London IX: Absence of Leads Shows Sterility of Bush ‘Strategy’

NY Times: “With No Leads, British Consult Allies on Blasts,” by Elaine Sciolino and Don Van Natta Jr., July 11, 2005.

As this important front-page article in the Times demonstrates, British investigators – generally considered to have the best intelligence / surveillance operation in Europe – were unable to find any significant leads in the first several days after the Thursday morning attacks.

While disturbing, this is not particularly surprising … and it points out BOTH the severe limits of the purely operational approach insisted upon by the gutless and uncaring Bush administration AND the absolute imperative of a sustained values confrontation with political Islam.

Although it does seem the British will eventually turn up significant information – the public response to the authorities’ urgent request for ANY potentially relevant information seems close to overwhelming – the aftermath of the London attacks makes clear that the optimum strategy is one that will PREVENT such outrages from happening in the first place.

And the only way to promote prevention – as we have argued since 9/11 – is to bring about the isolation and delegitimation of political Islam within the Muslim world.

And the only way to achieve THAT is to undertake a sustained VALUES confrontation with political Islam – one that unashamedly endorses the SECULAR and HUMANIST values that have been responsible for whatever positive elements exist in Western society, both historically and today.

Unfortunately, as we have also pointed out since 9/11, there could be no American leader LESS capable of leading a serious and sustained values confrontation with political Islam than George W. Bush.

Rather than taking the principled position that is the only real hope of a decisive victory over political Islam, the cowardly Bush regime has avoided any embrace of the multi-cultural secularism that is urgently called for in this situation.

Instead, Bush keeps mouthing irrelevant and empty platitudes that do nothing to move forward in any productive way this literally terrible confrontation between political Islam and the rest of the world –

he keeps doing what he does, they keep doing what they do, and the rest of the world suffers due to the anti-human obstinacy of BOTH Bush and political Islam.

Not only is a prevention / values approach crucial in an ultimate sense, it is also vital in helping investigators turn up whatever leads may help them to a cell that – given the seeming absence of suicide bombers – apparently is planning to strike again in the future.

Why ??? Because, barring any major breakthrough in the forensic evidence, the only way the people who did this are going to be caught is if people in their own communities decide to break the code of silence and turn them in –

and, to reiterate, the only way THAT is going to happen is if there are enough British Muslims who are disgusted enough by the bombings to risk social ostracism and inform on the perpetrators –

and, again, the only way THAT is going to happen is if there is a values confrontation with political Islam that makes unmistakeably clear that there is, literally, nothing in the world that justifies this ongoing recourse to random political violence.

So from both a long-term perspective, and an immediate point of view, the aftermath of London indicates CLEARLY that the ONLY way progress is going to be made on ANY level is with a serious and sustained enunciation of the secular humanist values that both political Islam and, it would seem, George W. Bush and his cronies and corporate / Christian right supporters find so frightening.

Some of the most important quotes [bold emphasis mine]:

British intelligence officials, frustrated by their failure to quickly crack the worst terrorist attack here since World War II, have sought help from counterparts in the United States and two dozen European allies to develop possible leads, European counterterrorism officials said Sunday. ...

European participants said they were struck by how little was known about the attacks, which hit three trains in the London Underground and a double-decker bus on Thursday. …

The call for help was unusual coming from Britain, which is regarded by other European countries as often having access to more and better quality intelligence because it is part of a long-established, Anglophone intelligence-sharing agreement with the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

But the two-hour session also indicated that the British officials running the complex inquiry were frustrated because they had few breaks, few leads and no suspects in the 48 hours after the attack, the most important investigative period after a terrorist bombing. …

The meeting was also considered extraordinary because European countries do not often work together on complex terrorism investigations. Cooperation is complicated by differences in each country's intelligence agencies and counterterrorism police, and often-sharp differences among crime-fighting and judicial approaches. Tracking terrorism suspects also is difficult because they move freely across Europe's open borders, and finger-pointing among countries has followed terrorist strikes.

But the London meeting was a sign that most countries in Europe believe that solving the London bombings and thwarting the next attack are responsibilities shared by everyone. …

While the London and Madrid bombers hit commuter trains in morning rush hour with bombs that exploded nearly simultaneously, there is one big difference: Spanish investigators got breaks that their London counterparts have not had.

Within hours of the Madrid attacks, the police discovered a van apparently used by the bombers with detonators and cassette tape recordings of the Koran. Hours later, Madrid police officers at the bombed Atocha station discovered a cellphone ringing in a sports duffel bag, attached to an unexploded bomb. The phone's alarm function, the detonating mechanism, had failed.

Through the cellphone and its chip, investigators made the first arrests only two days after the bombings. In addition, a copper-wire detonator found on the unexploded bomb matched seven copper-wire detonators found in the van.

In an interview at the time, Ignacio Astarloa, then the secretary of state for security in Spain's Interior Ministry, said the discovery of the sports bag was “a blessing.” “It is the only bag planted by the terrorists that allows us to investigate something that isn't just ashes,” he said.

But in the absence of any lucky breaks like those after Madrid, the strictly operational approach promoted by the Bush regime is clearly NEVER going to bring success – either operationally in the short term, or politically in the long term.

Which is why impeachment proceedings should be brought against both Bush and Cheney for their scandalously negligent failure to take ANY real steps in the struggle with political Islam –

and sooner, rather than later, because these people have no business whatsoever appointing a new Supreme Court justice … let alone the two that seem likely to fall into their undeserving laps.