The awful events of Paris have come and gone, leaving a great city in turmoil and many people fearful of the world into which they step out every day. Terrorism is having its intended effect, whilst the War on Terror is having the opposite effect, unless the intention is to simply create global terror, but I don’t believe this to be the case.

We continue to grieve for those that lost family members, but seem unable to separate ourselves from force as the only outcome of this grief. But the questions we fail to ask ourselves are, why people feel the need to carry out these attacks? And does force every really work in response to radicalised people?

By failing to question our politicians properly we are once again committed to a war that separates our society. As I speak to people and hear their thoughts I am struck by a few important factors that people consistently overlook. Firstly they are generally horribly misinformed by the media and politicians. Secondly, they seem to readily forget the previous record of Western governments on the matter of invading Middle Eastern countries. Thirdly, i’m starting to think it’s us who are the bad guys….

Information and Misinformation

It is striking how quickly we enable our politicians to lead us, having spent huge periods of time in a distrustful state. Often this is linked to difficult and thorny issues, most commonly found in Foreign Policy matters. These issues are so complex at times that people shy away from them in the hope that someone else will clear things up. But if we have learned anything it is that our politicians will not do the right thing, rather they will do the thing that gets them re elected. And acting strong and being part of the crowd does that, there are precious few politicians willing to stand up and say this makes no sense. Those that are are pilloried as being sympathasisers with the terrorists, which they clearly are not.

What is even more confusing in this context is that we are not under attack by a country with borders, but by a collection of militant groups who are following their own equally dogmatic misinterpretations of the current situation. All of which leads us to a terrible series of misjudgements as both sides make ever increasing claims of bravado and bellicose gestures.

Whilst we can all spend a lot of time and energy trying to understand the reasons for the attacks, we can never really be sure. But one thing is clear, normally passive and regular people are radicalised by something they see in the Western approach to the Middle east. I’m not convinced any radical bomber starts out wanted stop people going for a drink on a Friday. They want to disrupt our lives as their have been disrupted.

Our approach has been ongoing for many years, the most recent sequence has been since the beginning of the first Iraq War, when huge forces were placed into the region by the West (I am using the West as a Proxy for the USA plus some others, predominantly the UK, but pretty much everyone including Norway (!!!!) has had a contribution to make). We could argue that the West has been meddling in the region for alot longer, consider the Western backed regimes of the Iran (pre Islamic Revolution) and Israel, the huge arms sales into Iraq and Libya amongst other actions. A region full of oil with appalling human rights practices backed with huge funding and garrison forces by the West. This is the backdrop against which radical actions have arisen. In many ways it is not different to the Irish scenario we lived with for so long in the UK.

Ultimately you can’t beat ideas with bombs, and there is something insidious in the way that Western political leaders are driving fear into our society and insisting we strike back.

Foreign Policy Flaws

Normally when people make a mistake they learn from it, you know the sort of thing, touch a hot pan and think twice about touching hot pans. What is it about governments that they cannot do the same? Western countries have been invading the middle east for a couple of decades now, and from what I can tell pretty much the same impact every time. Loads of people die, loads of soldiers die, the country goes into meltdown as the basic infrastructure like water and sanitation falls apart and then…….wait for it…….young men and women become radicalised. All of this leads to a subtle loss of freedom for us as we get greater and more in depth “security measures” that eat away at our civilian liberties.

And we spend a huge amount of money and time wondering why all these people want to blow us up. I saw an amazing news article on US TV recently which is doing the rounds on Facebook (yeah I know a great source for political debates) and it showed a huge number of increases in suicide bombers since 2001. In fact there was not a single one in Iraq in the time leading up to it 2001 and then over 1500 in the intervening years, the same is true for every major country in that region that has Western forces in it.

There is an important correlation that should be mentioned here. Historically aggressive Foreign Policy is driven by dire domestic conditions. Think carefully, do some googling but try to understand for yourself. Think of the Falklands War, how poorly was the UK economy performing, how badly was Mrs Thatcher doing in the polls, everything was falling apart…….Keep searching. Why do you think Cameron is so keen to “get stuck in”.

With all the nonsense about Preemptive strikes and spreading democracy going on it can be difficult to see the Imperialism being brought upon the Middle East. We channel off the Oil, we contract in our Multi Nationals to rebuild and we arm them with our Defence companies. It really is no wonder that people want to give up their lives to hurt our way of life. But just so we are clear, this doesn’t make these people worthy, but it does make them desperate, and desperate people do strange things. Whether it’s putting their children in boat that is likely to sink, thinking it’s better than being on land in their country or blowing themselves up in a Paris bar.

The US has spent $6 trillion (I don’t know how many 0’s that is by the way) on Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Most of that money is borrowed from some dreadful global bank or even worse another country to wage a pointless war that has made neither of those countries or their own safety any better. We really need to ask why are we even doing this and how can there really be any argument to the contrary. I’m no bleeding heart but really…..haven’t we burned our hands on the pan enough?

Hans…..I’m starting to think we are the bad guys

One of my favourite Mitchell and Webb sketches is the one where the German SS guards come to the dawning realisation that they are in fact not the liberating force they initially believed but in fact the bad guys.

Here it is in all its glory Mitchel and Webb

I’ll let you ponder that……….