Gwynne Dyer had an
excellent column in the
Toronto Star. I put a link in an open thread about it, but I think it rates a diary effort.
Dyer makes a few telling points, and his opening is quite snarky indeed.
It's official: The four suicide bombs that killed more than 50 Londoners last week had nothing to do with anything.
The family and friends of the young men who committed the atrocity, all British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent, insisted that their actions had nothing to do with Islam. Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democratic party, the only major British party to condemn the invasion of Iraq in last May's election, cautiously said, "I am not here implying some causal link between Britain's involvement in Iraq and the attacks in London."
Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said it would be "naïve" to link the London bombs and the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. "This kind of terrorism was active long before the Iraq war," he pointed out. "9/11 was in September 2001, not 2003."
...
We are drowning in lies. The U.S. government, whose troops, intelligence services and local proxies have spent the past 50 years subverting or crushing Middle Eastern governments (including democratic ones) that threatened its control of the region's oil, denies that the recent wave of terrorist attacks has anything to do with U.S. policy in the region.
But then he gets down to the scary point that a lot seem to be missing...
... Arabs make up fewer than a quarter of the world's Muslims, but all 19 hijackers of 9/11, like almost every other Islamist radical that attacked any American target before the invasion of Iraq, were Arabs... 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 New Zealanders.
And these later attacks have not all been carried out by Arabs.
Bali, Istanbul,Madrid were all targeted, but more importantly, those carrying out the attacks were non-Arab Muslims.
Dyer makes the point that the ill considered quagmire in Iraq has served to broaden the base of support in th eMuslim world for Al Qaeda recruitment.
Dyer concludes with this observation:
Not one of the Western countries that drew the line at an unprovoked invasion of Iraq -- not even the ones like France, Germany and Canada that sent troops to help the U.S. fight terrorism in Afghanistan, and that have large Muslim minorities at home -- has seen such an attack, nor probably will it. Actions do have consequences.
Comments?
