London mayor says West fuelled Islamic radicalism
Potential political suicide, but you've got to admire his cojones. (Or are they guts?) Seriously, he can expect some heat, like London's mayor: A terrorist puppet?
That mayor's a crazy fucker, man. A crazy, objective, fair, fucker indeed. Why can't he see the only people our troops are injuring and killing in the Middle East are fighters? Sure there are particular and recent instances in which we've admittedly whacked a whole lot of civilians, including women and children, but they're exceptions, right?
Perhaps Ken caught the report A Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq (PDF) documented in the BBC just yesterday as Iraq's catalogue of death.
" A total of 24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years of the conflict, beginning with the invasion, almost 20% of them women or children.
"This means approximately one in every 1,000 Iraqis has been killed since March 2003."
Seeing as how the people who survive these encounters are just that, people and not demonic monsters, they are given to the same sense of self-defense, preservation and pride we ourselves would display if a foreign power invaded our country and caused similar death and destruction. Think "Red Dawn" times 300 million. I for one wouldn't hesitate to put myself between our would-be captors and my family. I have no doubt that as an honorable man or woman you would join me.
So can you see why these men do what they do? No, I don't agree with their tactics. But if outsiders did to us what we've done to Iraqis, I'd do everything short of blowing up myself and innocent bystanders to take the fight to them.
Terrorists are what the big army calls the little army. If we were truly helping these people by being there, I wouldn't question the invasion. But I never felt that was our motivation. The facts seem to bear me out.