In an article about the report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs (which also goes under the name of Chatham House) written by Paul Wilkinson and Frank Gregory, two academics specialising in terrorism have found that:
“A key problem…is that the Government has been conducting counter-terrorism policy shoulder to shoulder with the United States, not in the sense of being an equal decision-maker but rather as a pillion passenger compelled to leave the steering to the ally in the driving seat. There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK and for the wider coalition against terrorism.”
“Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and American military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure and the damage caused to the counter-terrorism campaign.”
The UK’s Foreign Secretary has come out saying,
“I a’m astonished Chatham House is now saying that we should not have stood shoulder to shoulder with our long-standing allies.”
Is the role of Foreign Minister/Secretary deliberately given to an idiot or is this just a coincidence?
We have Alexander Downer here here here here here here here here here here and here.
The UK has Jack Straw.
"If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising to the world for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt but it’s also ineffective because fanatics despise a lot of things and the thing they despise most is weakness and timidity,"
This is HoWARd’s statement, but is it based on evidence or is it empty rhetoric?
Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago is the author of a new book, Dying to Win. This book provides the first data-based analysis of suicide bombers.
"From Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas on the West Bank to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, every group mounting a suicide campaign over the past two decades has had as a major objective – or as its central objective – coercing a foreign state that has military forces in what the terrorists see as their homeland to take those forces out. The presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is misleading and may be encouraging domestic and foreign policies likely to worsen America’s situation and to harm many Muslims needlessly."-Robert Pape
Then we find this data.
"The most important admission of the Department of Defense report is that historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."
Former president Jimmy Carter, some years after he left the White House, was unambiguous in his concordance with the above and below sentiment
"We sent Marines into Lebanon and you only have to go to Lebanon, to Syria or to Jordan to witness first-hand the intense hatred among many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers, women and children and farmers and housewives, in those villages around Beirut. As a result of that we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful."
Scarily we see a high level of education and opportunity in almost half of the suicide bomber profiles.
"[…] operating on the blithe assumption that the suicide terrorists were all poor, young Islamic radicals. In fact, 42% have post-secondary educations, and they’re part of concerted campaigns with coherent goals." – Robert Pape
Nowhere is there evidence that states that we (the west) are targeted because we are weak and timid.
If this were the case then homeless shelters and women’s refuges would also be targeted.
I’m not with HoWARd or Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said –
"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
HoWARd – redundant rhetoric from a redundant time.
Speaking days before today’s scheduled arrival of new Australian troops in Iraq, Sheik Muhnad Al Garayi said Australian troops, such as the Americans and the British, were not welcome.
Sheik Muhnad Al Garayi was quoted as saying,
"We are a peaceful people, but if someone touches us, we will strike back, we will kill them if we have to."
"It is incomprehensible to us. I would like to ask the Australian people ‘what is the reason for your troops to come over here?’ We have our own police, our militia. We are from this moment looking at the Australians as occupying troops and the Australian people . . . as a victim of the American and British strategy. What is the difference between an American pulling the trigger to shoot someone and an Australian holding the body while the murder is done? It is all part of the same crime. To help the invader kill people in their own homes, in their own country, is criminal."
As HoWARd stands on a podium on the parade ground at Robertson barracks, protected by security guards wearing designer suits and talking into their lapels, he gives his usual pre-deployment brief…
The member’s loved ones’ hearts will swell and then very quickly ache.
Being a part of the coalition of the willing, for the reasons given for invading Iraq, has been proved to be nonsense. Sending a further 450 troops is nonsense on stilts.
Image from here