Heads in the Sand

A week has passed since the London bombings, and yet most of the media and the chattering classes on both sides of the Atlantic still refuse to engage in any serious debate about the motivation of the terrorists. The reaction to the London attacks has been remarkably similar to the reaction in America after 9/11: anyone attempting to make a link between the attacks and American foreign policy (in the case of 9/11) and British support for it (in the case of London) has been branded either unpatriotic or a compete idiot. (In America, Gore Vidal fell into the former category, Bill Maher and his like into both.)

Political correctness today, enforced by emotion and the media, means that everyone has to follow the government line: the attacks were an assault on our “freedoms” and our “way of life”, even if we know that not to be the complete story. Those who didn’t and don’t toe the line are thought of as “appeasers" of or “apologists” for the terrorists. In England, anyone suggesting that Britain's involvement in the Afghan and Iraq campaigns has led to terror arriving at her doorstep, courtesy of Britons it now appears, has been pretty much vilified as a traitor, if not completely heartless. George Galloway, the Respect MP, and Liberal Democrat Charles Kennedy, are two prime examples.

But for British politicians to say (and for the media to by and large echo) that the London bombings had nothing to do with Iraq is utter nonsense, particularly now that the attackers are known to have been British and probably sane, at least until they decided to indiscriminately kill their fellow citizens, Muslims included. Blair's illogical point that 9/11 predated the war in Iraq, ergo no connection can be made with terrorist attacks on the West, would flunk him out of any philosophy class on logic. It's a true statement that there was no war in Iraq on 9/11, but Britain wasn't under attack then, while the U.S. had been ever since Osama bin Laden declared jihad against us for a number of reasons; mainly the presence of our troops in Muslim lands, support for Israeli policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians, sanctions in Iraq which claimed the lives of perhaps as many as half a million Iraqi children (and which Madeleine Albright felt was a price worth paying), and U.S. support for repressive Arab regimes.

Just because the vast majority of Americans, including George Bush, ignored the reasons for the jihad doesn't mean that there weren't reasons. Talking about them then didn't mean, as it does not now, appeasement or even capitulation to the terrorists' demands: we can refuse every one, continue our policies for good or for bad, and tighten security to the point of strangulation. But to mislead the public by saying that Islamic terrorism is all about an "evil ideology" as Mr. Blair has, can not only invite a backlash against Muslims (as has happened in Britain, with one known death in Nottingham so far), but is dishonest in its over-simplification of what is a growing problem. There is a twisted and yes, evil, ideology that Muslim terrorists subscribe to; that of killing innocents in furtherance of their goals, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the ideology is the only reason they strike. If an “evil ideology” is all it takes to recruit suicide bombers from our own midst, then God help us all.

There are those who believe it cold-blooded and disrespectful to discuss the reasons for a terrorist attack in the immediate aftermath. But when do we question what has happened and why? A year from now, when Al Qaeda has recruited more European-born Muslims to its cause? And does denying a cause for terrorism other than a hateful ideology make a case for the Iraq war, and perhaps future wars, any stronger?

If Tony Blair admitted that his blind allegiance to George Bush and his wars might have had a thing or two to do with British terrorism at home, would the British people demand his head? If so, he can’t think very highly of his people. And if he is so convinced that the course he chose for Britain is right, why not be honest with the public? Blair, instead of parroting George Bush’s “they hate our freedom” nonsense could easily have said yes, Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan and in Iraq may have been one reason a handful of British youth decided to kill their fellow citizens; as crazy, uncivilized, and irrational as that justification may be. He could condemn the terrorists, as he has, and say his government won’t be cowed by their actions. But by being honest, by admitting that actions may have consequences, he might actually be able to get the debate underway as to how to prevent other Britons from falling under the spell of the lunatic element of aggrieved Muslims.