The ultimate price of freedom - oil

Four bombs exploded in Central London on Thursday 7 July 2005 killing at least 50 people and injuring up to 700 others. The timing was chosen to coincide with the G8 Summit in Scotland where leaders of 8 most industrialised countries meet to discuss global warming and poverty in Africa. Tony Blair in his immediate response to the atrocities hit out at the attackers by calling them terrorists and that the purpose of terrorism was killing innocent people indiscriminately. Just like Bush and John Howard of Australia, whose people had similar experience of being targeted by terrorists, he quickly pronounced that the terrorists were out to destroy freedom and Western civilisation. As if borrowed from Bush speech in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attack in America, he also repeated that the Western way of life would prevail over the terrorists who seek to impose their extremist idea on the world. It was a good platform for the powerful to appear on worldwide audience and potray themselves as victims.

Yes, I do symphatise with the victims of this indiscriminate killing of innocent people. They are just ordinary people like us who just want to get on with their lives. Most of them are probably against the war in Iraq and subjugation of other Muslim countries; the very reason the terrorists say they were avenging. But if the leaders of powerful Western countries simply ignore the very roots of terrorism and turn their deaf ears to the resentment towards foreign dominance in Muslim countries the growing problem of terrorism is not going to be solved. Yes, we should not talk to terrorists but the longer the Western powers control their land and oil, the stronger their resolve become. Perhaps they will not win in the end, but many innocent people will become victims. The daily bombings in Iraq which kill dozens of people each day is not news anymore. More than 100,000 ordinary Iraqis have been killed since the American-led invasion in March 2003. Nobody cares about this number. They just lost count. It’s only news when American or British troops are also killed. They only count the dead if it’s American or other foreigners. But then I should have known better. The people who bring the news to my TV set are BBC or CNN. I should not expect them to tell the Muslim side of the story. After all they say they are sacrificing their lives in bringing FREEDOM to the oil-rich freedom-poor states. I think the world appreciates their effort but if I were the Arabs I’d say, “YES, thanks for your help. But, we still have this cynical feeling that you want something more in return - our OIL”.

9 July 2005