Tough on Terrorism, Tough on the Causes of Terrorism

... or Free Speech as it is otherwise known.

Is it just The Antagonist or does Mr Blair, President Minister of the United Kingdom, seem as though he's under rather a little too much pressure and getting a little confused?

The Clarke/Blair barrage of their 'I believe's being the will of the masses continues with more pointless and stupid laws that won't prevent the UK Government from conducting their terrorist activities, nor the odd suicide bomber from conducting theirs. Free speech however, is greatly under threat.

'Terrorism' has very kindly been defined by Mr Blair as:

"the killing of innocent people, erm, deliberately"

Well, that could include such things as the murder of an INNOCENT Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station all the way up to the killing of 25,000+ innocent Iraqis as supported, funded and conducted with the full approval of none other than Mr Tony Blair.

Ho ho ho. What a world of contradictions in which Tony B. and his ilk live.

The new crime is anything that can be vaguely construed to 'promote or encourage'' terrorism (e.g. US/UK foreign policy), something which starts a little closer to home for Mr Blair, as Mrs Blair let us know in June 2002 while speaking about Palestinians at a charity event in London, 18 June, 2002.

"As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress."

Sorry Tony, no more five-times-a-night for you, big-boy, until you change the Middle East policy.

The very next day, and before mis-describing Cherie's sentiments, hubby said:

"First of all, I hope that no-one mis-describes her sentiments, or mine, or anyone else's. Everybody in this situation feels nothing but the deepest sympathy for the people that have lost their lives in the latest terrorist attack.

Terrorism offers absolutely no future, no way out of this process whatever, but of course it is true that we need to make sure that there is hope for the future, and the hope lies in the political process taking the place of the extremists, the terrorists, the suicide bombers, and I am quite sure that is what Cherie was saying, it is what everyone who has looked at this problem knows is the case."

[Prime Minister Tony Blair Press Conference]

If Cherie didn't know that was what she was saying when she said it, The Antagonist has a funny feeling that she sure as hell did by the time Tony got round to pretending that terrorism isn't dropping bombs on the heads of thousands of innocents on the pretext of removing first one man, Osama Bin Laden - he who was receiving dialysis in an American military hospital in Rawapindi the night before 11 September, 2001, and then another man - mad or otherwise - whom the CIA appointed in Iraq in the sixties.

"Terrorism offers absolutely no future", apparently.

"Terrorism" (Tony Blair definition: "the killing of innocent people, erm, deliberately") does, however, seem to work quite well for Mr Blair's government and performs just as well as it ever did in being the single fastest way of transferring public money to the private enterprises and individuals who manufacture all the tools of terrorism used for the killing of innocent people.

And, if the 21 July London 'bombings' were anything to go by, the new face of terrorism, at least by those not afforded full state sponsorship, looks a little something like this:

Flour Power Terrorism hits the UK

In January of 2004, Jenny Tonge got herself in rather a lot of trouble, and was sacked by Charles Kennedy, for speaking freely (how, er, 'Liberal') and suggesting that there might be some reason why youngsters feel that undertaking a suicide bombing is the only viable option left to them:

"This particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber, is truly born out of desperation.

"Many, many people criticise, many, many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grandmother.

I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself.

"And that is a terrible thing to say."

That it may be, but it is certainly far less terrible to say such a thing than it is to be responsible for the large-scale killing of innocent people like Mr Blair. The same large-scale killing of innocent people which he has on his mind, if not his conscience, as he admitted in a television interview yesterday.

"It's the killing of innocent people, um, deliberately... innocent civilians. When people go on a bus or the Underground or in a cafe, bar or restaurant and kill as many innocent people as they possibly can quite deliberately, I think in practical terms most reasonable people have no reasonable difficulty with this definition.

Dropping bombs from the skies for a few years in a never-ending pursuit of creation (what was), destruction (what is) and rebirth (what will be), apparently, is not terrorism. Those whose words 'promote or encourage' opposing acts of terrorism, apparently, is greater than the very real and actual terrorism of those whose terrorism allows them to dictate the laws of the country and the world.

With that paradigm, the luxury of those wielding the biggest and most destructive weapons of mass destruction and labelling individual acts of opposition as 'terrorism' is over.

With that paradigm, the luxury of those wielding the biggest and most destructive weapons of mass destruction to almost-invisibly kill innocents on a scale suicide bombers can only dream of is over.

With that paradigm, the transparency of the real terrorists, those who regularly kill innocent people, erm, deliberately, is now truly international.