http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/17162
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for an international conference on terrorism. It is a proposal well worth supporting.
Since the London bombings earlier this month, two strong clusters of viewpoints have emerged. One camp believes that the fatal bus and subway bombings had everything to do with British policies toward the Muslim world, especially in relation to military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other group is focusing blame directly on “Islam,” “Islamism,” “Islamic extremism,” etc.; take your pick.
These two views are so different as to be diametrically opposite. Those who reject the idea that the London terrorist attacks were a drastic response to British policies in Iraq and the Middle East, can easily be persuaded to the alternative view that young British Muslims are using terror to make a political statement based on their understanding of the Qur’an, the teachings of Muhammad, the Madrasa, Wahabism, etc.
If you fall into this latter ideology, there is no room to re-examine or re-evaluate any British foreign (or even domestic) policies. It becomes deceptively simple to place the entire burden of solving the “home-grown” terrorism problem on Muslims, especially British Muslims. However, this is a fundamentally wrong thesis, one that not only hinders solutions, but is most likely to make matters rapidly worse.
The alternative stance of solely blaming British policy