The auld Scots ken

This is by Ian Goldie, in today's Scots Independent.

These are not happy days for anyone living in Britain. The dreadful events in London, the deaths of so many innocent civilians, the number of police, guns, ambulances, police sirens going off everywhere give the impression of a city, if not yet of a country, under siege.

And all the while our personal liberties are being eroded in the name of this war against terror.

There is little hope of solutions in the short term. Tony Blair will remain in power, the very personification of all that has led to the present catastrophic events.

Comment in the newspapers mostly concerns Islamic nutters, home-grown terrorists, and other emotive phrases which will only serve to increase antagonism between religions and peoples.

Lots of questions are asked: What? Where? When? Who? How?

All are important, but the key question, as always, and the most difficult one to answer is: Why? - the very question which is most seldom asked.

Yet almost inevitably, those who make the attempt to understand why these events are taking place are attacked as being soft on terrorism.

But the why? question is the one that will yield, in the end, the most important psychological intelligence. That is the question which will really get to the roots of the terrorists¹ way of thinking and will enable our societies to take counter-measures - even if these counter-measures involve looking into the policies of our own governments.

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Another article from the Scots Independent on the matter:

Tuesday 19 July 2005
SALMOND ON TERROR POLL
Commenting on a Guardian poll that shows two-thirds of Britons believe there is a link between Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings, despite government claims to the contrary, SNP Leader Alex Salmond said:

As night follows day, the invasion of Iraq has created fertile conditions for the terrorists and their sympathisers to fundraise and recruit and the black hole that is now much of Iraq provides the ideal hiding place for many of the extremists.

The government was warned that this would be the case by their own intelligence chiefs. If the Prime Minister didn't believe it then, the public certainly believe it now. The reality is the Iraq war is now a primary recruiter for the jihadists.