Sudden bomb explosions rocked three Underground trains in London at 8:50 a.m. on July 7th. About an hour later, a fourth blew up a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square in the heart of London. Shock waves and scalding smoke attacked workers and many other commuters during the morning rush hour, taking nearly 50 lives in an instant (with some 700 injured, as of July 9th). These barbarous attacks - which occurred right before the opening of the G8 Summit at Gleneagles - were nothing but contrived acts of terrorism perpetrated by the Bush Empire to justify the continuation of its war against Iraq, and once again to impose it upon Tony Blair, its closest ally, and other G8 leaders. We angrily denounce this brutal crime, plotted and carried out by the militarist empire of America!

Terror engineered to instigate the 'war on terrorism'

Turning pale at word of the disaster in London, Tony Blair hurriedly had a confidential talk with George W. Bush before declaring, 'My countrymen are simply not going to be terrorized by Islamic terror in this way!' Foreign Secretary Jack Straw instantly concluded that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks. This was followed by an initial claim to responsibility by a group that said it spoke for al-Qaeda, declaring the attacks to be retaliation for British support of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was widely reported by the world's media. The G8 meeting in Scotland was thus turned into a stage for appealing to fight 'indiscriminate terrorism by al-Qaeda'.

However, the following facts demonstrated that all of this is sheer demagogy.

First of all, the targets for these attacks were neither the apparatus of state power nor symbols of the imperialist economy, but the city's public transport system for ordinary people. Even if we take up this single fact, it is abundantly clear that the blasts could not have been the handiwork of any militant Muslim group. This is all the more so in that one of the bombs was detonated near Brick Lane Mosque, the largest mosque in Britain, where 1.8 million Muslims are living today.

Secondly, it was in central London, where the 'world's tightest anti-terrorist surveillance network' is supposed to operate round the clock (with 4 million video surveillance cameras, including 6,000 for the Tube) - and in such a subtle way as to evade the high state of alert for the summit meeting - that the series of bombings were perpetrated. New Scotland Yard, which laid a tight cordon around the area and placed all information under police control, only made an official announcement, saying that the bombs - containing less than 10 lbs. of explosives each, but sophisticated, made with military plastic explosive - were placed on the floor of the train carriages, and that they were apparently set off within 50 seconds of each other by a kind of timing device. It has not yet been made public even what type of explosives was used in the attack. This fact shows that some sort of cover-up attempt is being made behind the scenes.

Shortly after the incident, a group styling itself as the 'Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe' claimed responsibility for the bombings on a Web site. This statement, however, presents no concrete facts at all. On the contrary, it even includes the queer term 'Arabic umma', which could hardly be used by Muslims. It is plainly evident that these sentences were fabricated by the CIA. This is the third point. [The same applies to the statement issued by the 'Jihad Organization of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula', which gave a warning of attacks on Rome (July 8th), as well as the one released by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade (July 9th), which claimed the Madrid bombings on March 11th last year to give an outward appearance of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda.]

The US government has started disseminating absurd information in a big way, through the media, about an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi connection to this London plot, saying, 'Al-Zarqawi is a potential source, since there's an unlimited amount of explosives and munitions in Iraq that he controls.' - What can you say about this nonsense? It is always the name of 'al-Zarqawi' that is used to cover up CIA- or DIA-plotted assassinations and guerrilla attacks in Iraq, intended to instigate religious / ethnic conflict between Shiites, Sunnites and Kurds. The mention of his name, and the fuss made over it, has betrayed the fact that the real culprit in the London attacks was none other than the Bush Empire.

By mobilizing its people in the CIA, and in cahoots with Britain's intelligence agencies (MI5 and MI6), the Bush Empire plotted and perpetrated the London bombings and gave them the appearance of having been committed by groups connected with al-Qaeda. This is the real truth of the incident.

And this is the reason why not only Arab and Iranian governments but also anti-American Islamic radicals all over the world (including Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon) are unanimously making strong appeals to condemn the London bombings.


Intimidation towards Blair

A grim-faced Tony Blair made his first speech to express outrage in the face of the 'terrorist attack' on London at a press conference. Among other power holders standing behind him with sad expressions, US President George W. Bush alone was looking around restlessly, playing the innocent.

As chairman of the G8 summit, Blair had decided that 'the war on terrorism' should be removed from the main items on the agenda. Instead, he had been straining for a year to focus G8 on the issues of relieving African poverty and fighting global warming. This decision itself clearly shows the likelihood that he will break away from the Bush Empire and reconcile with European powers.

This is because the issue of 'aid for Africa' is exclusively related to the national interests of the UK and France (erstwhile suzerains), while discussing global warming would inevitably draw unwelcome attention to the US, the only country among the G8 members that refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to curb CO2 emissions.

