Fear & Loathing
‘WE arent told how Tony Blair worked out which representatives of the Muslim community he would meet with at No.10 to discuss ways of moving on, of defeating what Tony Blair terms the evil ideology that encourages suicide bombings.
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| Ken’s anti-terror policy is risky |
One of the chosen, Imam Ibrahim Mogra, tells the Telegraph that, as Muslims, they feel the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters around the globe every day.
Watching scenes of violence on the TV news is deeply upsetting, but every group including post-9/11 Americans can lay claim to being victims.
The debate is what makes some British-born Muslims strap bombs to themselves and kill their unarmed countrymen.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain,, who also attended the meeting with Blair, says the London bombs were an act of criminality but Mr Blair could not simply shun the issue of foreign policy.
Ah, yes, Tonys ethical foreign policy, one of the buzz-phrases of the new Labour project. It seems not everyone is all that keen on it.
And after hearing the moderate voice of British Islam, the Telegraph spends some time listening to what the more radical elements within the community have to say.
Omar Bakri blames the British people for being bombed (see tabs) and Anjem Choudary, the British leader of militant Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, says Muslim leaders should not even meet with Blair while Muslims are being murdered in Iraq albeit mostly by other Muslims.
The British want to show they are on the side of justice and truth, says he, whereas in reality the real terrorists are the British regime, and even the British police, says he.
Of course, in a totalitarian police state such as, say, Saddams Iraq or the Talibans Afghanistan, such invective would not have made it into the national press and its highly likely the voice would have been silenced – permanently.
But its easy to talk in a country like this, however much terror and suppression extremists see.
Just listen to Ken Livingstone, who occupies an unenviable position on the Telegraphs cover, his face sandwiched between those of Bakri and Choudary.
Ken, the mayor of London, says that decades of intervention in the Middle East and the Iraq war could have influenced the terrorists. I suspect the real problem was that we funded these people as long as they were killing Russians, says Ken. We gave no thought to the fact that when they stopped killing Russians they might start killing us.
Whats this? People from Leeds were killing Russians! Thats awful! Why did no-one stop them? Who better than Ken to get to the bottom of things – after hes comforted the survivors and friends and family of those killed in the London outrage, some of whom may even have voted for him.
But never fear because though Baki, Livingstone and Choudary are at large, the Times leads with news that a top al-Qaeda operative with suspected links to the London bombs has been apprehended in Pakistan.
As a senior Pakistani official tells the Times, the man, one of 24 arrested in a series of raids in that county, is being interrogated intensively.
And by someone more persuasive than Tony Blair…’
Posted: 20th, July 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
