k-punk
Spectres of Mark
To Henry Miller: I don't at all assume a coherent agenda shared by all Muslims. That would be preposterous. But the faith demands loyalty be shown first of all to the umma, the global Muslim 'massive' - and there are some Muslims who clearly claim to speak on behalf of all of the 'community's' grievances, to speak for the whole Umma.
To MBM: the idea that Britain is not guilty of any war crimes is being tested in court just now, as it happens. It seems evident that Allied soldiers have guilty of torturing and humiliating prisoners.
But the wider point IS the wholesale bombing of civilians. Because, let's be clear, this wasn't in the first instance a war, but a bombing. Fine words about not deliberately targeting civilians whilst engaging in a campaign that always was, has and will continue to result in the deaths of thousands of civilans are totally empty. We can only draw the same conclusion that the London bombers seemed to draw: that the leaders of Britain and the US deem Muslim lives to be worth much less than other lives. The number of civilians which die in Iraq EVERY DAY is comparable to the death toll of the London bombings. But where are the books of condolence for the Iraqi dead?
Blair's justification for the Iraq bombing was consequentialist: the means might be undesirable, but the ends, or consequences, would be good.
The justifiaction for the Iraq bombing becomes more threadbare by the day. The WMD pretext has now been abandoned; the claim that it would make the world safer is now exposed, not only as false, but as the complete opposite of the truth. It has turned Iraq into an unstable cilvil warzone and a hotbed of terrorist activity.
To MBM: the idea that Britain is not guilty of any war crimes is being tested in court just now, as it happens. It seems evident that Allied soldiers have guilty of torturing and humiliating prisoners.
But the wider point IS the wholesale bombing of civilians. Because, let's be clear, this wasn't in the first instance a war, but a bombing. Fine words about not deliberately targeting civilians whilst engaging in a campaign that always was, has and will continue to result in the deaths of thousands of civilans are totally empty. We can only draw the same conclusion that the London bombers seemed to draw: that the leaders of Britain and the US deem Muslim lives to be worth much less than other lives. The number of civilians which die in Iraq EVERY DAY is comparable to the death toll of the London bombings. But where are the books of condolence for the Iraqi dead?
Blair's justification for the Iraq bombing was consequentialist: the means might be undesirable, but the ends, or consequences, would be good.
The justifiaction for the Iraq bombing becomes more threadbare by the day. The WMD pretext has now been abandoned; the claim that it would make the world safer is now exposed, not only as false, but as the complete opposite of the truth. It has turned Iraq into an unstable cilvil warzone and a hotbed of terrorist activity.