Like people throughout the civilised
world I was appalled at the loss of life in London this morning with perhaps close
to sixty dead and about two hundred injured. The CBC dropped its regular programming
this morning to cover the event. Some called it England's 9-11 while everyone condemned
the event and the savagery of the attack.
The British Prime Minister (Tony Blair seen above) condemned the "act
of terrorism" and US President said that the war on Terror continues.
One has to remember that the first casualty of war is the truth and this morning
and in the evening news the truth was as far from the reporting as we are from manned
colonisation of a planet in a solar system light years away.
When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001 the world reacted
with anger and Canada joined other nations in the invasion of what was believed
to be the source of the hostile act, Afghanistan. However, the invasion was
a disaster, the supposed bad guys are still at large and thousands of prisoners were
taken and are still being held without charges or hope. Before that conflict was
sorted out the United States decided that it had to invade the country of
Iraq. It is now known that the invasion was unjustified and Britain,
Italy and Australia joined the Americans in a war that the United
Nations did not condone.
Since that illegal war was begun and the occupation of the country the death toll
has been staggering and in a country where there was no terrorism, there is now active
and successful hostile forces fighting a war of occupation.
Terror is not something that someone, or some group, is responsible for, it is the
creation of those who fear. Americans, the British and all those who
refer to terrorism are fearful, they are victims of their own manefestation. They
have engaged in a war and now refer to those who fight back as "terrorists".
That is just simply absurd. More than a hundred thousand Iraq's have indeed
rolled over and died in this war, a war that they did not cause and were indeed innocent
victims of the invasion.
But today, the British Prime Minister referred to the dead and injured in his country
as "innocent victims."
"The purpose of terrorism is just that. It is to terrorize
people. And we will not be terrorized," Blair said.
"They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us," he
said. "They should know they will not succeed," he said. (CBC)
Let us apply a simple test to that statement. The
people of his country, a democratic country, elected Mr. Blair and his government
in a free election, not once, but twice and it is they who created the government
that went into an illegal war while knowing full well that the reasons for that war
were unjust. There were no weapons of mass destruction and the leader and
government of Iraq had no connection with the movement that launched the barbaric
attack on New York and Washington in September of 2001.
- Who then is responsible?
- Are those who elect a government that goes to war
under false pretext not responsible for the actions of the government they elected?
- Are they truly innocent of the war crimes conducted
on their behalf?
The United States did the same thing, it elected its government and then re-elected
it, so that the people of the United States are responsible for the death
and destruction carried out on their behalf.
Canadians, do not fall into the cheap and deceptive "fear" world,
believing in international terrorism. Oh, there may indeed be para-military organisations
bent on fight back, or even attacking, believing their cause is just, but it is wrong
to call a clear and simple act of war "terrorism." We are the people of the land of which we are so proud, the
place we call "The true North proud and free." And Canadians, we are not afraid. We have launched no
illegal war and no force has a right to attack us, or our people, for we the people,
demanded that our government not go to war, not engage in an illegal unjust war,
and the unfortunate soles of Britain, did not make the same choice.
I am truly saddened to know that there was death and destruction in London
today but each and everyday there is death and destruction in Bagdad. People
take their own lives to kill their fellow citizens each day, in a horrid spectacle
of death brought about by the invasion of their country, by the United States
and its allies. That's not terrorism, that's war. What happened in London
today may incite terror in the minds of the people who sent their troops to invade
another country and so they are terrorised, but they are terrorised by an act of
war.
