July 8, 2005
The Independent (UK)

The Reality of This Barbaric Bombing

If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us think insurgency won't come to us?

by Robert Fisk

"If you bomb our cities," Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, "we will bomb yours." There you go, as they say. It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush's "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned. The G8 summit was obviously chosen, well in advance, as Attack Day.

And it's no use Mr Blair telling us yesterday that "they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear". "They" are not trying to destroy "what we hold dear". They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, from his alliance with the United States, and from his adherence to Bush's policies in the Middle East. The Spanish paid the price for their support for Bush - and Spain's subsequent retreat from Iraq proved that the Madrid bombings achieved their objectives - while the Australians were made to suffer in Bali. . . .

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Enver Masud, "What's Wrong With 'Suicide' Bombing?," The Wisdom Fund, May 9, 2002

M. Shahid Alam, "The Dialectics of Terror," The Wisdom Fund, September 15, 2003

Enver Masud, "Iraq War: 'Supreme International Crime'," The Wisdom Fund, June 29, 2005

Eric Margolis, "North Africans, Not Al-Qaida Are Real Threat," ericmargolis.com, July 4, 2005

Hugh Muir and Rosie Cowan, "Four bombs in 50 minutes - Britain suffers its worst-ever terror attack," Guardian, July 8, 2005

Yossi Melman, "Doubts abound as to identity of London bombers," Haaretz, July 8, 2005

Tariq Ali, "The price of occupation," Guardian, July 8, 2005

[Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur'an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.--Robin Cook, "The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means," Guardian, July 8, 2005]

Charley Reese, "Nobody Attacks Civilization," Antiwar.com, July 9, 2005

[The Iraq war is identified by the dossier as a key cause of young Britons turning to terrorism. The analysis says: "It seems that a particularly strong cause of disillusionment among Muslims, including young Muslims, is a perceived 'double standard' in the foreign policy of western governments, in particular Britain and the US.

"The perception is that passive 'oppression', as demonstrated in British foreign policy, eg non-action on Kashmir and Chechnya, has given way to 'active oppression'. The war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, are all seen by a section of British Muslims as having been acts against Islam."--Robert Winnett and David Leppard, "Terror in London: Leaked No 10 dossier reveals Al-Qaeda's British recruits," Times Online, July 10, 2005]

[Claiming these extremists attacked because they hate our western way of life, as Bush and Blair have done, is dishonest. They attacked us because we have been attacking them.--Eric Margolis, "The Horror in London," ericmargolis.com, July 11, 2005]

[ . . . the G8 meeting in Scotland and its accompanying "Make Poverty History" campaign and circus of celebrities served as a temporary cover for what the greatest political scandal of modern times: an illegal invasion conceived in lies which, under the rule of international law established at Nuremberg, represented a "paramount war crime".--John Pilger, "LEST WE FORGET: THESE WERE 'BLAIR'S BOMBS'," Hidden Agendas, July 11, 2005]

["The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag," he said.--"'I was in tube bomb carriage - and survived'," Cambridge Evening News, July 11, 2005]

"London bombers 'were all British'," BBC News, July 12, 2005

Abid Ullah Jan, "Mr. Blair, let's put Islam aside," Media Monitors Network, July 14, 2005

"Mayor blames Middle East policy," BBC News, July 20, 2005

Gethin Chamberlain, "Up to 4 terrorists on run after Londoners cheat death," Scottsman.com News, July 22, 2005

Hal Bernton and David Heath, "Effort here to charge London suspect was blocked," Seattle Times, July 24, 2005

Paul Vallely, "Tariq Ramadan: 'We Muslims need to get out of our intellectual and social ghettos'," Independent, July 25, 2005

[In 2001, in revenge for the killing of 3,000 people in the Twin Towers, more than 20,000 Muslims died in the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan. . . . More than 100,000 Iraqi men, woman and children have been killed, not by suicide bombers, but by the Anglo-American "coalition", says a peer-reviewed study published in the Lancet, . . . The hand-wringing over "whither Islam's soul" is another distraction. Christianity leaves Islam for dead as an industrial killer.--John Pilger, "Blair Is Unfit to Be Prime Minister," New Statesman, July 25, 2005]

"Views of Muslim-Americans Hold Steady After London Bombings: Fewer Say Islam Encourages Violence," The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, July 26, 2005

Andrew Murray, "Cause and consequence," Guardian, July 27, 2005

[Western nations are not involved in a "war" on terror against people "who hate us." What we are involved in is a dance of deception led by leaders in Washington and London who took us to war for reasons they know to be false and who now compound that deception by hiding behind the rhetoric of a simplistic struggle against evil. The U.S. media are complicit in this deception.--James M. Wall, "Dance of deception," Christian Century, July 27, 2005]

[If the new terrorist enemy has no such structure, where does the fight begin? Indeed, who and where is the enemy? It is so atomised it is invisible.

The new breed of unaffiliated terrorist is potentially far more dangerous than the IRA or even Al-Qaeda because he is almost impossible to identify.-- David Leppard and Robert Winnett, "Blair' s extremism proposals attacked as the hunt continues for terror's new breed," The Times, August 7, 2005]

[Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq, while pursuing democracy and instigating regime change required violence and non violent manipulation. The resistance - the other side of the Newtonian equation - also contains violent and non violent elements.--Saul Landau, "Globalization and Its Discontents," CounterPunch, August 11, 2005]

Max Hastings, "A traitor, but no worse than Philby and Blunt: British society has always faced enemies within who wish us ill," Guardian, September 3, 2005

Naima Bouteldja, "Who really bombed Paris? The evidence is that the 1995 Islamist attacks on the French metro were in fact carried out by the Algerian secret service," Guardian, September 8, 2005

Michael Meacher, "Britain now faces its own blowback: Intelligence interests may thwart the July bombings investigation," Guardian, September 10, 2005

Max Hastings, "FBI 'gave prior warning to Britain about 7/7 bomber'," Scotsman, February 8, 2006

Sebastian Rotella, "Who Guided London's Attackers?," Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2006

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "The London Bombings, the Chief Bomber and the Myth," Media Monitors Network, June 21, 2006

[His new book, The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry, pulls apart the official narrative of 7/7, pointing out its gaps and contradictions. He concludes that the security and intelligence services, with government connivance, downplayed the sophistication of the operation and the size and nature of its support network. Evidence of al-Qa'ida involvement is suppressed, he says, to deflect awkward questions about how a large terror network flourished unchecked in Britain for 10 years.--Francis Elliott and Sophie Goodchild, "7/7 one year on: Why did it happen? The big questions still need answers," Independent, July 2, 2006]

[The Mossad was also able to determine the substance was developed and produced at the Chinese ZDF arms factory, located about 65 kilometers (about 40 miles) from Beijing, the paper reports. . . .

Can it really be a mere coincidence that a crisis management company was running a terror drill that simulated terrorist bombings on the very same London underground trains and stations at the very same time as duplicate real bombings were occurring?--Joe Quinn, "London Bombings - The Facts Speak For Themselves," Signs of the Times, July 7, 2006

VIDEO: Alex Jones, "Terror Storm: A Chronicle of False Flag Terrorism," Prison Planet TV, July 12, 2006

VIDEO: "Ludicrous Diversion - 7/7 London Bombings Documentary," YouTube, September 15, 2006

[The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with the home secretary and Downing Street last night by denying that Britain is caught up in a "war on terror" and calling for a "culture of legislative restraint" in passing laws to deal with terrorism.--Clare Dyer, "'There is no war on terror'," Guardian, January 24, 2007]