[lbo-talk] Sensible violence?

C. G. Estabrook galliher at uiuc.edu
Tue Jul 12 04:24:15 PDT 2005


I'm not sure that I see what you mean when you say that you don't agree with Galloway's statement. You obviously don't think the bombings are excusable (and neither do I). Nor do you mean (I think) that they are inexplicable. I presume you mean just that they were not a "response to attacks on the Middle East." (I'm not sure what's gained by calling them either "spontaneous" or "indirect.") And of course the bombers "bear responsibility for their actions."

So we're arguing over the explanation of the attacks. I think that it's far easier to imagine the bombers thinking (like the 9/11 terrorists) "I'm doing this because of what these people are doing to my people," that to imagine them thinking "I'm doing this because I'm politically isolated."

As was the case after 9/11, those who are suggesting any explanation at all (besides "madness" and "hatred") are charged with being sympathetic towards the crimes. "British Politicians Unite Behind Blair" (headlines the WP) and assert "'No evidence' Iraq led to attacks" (BBC). In the Commons yesterday a Labour backbencher attacked Galloway et al. for "making excuses for the mass murderers whose hatred of humanity is no less than the Nazis"... --CGE

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 08:07:39 +0100
>From: "James Heartfield" <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Sensible violence?
>To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>
> I don't agree with C.G. Estabrook/George Galloway's
> argument that the killings are inexcusable but not
> inexplicable. That is to say that this was somehow a
> spontaneous response to attacks on the Middle East.
> But the relationship is not so direct. Someone else
> posted up Gary Younge's similar argument from the
> Guardian newspaper. I posted them this reply (which
> turned out to be surplus to their requirements):
>
> "I opposed the Iraq war, but I still think it is
> daft to blame Tony Blair for the London bombings
> (Blair's blowback, 11 July 2005). He is culpable for
> the deaths in Falluja, but others bombed the
> Underground, and bear responsibility for their
> actions. As far as anyone can tell, the inspiration
> for the bombings arises from the political isolation
> of the fundamentalists, not from a groundswell of
> support behind them in Iraq, or anywhere else."
> ...



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