to resist the occupation, all the better. The Russians used U.S. materiel to fight the Germans in WWII. The American colonists used French assistance to battle the British in our Revolutionary War. The Afghans used U.S./CIA help to thwart the Soviets in the 1980s. The Vietnamese used Soviet and Chinese help to drive out the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.
Palestinians and Iraqis do not have the luxury of a sugar daddy country; they have to do with what they can muster. One of the weapons that has proven effective is the suicide bomber.
In American lore, in a battle, if a grenade is tossed into a foxhole, it is considered gallantry for one of the soldiers to fall on it, thus saving his fellow troops. If the danger is a long-term occupation by forces that have and continue to subjugate one’s fellow citizens, how does one “fall in a grenade” in that case? Plan an assassination? Some would say that would maximize the tools at hand, if it comes to pass. Short of that, what other options are there?
I have never been able to distinguish the difference between that soldier in the foxhole and a suicide bomber. Both are trying to save their buddies/fellow citizens by sacrificing themselves for the greater good.
During an occupation, some people, thinking of themselves as pragmatists, decide that “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” They collaborate with the occupiers. SOME people who “remain loyal to the cause” of freedom or sovereignty take great exception to this kind of behavior. One of the things that the non-collaborators do is attack the collaborators, just as if they are part of the occupying force. They also make better targets. Direct attacks on the occupiers may entail getting inside their encampments or compounds. Collaborators generally live in less well-defended areas, so their risk is far higher.
I cannot be certain about ALL of the so-called suicide bombings or car bombings in Iraq, but my clear impression about the ones I HAVE heard of is that they are in areas of highest collaboration. Western news media refers to these attacks as being “against their own people”. Friends of mine see them that way. But I hear the locations as often being in “the Green Zone”. Guess what? The Green Zone is where the collaborators are. Other attacks I hear of are roadside bombs, aimed at occupying forces.
From an outside perspective (I see all of it as insane), it appears that the Iraq military went to ground when the occupying force invaded. It seems that they decided it would REALLY be suicide to fight the U.S. head on. By living to fight another day, the Iraqis laid the groundwork to fight the war on their own terms.
By doing so, the Iraqis have given hope to a billion Islamic people around the world, and to non-Islamics as well. Iraq was a destitute country when they were invaded, and yet here they are battling a military superpower to a draw, maybe even getting the upper hand. Where have we heard that one before? The American colonies, Vietnam, Afghanistan.
They are fighting with the weapons that they can lay their hands on - in Iraq and elsewhere. They are getting SOME help from those who think their fight is “the good fight”.
What is fair and what is foul will be determined after the war, and will be determined by the victors. Depleted Uranium shells, suicide bombers, bunker-busters, A-10 gunships - all these and more, they are all insane to my kind of civilization, but some people somewhere think that each, any or all of those are okay.
Who decides?
It will depend on who wins…
Posted by Delfino at July 13, 2005 01:28 AM
Amazingly, after posting here tonight (this morning), I continued browsing on the Information Clearinghouse web site and ran across this tremendous article that dovetails with what I said.
I say what I say from philosophical belief and some logic. This article is an interview from the July 18th, 2005 issue of “The American Conservative”, with Associate Professor Robert Pape, of the University of Chicago. Pape has a book entitled, “The Logic of Suicide Terrorism -
It’s the occupation, not the fundamentalism”.
Pape says at one point, “The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.”
Here is the URL for the original article: http://amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html
I have learned more about suicide bombers since I finished that post tonight than I ever knew before.
Posted by Delfino at July 13, 2005 01:51 AM
a quote: “It is healthy to have a ware every now and then to get rid of the bad blood” !!
Posted by Tamouh at July 13, 2005 10:14 PM
Delfino: I have never been able to distinguish the difference between that soldier in the foxhole and a suicide bomber. Both are trying to save their buddies/fellow citizens by sacrificing themselves for the greater good.
You have a point if you are talking about the 1980s Hizbollah suicide bombers, who attacked only military targets. You have half a point if you are talking about Palestinian suicide bombers, as Israel can be considered to be a fully militarized society. Attacks on its civilians are thus considered to be justifiable for the same reason as the bombing of cities in World War II was considered justifiable - it was a way of weakening the enemy’s war-making capability.
You have no points if referring to the 9/11 hijackers or the London bombers (if they were indeed suicide bombers). The closest analog to these terrorists are the Russian nihilist terrorists of the 19th century.
The latest generation of Islamist terrorists seem to be disaffected Westerners with a grudge against their own society - the kind of people who in the 1960s would have become Maoists.
Posted by George Carty at July 18, 2005 12:39 PM
The recent cold-blooded murder of an innocent Brazilian citizen (of color) by the racist London police is the latest episode in the divisive and abusive ethnic profiling of non-white people in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. This cold-blooded murder by profiling is the latest 21st century gift of the Anglo-Saxons to the rest of the world. In the 19th and 20th Centuries these “civilized” folks gave us the enlightened gifts of Imperialism, Colonialism and Racism. These murderous policies based on Islamophobia, racism and fear-mongering will only generate more hatred,insecurity and violence. The only way out of this self-destructive spiral is to immediately halt the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, promote genuine democratic reform in the US supported middle-eastern dictatorships, address the grievances of the Palestinians and stop this Islamophobic campaign of hatred. Only inclusion, dialogue and tolerance will break this never ending orgy of hatred. I believe this new approach has to be promoted by rational people of goodwill all over the world. Unfortunately, the current crop of western “leaders” like the hapless Bush-Bliar intellectually bankrupt duo are incapable of going beyond their hollow rants of “terrorists under very bed” mantra and are totally oblivious to the global perils their warmongering policies have created. The suppression of human rights, abuse of vulnerable minorities and a war on non-white people is their answer to the grave global challenges. The recent cold blooded murder of a “colored” Brazilian innocent bystander in London is part of this new civilized western reponse.
Posted by Salcondor at July 23, 2005 07:04 PM