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Welcome
to the slightly updated WarOnTerrorism.co.uk
10 Sept 2006 It has been a long and depressing five years.
I was brought up in a Christian tradition that said I should turn the other cheek and meet evil with good.
I believe in an eye for an eye but that line in the Bible is about appropriate responses. If someone kills your ox you kill one of his oxen or, better still demand compensation but you don't go and kill all his animals and take his wife and children as slaves - that is the sort of society we are talking about with the Old Testament.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, bombing Bin Laden's training camps, infiltrating his organisation and killing his senior people would have been an appropriate response, perhaps even regime change in a country that had knowingly provided him succour - but indiscriminate killing of civilians in Iraq - sorry where does that fit in.
When this all started it was War on Terrorism or War against Terrorism. That seemed a pretty daft idea but a War on Terror seems even more stupid. We are creating terror not removing it.
We have driven a coach and horses through the international rule of law and set back world peace (something that I am sure is eventually attainable) by at least 30 years. Tony Blair has made the world so much more unsafe for us (I have travelled widely and will now feel much more nervous travelling around the poorer countries of the world). As for the short-sightedness of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et al - the mind boggles.
One hundred years ago women and men without property did not even have the vote in this country. Fifty years ago blacks had to ride at the back of the bus in the US yet we expect to jump into countries and tell them how to live their lives. Things take a generation or two to change. Sure we can encourage but we have no right to meddle, to demand.
Why are we hated? Not because terrorists hate democracy but because they hate arrogant idiots who think they know better. Most of the recent nightmare in the Middle East can be traced back to the CIA's overthrow of Mossadeq in Iran. But let's not go there.
Saddam was a murderous tyrant, but he provided the best schools and the best hospitals in the Middle East and Iraq was probably the most religiously tolerant country in the region. Saddam would have died or power would have been taken from him in some sort of uprising. It might have taken 20 years or more, but how could anyone with even the slightest understanding of the country, have believed that mayhem would not have ensued after the invasion. Sure there are mass graves in Iraq but they are nowhere near as big as in the Congo or Rwanda or in the Soviet Union or on the prairies of the US where smallpox killed millions of Native Americans. We should have chided, monitored and complained. But to try and invade and impose a government - insane. Many more have died due to our intervention than would have died if we had left well alone.
And finally we come to the coda on the five year nightmare of the logical disintegration of international legitimacy. With Britain and the US invading countries at will (the UN did NOT want to invade Iraq or we would have gone back for firm approval) and with the US using unbelievable extra-legal measures to detain people in territories where it said international law did not apply (what?) and then use extraordinary rendition, is there any wonder that we have just seen the indiscriminate bombing of much of Lebanon.
In November 2001 I went to New York to try and get a handle on the enormity of the tragedy that had happened in a city I love. Talking with New Yorkers now, most cringe at the way the good will of the world has been squandered in these last fie years.
We now live in a world infinitely more insecure than on September 10th 2001 not because terrorists have got more clever but because we have become more stupid.
We cannot make the world in our image - our own societies are very imperfect in many different ways. With compassion, strength and understanding we can create a better world but if we try and create a new world empire, a lot of lives will be lost.
The good news is that most of those who suffer and die will be in foreign lands. But do we really want to be the cause of so much hatred?
Terrorists are mostly immature people who latch on to real or perceived slights. If we reduce our real sins of interference and concentrate instead on helping people then the real slights will disappear. With only the imagined slights left as the recruiting sergeants of the terrorist regiments we will face an uncomfortable but limited nuisance.
Long live sanity, long live mutual respect and long live humour and kindness. Being the baddest asshole on the block is not the way to go. A War on Terror can never be won except by the removal of the Terror we create.
Have your say in the Discussion section.
8 July 2005 So what does everyone think? Weren't we all expecting this? In terms of modern terrorism haven't we got off quite lightly (assuming we don't get another half dozen bombs in the next couple of days)? Have your say in the Discussion section.
11 Sept 2004 To quote the front page of the Independent:
We should not have allowed 19 murderers to change our world
4
May 2004 Letter from US ambassadors
to Mr Bush.
Dear Mr President:
We former US diplomats applaud our 52 British colleagues
who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair criticising
his Middle East policy and calling on Britain to exert more influence
over the United States. ....(read full text)
30
April 2004 While I am 100% the
UK pictures were staged, there is lots of evidence of ill
doings. See this comprehensive story from the New
Yorker based on a leaked report for info on the problems
of US troops. I hope that the British Army are doing
better. In general they seem to have adopted a much more
"sympathetic" approach.
28 April 2004 The famous letter from 50 UK diplomats to Tony Blair.
"Dear Prime Minister:
We the undersigned, former British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, including some who have long experience of the Middle East and others whose experience is elsewhere, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close co-operation ........ (read
the full text here)
23 March 2003 So the invasion has started. And why? Well the only logical belief is a sudden virulent case of compassion has infected British and American politicians to which the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese, Dutch, Mexicans, South Africans and Turkish all seem to be immune. That is the only rational explanation for what is going on.
It can't be your usual naked self interest can it? Well it could be,
but it is certainly a new type of self interest. There has surely
never been a war like this.
Hundreds
of bombs dropped on Baghdad and only two fatalities. OK two too
many but ... Since the Chinese first used gunpowder, there has surely
never been an attack so carefully targeted to avoid civilian casualties.
In any equation of explosive power versus casualties this has to
be the lowest kill rate ever so well done the electronics industries
and the military planners.
But
politically we are in disaster territory.
Tony
Blair now looks like the worst politician we have ever seen. His
failure to develop an international policy that could be sustained
is an historic cock up. His inability to create a UN solution is
an international disgrace.
This
war is almost certainly illegal (a senior government legal officer
resigned this week claiming this and she should know), it has destroyed
carefully built up international agreements and has made British
citizens more likely terrorist targets around the world.
Quite
how this serves the interests of the people Tony Blair was appointed
to represent and protect is mysterious question.
We
are at the beginning of this process. We will have to wait and see
how it pans out.
PS
Very sad about Terry Lloyd. I met him a couple of times and he was
a very nice, unassuming man.
OLD STUFF This site has been set up to promote a better understanding
of the tragic situation we find ourselves in. We want to have your
comments on the ongoing "war on terrorism".
Please look at the charity page and see if you cannot find a few
pence to spare for the poor benighted people of Afghanistan and
the neighbouring countries.
In general we view the "war on terrorism" with more than
a little scepticism. The rush to war against Iraq is incredibly
hypocritical and much more about oil than it is about justice.
Saleh
has an excellent Iraq site and the
brief history is a must (it points up where the Iraq/Iran war
came from and why Iraq invaded Kuwait). Bottom line Sadam H. is
really not a very nice man at all but he isn't completely bonkers
either.
Recent news is not all bad. Al Gore recently gave a thoughtful
speech showing that strong US opposition to current gung ho
rhetoric is alive and well. Sadly the US still seems in revenge
mode and is not yet looking even the slightest bit statesmanlike.
We can but wait.
As for Tony Blair - well there goes another goodness only knows
what is going on. (There is a link to our "proof" below.)
Please come and join the discussion
and make your opinions heard.
This
site is dedicated to understanding and forgiveness. If you believe
in a God pray for understanding to reach around the world. If you
don't believe in God be a good human being. In either case try and
get involved in the political process. Write to your MP, ring a
phone in - whatever. Just be involved.
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