November 25, 2005

It is hard to judge whether the Prime Minister is duplicitous, delusional or is simply again in 'I know I'm right' mode. Last Wednesday, perhaps one should have suspended judgement and simply feared for his health.

Questioned by the Commons Liason Committee regarding findings by senior Muslim Advisors that Britain's Foreign Policy, especially in the Middle East was a 'key contributory factor' in motivating radicalism, he responded that there was 'no justification' for the grievance felt by Mohammed Sidique Khan,one of the 7th July bombers, displayed in a video. 'Rubbish', said the P.M., '...there is no justified sense of grievance.' The tragedy of 7th July is stark and real, an unprovoked attack on people who had done nothing to deserve such horror.

The people of Afghanistan and Iraq too had done nothing to provoke or deserve the unimaginable horror unleashed on them. Unlike Mr Blair, the day he stood 'shoulder to shoulder', after 9/11, with George W. Bush, determined to follow, lemming-like, in his master's footsteps,every thinking person one spoke to, of every political hue, voiced the same sentiment:'We are all targets now.' The PM travels in a bullet proof limo, here on earth we use public transport.

' ...No justified sense of grievance'? David Pratt, Foreign Editor of the Sunday Herald, tells a salutary story. A man who knows Afghanistan better than most westerners and with a deep love for the country, he travelled back just after the October 2001 attack by the US. Kabul is a city he knows as well as Glasgow, his home. There were vast areas where the destruction was so total he could find no point of reference in the ancient city.One day he re-found the Museum of Modern Art - still standing - and went in. In front of him, sureally, were huge ceiling to floor pictures of the destruction the of the World Trade Centre, displayed across the main hall. Visiting Afghans,as he, were looking in bewilderment. Then he noticed the plaque under each: 'Loaned to the people of Afghanistan by the U.S. State Department'. He left and with others, negotiated the wasteland rubble of the 9/11 Kabul and Afghanistan had become. There was not, it seems one Afghan on the 'planes of September 11th - but the US did coincidentally get a gas pipeline through the country which their former allies, the Taliban had steadfastly refused permission for. As with Iraq, funeral gatherings, wedding parties, villages were bombed, razed, poisoned by unspeakable weapons for all time, kids orphaned, killed and traumatised. Most rural Afghans had never heard of the World Trade Centre. The response to the grievance on July 7th was unspeakable, as was the enormity of the crimes which engendered it.

Then there was the 'Crusade' on Iraq, as announced by President Bush. The Crusades were the Christian slaughter to recover the Islamic word from Mohammedans. Then, as now, there are those who give God a bad name. 'In the end ... if you eliminated Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnia' said the P.M. (they pretty well have been) it comes down to '.. the way of life we have here and the way of life they want to impose on other Muslim countries.' Breathtaking. A sovereign government is kidnapped and disappeared, a country ruined, water, electricity, medical supplies wrecked or withdrawn, a puppet government - many with foreign natonalities and passports - imposed, slaughter, heartbreak ongoing and 'they' wish to impose on 'us'?

Iraq was one of the most outlooking countries, with a much travelled populus, prior to the embargo's decimation. It seemed any home one visited had numerous photo-albums of visits to Europe, the US - or the poorer, posters of European capitols and US cities on the wall. The richer were those who visited London and bought the car for the chauffeur as thanks, when they left. Kids loved baseball caps, western movies - and when I left days before the invasion, the Musak in the hotel was playing 'I left my heart in San Francisco.'

'The people that have died in Iraq' since the invasion is as a result of 'insecurity .. terrorism .... those who want to disrupt the democratic process', asserts Mr Blair. Wow. The decimation of Falluja,Tel Afar, Najav, Kerbala, the terrified, napalmed, white phosphoroused, hunted, herded,shot on the towns of the Syrian border, slaughters of Mosul, Tikrit and others, Abu Ghraib, torture chambers, hidden prisons, and more, shamefully, too numerous to mention, air brushed out of 'Shock and Awe'. Stunning.

Now we discover the Prime Minister disauded his accident prone Master from bombing Al Jazeera HQ in little Quatar -a western ally - can this be true? If so,it will truly be a first. No breath holding.

Courtesy and Copyright Felicity Arbuthnot