London/Madrid bombings

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Thursday July 07, 2005 17:30

by paul o toole

Why?

I have found it almost impossible to find mention of the real victims of terrorism which has brought us to this point in history. Your are aware I am sure, that since the internal combustion engine was invented the Middle-East has been a bloodbath. All the powerful so called 'democracies' from the civilised world have visited unspeakable acts of the worst that mankind can bring to the people of Iraq and the Mid-East.
WWI never really ended, and in contradiction to the leaders of today, Winston Churchill had no problem gassing Kurds back then...... “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes...I dont understand the squeamishness”... He says. Sadam stands accused of using poisoned gas on Kurds apparently in Hallabja in 1988 sold by British arms manufacturers, while the Irish government were selling him beef to feed his army to carry this out.

In 1991, 250,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by coalition forces. Later the with the promise of help and at the request of Bush Snr...'to take matters into your own hands'... 300,000 more innocent Iraqi's were killed by Sadam when they rose up to overthrow him- Bush Snr. never came with the promised help and his troops were ordered to stand down and watch this massacre from the sky in there F-18's.
The latest U.N. figures released In febuary 2004 state that 900,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have been killed through ‘economic sanctions’, and more than 1 million adults. Having killed 100,000 more since March 20th 2003 while looking for nonexistent W.M.D. we were told that the troops would be welcomed as liberators with flowers
I dont agree with violence of any kind, but before the E.U./us/and uk start running around stamping out terrorism wherever it lurks, should we not first take a look at why this is happening.

All western economies are floating on oil from the Mid-east and Africa. Civilians and soldiers alike being killed mean nothing to western governments, they call them 'colatteral damage'. It is only when the economic structures which sustain 'our' western economies are attacked and brought to a standstill that we stand up and take note. The British Rajh only left India after Ghandi threatened to blow up all trains carrying the wealth of india back to the ports to the UK. The British only began talks publicly with the IRA when Canary wharf was bombed. I do not call them terrorists without calling ourselves the initiators of terrorism. It is called fundamentalism as decoy. Judged by the same standards, we are Christiam fundamentalists. They are no more cowardly bombing civilians in London than a UK military pilot dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilian populations.

How then I wonder does George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Jose Asnar, and for that matter An Taoiseach Mr. Aherne expect people being attacked to react. If there are no
lessons in history our leaders can draw from, may I suggest they try to imagine how they would react to schrapnel ripping their families to shreds.