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Iraqis blame U.S. and Britain over London bombings
By Waleed Ibrahim
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - People in Baghdad, enduring yet another day of bloodshed of their own, condemned last week's London bombings but said U.S. and British policy was to blame.
"I don't justify the attacks in London. But I believe it's a reaction against U.S.-British policy towards our countries in the Third World," said Mawel Ahmed, 38, a computer salesman, as he made his way to work in the capital on Sunday.
"I wish that the big countries reconsider their policies and realise that violence can only generate more violence. The political solution is the correct way to solve all problems."
Television footage of Britons grieving their losses prompted fellow feeling among Iraqis.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, installed after an election secured by foreign forces, offered condolences and solidarity in the fight against "terrorism".
But people on the streets of Baghdad also urged the United States and Britain, who together invaded Iraq two years ago, to look at the causes of the violence.
"The British government must be held responsible for the attack against its people," said Salman al-Qudsi, a supermarket owner.
"The British alliance with the United States was the reason that this happened. I condemn terrorism in all its guises. What happened to the British people is terrorism. The question is who began this terrorism and who encouraged it?"
Iraqis are all too familiar with the kind of suffering inflicted on Britons on Thursday, when bombs suspected of being the work of al Qaeda ripped through London's transport network and killed at least 50 people.
Intensive British police investigations and painstaking forensic examinations of the blast sites, continuing days later, contrast starkly with the cursory clear-up operations that follow routine devastation in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.
A BOMB EVERY DAY
The Iraq wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on an Iraqi army recruiting depot in Baghdad which killed at least 21 people.
In Baghdad alone, suicide car bombings are running at a rate of about one a day -- half what it was a month ago. On Sunday, there were at least four other suicide attacks across Iraq.
Many Iraqis, even those glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, blame the United States for the violence and some harbour suspicions that instability and potential sectarian warfare in Iraq are in fact policy goals for Washington and its allies.
They accuse U.S. President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of turning their country into a haven for militants like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
Offering a glimpse into the startling conspiracy theories that thrive in the hothouse, crisis atmosphere of Baghdad, one university professor, who insisted that he not be identified for fear of reprisal attacks, found an unlikely candidate to blame:
"I'm against any attack that is aimed at killing innocent civilians," the academic said as he laboured, perspiring over a broken electricity generator at his home.
"This is all the work of the Freemasons who stand in the face of Islam and stop it through their agents Osama bin Laden and Zarqawi, who claim to speak in the name of Islam."
Many Iraqis have not forgiven the United States and Britain for pressing the United Nations to keep sanctions on Iraq for 12 years, and some say the London blasts were proof that tough economic penalties and the war that followed had backfired.
"Do you not think that economic pressure and sanctions on countries is terror?" said Qudsi, the shopkeeper. "They are responsible for all this and they have to accept its results."
The people are claiming that the London bombings are a result of the Iraq war but Blair and Bush are both retaliating by saying that the 911 attack occured before the war on Iraq.
What they don't understand is that the 911 attack was a result of the Americans attacking all the muslim countries, maybe not Iraq but other muslim populated countries such as Afganistan and Palestine.
Personally, I believe that these london bombings are a result of the Iraq war. Even though Blair says that an attack on London was inevitable; "it was just a matter of when rather than if" after 911; I don't think that we would have been attacked if Blair didn't take our army to Iraq.
The 911 was a result of the attack on Muslim countries.
These London bombings are a result of the attack on Iraq.
I'm just wondering that if London has paid the price for taking their army to Iraq... what price will America have to pay?
Salam
Why? She loves me and I love her.
She is a good sister any brother can wish for.
She has no problems with me.
So why on Earth should there be any need for apology ?
Omrow
:?:
What is the significance of this person being a computer salesman?
Nothing much. Ask him if his business hasn't picked up. "Our countries in the third world" is a distortion, is what I meant.
It didn't take long for the racial attacks to start.
One good thing about Blair is that right from the start he has stated that these terrorists are only muslims by name.
He knows and has said that these attacks are against the teachings of Islam and I don't think that he is holding any muslims responsible apart from the ones who actually carried out the attacks and even then he isn't seeing them by their religion, he is seeing them by their twisted deluded character.
Blair does genuinely care about his country. I think he is feeling remorse over the attacks. When Bush heard about the 911 he fled Washington fearing for his own city whereas Blair flew straight back to London where the attacks were taking place.
I wouldn't say that thse attacks on Mosques are a result of pure ignorance. I think that after all these attacks and wars, everone knows that Islam condemns such acts-there have been so many documentaries, articles, speeches over the past 4/5 years that should have cleared up these views on Islam, but some racists just don't allow themselves to believe that Islam is a religion of tranquility and peace... they don't want to give up this negative stero-typical views they have been carrying about Muslims over the past decades.
chm1,
For some it's that. I think for many it isn't anything more than an excuse, and a loutish expression of make-believe superiority. For others it may be more contrived.
Define exactly you are talking about.
If you referring to Muslims in general, then i'm sorry but i think you're are being quite close-minded. You are making generalisations.
If you want to talk about the attack and those who carried them out then refer to the attackers as seperate people, do not define them by their religion.
Dimwit. I'm talking about the racists. That's why I addressed my comment in reply to yours. It's the difference between a conversation and the whole deck of kneejerk reactions I get. This is the last time I insult you. After this you're on your own.
Well I'm sorry but maybe if you spoke properlyand used everyday words, your posts may be a tad bit clearer.
Who exactly are you trying to impress with your fancy words btw?
*keeps promise*
[size=18]The label of Catholic terror was never used about the IRA[/size]
Fundamentalism is often a form of nationalism in religious disguise
[b]Karen Armstrong[/b]
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1525714,00.html]Guardian[...
irfan,
Not being funny but like 'Irish Republicans' I would call al Qaeda etc, Islamic Revivalists, but then this project might have to change it's name.
Islamic Revivalist groups are not in any way violent. There are mnay organisation which aim to promote Islam and educate people about Islam.
Islamic Revivalists is not a good term to use for Al Qaeda et al.
It was the term originally attached to the movement at the turn of the last century.
Still doesn't make it accurate or appropriate.
If you're saying the meaning has changed dramatically fair enough.
Suggestions?
Just because Al Qaeda may have been labeled as an 'Islamic Revivalist' movement in some circles a few years ago doesn't mean that it was an accurate or appropriate label. It wasn't accurate then, it isn't accurate now.
Looking for alternatives is difficult, yes. But then why do we even have to label? Why not just call Al Qaeda terrorism Al Qaeda terrorism?
Or, as the Karen Armstrong article suggests, we could refer to Syed Qutb.
Qutbist terrorism.
Qutbist organisation.
Qutb-inspired terrorism/terrorists/militants/groups.
But then Qutbism/Qutbist/Qutb doest really have a ring to it. It's not very catchy. So the media would be unwilling to use it.
Islamic Supremacist?
Interesting...
Let's see what everyone else thinks.
There is another thing I have discovered that I must acknowledge straightaway to khan. Mossad may have received a warning six minutes before. Additionally the explosives have been identified as precisely similar to those used in the attack by two British Hamas terrorists on a bar in Tel-Aviv, which are unusually powerful and sourced from a factory near Beijing. So there may have been something in it.
Can I ask where you got this info from?
It was reported in Bild am Sonntag which is a German paper.
Do you speak German?
No.
How do you know that that report was in a German paper?
I have three sources for it but none that I'm vouching for. It's a probaby for now.
I'm just asking how you came about the report.
Simple enough.
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