On top of that, the British government is placing it on its agenda to pull a considerable number of its troops out of Iraq (British newspapers reported on July 5th that the Ministry of Defence had drawn up a plan for a pullout).

Impatient with Blair's behaviour, which could lead to the final bankruptcy of the Iraqi occupation and the collapse of the 'Coalition of the Willing', Bush ventured to launch bloody machinations in an attempt, directly, to intimidate Blair and to forcibly turn the G8 meeting into a stage for underlining the righteousness of the 'war on terrorism'. This is but a desperate, miserable attempt to wriggle out of a bottomless quagmire.


The death agonies of the Bush Empire

'Iraq is the latest battlefield in the global war on terror.' In his speech on the first anniversary of the 'transfer of Iraqi sovereignty' on June 28th, Bush declared thus, making no mention of the 'threat of the weapons of mass destruction possessed by the Hussein regime', which was supposed to be the primary cause of the aggression against Iraq. He said that US forces would not withdraw but would continue to take command of the new Iraqi troops.

The Bush administration is shaken by the landslide victory of Mohsen Ahmadinejad, an Islamic traditionalist, who shows unreserved hostility to US imperialism, in the recent presidential election in Iran, Iraq's neighbouring country under a Shiite religious regime. It is inevitable that, if an 'independent government of truly reconciled nations' were established in Iraq on the initiative of Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a Shiite Crescent against US imperialism would be formed between Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Such a nightmare must not come true. - The Bush administration is being pressed to invent some pretext for continuing its military occupation of Iraq. That is why it is instigating religious and ethnic conflict between different groups in Iraq by carrying out armed attacks against Shiites, and even a series of assassinations under the name of 'al-Zarqawi' (which includes the recent murder of an appointed Egyptian ambassador to Iraq).

This is not all. The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared their opposition to the 'monopolism' of the US in their recent summit talks (July 1st). On this basis, the summit meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) issued a joint declaration urging US forces to 'decide on a deadline' for ending their military presence in Central Asian countries, which has been continued under the pretext of 'anti-terror operations in Afghanistan'. This SCO meeting also decided to 'grant observer status' to Iran, India and Pakistan (July 5th). It was against the background of these new developments that Hu Jintao was about to ride into Gleneagles, posing as leader of the 'five rising nations' (China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa).

Faced with this precarious situation, President Bush is obliged to assume a stronger sense of crisis towards rapid developments in the formation of an 'anti-American encircling net', mainly consisting of BRICs led by China.

In addition to this, skyrocketing oil prices (rising beyond US $60 per barrel), which are fundamentally linked to intensified competition for oil resources in the Middle East and the Caspian Sea between the US, China, Russia and EU countries, are causing decisive damage to the US economy.

It was amid these insurmountable difficulties facing on the Bush administration that the G8 summit came around. The plotters of the Bush Empire put their hand to the act of terrorism in London in a last-ditch attempt to save the day.

The London bombings certainly blew up, in effect, the original agenda set by the Blair government. They also made the talks between the leaders of the G8 group and those of the 'rising nations' end merely in a formal one. However, the political isolation of the militarist Empire of America, the world's 'sole superpower', could not be glossed over any more - no matter how swiftly Bush said the 'war on terror goes on' after the incident, posing as the leader of this 'war'. Even Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced, at the very venue for the summit meeting, his decision to reduce Italy's military presence in Iraq by 300 soldiers in September.

Among all these faltering leaders, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro alone remains loyal to the Bush Empire. Chained up with the US-Japan military alliance, the Koizumi government has drawn up its state strategy on the basis of 'common strategic objectives' imposed on it by the Bush administration. It is rushing headlong towards a strengthening of the US-Japan military alliance by redefining it as an offensive and defensive alliance against China - specifically, the development and deployment of missile defences and the combination / integration of the Japanese military with US forces to combat terrorism - and towards a negative revision of the war-renouncing Constitution of Japan, which focuses on constitutionalizing Japan's exercise of the right to collective self-defence. This government is fawning on Bush despite the fact that Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, its long-cherished ambition, is getting the brush-off from the very government it bows to.


Working people all over the world, fighting against the Iraq War!

Denounce the London bombings plotted by the Bush Empire! Never allow the US government to justify and continue its military occupation of Iraq in the name of the 'war on terrorism'! In solidarity with Muslim people in Iraq driving US troops to the brink of defeat, rise in a worldwide struggle!

Working people in Japan!

Fight to overthrow the neo-fascist Koizumi government, the single servant of the Bush administration in the world! Shatter the attempt to strengthen the US-Japan military alliance as an offensive and defensive alliance! Stop the retrograde revision of the Constitution of Japan!

Working people all over the world, unite! Stir up the flames of antiwar struggle against the brutalities of the Bush Empire!

July 9th, 2005

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