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Bombers Can Be Defeated Through Justice
From Daily Ireland, 13 July 2005
Three years ago Tony Blair told the House of Commons and a bewildered, part-terrified, part-sceptical British public that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be launched against Britain within 45 minutes. In under a 45-minute period last Thursday four bombs wreaked murder, suffering, havoc and misery on innocent civilians in London.
However, British government spokespersons in various radio and television debates were quick to deny that the bombings had anything to do with the war in Iraq and the Anglo-American occupation of that country. To prove their case they pointed out that the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 9/11 preceded the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
But what that analogy omitted is that before 9/11 the US and its close ally, Britain, were long perceived as and accused of interfering in the affairs of other countries. They were seen as being hypocrites with double standards. Indeed, they are seen as the key leaders of a prosperous First World against the Third World, justifying and perpetuating economic injustice and huge disparities in wealth.
They have supported dictatorships (like Saddam Hussein’s) provided such puppet governments were pro-West, and they have excused torture if it led to stability – which was good for trade and the stock market. They have abused their veto on the UN Security Council, particularly the USA on the issue of Israeli state terrorism, whilst being fulsome in their condemnation of Palestinian violence.
During what has been called the first Iraqi war (but not the first time that Britain had been militarily involved there) US and British forces killed thousands of young Iraqi conscripts who didn’t know how to fight. The US bombed Baghdad, killing civilians, including at least 400 children, women and men, crouched in what they thought was the safety of a bomb shelter. The US used Saudi Arabia as a base in both the first and second war – outraging Muslims across the world over what they saw as a desecration of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of Islam.
The ten-year long UN embargo against Hussein’s regime also led to immense suffering and the deaths of thousands of infants. Then there was the invasion, more deaths of innocent civilians, followed by the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, and now an incipient civil war.
So, if you, your family or your community had been on the receiving end of Bush and Blair’s ‘noble objectives’, even if your own unelected government had brought this down on your head, would you feel alienated, angry or vengeful? Would it make you despair or turn you into a suicide bomber? The answer has to be, quite possibly. Particularly if one interpretation of your religion glorifies such action.
But instead of dealing with legitimate grievances as a possible cause of a major proportion of the terrorism Tony Blair’s spokespersons have been telling the people of Britain that the bombings in London had nothing to do with his decision to fraudulently go to war in Iraq. The priority was to disconnect or minimise any link between Blair’s actions and the mass murder of British citizens.
We are supposed to believe that capital cities just get bombed out of the blue by evil people. We are told that terrorism is part of the modern condition and British people just have to learn to live with it - but die accepting the government’s explanations for its existence. Indeed it is viewed as the height of disloyalty (especially when death and suffering is so fresh and to the fore in the public’s mind) for anyone to explain what happened in the context of British foreign policy.
Again, such censorship is aimed at stifling the frank discussion of awkward truths in order to preserve the putative moral high ground of the British and US governments when the only people with a right to the moral high ground are the innocent victims in London and in Iraq and elsewhere.
Six days before the London bombings seventeen civilians were blown up in a remote village in Afghanistan by US forces attacking a ‘suspected militant hideout’. Among the suspected militants were several two-year-olds and three-year-olds and their mothers. Villagers who came to their rescue were again bombed from the air, resulting in more fatalities. Surely, this – the slaughter of innocents - has to be defined as terrorism?
To defeat non-state terrorism one has to understand its motivation and origin. Neither Blair nor Bush wants a rational debate on the causes of Islamic terrorism. They want the public to believe that terrorists are mindless and evil and operate in a vacuum with no historical context.
Yet, the terrorists can be stopped – though not in the short-term. In the short-term, though, Britain has the right to protect itself through surveillance and intelligence and the judicious use of the law.
The bombers may well be British nationals with some experience of racial abuse and demonisation or they might be foreigners. Regardless, they are still the product of much persecution and humiliation of Arabs by Western governments. It is hard to defeat those who do not value this life and who believe that pure terrorism will lead to victory and will compensate for the disparity between the overwhelming might of the West and their own meagre but dedicated numbers.
But they can be defeated – through justice. Justice for the poor, the occupied, the oppressed, the persecuted. Justice.
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© 2007 Irish Author and Journalist - Danny Morrison