London bombing: more devices found

US Authorities have told ABC News that British police recovered two unexploded bombs from the scene of the terror attacks in London.

The statement claiming responsibility was a bit odd.

The statement was published on an Islamic web site. Minutes later, it was removed from the web site itself because it contained an error in one of the Quaranic verses and al-Qaida doesn’t usually do that, but the same statement was published (later) on a secular web site.

Plus a completely unknown group said they did it.

From my friend Wood in Wales

Oh, no.

London transport infrastructure brought to a standstill; people injured and killed, no idea how many yet.

Christian me: prayers for the dead, wounded and bereaved; intense sorrow about the whole affair.

Cynical me: I predict that some conspiracy nut out there is going to say that the British Government staged this in order to justify our commitment to the “War on Terror”. I give it forty-eight hours. How long did it take after 11/9/2001? About a week?

I agree with Wood, that there are conspiracy nuts but there are also Reichstag Fires. Some in the violent radical fringe of political factions favor random violence because they believe it will increase repression which then will cause the people to rise up, followed by the collapse of the government. Uh huh. And what if the government just shoots or jails everyone? Not to mention all the dead and maimed innocent bystanders.

Expect the Bushs and Blairs of the world to use this to attack the antiwar movement though. All the more reason to organize

A few days after the Northridge Quake here in L.A, there was a sense of a battered city slowly rising from its knees, standing up again. NYC did the same after 9/11. London will too.

No Comments »

Links: BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, Wikipedia, Technorati (blogs), Slugger O’Toole (Northern Ireland-based, continuing coverage)

No Comments »

The ANSWER Coalition has asked United for Peace and Justice to join in a unified antiwar demonstration on Sept. 24. UFPJ refused and instead called a counter demonstration on the same day in the same town. They don’t appear to want unity. ANSWER does!

From an ANSWER FAQ.

ANSWER issued a call on May 12 and invited UFPJ to work together in a united front demonstration. Eleven days later, on May 23, UFPJ’s leadership responded to ANSWER’s proposal for unity by issuing a public announcement, without consulting their membership, that they were now going to cancel their planned September 10, 2005, demonstration in NYC and instead call a demonstration on September 24 in Washington DC, the same date and location as the earlier ANSWER call. UFPJ added that they were opposed to a united activity and that they would hold a separate demonstration from ANSWER.

Question: If the focus of the demonstration is on the Iraq war why does ANSWER raise other issues in the political program for the demonstration?

Response: There has been a debate about “connecting issues” or having an exclusively “single issue” focus since the 1960’s. Martin Luther King, Jr. was severely criticized for publicly and courageously connecting the civil rights struggle at home with the growing opposition to the Vietnam War. Today, all progressive people applaud Dr. King’s courageous position but at the time he was accused of alienating some supporters of civil rights by his strong antiwar stance.

During that time, repression was greatest against those fighting racism and for liberation within the United States, but some antiwar leaders insisted that the movement strictly have antiwar slogans, rather than show solidarity with the targeted Black and Latino communities. Their desire to include some sectors of the population into the antiwar movement effectively excluded others. There is no reason to repeat this paradigm.

Question: Is it too late to have a united front between the ANSWER-initiated September 24 National Coalition and UFPJ? Is ANSWER prepared to work with UFPJ?

Response: As stated above, ANSWER still supports having a united front rally and march, despite the efforts of UFPJ leaders to split the movement. We are completely willing to continue to work with and engage UFPJ, regardless of significant political differences with UFPJ.

Only UFPJ is stating it will not have a united front demonstration. To date, UFPJ’s leadership (which, of course, is different than its “membership”) remains steadfast in its refusal to have a united rally and march. It has stated it only wishes to organize a separate rally.

If there are two demonstrations on September 24 it will reflect division and segregation. It may come to that, but it would be stronger to have a single, united, multi-national and multi-ethnic show of unity in opposition to the war. We are convinced that a principled united front is not only desirable, but still possible.

UFPJ, knowingly or not, is playing a centrist Democratic Party game, attempting to demoralize and split the antiwar movement, sluicing protest into the Democratic Party where it will be defused or ignored. More and more they are allying themselves with the Democrats and to what end? I’m not noticing any Congressional Democrats opposing the war, are you? So why are they deliberately trying the fracture the antiwar movement?

Let’s all move towards massive unified antiwar protests on Sept. 24!

No Comments »

FAIR says Judith Miller (one of the main media cheerleaders for the war) should get no protection nor be applauded for refusing to divulge her sources. Why? Because her sources came from within the government and were simply trying to destroy the wife of someone who displeased them. Hence she is protecting government wrongdoing, not principled whistleblowers.

FAIR, the national media watch group, encourages the reporters and news outlets who have been asked to reveal their sources in the Valerie Plame and Wen Ho Lee cases to cooperate with investigators. Protecting the identities of confidential sources is a journalistic right that should be recognized by the courts, but only when it protects genuine whistle-blowers, not when it shields government wrongdoing.

Unless one believes that the government ought to be able to surreptitiously use its enormous information-gathering powers to attack opponents with impunity, investigators must have the ability to ask journalists for their sources in such cases, and to compel them if necessary.

No Comments »

I know that many criticize all the bad news out of Iraq, with its focus on the daily body count and seemingly unstoppable insurgency.

Today, finally, the corner has been turned, as the Mail & Guardian reports:

“Coca-Cola has returned to Iraq after an absence of nearly four decades, triggering a cola war in a lucrative but potentially hostile market. Coke ended its 37-year exile last week by setting up a joint-venture bottling company to compete with Pepsi for 26 million consumers.

Will the war go better with Coke?

We look forward to the opening of Baghdad Disneyworld and the transplanting of outsourced business from India to Sadr City.

No Comments »