Our Actions in the Middle East are What is Endangering Our Security.

by Robert Fisk, CommonDreams.org, Nov 6, 2010

The speed with which the Baghdad church massacre by al-Qa’ida has frightened the peoples of the Middle East is a sign of just how fragile is the earth’s crust beneath their feet.

Unlike our Western television news, Al-Jazeera and Arabia show the full horror of such carnage. Arms, legs, beheaded torsos leave no doubt of what they mean. Every Christian in the region understood what this attack meant. Indeed, given the sectarian nature of the assaults on Shia Iraqis, I’m beginning to wonder whether al-Qa’ida itself – far from being the center/kernel/font of “world terror” as we imagine – might be one of the most sectarian organizations ever invented. Nor, I suspect, is there just one al-Qa’ida but several, feeding off the injustices of the region, a blood transfusion which the West (and I’m including the Israelis here) feeds into its body.

In fact, I’m wondering if our governments don’t need this terror – to make us frightened, very frightened, to make us obey, to bring more security to our little lives. And I’m wondering whether those same governments will ever wake up to the fact that our actions in the Middle East are what is endangering our security. Lord Blair of Isfahan always denied this – even when the 7/7 suicide bomber carefully explained in his posthumous video that Iraq was one of the reasons he committed the slaughter in London – and Bush always denied it, and Sarkozy will deny it if al-Qa’ida fulfils its latest threat to attack France.

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