AFP and Associated Press photos
Above: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, pictured today flanked by his master, U.S. "President" George W. Bush, and French President Jacques Chirac at the Group of Eight summit in Scotland, desperately wants to focus the masses' attention away from his part in the terrorist attacks upon London today. You gotta wonder if Tony especially regrets his choice of friends today. Below: While Tony Blair was safe and comfy in Scotland, as is usually the case, the commoners were the ones who had to pick up the pieces of his Iraq-related mess in London today.
 
 
Reuters and AFP photos
It's Tony's fucking fault
Wow. British Prime Minister Tony Blair masterfully took a page from the Bush regime's "War on Terror" Propaganda Playbook immediately after the terrorist attacks upon London today. Reports The Associated Press:
Four blasts rocked the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour [today], sending bloodied victims fleeing in the worst attack on London since World War II. At least 40 people were killed, U.S. officials said, and more than 360 wounded in the terror attacks.
A clearly shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called the coordinated attacks "barbaric" and said they were designed to coincide with the G-8 summit opening in Gleneagles, Scotland. They also came a day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" claimed responsibility.
The four explosions went off within 40 minutes, beginning at 8:51 a.m. (3:51 a.m. EDT), and hit three subway stations and the double-decker bus. Authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday.
The explosion seemed to go off at the back of the bus, said bystander Raj Mattoo, 35. "The roof flew off and went up about 10 meters [30 feet]. It then floated back down," he said. "There were obviously people badly injured. A parking attendant said he thought a piece of human flesh had landed on his arm."
"It was chaos," said Gary Lewis, 32, who was evacuated from a subway train at King's Cross station. "The one haunting image was someone whose face was totally black and pouring with blood."
As the city's transportation system ground to a near-halt, buses were used as ambulances and an emergency medical station was set up at a hotel. Rescue workers, police and ordinary citizens streamed into the streets to help. Some central London streets emptied of traffic. Groups of commuters who had been on their way to work gathered around corner shops with televisions, watching in silence. The mood was somber and subdued....
Blair, flanked by fellow G-8 leaders, including President Bush, read a statement from the leaders. "We shall prevail and they shall not," he said.
"Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world," he said earlier.
He departed by helicopter back to London. The world leaders continued meeting but their agenda got sidetracked and they decided to delay declarations on climate change and the global economy.
Bush warned Americans to be "extra vigilant," and his administration raised the terror alert for mass transit a notch to code orange. Security also was stepped up in the U.S. Capitol and in train and bus stations around the country....
...A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" posted a claim of responsibility, saying the blasts were in retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Emphasis mine.]
The statement also threatened attacks in Italy and Denmark, both of which have troops in Iraq. It was published on a Web site popular with Islamic militants, and the text was republished on Elaph, a secular Arabic-language news Web site, and Berlin's Der Spiegel magazine.
The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately confirmed, but terrorism experts said the coordinated explosions had the trademarks of the al-Qaida network.
"This is clearly an al-Qaida style attack. It was well-coordinated, it was timed for a political event and it was a multiple attack on a transportation system at rush hour," said Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King's College in London.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said there had been no arrests, and it was unclear whether suicide bombers were involved.
Asked about the claim of responsibility, Paddick said: "We will be looking at that ... at the moment we don't know if that's a legitimate claim or not." He added British officials had received no prior warning nor did they have any advance intelligence that the attacks would occur....
Three U.S. law enforcement officials said at least 40 people were killed. They spoke on condition of anonymity and said they learned of the number from their British counterparts. In London, Paddick said at least 33 people killed in the subway system alone. He confirmed other deaths on the bus but gave no figures.
Officials at seven major hospitals surveyed by The Associated Press reported 368 people wounded. Among them, at least 45 were in serious or critical condition, including amputations, fractures and burns, said Russell Smith of London Ambulance Service.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the blasts were "mass murder" carried out by terrorists bent on "indiscriminate ... slaughter."
"This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful ... it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners," said Livingstone, in Singapore, where he supported London's Olympic bid.....
I certainly don't condone today's terrorist attacks upon London.
However, for us Brits and Americans to claim that we have absolutely no idea why such things happen, as we always do, is ludicrous.
The terrorist attacks upon London today were wrong. They were, as Tony Blair put it, "barbaric."
But they were no fucking less barbaric than was the Bush regime's illegal, immoral, unprovoked and imperialist March 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq -- an invasion and occupation to which Blair, Bush's No. 1 lap dog, committed Britain, the United States' No. 1 partner in its war crimes against the people of Iraq and against Muslims elsewhere.
Thousands of innocent Iraqis and other Muslims have died because of the lies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Why, however, don't we Americans and Brits, as a whole, decry those deaths -- those murders -- as "barbaric"? Why is it that only when we Brits and Americans are murdered is murder "barbaric"? Why is it that when we Americans and Brits commit murder, it's always for such a noble fucking cause, such as "freedom" or "democracy," and when someone else commits murder, it's "murder" or "terrorism" or "barbarism"?
Americans and Brits and our allies seem to share the belief that to kill a relative handful of people with low-tech methods such as car bombs is "barbaric," but to kill scores of people with high-tech weaponry, such as the United States and Britain routinely do, is "civilized."
But until we Americans and Brits and our partners in war crime start acknowledging our own fucking barbaric acts, retaliatory barbaric acts will continue to be committed against us.
London was not attacked today for no fucking reason at all, as we self-righteous Brits and Americans would like to smugly assert.
London was attacked today because Tony Fucking Blair committed his nation to a U.S.-led invasion of a Muslim nation, Iraq, that he fucking knew was wrong.
Today, Londoners died for Tony Blair's sins.
London's mayor's assertion that "This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful ... it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners" is total fucking bullshit, of course. Such lies of the aristocrats and plutocrats (like presidents, prime ministers and mayors of major cities) are meant to divert the working class' attention away from those who are at the roots of our problems -- the ruling class -- and make another group of relatively powerless people (in this case, Muslims) the "enemy" -- like pages ripped right out of George Orwell's 1984.
It was not working-class Londoners who decided to aid and abet the war criminals and war profiteers who occupy the White House in Washington, D.C., in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. It was Tony Blair and his cabal at Downing Street. So of course today's terrorist attacks upon London were aimed at Tony Blair and his Downing Street cabal.
Unfortunately, because Tony Blair, George W. Bush and their ilk and so well-protected -- while us commoners go relatively unprotected -- it is us commoners who pay the price for their sins, not them. The ruling elite almost always make sure that they get off scot-free and that the members of the working class are the ones who pay for their sins and for their mistakes.
And just like George W. Bush has been doing for years -- using such hypocritical phrases as "killers" and "evildoers" and "terrorists" over and over and over again in his public speeches -- Tony Blair already has done his propagandistic best to try to shift the public's attention from his own illegal, immoral and imperialist actions that inspired the carnage in London today to the "uncivilized"* terrorists.
Until we commoners finally wake the fuck up and get rid of the worst terrorists -- the likes of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who commit terrorist acts under the guise of noble causes -- the terrorist attacks upon us commoners will continue.
*If we Brits and Americans (and those nations that kiss our imperialist asses) are "civilized" -- although we have a long fucking history of slaughtering innocent masses -- then anyone who opposes our imperialism must be "uncivilized," our thinking goes.
9:38:49 AM 
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