Critics of British PM Tony Blair are Giving Aid and Comfort to the Terrorists!

Emergency response teams executing familiar duties after more terror bombings in London yesterday. Pay attention New York! Because random searches of bags on the subway will prove as effective in preventing similar attacks as border patrols have been in preventing illegal immigration to the U.S. from Mexico…

Despite Prime Minister Blair’s call for calm, a second round of bombings in London – 2 weeks to the day after those of 7/7 – have unnerved many Britons and provoked anxious quivers in their heralded stiff upper lips. Yet, no doubt, calm shall prevail. No thanks though to the cloistered intellectuals and political gadflies in their midst who have rationalized and excused instead of condemning these irrational and inexcusable acts of terror.

One expects uninformed people to offer reflexive and simplistic opinions about complex and threatening geopolitical developments (like the rise of terrorist attacks worldwide). But such opinions passing as analysis by purportedly informed individuals and accredited institutions is not only surprising but also very dangerous.

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero falls into this latter category. After all, he and his political allies rationalized their way to power by convincing a majority of the Spanish electorate that if Spain had not joined coalition forces fighting in Iraq, terrorists would never have attacked Madrid.

Now it seems the very influential Royal Institute of International Affairs is attempting to sway public opinion in Britain in similar fashion. Because this erstwhile respected institution reported on Monday that:

The Iraq war had boosted recruitment and fund-raising for al Qaeda [and that] backing the United States in Iraq put Britain more at risk from terrorist attacks.

Of course, resident scholars at the institute probably feel perverse vindication now that yesterday’s bombings will confirm their specious analysis in the minds of many apprehensive Britons. Admittedly, if terrorist attacks had been perpetrated only against countries represented amongst coalition forces, their analysis would have some merit. But as it happens, al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for perpetrating attacks in many countries (including Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia and the Yemen) that have had nothing whatsoever to do with the war in Iraq.

Moreover, these useful idiots seem to have forgotten al Qaeda’s first (1993) bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York City – long before Iraq became ground zero in Bush’s war on terror. Furthermore, they offer no explanation for terrorist attacks in Turkey – a country that not only did not back the U.S. but actively obstructed the prosecution of the war by refusing to allow U.S. forces to use its territory as a staging area for incursions into Iraq. The scholars’ most egregious oversight, however, is their failure to account for the daily suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks by these fanatical Islamists against innocent Iraqis (fellow Muslims) – many of whom were guilty only of helping restore law and order to their war ravaged country….

Therefore, it is not only disingenuous but also disrespectful for this royal institute and gadflies like London Mayor Ken Livingstone to advance such a fallacious nexus for these attacks. In fact, here’s what Livingstone offered:

Under foreign occupation and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work for three generations, I suspect that if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves.

Clearly an ironic and myopic observation coming from an Englishman whose country denied blacks every human right imaginable during their colonization of Africa and the Caribbean. Yet, oppressed blacks did not “produce a lot of suicide bombers” to terrorize the English for whom they held nothing but justifiable contempt.

Mayor Ken Livingstone: Blair critic and bin Laden sympathizer in a rare moment of quiet reflection. And, in this moment, his professed support for the war on terror actually seems convincing…

But Livingstone and others who express such views are merely transferring blame to (and stirring civil strife amongst) the victims of terror. Whilst, in the same breath, they are giving aid and comfort to the terrorists who thrive on the belief that their cowardly acts can influence the policies of national governments – as indeed they seem to have done in Spain.

Ultimately, however, no cost benefit analysis (re: supporting the war or not) can be offered to predict terrorist attacks. Therefore, these al Qaeda apologists should disabuse themselves (and Britons) of any notion that not backing the U.S. in Iraq would have made them immune. In fact, this analysis is so naïve that those propounding it would probably give full faith and credit to a promise by bin Laden that if coalition forces withdraw from Iraq all terror attacks would stop:

Peace for our time…?

Note: What little has been deciphered about the ideology of al Qaeda terrorists makes it patently clear that they do not envision peaceful coexistence with infidels (non-Muslims) – regardless of their position on the war in Iraq.

Now, just imagine that pious caliphate being established in Pakistan where nuclear weapons are readily available to help suicidal jihadists carryout their terror crusades against the West….

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