A distorted view of life

It would be hard to find a better example of western officialdom's vacuous ignorance and cluelessness about the world than the amazingly assinine statement regarding the origins of terrorist activity uttered by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who appears to have chomped fully on the Bushian trope -- hook, line and sinker -- that terrorists hate freedom and, hence, us. According to Beckett, interventionist western foreign policy is an innocent dove of peace and love and that blaming UK and, by extension, US foreign policy for terrorist resisitance movements would be the "gravest possible error."

This is part of a distorted view of the world, a distorted view of life. Let’s put the blame where it belongs: with people who wantonly want to take innocent lives.

Now, I say this is an ignorant statement and Beckett must necessarily be clueless for saying such a ridiculous thing, but this can't really be true. She is probably well aware of the fact that the Muslim community in Britain has explicity cited Blair's policies as inciting terrorist acts. In fact, 38 Islamic organisations and members of the House of Lords have admonished the policies of the Blair government and said that such policies are direct "ammunition to extremists."

But it is not just Muslims who are telling the British government that their policies are destructive to peace. Christian groups also warn of widespread anger over foreign policy:

Christian groups had also denounced the Blair government for failing to insist on a cease-fire agreement during the current Israeli-Lebanese conflict.Christian groups are amongst a number of charities, religious and civil rights groups who have united in signing an open letter to Tony Blair condemning him for his failure back the United Nations' call for a ceasefire in the Middle East.

The letter, signed by amongst others Christian Aid, Evangelical charity World Vision and Catholic aid agency Cafod, underlines the widespread anger in Britain at the Prime Minister's support for US foreign policy.

Beckett also cannot be unaware of the wanton destruction of Lebanese and Iraqi civilian lives that has been wrought by "freeman moxy" policy execution in the Middle East, not to mention the abuses of Abu Graib, Guantanamo, Haditha and other of Bush's and Blair's "collateral" activities.

These issues are fairly recent blunders, of course, and do not begin to plumb the depths of foreign policy depravity that Britain and the US have engaged over the last several decades, beginning with Churchill's gassing of the Kurds after World War I, continuing with the conspiracy in the Suez crisis and the British/US orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Mossadegh and subsequent installation of the Shah in Tehran, through supporting the murderous Saddam Hussein until finally we arrive at the current epoch's illegal and deadly invasion of Iraq after Hussein had become an "inconvenience." But all of this is of no concern to terrorists. They're not bothered by the western imperialist boot stomping all over them. According to Beckett, they just pop up out of sand, with hate in their black hearts for our freedom-loving and peaceful ways.

But then maybe Beckett truly is every bit the idiot she appears to be. Maybe my British mates can comment on Beckett: is she an ahistorical clown or is she is just spouting the party line that world strife is everyone else's fault?