Fir Rro Hai

GUNMEN ATTACK U.S. EMBASSY IN LONDON by Geoff Coggan The reaction to the machine-gunning of the US Enbassy.is more revealing than the episode itself, The epithets of "Shocking" and "Outrage", and alarm at the danger of innocent people getting hurt, come precisely from those who are silent in the face of American atrocities the world over, The identity, or even the nationality, of the three men who carried out the shooting remain unknown, though newspapers. have not been slow to put forward their own theories. The significance in these theories lies in their wide variety, The search for people whose fury has been aroused by US actions does not point to any one country or continent, and, if the Enbassy were to be blown up overnight, there would surely be no mystery about the motivation which inspired it. . Violence breeds violence, and the perpetrators of mass terror, cold-bloodedly anc scientifically unleashed from the world’s most horrific arsenal of weapons, can hardly be shocked by an answering knock of bullets on their own front door, To understand the machine~gunning, in the terms of its motivation, is not to condone it; still less to encourage a repetition. There are better, even more militant, means of expression thar the anonymous firing of shots however appropriate such actions might be at other times, in other places, The prime responsibility, of course, lies with the United States Government itself, but there is a secondary responsibility which lies with the Labour Government of this country. To the extent that Wilson and Brown are prepared to go along with American actions: to that same extent must they be inviting action in this country against policies which any Government with a pretence to socialism would have denounced years ago. Those who -have denounced their Government's actions were amongst the first suspects of the heavy-handed, flat-footed officers of the Special Branch, Pat Jordan, the Secretary of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, was one of those visited, but he was apparently able to conceal the machine-gun on his person, At any rate, according to the newspapers, it is still at large,