Guardian: It is an insult to the dead to deny the link with Iraq

[muriel_volestrangler]

This appeared on Thursday, but I missed it then (and heven't seen it on DU either). Full of good points; I think it's time to ask Blair to be "tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism".

Tony Blair put his own people at risk in the service of a foreign power

...
The wall of silence in the US after the much greater carnage of 9/11 allowed the Bush administration to set a course that has been a global disaster. And there is little sense in London that the official attitude reflects the more uncertain mood on the streets. There is every need for the kind of public mourning that will take place in London today, along with concerted action to halt the backlash against Muslim Britons that claimed its first life in Nottingham at the weekend. But it is an insult to the dead to mislead people about the crucial factors fuelling this deadly rage in Muslim communities across the world.

The first piece of disinformation long peddled by champions of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is that al-Qaida and its supporters have no demands that could possibly be met or negotiated over; that they are really motivated by a hatred of western freedoms and way of life; and that their Islamist ideology aims at global domination. The reality was neatly summed up this week in a radio exchange between the BBC's political editor, Andrew Marr, and its security correspondent, Frank Gardner, who was left disabled by an al-Qaida attack in Saudi Arabia last year. Was it the "very diversity, that melting pot aspect of London" that Islamist extremists found so offensive that they wanted to kill innocent civilians in Britain's capital, Marr wondered. "No, it's not that," replied Gardner briskly, who is better acquainted with al-Qaida thinking than most. "What they find offensive are the policies of western governments and specifically the presence of western troops in Muslim lands, notably Iraq and Afghanistan."

The central goal of the al-Qaida-inspired campaign, as its statements have regularly spelled out, is the withdrawal of US and other western forces from the Arab and Muslim world, an end to support for Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and a halt to support for oil-lubricated despots throughout the region. Those are also goals that unite an overwhelming majority of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere and give al-Qaida and its allies the chance to recruit and operate - in a way that their extreme religious conservatism or dreams of restoring the medieval caliphate never would. As even Osama bin Laden asked in his US election-timed video: if it was western freedom al-Qaida hated, "Why do we not strike Sweden?"

The second disinformation line peddled by government supporters since last week's bombings is that the London attacks had nothing to do with Iraq. The Labour MP Tony Wright insisted that such an idea was "not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense". Blair has argued that, since the 9/11 attacks predated the Iraq war, outrage at the aggression could not have been the trigger. It's perfectly true that Muslim anger over Palestine, western-backed dictatorships and the aftermath of the 1991 war against Iraq - US troops in Arabia and a murderous sanctions regime against Iraq - was already intense before 2001 and fuelled al-Qaida's campaign in the 1990s. But that was aimed at the US, not Britain, which only became a target when Blair backed Bush's war on terror. Afghanistan made a terror attack on Britain a likelihood; Iraq made it a certainty.
...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1528014,00.html

[ROH]

1. 72% of Britons say Iraq support left Britain more vulnerable to attack

Polling Data

"Do you think Britain’s role in Iraq has made the country more vulnerable or less vulnerable to attack by Islamic terrorists?"

More vulnerable ... 72%
Less vulnerable ... 1%
Made no difference ... 24%
Don’t know ... 3%

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x6123

[blindpig]

2. invisible truth

It's been there since 9/11, OBL and his minions have made their goals clear to any who wish to read their statements. But who has had a chance to read them here in this land of freedom? One just about has to resort to foreign outlets on the internet, and how many do that? Jingoism and the national security state have suppressed this information effectively and complex reality is foregone for simplistic morality tales easily digested by a sound bite conditioned public. The complicity of of the MSM, in particular the hateful liars on Faux, should be brought to account. They have blood on their hands too.

[enough]

3. True, blindpig.

But I think the more "respectable" media is equally complicit. Simply by reporting Bushco's outrages as if they were normal (or not reporting them at all) they have dipped their hands in that same blood.

[CJCRANE]

4. It's Iraq.

The intelligence agencies said before the Iraq war that the threat to the UK would increase.

I don't think the Afghanistan campaign or the ongoing Israel/Palestine situation increased the threat to the UK specifically, as the UK was not a high-profile ally in actions against these countries.