Re: Slovakia shattered by London drama, News, July 7, 2005
I was upset by the way Tony Blair kept assuring people that the G8 summit would go on, to pretend that "world leaders" were solving the world's problems with a meeting.
In particular, the sentence about the crimes being "particularly barbaric" because they happened when the G8 was "solving poverty" was really dumb (the day before, the bomb would be less barbaric?).
Thank goodness (Mayor of London) Ken Livingstone didn't feel the need to make political points. Actually, Ken's speech was really great, because instead of just asking us to persevere and be stoical he was able to say what was great about London and what the bombers must not destroy.
As to the bombs and Iraq: I think they're connected and not connected. For the bombers, it's just an excuse. They would set off bombs for Palestine or the ill treatment of Abu Hamza if there wasn't Iraq.
On the other hand, the bombers are often reliant on a community of people who aren't in their sect and who have to be motivated to provide cash, and shelter them from the police. The present conduct of the Iraq war is an effective propaganda weapon for maniacs, and I think that we would make better progress in fighting terrorism if we could get ourselves out of that quagmire.
On the other hand, withdrawing from Iraq "just like that" would lead to a fairly nasty civil war and that might send a whole lot of refugees speeding towards Europe, including Slovakia.
Slovakia always mentions NATO because it sees it as necessary protection against Russia. So we (in Slovakia) always emphasise that we're willing to help Britain and the US so we can be sure they'll help us.
Roger,
Žilina
