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archived: 10 - 23 Jul, 2005 Back Next UPDATED: July 12, 2005 BUSINESS AS USUAL Last week was the week of London. Live 8, the world’s first billion plus concert had been staged at London’s Hyde Park. Its rock and roll resonance was exerting perceptible political pressure on the G8 who were meeting amidst ultra-heavy security in their lavish corporate suites at the Gleneagles Golf Course in Scotland. In Singapore, the International Olympic Committee took its final vote on the location for the 2012 Olympics, and London was the come-from-behind-on-the-home-stretch surprise winner. Jubilation, rejoicing and explosions of glory washed over the streets of London. The atmosphere was electric with triumph. Prime Minister Tony Blair exultantly punched his fist in the air and did a jig of joy at the news from Singapore. The following day, triumphalism transformed itself into tragedy, and Tony Blair was frozen into a tragic figure of shock and mortification before the television cameras at the G8 summit. A crack team of professional terrorists bombed London in a breathtaking and heart-breaking attack involving multiple simultaneous attacks against soft targets in the London underground timed with political perfection to shock the G8. This timing and precision of the attack bore the unmistakable fingerprints of the master terrorists of Al-Qa’ida. Al Qa’ida struck New York on 9/11 sans any available political event, but the bombings of Madrid and London were timed to hammer home the central message of their horrific political agenda, “If you support the American extremists, we will annihilate you.” Madrid was bombed on the eve of their election, and London was bombed to coincide with the G8. In between the two attacks on the European capitals of the two most prominent members of Bush’s coalition of the willing, Osama Bin Laden sensed that the political timing was right on the eve of the US election, and he launched a video tape warning America of further terror atrocities on Halloween – a scant three days before the polls opened. There is abundant demographic evidence that Bin Laden’s Halloween warning had the desired political effect – keeping Bush who is Al Qa’ida’s major recruiting agent in power. It is inescapable that some of America’s most easily frightened voters actually acquiesced to Bin Laden’s message and switched their votes from Kerry to Bush as a result of the Halloween tape. Rest assured of one indelible fact: there will be no surge of support for Tony Blair as a result of the London bombings. In the UK, the people have been deeply sceptical of the war against Iraq since its inception. Today, after the London bombings, the Downing Street Memo and the latest top secret leak from White Hall – that the US is planning a major pullout of its troops by yearend – the political pressure will now hit very heavily on Blair to order British troops out of Iraq. In spite of their sputtering admonitions to discount reports to the contrary, there is very strong evidence that Blair, Reid and Straw are now directly engaged in the process of winding down and ending Britain’s involvement in the ill-fated and ill-conceived war against Iraq. London is a sprawling colossus of a city with an immense population and something ineffable about its character. London is ancient. Founded by the Romans who built the wall surrounding what was then their regimental encampment, London is the archetypal megalopolis. Two thousand years later, London is a labyrinth of infinite proportions. It is an organic entity that has grown through random processes: military conventions, market forces, artistic license, royal prerogative and the ever fluctuating modulations of the sinuosity and tides of the Thames. Londoners do not need the slogans of spin doctors to tell them about the origin of the terror unleashed last week. They have survived thousands of years of terror. In only the last century, Hitler’s Luftwaffe rained down a cruel hail of terror during the Blitz. London not only survived, but led and inspired by her greatest military leader, Sir Winston Churchill, she went about her daily life under the banner, “business as usual.” From 1973 until 2000, the IRA delivered a random and unpredictable concatenation of terror in and around London, England and Northern Ireland. Londoners went about their daily lives without fear, without dread, without anxiety. In the aftermath of the London bombings, nothing will take place in Britain like the horrible panic that gripped America in the aftermath of 9/11. Civil rights will not be perturbed. Tolerance will not be suspended. Pandemonium will not be invoked. Blair will not utter the apocalyptic warnings of Bush that infected America with a contagion of panic that spread like plague across the nation. The world will not be starkly divided into good versus evil. London is the city of George Orwell, who has become far more powerful in death than he ever was in life. Well do Londoners know the world of George Orwell. They know when their government is lying to them, and they act on it. This year, they sent 58 of the Labour members of parliament into retirement because of Blair’s support for the war in Iraq reducing Blair’s majority from 166 to 67 seats. This stern political astuteness strikes a sharp contrast with the American elections where 98% of the incumbents in Congress were re-elected last year, a far higher ratio than even the former Soviet Union which had only one legitimate political party. In some respects, Britain is leading the world – haltingly and unfaithfully at times – toward the ideal of an open society. The open society tolerates cultural diversity, and it cherishes concern for each other. It is not exclusionist. It does not practice racial profiling. It does not condone torture, concentration camps or the indiscriminate killing of civilians by its military forces in an occupied country. Neither will it ultimately permit the open pillage of the public treasury by politically influential corporations owned by unaccountable stakeholders interested solely in profits – even those made at the expense of the public exchequer. These are some of the reasons – but not all – why London will prevail against terror. London will stumble toward a cluster of ideals that are unattainable. London will stagger forward, sometimes blindly, sometimes wrongly, but always with a pluck that is unique in the modern world. After the G8 summit and his private consultations with Blair, Bush has ordered his staff to draw up plans for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Just as surely, Blair is making firm plans to bring the troops home. Berlusconi has already announced that the Italians will begin leaving in September. London learns, and the world responds. The war policies of Bush and Blair have been counterproductive, and London will not allow them to continue in their folly. Cool, calm and collected with sang froid and stoicism as usual, London rolls on, wiser, stronger, more experienced, more beautiful and more integrated than ever before. In London, that is business as usual. RESOURCES:
UK plans to slash Iraq
force over the next year
Reid plays down Iraq troop
withdrawal report but he said there was a "strong US military desire"
for "significant" force reduction.
Secret plan to pull troops
out of Iraq in nine months __________________ Since 1968, Michael Carmichael has been a professional political consultant. Beginning as a Student Coordinator for Robert F. Kennedy, he has worked in five US presidential campaigns as well as over 100 major American political campaigns for federal and state offices. In 1985, he founded The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs in the United Kingdom. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC, European Business News, NPR and many European television broadcasts examining American politics and culture. In addition to his column for The Political Junkies, he is a regular contributor to the Moving Planet weblog. See: www.planetarymovement.org and http://planetmove.blogspot.com/
Last Update: 03/23/2006 |
