I was going to give this a miss, honest. I was going to give it a miss not only because it's Seumas Milne being himself about the Woolwich atrocity, but also because what Milne's being himself on that subject consists of is being pretty much the same as Glenn Greenwald and Terry Eagleton on the same thing and I've lately said what I wanted to say about that. So yet once more Milne takes us across the terrain: to claim that US-British wars fuel terror attacks at home is not to justify them - no way, friend - and we're back with old Doc Tezzawald.
But then I just happened to notice this (which provides my excuse for commenting on the Milne after all). He says: 'even to mention the western wars that drive these attacks is deemed to justify them'. See it - 'that drive these attacks'? Now, look at this from the same Seumas Milne in the immediate aftermath of 9/11:
... any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent.
They were driven to carry out the atrocities then, and Western wars still drive the terrorist attacks now. It isn't exactly the language of free or responsible human agency. So I'm having a pinch of salt on the Milne variant of the Tezzawaldian plea.