Over There

[Guest guest]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070705A.shtml

 

Over There

 

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Thursday 07 July 2005

 

A British associate penned a quick response to the bombing attacks

that took place in London this morning. " The message from those

claiming responsibility says, in part, 'Britain is now burning with

fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western

quarters,' " he wrote. " Well it isn't, so fuck them. "

 

Indeed.

 

My first response was a wrenching horror, a kick to the gut when I

checked my email and saw two hundred messages with the words 'London

attack' in the subject line. Suddenly, the television was on and I was

reading every news report I could get my eyes on. At least

thirty-three people were killed and hundreds more wounded in four

coordinated bombing attacks aimed at the mass transit system.

 

All of a sudden I was back in my classroom, back in the middle of

a bright September morning, surrounded by wall-eyed students asking me

if this was World War III as we watched two buildings burn, and then

fall, and then unannounced I had Ani DiFranco in my head and she was

singing, " And every borough looked up when it heard the first blast,

and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed, and the

exodus uptown by foot and motorcar looked more like war than anything

I've seen so far... "

 

That was my first response, but I'm a little wiser nowadays. My

second thought, bluntly, was that of all the Western cities in the

world, London can handle this. From 1973 until roundabout the year

2000, bombings in that city took place with dreary regularity. In

November of 1974, two IRA bombs in Birmingham killed 19 and wounded

180. A 1989 bombing at the Royal Marines School of Music killed 10 and

wounded more than 30. There were more than a dozen different major

incidents like these, and many smaller ones besides.

 

London handled the Nazi blitz. 'Handled' is perhaps the wrong

word. Londoners watched as their city was battered to rubble day after

day, and squared their shoulders, and sent out the RAF, and prevailed.

A fire chief named Deasy summed up the British response: " The idea of

England folding up, that's a joke. That outfit will never fold up.

They've got just as much guts as anybody in this man's world has and

they'll carry right on. Anybody thinks they're gonna fold up, they're

crazy. "

 

In other words, the British associate who wrote that note this

morning hit the nail on the head.

 

Now comes the so-called official response. Predictably, George W.

Bush proclaimed that the War on Terror goes on. Conservative frother

Rush Limbaugh got on the radio and made a few remarkable rhetorical

contortions. To wit: The G8 summit, which was apparently the target of

these attacks, is a liberal summit. Yes, you read that right. He

called it a " leftist summit " aimed at achieving leftist goals like

saving Africa ( " Again, " he said) and stopping global warming, and so

this was an attack on leftists who will now attack Bush.

 

The idea that the G8 is a leftist organization is a new one to me.

I must have missed a memo somewhere. Apparently, the three billion

people who went out last weekend to ask the G8 to do the right thing

likewise missed the memo. Other conservative commentators rushed to

microphones to proclaim that if we had all been standing shoulder to

shoulder with Mr. Bush, this London attack would never have happened.

Never underestimate the ability of the right-wing to use tragedy as a

means of beating on people they don't agree with.

 

I am a little wiser nowadays, and perhaps a little more callous

because of that wisdom. My first response was horror, and my second

was a sense that the British people have the strength to endure this.

My third response was to marvel at the news coverage. Four bombings,

more than thirty dead, hundreds more wounded? In London, it is a

terrifying, enraging, appalling act of despicable violence that must

be immediately avenged.

 

In Iraq, they call events like this " Tuesday. "

 

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and wounded in Iraq

by way of deadly bombings that have been taking place every single

day. These Iraqi people are no different from the Londoners who

perished today. Their skin is darker perhaps, and they pray to a

different God, but they have families and children and dreams and they

die just as horribly as their British counterparts. Yet they earn

perhaps a few sentences on the back page of the paper, and virtually

no comment from the members of the international community which

ginned up the invasion of Iraq in the first place.

 

The world was warned about this, warned and warned and warned

again. An invasion based on lies and disinformation, an occupation

that grinds a civilian populace, becomes the perfect machine to

manufacture terrorists who will happily die in order to see others

die. The CIA calls what happened in London today " blowback. " It is

wrong, it is heinous, it is murder plain and simple, and it was as

predictable as the sun rising in the East.

 

The rhetoric about Iraq has been that we are " fighting the

terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here. "

Today, " over here " became the streets of London. Where will it be

tomorrow?

 

One thing is certain. The perpetrators of this bombing bear the

responsibility for this wretched act, and bear the responsibility for

the gross miscalculation that many have made in the past: A democratic

society is weak and decadent, and can be easily pushed. Ask Hitler if

that is true. A democratic society, once enraged, is the strongest

force on Earth, and those responsible for this are going to find that

out to their woe.

 

The other certainty: Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair bear the

responsibility for this wretched act, as well. They decided in April

of 2002 to start a war based on false pretenses, to fix the

intelligence and facts around the policy, and now the whirlwind has

come to be reaped. The blood that runs in the streets of London, and

in the streets of Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit and Mosul, is on their hands.

 

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally

bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't

Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

 

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