Re: Iraq war a diversion from anti-al Qaeda campaign

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/10/06, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> [comments?]
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Cole, Juan <jrcole@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> "A String of attacks that will continue and become stronger"
>
> The failure of the Bush administration to take the threat of Bin Laden
> and Zawahiri seriously and to capture them continues to leave
> Americans and others at risk.
>
> British authorities have arrested 21 members of a terror cell,
> apparently British-born or British-bred persons of Pakistani or South
> Asian origin. They were planning to hijack 6 to 10 American planes at
> Heathrow Airport in London, and to bring on board liquid-based
> explosives that they would mix while sitting in their seats.
<snip>
> The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have contributed to the
> radicalization of second-generation UK Muslims. They oppose those wars
> by a large margin. Some 80 percent of UK Muslims oppose the Iraq War,
> and only 10 percent approve of it. The Israeli treatment of the
> Palestinians is also a matter of great concern to them, and a
> radicalizing factor for young people.
>
> Only 1 percent of UK Muslims believe that the 7/7 bombings were
> "right." But 13 percent of UK Muslims (who are about 1.6 million
> persons in a population of 60 million) believe that the 7/7 bombers
> are martyrs. Another 16 percent believe that while their action was
> wrong, their cause was just.

That's something that I am afraid of: young Arab or Muslim men -- or
women -- in the West, sickened by the multinational empire's treatment
of Arabs and Muslims at home and abroad, resort to desperate actions,
such as terrorism.  The danger of that goes up when, like now, we have
no mass movement using militant mass direct actions against the war,
for youths don't have anything to join through which they can express
their anger at the empire and solidarity with Arabs and Muslims
elsewhere, nor can they entertain hope of changing policy through
collective non-violent means.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
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