George Galloway’s Scottish Mail on Sunday column (for which he is paid £85,000-£90,000) isn’t avaliable online but a kind reader felt this week’s offering deserves a wider audience. I’m afraid he’s right.
Once again, as with his article on the ‘resistance’ below, GG doesn’t quite have the balls to come out and say what he is leading us to conclude from his words. But he is firmly in Meacher territory and his prediction of the impact of the bombs on the Spanish elections gives us some insight into his sharp political judgement.
Who does Bin Laden think he’s helping?
If the foul atrocity in Madrid earlier this week is the work of the sinister separatists of ETA, it will do for the military wing of Basque nationalism what the Omagh bomb did for the breakaway Real IRA. It will finish them.
If, on the other hand, as is increasingly likely, it was the bloody handiwork of Islamic fundamentalists affiliated to Al Qaeda, it raises new questions about who exactly Osama Bin Laden is working for.
It is seldom recalled that Bin Laden and the other so-called Holy Warriors in Afghanistan began life as clients of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, born of their amoral belief in the slogan “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.
The events of 9/11, I have never doubted, were inspired by Bin Laden and the only interests served by that bestial attack were those of Israel and the extreme Right, neo-conservative, New American Century Christian fundamentalists around George W Bush.
The biggest losers from the affair were Muslims in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and at home in Britain and America.
The Spanish state fully participated in the slaughter of Muslims in the wars since 9/11 and could have hardly complained if those motivated by those events had struck at the military or other assets of “the Spanish crusaders”.
But the Spanish public opposed those wars in greater numbers than ordinary people anywhere else on earth.
It must be true- given that 90 per cent of Spaniards disagreed with the government’s stand- that the majority of the working people slain on those trains were opponents of the Aznar-Bush-Blair axis. To slaughter such a soft and utterly indefensible target is not only immoral but vastly counter-productive.
It will ensure the re-election of Aznar’s party, inflame anti-Muslim prejudice around the world, boost Bush’s re-election prospects and add fuel to the fires of the clash of civilisations.
Quite a day’s work, Mr Bin Laden.
By the way, £90,000 divided by 52 is around £1,730.
