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The innocent dead in a coward's war Estimates suggest US bombs have killed at least 3,767 civilians Seumas Milne Thursday December 20, 2001 The Guardian The price in blood that has already been paid for America's war against terror is only now starting to become clear. Not by Britain or the US, nor even so far by the al-Qaida and Taliban leaders held responsible for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. It has instead been paid by ordinary Afghans, who had nothing whatever to do with the atrocities, didn't elect the Taliban theocrats who ruled over them ...

The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting. The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead with the trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself...

When the Labour leadership was in the throes of one of its recent shambolic policy re-alignments – it may have been the volte face on support for the Government’s fiscal charter, or the contradictory announcements on renewing Trident – a colleague of mine said: “Is this too serious to be funny, or is it too funny to be serious?” I think we have the answer to that question now. With the announcement last week of Seumas Milne’s appointment as head of Labour strategy and communications, there can no longer be scope for doubt. This is deadly serious. To appreciate just...