Has UK learnt nothing from the Iraq fiasco?

British Prime Minister David Cameron can make his mentor George W. Bush really proud. His rhetoric, veering dangerously towards jingoism, echoed what the former American president so unabashedly said in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Soon after the bloody siege of the part BP-operated In Amenas gas plant in Algeria came to an end, Cameron sounded exactly like Bush and Tony Blair, his cohort in the crime he committed. Cameron claimed, Britain was threatened by "existential" and "global threat" to its interests and way of life. For a moment aghast Britons felt traumatized at their prime minister's efforts to resurrect the dark days of 2001.

Subsequently, when Britain endorsed French offensive in Mali backing it up deploying Royal Air Force Cameron was once again at his jingoistic best preparing his countrymen for yet another "generational struggle" which he promised to pursue with "iron resolve". "The fight over the new front in the terror war in North Africa and the Sahel region, he warned, could go on for decades."

In treading along the path of his precursors, Bush and Blair, Cameron proved that in carrying his brains on his knees he isn't really far behind. He has apparently learnt nothing from the fiascos in Iraq, and Afghanistan. He hasn't taken any lesson from his own blunders in Libya; his role in the overthrow of Gaddafi and then tacitly allowing outflow of weapons to Tuareg rebels in northern Mali.

In fact, both Cameron and French President François Hollande epitomise West's addiction for war which is actually encouraging terrorism rather than reducing or even containing it. French and British logic justifying offensive in Mali sounds today more like perverts' quibble which raises more questions than answering any.

British Foreign Secretary William Jefferson Hague has vindicated the Anglo-French move saying that Mali has become the latest addition to the world's list of non-governed rogue states. Therefore, 'the French were trying to prevent the spread of non-government' as in 'these ungoverned spaces … extremists roam'.

If we are to buy this narrative we ought to accept the West's raison d'etre that Britain and France in Libya saved lives and in Mali their efforts have succeeded in 'mitigating' the situation by preventing its descent into total collapse. Therefore, the West reserves the right "to deploy military force in the world's 'ungovernable spaces' in order to restore order, good government and security for the good of the countries concerned, and the world as a whole. This is why Britain and its allies support 'regime change' in Iraq and Syria, why sanctions are being imposed on Iran, why France is now in Mali."

We are at a risk of being branded as heretics. Yet, we demand to know if the French intervention in Mali was "driven by a desire to ensure access to uranium for its huge nuclear industry. Could it be that (the West) also finds chaotic and fragmented states politically useful and convenient?"

Political commentator Matt Carr has asked more questions. Are these 'rogue' and 'failed' states really a threat to 'our way of life', as so many of our leaders insist, or do they provide a pretext for permanent militarization and neo-colonial interventions? How is it that the same governments that declare 'terrorists' and 'jihadists' to be their enemies will also work with them on occasion? Neither Carr nor we will ever be answered.

War against terrorism and war against ungoverned spaces to stop them turning rogues threatening 'our way of life' are, in fact, pretences invented either to perpetrate neo-colonialism or disguise pillage of resources in Africa. "A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger."

And this "invasion has almost nothing to do with (terrorism), and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China. Unlike China, the US and its allies are prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Palestine."

War against terror, war against radicals and war against roguery have all turned into clichés conveying nothing and assures nothing but further slide of human civilisation to chaos, conflicts and desolation. With John Rees, an official with Stop the War Coalition, we agree that we have been hearing these expressions since 2001 and in their oft repetition they now bore us to death.

We heard it over Afghanistan, we heard it over Iraq. We heard it over Libya and we should recall that more than a decade ago, at the beginning of this process, the head of the security service in Britain warned the then PM Tony Blair that the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq which spread the threat of terrorism, not reduce it.

Sadly, that warning has proved absolutely correct. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the West invaded it. There is now. Al Qaeda had not spread to Pakistan in the way that it has now since the invasion of Afghanistan. We should at least have learned by now that this is not the way to reduce the threat of terrorism, this is actually the way in which they have bolstered it, in which they have increased its attractiveness and appeal to young people in the region.

History, hopefully, will not condone these crimes. The West's so-called wars to liberate the world from threats of terror, fanaticism and intolerance will then be exposed as chicanery of politicians who have with criminal cynicism putting business interests before the lives of people.

Source http://www.timesofoman.com/Columns/Article-846.aspx