Clarke is wrong about the bombers' motive

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told the BBC: "There is no evidence [it] had anything to do with the Iraq war." But he went on to assert, without giving any evidence himself and in very Bushian language: "the people who make these kind of attacks are about destroying the very essence of our society: our democracy, our media, our multicultural society and so on. That's not about Iraq or any other particular foreign policy issue, it's about a fundamentalist attack on the way we live our lives."

If indeed this was the work of an Al-Qaeda style group (which seems likely, though far from proven) then, as I argued yesterday, their motive is not to destroy "our democracy, our media, our multicultural society... the way we live our lives." A few bombs clearly have no power to destroy any of these things (except perhaps the multicultural society if we succumb to a racist backlash). Although Bin Laden and his associates do indeed have a critique of the decadence of Western society, the explanations for their terrorist attacks have always been expressed in terms of very clear foreign policy objectives (The end of occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, the removal of foreign troops from the Middle East, the ceasation of support for dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia etc.).

The only hope we have of preventing future attacks is not a further shift to the right in immigration policy and an increasing erosion of our civil liberties through surveillance, detention and ID-cards, but rather cleaning up our foreign policy. Fortunately the foreign policy objectives of Al-Qaeda, unlike its actions, are by and large just. Even if Al-Qaeda didn't exist we should be working towards the things, because they are actually a reflection of the Christian values of justice, peace and freedom which are (or should be) the true "essence of our society".

P.S. The help line for information about missing friends & family is 0870 156 6344. BBC news coverage here. Mil Rai of Justice not Vengence is doing a sterling job providing a daily analysis of the UK media coverage of the aftermath and challenging any tendancies to Islamophobia. You'll also find good analysis on Juan Cole's blog, and listen out for anything by Michael Scheuer who is speaking a lot of sense on this. Also keep an eye on Arab Media Watch and CAABU.