Who is to blame for terrorism?
The terrorists, obviously, says Tom Harris, MP, in an article which blasts ‘the Left’ for assuming that the invasion of Iraq might have had something to do with the 7/7 bombings in London. Such an argument is ‘blindingly stupid’, says Harris. Yet I am forced to point out: after Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq, there were no more bombings. It would have been a massive political own-goal for Al-Quaeda or its sister-cells to bomb one of the non-combatant Western states.
No one expects terrorists to be sensible, but they aren’t stupid. To claim that terrorists are solely to blame for their actions is to maintain that they woke up one morning and decided to kill people, for no reason. And we know they had reasons: they told us. The words of the 7/7 bombers themselves should be explanation enough of who the terrorists blame. These are the words of Mohammed Sidique Khan:
“Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.”
Whatever ‘objective’ interests might have been served by the bombers, they believed in their own hearts that Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan demanded that they kill fellow citizens. Shehzad Tanweer, in his video, mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan explicitly. So here’s my point: one doesn’t have to agree with the Islamist critique of the United Kingdom to accept the words of these men, that their motivations were British involvement in two wars in the Muslim world.
So on what basis does Tom Harris call us all ‘dishonest’ and ‘craven’ for admitting this?
It’s easy for such a small-minded little twerp as Harris (who, in his article attacking the thoughts of a New Statesman journalist can’t resist such snide comments as “[He's] not nearly as funny as his brother”) to live in the Westminster bubble and regard other people’s lives as necessarily sacrificed for a greater good. But exactly how does that make him different from the Islamist terrorists? Both sides treat Afghanistan, Iraq and the UK as a chessboard over which to move their pieces, never mind that they worsen each society by playing so.
To have endorsed this state of affairs with their votes and their silence is the crime of Tom Harris and his colleagues – and they should be under no illusions: we cannot pin the rise of terrorism on them, but with their gung-ho militarism, they brought it to these shores.
See also: The Logic of the Suicide Bomber.
Thanks for the link, Dave. As I point out, even the government’s revised counter-terrorism strategy essentially admits that Western foreign policy is a cause of Islamist terrorism. Tom Harris doesn’t seem to really know what he’s talking about.
All this rather smacks of “it wasn’t me, honest”.
We must all accept our actions…
It takes the cheek of the devil to blame the UK left for incidents of terrorism, we on the left at times have not been slow in making mistakes, but our response to Blair’s wars have been spot on and something I am proud to be associated with.
I do not believe for a second Harris actually believes there is no direct linage between the role the British armed forces played in Iraq and currently in Afghanistan. The words of Tanweer and Khan seem to prove nothing for Harris, for if they did, he would have to take a hard look at the role he and the majority of his fellow MPs played in alighting these dreadful and unnecessary conflagrations. Much easier to blame the whole wretched business on someone else, the Talaban, bin Laden and disillusioned young muslims.
Well of course; actually having to accept one’s own part in the events must be quite a swallow for people who are in politics mostly because it’s a good gig.
Does “craven” mean that the left lacks the “courage” to send other people off to die in Iraq for no reason? It’s a courage I think we’re better off without.
Believe it or not you can track terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and the surrounding countries back to the Cold War.
The Ameicans supplied the Islamists militants with weaponry, money and technology in an attempt to distract the Russians from focusing completely on Cuba. They did this by attacking the Communist governments in control of the countries.
These militants did their job well, to well for the American’s liking, at the end of the war the Americans wanted their weaponry and money back. The terrorists refused.
They were Al-Quaeda and Suddam Hussein to name just a few.
I suppose if you look at it my way the Americans are to blame.
In these particular instances, terrorism was armed by the Americans. But there are other cases worldwide where others have given weapons to something that should be studied as a phenomenon in its own right.
I don’t think the Americans are to blame; even the American government can’t be blamed for all terrorism everywhere. Had the Americans not intervened, are we suggesting that some other global power would not have found a way to exploit such a social phenomenon?