The blasts in London

Greetings.

An anonymous reader complained that I didn’t report anything about the terrorist attack in London today. I finally have something weird on it, and that would be an article on those claiming responsibility for the blasts, “Report: Islamic Group Claims London Blasts”. The quotes of the statement by “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe” betray clichéd, stupid, and morally primitive thinking. The best example of this is the phrase “Zionist crusader government of Britain”, which is wildly inaccurate since 1) the UK has consistently acted against the interests of the State of Israel and the Jewish people even back in the days of the British Mandate, and thus it cannot be labeled “Zionist”, and 2) there have been no Crusaders for centuries, so it cannot be labeled “crusader” either; such a phrase is most likely an attempt to identify Britain as “the enemy” and thus rationalize an attack which is unlikely to succeed in its stated goal of persuading governments to pull their troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. (If they really wanted that, they would have handed over Usama bin Laden right after 9/11 and have been stringent that there be no terrorism after the US conquered Iraq, thereby eliminating any reason for there to be further military action in either country and giving the US and the UK every reason to send their troops home.)

Aaron