But
56% say that the military action should stop as soon as bin Laden is arrested or killed, while only 27% say it should not be limited to that.
Wide consensus from the worthy figures of the right and the left in the discussion that what is going on is not really a war, but a policing action, in which military activity will be necessary. All participants without exception welcomed the fact that the USA had not lashed out precipitately.
Interviewed this morning at the beginning of the Labour Party annual conference, Tony Blair was at pains to emphasise the close consultation with the USA throughout and that what he discussed with Bush last night was "very clear"
1) what action is taken must be effective
2) the humanitarian coalition is just as important as the military and diplomatic coalition [ie wheat for Afghans]
So this is the specturm of opinion tonight from the USA's most loyal ally...
Whether Bush is equally clear that that is what he agreed with Blair remains to be seen.
All this only makes sense if you see a world government is actually in the process of formation under our eyes. The attack on the twin towers was an attack on the most blatant symbol of global, US led, capitalism. It was an attack on the legitimacy of the present existing international order.
The price to be paid for effectively rallying virtually all countries in the world to comply with armed policing operations against "terrorism" will have to be new efforts to win legitimacy for the global state powers. For this to be effective, in marxian theory of the state, there not only have to be bodies of armed men capable of imposing order, but the emerging global state structure has to appear to stand above classes, and divisions between states. Hence the precedents are very important that Milosevic was handed over the the Hague, and the alleged Libyan bombers were handed over to a court meeting elsewhere in the Netherlands.
There will be many voices including some emerging even in this UK Panorama programme, saying that it is in the interests of the USA as well as the world campaign against terrorism, that bin Laden is handed over to some agency of the United Nations, rather than tried by the USA. The precedent will be of enormous significance.
The bombers will not have succeeded in destroying US imperialism, but they may force it to make concessions towards subordinating some of its most vital needs to an emerging global state structure. That unwittingly may be bin Laden's most progressive contribution to history
And the UK under Blair will have helped the USA to come quietly down this reformist path.
Chris Burford
London