On Aug. 10, in the midst of the U.S.-directed Israeli assault on Lebanon—which had been dominating news coverage across the world—British authorities announced a foiled “global terror plot,” arrested and detained 25 people without charge and increased the country’s security alert to the unprecedented “critical” level.
In coordination with Britain, the United States also increased security measures, putting all airlines on a “red alert”—
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According to British and U.S. officials, attacks were being planned—from within Pakistan and Britain—to be carried out simultaneously, using liquid-based explosives, on numerous airplanes belonging to unnamed major airlines crossing the Atlantic. Authorities in Britain quickly arrested 25 Muslims, although two have since been released. They were all held without charge in accordance with anti-terror legislation recently enacted. Another 17 people were arrested in Pakistan.
On Aug. 21, 11 people were charged by British authorities with “conspiracy to commit murder” and eight of those were also charged with “intention to commit terrorist acts.”
No real evidence of a plot has been released. And what is being accepted as evidence in the bourgeois media—the detainees’ purchase of plane tickets, so-called bombmaking materials and videos—lacks credibility. But there is incentive to charge people regardless of the quality of the evidence against them. Under British laws, “terror” suspects can be held for 28 days without charge. Police then must convince a judge of the reasons to continue to detain someone for questioning.
The increased terror alerts were calculated political acts intended to benefit the ruling classes in Britain and the United States. They predictably got massive media attention caused inflated racist and religious paranoia.
The British government yet again fulfilled its role as junior partner in U.S. imperialism’s drive to dominate the world.
Justification for racism and imperialist aggression
At the time the foiled “plot” was announced, the United States and Britain were getting battered in the media and in public polls about the occupation of Iraq, and the imperialist proxy garrison state of Israel was murdering civilians in Lebanon and Palestine. Militant and angry demonstrations were taking place across the world, the largest of which had just happened in Baghdad. More than 100,000 demonstrated in London.
In the United States, an Aug. 12 national demonstration in defense of the Lebanese and Palestinian people was also planned to take place in front of the White House, along with coordinated protests in other cities. It was called by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), the National Council of Arab Americans and the Muslim American Society. More than 45,000 people, many of them Arab and Muslim, came out in protest that day, despite the media frenzy surrounding the “terror alerts.”
The alerts served the purpose of replacing the bad news facing imperialism with jingoistic news of Bush and Blair—then on vacation in Texas and the Bahamas, respectively—saving the world from another vague “terrorist plot.”
The alerts also served to reinforce the racist attacks that have characterized the so-called war on terror. Arab and
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Following the heightened security levels, Bush characterized the so-called war on terror as a “war with Islamic fascists,” while Blair took the opportunity to state that the west is engaged in an “elemental battle” with Islam. These demagogic statements obscure the fact that the imperialist governments are the aggressors in a wide-ranging war on the world’s oppressed people. They also feed into the corporate media’s xenophobic frenzy.
The Times of London just announced that the British Dept. of Transport is revisiting the idea of racial and religious profiling—which it had been considering for over a year—as a “security measure.” Racial and religious profiling is already a common practice in the United States and Britain, but neither country as gone so far as to openly embrace it as a security measure.
This climate of repression and fear is intended to silence oppressed communities and all others who would speak out in opposition to the colonial policies pushed by Washington and London.
Within Britain, significant opposition to the climate of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim reaction has come from three Muslim members of parliament, Arab and Muslim organizations and others who signed an open letter denouncing the British role in Iraq and the Middle East as the real cause of any terrorist threat.
Two high-ranking south Asian members of the Heathrow police department have openly disagreed with the idea of racial profiling as a security measure. These mild statements, coming from within the state apparatus and bourgeois institutions, have been met with the most racist and reactionary responses in the capitalist media.
A week after the terror alert was announced, airports across Britain and the United States have returned to a normal functioning level, although the draconian security measures remain partially in place. The story of the foiled “terror plot” now has slipped from the front page and lead story carried by every capitalist media outlet. However, vestiges of the hysteria caused by the “terror” announcement remain a danger to oppressed communities, in Britain, France and the United States.
