Bin Laden must be a very satisfied man

JITTERY US ALLIES SNAP AT EACH OTHER

7 July London bombers were British lads – Pakistan Ambassador
By K Gajendra Singh

07/31/05 "ICH" -- -- "They were born in Britain , bred there, lived there, were by all accounts British lads.

What motivated British lads to do this? It is not because their blood was from Pakistan . Whatever angst they had was a result of living in Britain ," retorted Munir Akram , Pakistan ’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York to British accusations that the 7 July bombers , who struck at 3 tube trains and a double decker bus killing over 50 persons and injuring many hundreds , were of Pakistani origin .

"You have to look at ... what you are doing to the Muslim community and why the Muslim community is not integrating in British society," he added.

Later Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf weighed in. “We certainly have a problem, which we are trying to address very strongly. And may I suggest there is a lot to be done in England also,” he said in a televised address recorded before the copy cat botched attacks in London on 21 July. “I would like to send a message to Prime Minister Tony Blair that we strongly condemn the July 7 acts of terrorism.”

“We should stand together in fighting terrorism instead of indulging in a blame game,” the President said, referring to suggestions of the London bombers’ “Pakistani connection”.

“If the aspersion on Pakistan is that the alleged bombers were indoctrinated when they [3] came to Pakistan , where had the Jamaican [4th ] gone (for indoctrination)?” he asked.

The General had a point when it was discovered that two of the 4 ( even 5 ) suspects for the 21 July attempts were from Africa , Muktar Said Ibrahim from Eritrea and Yasin Hassan Omar from Somalia .

They were given asylum and within a decade became disillusioned , hostile and anti- West .Their families were shocked at their kin’s involvement .Omar with some more suspects has been caught along with bombs and other material indicating wide spread conspiracy.

Gen. Musharraf and Pakistan should know a thing or two about terrorists , having incubated and nurtured Muslim militants , Jihadis and terrorists including Al Qaeda and the Talebans since early 1980s.

Gen. Musharraf also complained that there were two terrorist organisations which had tried to assassinate him in end 2003 but the British government had not done much to ban them.

It was like pot calling the kettle black as some governments in Middle East, Central Asia , India and elsewhere would point out ,because since decades Pakistan has maintained terrorist training camps which have operated mostly against India ,specially Jammu and Kashmir, but also in central Asia and Russia, but the British and the Americans called them freedom fighters and militants, and pontificated on democracy, self determination and freedom of speech.

But the current US Administration’s anti-pluralist policy remains – If you are not with us [right or wrong], you are against us. But Gen. Musharraf also re-launched a “jihad” against extremism and announced several regulatory measures “I urge you, my nation, to stand up and wage a jihad against extremism.” Musharraf said all madarsas would have to register with authorities by December.

Banned militant groups will not be allowed to take new names or raise funds in the name of jihad. Possession of unauthorised arms would be prohibited and action taken against distribution of hate literature.

But this was like ‘arresting the usual suspects’ a la the film Casablanca .

It was an unedifying public spat between US allies , Pakistan , its Non-Nato strategic ally and UK ,its closest Nato ally and umbilical kin. More words were exchanged , after blasts in Egypt and Turkey , a consequence of US policies , neither well thought out ,nor implemented competently , which are now unraveling in Iraq and even Afghanistan.

You shall reap what you sow

Blunt but suave Pakistani Ambassador Maliha Lodhi in interviews with BBC and CNN almost split the beans when she said that the very people who were being criticised now were the heroes when they were fighting in Afghanistan to expel Soviet troops ( to fulfill US policy of revenging on USSR for its Vietnam defeat ) .
Hitting the nail on the head, London ’s outspoken Mayor Ken Livingstone blamed Western policies in the Middle East and Asia for the attacks.

“A lot of young people see the double standards, they see what happens in ( US detention camp) Guantanamo Bay , and they just think that there isn’t a just foreign policy,” he said.

“You’ve just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil. We’ve propped up unsavoury governments, we’ve overthrown ones that we didn’t consider sympathetic,” Livingstone added.

“I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians to drive them out of Afghanistan .

“They didn’t give any thought to the fact that once he’d done that, he might turn on his creators,” he told BBC radio.>>>continued

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