Gwynne Dyer: Bombs had nothing to do with anything
Writing for The New Zealand Herald Gwynne Dyer gets it about right:
..The British Government [similarly] denies that there is any connection between Tony Blair's decision to join President Bush's Iraq adventure and the bombs in London. Blair has to defend this position regardless of the evidence, because otherwise it would be solely his fault that Britain is now a target for Islamist terrorism.
But here's another clue. Every major terrorist attack by Islamists since the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, has targeted the citizens of countries that sent troops to Iraq: Americans, not Canadians; British, not French; Spanish, not Germans; Australians, not purposely New Zealanders. And these later attacks have not all been carried out by Arabs.
As well, other Muslims are now getting involved: Indonesians in the bomb attack on Australian tourists in Bali; Turks in the attacks on the British consulate and Jewish institutions in Istanbul; and now British Muslims of non-Arab origin in attacks on their own fellow citizens in London.
Is there some "causal link" here, as Charles Kennedy so delicately put it? You bet your boots there is.
Muslims everywhere were horrified by September 11, and quite rightly denied that it was in any way an expression of Islamic values.
But many Arabs did share the grievances that had radicalised the terrorists, and even felt a fleeting, guilty satisfaction at seeing Americans suffer as so many Arabs have suffered, whereas most non-Arab Muslims - at that point - saw no excuse whatever for the attacks and felt nothing but sympathy for the US.
That sympathy persisted right through the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, which most non-Arab Muslims still saw as a justifiable response to the September 11 attacks.
After all, there actually were terrorist training camps in Afghanistan run by members of al Qaeda, most of them Arabs, who were doing their best to spread their apocalyptic version of revolutionary Islam beyond the confines of the Arab world.
But they really weren't having much success, although there were some non-Arab Muslims in the training camps in Afghanistan.
Then came the invasion of Iraq, which was obviously not about fighting terrorism (since there weren't any terrorists there, or any links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda).
All over the world, Muslims, particularly young Muslims, began to conclude that there was some substance to the Islamist radicals' argument that the West was indiscriminately attacking Muslims everywhere; that it was actually attacking Islam itself.
That is not true.
The Iraq operation was really just the Bush Administration exploiting the panic about terrorism to pursue quite traditional strategic objectives in the Middle East. Read more
..The British Government [similarly] denies that there is any connection between Tony Blair's decision to join President Bush's Iraq adventure and the bombs in London. Blair has to defend this position regardless of the evidence, because otherwise it would be solely his fault that Britain is now a target for Islamist terrorism.
But here's another clue. Every major terrorist attack by Islamists since the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, has targeted the citizens of countries that sent troops to Iraq: Americans, not Canadians; British, not French; Spanish, not Germans; Australians, not purposely New Zealanders. And these later attacks have not all been carried out by Arabs.
As well, other Muslims are now getting involved: Indonesians in the bomb attack on Australian tourists in Bali; Turks in the attacks on the British consulate and Jewish institutions in Istanbul; and now British Muslims of non-Arab origin in attacks on their own fellow citizens in London.
Is there some "causal link" here, as Charles Kennedy so delicately put it? You bet your boots there is.
Muslims everywhere were horrified by September 11, and quite rightly denied that it was in any way an expression of Islamic values.
But many Arabs did share the grievances that had radicalised the terrorists, and even felt a fleeting, guilty satisfaction at seeing Americans suffer as so many Arabs have suffered, whereas most non-Arab Muslims - at that point - saw no excuse whatever for the attacks and felt nothing but sympathy for the US.
That sympathy persisted right through the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, which most non-Arab Muslims still saw as a justifiable response to the September 11 attacks.
After all, there actually were terrorist training camps in Afghanistan run by members of al Qaeda, most of them Arabs, who were doing their best to spread their apocalyptic version of revolutionary Islam beyond the confines of the Arab world.
But they really weren't having much success, although there were some non-Arab Muslims in the training camps in Afghanistan.
Then came the invasion of Iraq, which was obviously not about fighting terrorism (since there weren't any terrorists there, or any links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda).
All over the world, Muslims, particularly young Muslims, began to conclude that there was some substance to the Islamist radicals' argument that the West was indiscriminately attacking Muslims everywhere; that it was actually attacking Islam itself.
That is not true.
The Iraq operation was really just the Bush Administration exploiting the panic about terrorism to pursue quite traditional strategic objectives in the Middle East. Read more
posted by exoplanet at 11:26 PM
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