The revelation that the British intelligence services MI5 and MI6 not
only had no advance warning of the terrorist attacks on 7 July, but even
predicted a 'quiet summer' in the city - adding that, according to them,
there was no terrorist cell with the intention or the capacity for a
terror attack in the immediate future - chills the blood. "Who will
strike next and where?", is the question many are asking and nobody can
answer.
In the countless vox pops, panel discussions and political debates on
radio and television one central theme emerges: nothing, but absolutely
nothing, can ever justify a suicide bomb attack. Do not take part in a
radio phone-in and bring up the scandalous way the west has been treating
the people of the Arab world over many decades; you will be repeatedly
asked if that means there is a justification for suicide bombing. Say yes
and they'll bite your head off.
People blowing themselves and others up in some cause or other are - we
are now told - the lowest, the most cowardly, dastardly form of criminal
imaginable. Even representatives of the Muslim community are now taking
this view - at least in public. Their private thoughts remain well
hidden.
The notion that nothing, absolutely nothing, can justify a suicide attack
has taken hold.
Except with me. For one thing, the fact that we do not know what motive
the London bombers had does not mean they didn't have any. For another,
there can be cir***stances in which the motives seem pretty strong. Think
of the Chechens, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the insurgents in Iraq and, of
course, the Palestinians. Their motives may differ, but in all these
cases the suicide attack is the one weapon in their limited arsenal that
can worry a superior military power.
Take the Palestinians. Their fight for a viable state of their own pits
them against a formidable military machine, with tanks, cannon, planes
and missiles. Boys with slingshots and men with outmoded firearms have no
more hope of hurting the Israelis than a mosquito has of biting an
elephant. But the suicide bombers, ah, they're a different matter. They
may not bring the objective of a state much closer - only international
arm-twisting of Israel can do that - but it makes sure they're not
forgotten and their cause stays on the agenda.
We have to be careful, as the blood pours down our faces, not to start
thinking of 'their evil violence' as opposed to 'our justified violence'.
Scary, unsettling and in-your-face suicide action may be, but it is no
different, either morally or in terms of the result, from the remote
control mayhem the western powers prefer to inflict. The citizens of
Baghdad who died as cruise missiles launched many miles away impacted all
around them can confirm that. Shock and awe come in different varieties.
The suggestion that it's alright for us to kill them but not for them to
come and kill us is one that we should knock on the head without delay.
I can honestly say that, much as I don't like the idea of being blasted
to kingdom come, I cannot and will not value my own life over that of any
other human on the planet. All unnecessary death diminishes us as a
species, killing each other pushes us as a species even further down the
evolutionary ladder. Not that that is going to be one iota of help if the
bombers get to me before the final work of the murderer of South London,
Mr Keith P. Exford.
--
T Moore
N E Manchester, England
http://sitemenu.tom-moore.com/
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