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| quote: | Originally posted by NYCTrancefan
It always gripes me when Afghanistan is lumped with Iraq on either side of the coin, I fully supported Afghanistan because it was clear that Al-Qaeda was based there, running camps, training future terrorists and all within the protection of a nation in turmoil, guided by the Taleban, enough said. As Howard stated "Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan?" |
This is exactly the point though: why is Howard lumping the Iraq invasion in with the Afghan invasion and his own military commitment to East Timor? The Afghan invasion was necessary because it was patently clear that the Taliban government was supporting and harbouring the terrorist group responsible for the September 11th attacks. There was a clear aim here, that if acheieved would most likely make Western society safer, in spite of the threats of retribution for it. The Australian presence in East Timor was different again. It was a small peace-keeping force sent in to stop the Indonesians from kicking the shit of the Timorese people and nothing more. This operation was in no way connected to the war on terrorism (indeed it preceded it by a couple of years) and wasn't in any way related to the rationale for invading Afghanistan or Iraq. Why is Howard conflating all these military operations together as though lending support to one or two of these operations logically necessitates the support of all three?
| quote: | | The first thing you are taught in history is to never assume cause and effect as being part of historical events. No one can say that the Iraq war isn't encouraging terrorism it seems obvious on the surface |
That's fair enough, but look at the facts. The most major terrorist attacks since the Iraq invasion (Spain, Turkey, England etc.) have all been directed against nations that were involved in the Iraq war. After the attacks, those responsible mentioned the nation's support for the Iraq war forming a major part of the reason why they were targetted.
Am I saying that this in anyway justifies the attacks, or that the ideologies of these terrorist groups are in any way coherent, logical or justifiable? Of course not. Nonetheless, when you look at these facts and judge the impact that the Iraq war might have had on extremist groups in the form of a simple dichotemy (all other things being equal, would these groups be more or less likely to target a nation involved in the invasion of an Arabic state?) it becomes patently clear that the blind refusal of leaders such as Howard and Blair to accept that the Iraq war has made us more - not less - susceptible to terrorist attacks is completely misguided. I'm not blaming these two directly for what happened in London, but there is no question that following Bush into a war whose basis, ultimately, was part of a geopolitical strategy far removed from the illdefined aims of the "war on terror", has made their nations a more attractive target for those who see themselves as being at war with Western culture.
I mean, there's every chance that London would have been targetted by terrorist groups even if Britain hadn't involved itself in the Iraq war (as Howard said, Western countries were, afterall, targetted before the Iraq invasion as well) but you'd have a hard time convincing me that Britain would have been as or more likely to have been hit by terrorists had it invested the billions of pounds spent on the Iraq war in the strengthening security and intelligence organisations, both domestic and international, instead. Fact is, the methodology of the men at war with the "terrorists" is as fracured, misguided and nonsensical as those of the terrorists themselves. This "war" ceased being an exercise in the prevention of terrorist attacks a long time ago and it's currently little more than a bawdy, simple-minded moral crusade against an ideology they have no intention of understanding and even less intention of stamping out. Until they realise that their current tactics have only worsened the situation and increased the number of attacks being committed by extremist Muslim organisations across the world, then the didactic, post hoc justifications they deliver from behind the podiums about the moral authority they hold in this "war" will continue to ring hollow. In spite of Mr Howard's protestations and complete inability to admit fault or responsibility for anything, his commitment to the Iraq war has made his own nation and the world at large much less safe.
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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PM John Howard b*t*h-slaps the press regarding Iraq
