A year after explosions rocked the London subway, a new wave of fear from alleged terrorist attacks on airlines and airports has spread across Britain.
Through a series of strong security precaution measures authorities in that country sought to avoid a replay of the July 7, 2005 terror attacks, however, they claimed that a plot to detonate bombs on nine planes traveling mid-air from the UK to the US had been thwarted on Friday.
Published reports quoted UK officials as saying that they had found and deactivated 20 bombs on intercontinental flights. It is still not clear whether terrorist groups were really involved in these events or that the entire ’scenario’ was nothing but a product of mind of British politicians for whatever intentions they may have. A further scrutiny of the issue would not be out of place.
The incident comes at a time when Tony Blair is under intense pressure to step down. Both his opponents and many in the ruling Labour Party have demanded that he go sooner rather than later.
Blair, better known as George Bush’s lapdog has dragged his country into two dangerous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In recent years, especially after the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, social conditions, especially of non-whites, in ’Great Britain’ have been declining for which the prime minister seems to have little interest.
After the subway attacks, Blair had pledged that such terrible incidents would never occur again. So, reports of planned terrorist operations against flights to and from the UK/US are a new and more serious challenge for Downing Street.
It is often believed that rulers in the US and Europe create a crisis and then try to fix it in their own interests. The alleged airline bombing plots became the top news of the world when Blair is desperately trying to justify the role of British troops in war-battered Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of fighting terror. Although he is visibly failing to sell the war package at home, Blair has stuck to his guns and insists that British men and women in uniform are now dying in the two Muslim countries to “defeat international terrorism“ and make Britain safer.
He is also trying to imply that reversing his earlier decisions in joining Bush’s war means more insecurity in his country. Meanwhile, British lawmakers in recent months have passed new anti-terror legislation. The new rules call for more eavesdropping, expanded tapping of private telephones and curbs on individual and collective rights of British Muslims-a clumsy move that violates the same human rights British rulers so jealously claim to protect and promote.
British policymakers and the government are at odds over the rising budget for the military and security establishments and their spheres of freedom. This has especially infuriated civil institutions opposed to the growing role of the military in foreign lands. Furthermore, in the month-old Israeli war against Lebanon British pubic opinion has increasingly turned against London’s unconditional support for Tel Aviv.
It is an open secret that London almost always allows the use of its airspace and other facilities to transport US weapons for Israel. But the people of Britain have openly protested against such military cooperation that has cut short the life of thousands Lebanese and Palestinian women and children.
It can be said that in order to overcome serious challenges to this rule and also justify his controversial drive to implement new security regulations, Blair can take full advantage of the aviation chaos. This is especially because the massive flight disruptions linked to perceived terror attacks can significantly help divert British public concern over Blair’s unreserved support for Israel in its unjust war in Lebanon and his close cooperation with Bush’s America.
For now, British officials are congratulating themselves for having foiled the terrorist plot to blowup planes in mid-flight and have billed their measures as the greatest anti-terror operations in contemporary times. Perhaps this is a long shot for curbing the catalog of criticism against London over several months.
Political analysts think Blair and his government had prior knowledge about the jetliner terrorist plot and the incident helped him to rehabilitate his fast-declining popularity.
It can be said that Blair and company can draw on the alleged bomb plot to give a new dimension to the ’need’ to hang on in Iraq and Afghanistan, sustain the highly controversial security climate and at the same time justify new restrictions on the strong but alienated Muslim community in that country.
But the ongoing developments are seen as another defeat for Blair whose opponents have now found extra ammunition to single out the embattled premier more concerned about appeasing his friend in the White House than solving his own people’s problems.