Britons believe Iraq invasion led to London bombing

In the news this morning:

Almost two-thirds of Britons said the London bomb attacks on July 7 which killed 56 people are linked to Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to take part in the invasion of Iraq, an ICM Ltd. poll found.

And congrats to Aussie London bombing victim Louise Barry who asked John Howard whether he thought the attack was triggered by the Iraq war. He of course said “no”.

Comments

[Tony]

Good on her for asking that. Of course he is going to say no but at least she put it out there and let others hear what he had to say.

We should have a referendum to see what Aussies think of the war and maybe the government might be surprised. They have their heads so far buried in the sand though it wuldn't matter if 90% said they were against it as they would say that 10% believe we did the right thing and it was therefore justified.

Phooey to governments.

[Rob Irwin]

So... just wondering out loud, what exactly should be done? Everyone should just pack up, get out of Iraq and leave the Iraqis to it? It just seems to be an easy score to attack governments for being there when, clearly, there really is no choice to the matter. I think ALL the governments have misjudged how long this was all going to take, which is bad, but there really is no alternative to being there, now.

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob, let me explain why this "well we're there now we can't just leave" bullshit drives me fucking nuts.

Let me throw this analogy at you.

Let's say your next door neighbour is a bad guy. Let's say he beats his wife. Let's say you TAUGHT him how to beat his wife and engouraged him to do it for..say...ten years. Then, one day, you decide you want his house. So, you march on over to your next door neighbour's house with about ten of your mates, armed with baseball bats, and you beat the shit out of him, tie him up, lock him in the basement. And then you start beating his wife.

Now, a week later, 10 of his mates hear what happened, turn up with AK47s, and start shooting shit up and his house. A couple of your mates get killed. His wife get's killed. But his kids are still okay.

Now... do you say

"Well, I'm hear now, better finish the job. Better try to take down these 'insurgents'. Too bad if his kids get killed. (puts on John Wayne accent) Ima gunna finish this hear job that I started."

????

Or do you say

"Holy shit, I fucked this shit up, I'm going back to my own house."

???

One of them sounds like a logical response, the other sounds like machismo, suicidal bullshit to me.

But let me extend the analogy, just to make it more like the Iraq situation. Let's say your friend's house was sitting on land that you knew had $1 billion of gold underneath it AND.... the guys who gave you the baseball bats told you to get the gold or they'd kill you...

[Rob Irwin]

Well, in that scenario, if we're relating it back to Iraq, I'd imagine the people shooting up the house would also shoot up the kids if you left. Now, do you leave, and ensure the kids get shot up... or do you stay, and maybe save some people? There are casualty number in Iraq, sure. But I reckon they'd be a heck of a lot higher if these folks were left unchecked. Because, make no mistake, people who are preapred to randomly blow up their own people aren't some kind of idealistic, noble, insurgents no matter how you want to cut it. In short, "idealistic, noble, insurgents" don't reort to taking out their own people - namley because if you're REALLY fighting for your homeland, you aren't fighting your own kind.

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Cam, you say a lot of good stuff and you are very smart and well read, but this has to be the poorest analogy that I have ever heard. Heres some thoughts on mistakes in the analogy:
1) You Said: "Let's say you TAUGHT him how to beat his wife". From my understanding, I would have thought a better analogy is that you taught him to beat the other next door neighbour.
2) You said: "Then, one day, you decide you want his house." where as I would have thought a better analogy is something like "you want to stop him beating his wife as this behaviour is driving up the cost of insurance in this area"
3) Also need to add in something like "The guy has moved on from beating his wife, to attacking a third innocent neighbour and threating the whole suburb with beatings of mass distruction. He also has stuffed the Police around from checking out about these claims. He also maybe supporting other known wife beaters".
4) Change the beating Wife to beating the other wife beaters. (could accept in stopping the guy beating the wife, the wife gets one or two bruises).
5) On the couple of his mates with Baseball bats bit, change to "other husbands that are fearful that if this wife survivors that there wifes might not put up with the beatings so they start killing your mates that have moved out to support the other wifes and even there mates that are being trained to support the other wifes"
6) For the rest, see Rob's comments. It makes total sense.

I am not sure how you represent the fact that your not sure how many wifes he killed before you could see in his house.

You said "...why this "well we're there now we can't just leave" bullshit drives me fucking nuts.". Well can I say it drives me nuts people claiming that the US and there "mates" "want his house". There "gold" maybe, but there house? Shizen Houzen!

JMTC
Molly

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob - perhaps you're falling into trap of thinking the terrorists have a Western Judeo-Christian perspective on the situation.

While my understanding of extremist interpretations of the Qur'an is limited, I suspect they believe that the people killed while they are doing Allah's work (destroying the infidels) end up in heaven anyway. If you are prepared to commit suicide to destroy the infidels, knwoing that you are assured a place in Heaven, taking a few bystanders with you is no big deal. In fact, you might be doing them a favour by allowing them to be part of Allah's work.

And I've never heard of Islamic fundamentalists detonating bombs to deliberately destroy their OWN people. Have you?

[Rob Irwin]

So when suicide bombers in Iraq go and blow up the locals lining up to become soldiers or police or whatever else... sometimes with no Westerners in sight... they're not their own people?

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob, any attack either directly against an occupying force or against those co-operating with an occupying force, can be treated as the same thing.