[continued from previous message] 
  
 remember what happened in Madrid, in both cases, the wrong people were 
 initially blamed. And the wrong intelligence leads were followed. And so, 
 I think while I understand what George Galloway is saying, it's actually 
 too early to say that this is because of such and such a policy, because 
 we don't yet know who the perpetrators were. 
  
 However, I would broadly endorse what he said about not creating 
 conditions which are likely to stir up more terrorist acts. And there's no 
 doubt that by invading Iraq, we have caused a great deal of resentment and 
 anger within the Muslim world. And if that hasn't come back to haunt us 
 yet, then it may well come back to haunt us in the future. But as I say, 
 we don't yet know (a) who did this, and (b) what their motivation is. So, 
 it really is too early to start saying this is because of a particular 
 policy that we followed. 
  
 As far as its impact on Britain is concerned, I am worried that we are 
 going to see the loss of certain civil liberties as a result of this. We 
 have seen with, for example, the PATRIOT Act in the United States, that 
 there has been quite a curtailment of some fairly basic human rights, 
 including the right to free assembly and the right to free expression and, 
 of course, there has been a great deal of very intrusive surveillance and 
 policing of the Muslim community and indeed parts of the non-white 
 community in general in the U.S., some of which appears to have very 
 little to do with anything which could reasonably be regarded as dealing 
 with terrorism. And I'm concerned that that's going to come over here. I'm 
 concerned that the draconian restrictions on protest that we already have 
 in this country could be extended. Already we have seen several people 
 saying that this provides justification for the introduction of a new 
 identity card in Britain. We don't yet have an identity card, but they're 
 talking about an identity card which includes biometric identification, 
 and plenty more besides, which could turn into quite an oppressive state 
 tool if we're not careful. 
  
 And it's also, of course, a further effect is that just as we were all 
 beginning to talk about some of the other issues that affect our lives, 
 such as climate change, such as global poverty, such as what's happening 
 in Africa, these are all issues which we desperately need to be 
 discussing, those have been knocked off the front page and knocked out of 
 the front of people's minds. And so, while this awful event, this dreadful 
 attack, has been a terrible, terrible tragedy for the people caught up in 
 it, it could have further ramifications which could themselves have tragic 
 implications for many people in Britain and around the world. 
  
 JUAN GONZALEZ: And Stephen Grey of the Sunday Times, your sense of the 
 impact of these attacks on the G8 Summit itself and its ability to even 
 get much work done? 
  
 STEPHEN GREY: Well, I think a lot of the work is done by officials, and so 
 the work will continue. I suppose that it's more of a political effect in 
 that it's changed the focus away from what was some pretty important work 
 there, and obviously, vital for Africa, and clearly the degree in which 
 people are able to put pressure on those leaders has been diminished, 
 really, because the focus has gone away. 
  
 Can I just come back on what George Galloway and George Monbiot were 
 saying? I don't, as a reporter, dont want to comment on the rights or 
 wrongs of the Iraq war, but I would just obviously just put that in 
 context. I think a lot of people in London will obviously see a lot in 
 what George Galloway is saying, his remarks will have a lot of resonance 
 with people who have expressed views on the Iraq war, but obviously, there 
 will be others who will take the view that we should, in fact, strengthen 
 our resolve in operating in Iraq for the sake of not giving in to 
 terrorists. 
  
 But I would say one important thing, where I think what George Galloway 
 says resonates with what I have seen. I have spent a lot of time in the 
 Middle East recently and in Iraq, in fact, last year. I think one 
 important thing to understand about the nature of Islamic terrorism is 
 that it's not just about a threat to the way of life of the West. If you 
 talk to people who actually are close to these movements, I mean, they 
 hate, above all, the policies of the West, and what -- you know, I won't 
 comment on those policies, but they extend much -- they're not just 
 invasion of Iraq, they also extend to our policies to the Middle East 
 peace process, our involvement in Afghanistan. 
  
 Many of the people who are drawn to these movements are not people who are 
 looking for some sort of Taliban lifestyle, they're people who are 
 actually motivated because they support some kind of insurgency about the 
 way the West is dealing with the Middle East, and they feel the Middle 
 East is utterly humiliated. The Middle East people are utterly humiliated 
 by the West and the Western policies. And this is the response they seek. 
 It's an appalling response, but I think to understand it, youve got to 
 understand it goes a lot further than simply a kind of revulsion against 
 the Western way of life. 
  
 JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to get back to the whole issue of the possible 
 targeting of Muslims in England. George Galloway, you represent a district 
 that has a large Muslim population. The Islamic Human Rights Commission 
 yesterday warned London Muslims to stay home, fearing a backlash, and the 
 Guardian has learned that within hours of the attacks, 30,000 abusive and 
 threatening emails were sent to the Muslim Council of Britain's website. 
 Your reaction to the possible targeting of Muslims in England? 
  
 GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, I'm just looking at my own computer screen now. 
 I'll just give you the title of one of them: "Pig Islamists." And that 
 sort of person is out there. But I must say to you that I think the 
 British people are bigger than that, and I disagree with the advice, if 
 that was what it was, that Muslims should stay indoors. In fact, they 
 should unite with the rest of us in absolute rejection of terrorism and of 
 war. We must be tough on terrorism and tough on the causes of terrorism. 
 It's really basic common sense. It's not left wing, it's not rocket 
 science. 
  
 It's just basic common sense that if you don't drain the swamp that I have 
 talked about, if you don't intervene to stop the ongoing calvary of the 
 Palestinian people, who for 50 years have been dispossessed, sent to the 
 four corners of the world as refugees, regularly massacred, occupied, if 
 you don't do something about the hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers 
 occupying Iraq, if you don't stop propping up the puppet presidents and 
 the corrupt kings who rule the Muslim world almost without exception from 
 one end to the other, then you lay bare your double standards, your 
 hypocrisy, when you talk about liberty. 
  
 What our leaders want is liberty for us, but only up to a point, and 
 they're ready to take that away if it suits them, but no liberty for 
 anybody else. And the people in the Muslim world can see it very clearly. 
 They know that nobody gave a toss about the thousands who were killed in 
 Fallujah. Nobody in the British Parliament raised any qualm about the 
 American armed forces reducing Fallujah to ash and killing thousands of 
 people. Yet, they go into the kind of emoting that we saw yesterday about 
 the deaths in London. 
  
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)