Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Under the Shadows of Terrorism"
Mathew G.H. Toll

The 7th of July terrorist attacks which set off four bombs throughout the London public transport system have murdered 56 and injured 700 people. This is the worst bombing Britain has seen since Pan Am Flight 103 bombing on December 21, 1988.

With theses attacks on London and the British nation a leading member of the "coalition of the willing." This event forces those of us who aren’t taking in by Tony Blair’s much loved “stoicism” to ask a few questions.After the Madrid bombings perpetrated by Islamists in 2004, the London Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens said that a terrorist attack on London was “inevitable.” Now the main messages following the attacks from politicians are "business as usual"… there is a problem that comes to attention.

If the attacks as Stevens was convinced were Inevitable (he was sadly validated), and we continue on our approach to the war on terror set before the terrible events are we not inviting the "inevitable" to happen again?

I think yes, the current political wisdom is circular and self-serving and self-confirming. The current "Hawkish" position taken by leaders of the western world and their aggression towards Middle Eastern states confirms in the minds of the Islamist terrorists the Imperialism of western nations and the attack on political "Islam." With their conclusions confirmed yet again the Islamists continue the circle of violence with their campaign of terror as we’ve seen in New York, Bali, Madrid and now London and furthermore the daily terror attacks on “collaborators”.

The problem we face is how to respond and to defeat “the politics of terror”? The current politics of aggression which is terrorism in a different manifestation and greater magnitude just continue the cycle. Thus one of the greatest struggles of modernity is in fact a struggle against old dogmas of an eye for an eye politics. ‘Business us usual’ is not an option because it does not transcend the current condition of universal terrorism, Business as usual in effect amounts to its continuation as the cause and consequence of “the politics of terror”.

“The politics of terror” are a cycle of violence. The western nation’s spoken commitment is to defeat terror, why haven’t the political elite broken this cycle?

Albert Einstein once remarked that you can not solve a problem with the same mind that created it. This is the essence of the problem that we face; the mind’s who created “the politics of terror” narrow scope allows them to see the opportunity in devastation. The Straussian “elected aristocracy” known as Neo-conservatives see the war on terror as a means to creating myths that hold hierarchical societies together, while providing economic activity in the military industry which the multiplier effect spreads to other sectors. The Islamists continue “the politics of terror” because in devastation there is opportunity. With continued animosity against the western world the Islamists find new recruits to the cause of political Islam, the degenerated conditions of the Middle East caused by the western reaction to terrorism only feed into the dissatisfaction and the Islamist notion of western nations as the “far enemy”.

Thus for the politics of freedom and liberty to have any hope we must first recognise that the threat of terrorism serves to protect the very forces which perpetuate its existence, the philosophy of “Stoicism” and “business as usual” help no one.