On Sunday, the
Daily Mail online ran a comment about the London
bombings which closed with the lines "This is a war, but not of our own making.
In the face of unreasoning hate and murder, even reasonable force will
sometimes be used mistakenly."
Two days later,
reports showed the UK prime minister asserting that
"Iraq was no excuse for the London bombings". By way of total contradiction and
in the next breath, he then "acknowledged Iraq was being used to recruit
terrorists."
He said: "Let us expose the obscenity of
these people saying it is concern for Iraq that drives them to terrorism. If it
is concern for Iraq then why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a
group of children and killing them? We are not going to deal with this problem,
with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every
single level - and not just their methods but their ideas."
We are in deep trouble here people.
When a country indulges in this level of
denial with the stakes so high, lives are going to be lost. Here is what
al-Qaeda have been saying about Iraq and terrorism, as reported by the US
Congressional Research Service in february of this
year:
"A tape, released on December 27 2004,
underscored Al qaeda's interest in Iraq and support for the ongoing insurgency.
In this tape, Bin Laden … described the importance of the conflict in Iraq
to the jihadist cause from Al Qaeda's perspective. Bin Laden identified the
insurgency in Iraq as 'a golden and unique opportunity' for jihadists to engage
and defeat the United States, and he characterized the insurgency in Iraq as
the central battle in a 'Third World war which the Crusader-Zionist coalition
began against the Islamic nation."
The CRS report continues: "Bin Laden has
identified 'martyrdom operations' or suicide attacks, as 'the most important
operations' for disrupting the activities of the United States and its allies."
Bin Laden first called a 'defensive
jihad' against the US in 1990 for its occupation of Saudia Arabia. Since then
he and Al qaeda have consistently claimed western military occupation or
economic control of Islamic territories as their single grievance arguing "that
the islamic world should see itself as one seamless community or 'umma' and
that muslims were obliged to unite and defend themselves."
For Blair to be able to stand before the
British people and pretend, when faced with such glaring evidence, that UK
support - his support - for aggressive US foreign policy has not led directly
to terrorist bombings on the Tube can only mean the British people are happy to
have a pretender lead the nation. Why? Because, despite the costs - a few dead
in London, many dead abroad - political fantasies are indulged to fund the
lavish national lifestyle. Tony Blair's just the man to cover for
that.
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related graphic
here