Here is a different perspective from somebody who dislikes BOTH Zionists and Moslem Immigrants.
What Are The London Bombers Telling Us?
If we take up someone else's fight we will end up with someone else's enemies.
by William Porter Blythe
ON THE MORNING of July 7, a series of terrorist bombs went off in London, killing and wounding hundreds, and paralyzing the city at the height of rush hour. A group calling itself The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe claimed it had struck a blow against "Zionist Crusaders" for their "massacres" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threatened Denmark and Italy, which also have troops in Iraq.
What is the significance of this attack and what can Americans learn from it? There are two questions to ask about terrorism, and the first is what drives it. In this case motives are hardly obscure. Whether an al-Qaida affiliate really does turn out to have been behind the bombings, it is reasonably certain that the perpetrators see it as revenge for the war in Iraq. (ILLUSTRATION: This bus was ripped apart in one of the London explosions.)
It may be heartless to say it while the London Ambulance Service is still counting casualties, but it is easy to understand why Muslims want revenge. Britain has been America's most faithful ally in a war of occupation that was launched for reasons that have been proven to be utterly false. Tens of thousands of Muslims are dead as a result, and what used to be a brutal but orderly country is in chaos. At the same time, people who talk about "Zionist Crusaders" -- and millions of Muslims do so -- believe that the war was at least in part intended to destroy the Middle East's most openly anti-Israel government, and that makes it in their eyes all the more hateful.
The British people have never supported the war, and the attacks may galvanize those who want their country to stop what many think is illegal aggression. Terrorist attacks in Madrid in March 2004 reversed Spanish policy on troops in Iraq. Prime Minister Tony Blair says he will not change course, but there will be more pressure than ever to let the Americans go it alone.
But what do the attacks mean for us? Although the al-Qaida message did not include the United States in its list of future targets, we are the "Zionist Crusaders" non pareil. Anyone who hates the British for what they are doing in the Middle East hates us even more. It is important, therefore, to recognize that Muslim terror is not blind fury against "freedom," as President Bush would have us believe, but a rational -- if fanatic and murderous -- reaction to policy.
In the eyes of the Muslims, our policy is even worse than that of Britain because of our open support for Israel. Why, then did the terrorists not attack New York rather than London? Probably because Britain has more radical Muslims with close ties to fanatic groups in the Middle East. London has a better organized and more sophisticated Muslim underground than New York. The terrorists probably would have preferred to kill Americans but settled for Brits.
And this brings us to the other crucial question about terrorism: what to do about it? Depending on its motives and how much damage it does, it is sometimes best just to stop doing whatever it is the terrorists don't like. This is derided as "giving in to terrorism," but if we are doing things that make people mad enough to kill us, we should be absolutely sure we have good reasons for doing them.
For years, Arabs have hated us because we support Israel, and now they hate us because we invaded Iraq. Are these policies so vital to our national interests that we should stick to them even at the risk of devastating acts of terror? Are they worth another Sept. 11 attack -- or worse?
In the case of the Iraq war, the answer is clearly no. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, was not a threat to us, and had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. Every justification for the invasion was false, and an unjustified attack on a foreign country is, technically, a war crime. It is easy to see why Muslims hate us and our allies, and why they fight back in the only way they can. Let us therefore be clear-headed enough to admit that the terrorists are right about this one.
If we are to go by world opinion, the terrorists are right about Israel, too. We are such an unwavering friend of Israel that we often stand together alone in world bodies. But even many Americans deplore what Israel is doing in Palestine; the Presbyterian Church, for example, has voted to sell its holdings in companies that it says support the occupation, and other churches are considering doing likewise.
It is no secret that the United States supports Israel because American Jews want it to. If there were no Jews in America, or if they had no influence, our policies would probably be no different from those of Japan or Sweden, and Muslims would not have a special reason to hate us. We have clearly chosen sides in this fight, and by doing so we benefit Jewish interests and not our own.
Of course, Jews are hardly alone in influencing foreign policy. Cuban-Americans essentially dictate our policy towards Fidel Castro. Indians in America passionately want the United States to take their side in the conflict with Pakistan, and have openly modeled their efforts on those of Jews. If Indians ever succeed the way Jews have, we will have a unilateral policy on the subcontinent -- and perhaps a Pakistani terrorist problem.
The lesson is clear. There are conflicts all around the world that hardly concern us. If domestic pressure groups succeed in making us choose sides in someone else's fight we will end up with someone else's enemies.
Our immigration policies strengthen these pressure groups by swelling their numbers. Not only do we get 30,000 new Indians every year, we already have 20 million Mexicans among us. Just as we are no longer capable of a Middle East policy that ignores partisan Jewish interests, we have lost the capacity to assert our interests forcefully to Mexico. Every domestic pressure group we feed through immigration fractures the national will, and every one that manages to tilt our foreign policy towards the home country will make unnecessary enemies for us. Immigration-driven "diversity" means bad foreign policy.
There is another important lesson to be learned from the fact that the terrorists hit Britain rather than the United States. No one suspects native Englishmen or Scots set off those bombs, so the attack could not have been carried out without immigration. If Britain had a strict border policy, the terrorists could not have gotten in, and without a sympathetic medium of immigrant collaborators they could not have done the job.
For years, Britain has been a dumping ground for wild Muslim clerics who have been expelled from places like Egypt and Algeria. In London more people go to mosque on Friday than to Church on Sunday. Once again, it is a matter of who gets in to your country. If the wrong people get in, citizens may start trying to get the government to kill their enemies back home -- and some of those enemies may sneak in to commit acts of terror.
It is not yet permitted in America to talk about the divided loyalties of people who influence our foreign policy. But a few people will point out that whatever reasons people have to hate us, they can't hurt us if they can't reach us. Millions of people swarm across our borders every years without so much as a by-your-leave or an if-you-please. If the London attacks do not force us to rethink our foolish foreign policies -- and there is no reason to think they will -- they should at least prompt us to stop illegal immigration.
Even the deluded, who think Muslims want to kill us because they hate freedom, should be able to see that porous borders are an invitation to attack. Even the deluded should be able to see that the more Arabs and Muslims we let live among us the more likely it is some of them will be homicidal "enemies of freedom." Good sense, however, is rare in the White House, and our rulers have shown over and over how incapable they are of seeing the obvious. Let us hope for a surprise.
"William Porter Blythe" is the pen name of a Washington-area journalist. |
