‘NO EVIDENCE’

Since the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 people, Tony Blair and other British leaders have insisted, in the words of The New York Times, “there is no evidence that the policy on Iraq motivated the London bombers. They have argued instead that [the bombings] are part of a coordinated worldwide campaign of anti-Western violence by Al Qaeda and Qaeda-influenced groups that predates the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.”

No evidence? Actually, both groups claiming responsibility for the bombings have cited Britain’s participation in the Iraq war as justification.

“In response to the massacre that Britain has carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan: The heroic mujahedeen has undertaken a blessed attack in London. Now Britain is burning with fear, dread and dismay from north, south, east and west,” said the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe.

Further, Blair’s remarks were in response to a British threat assessment made three weeks before the bombings that warned that “Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist related activity in the U.K.”

Blair clearly isn’t thinking straight. It would be charitable to suggest he’s a bit shellshocked, but that hardly explains his decision making before the Iraq war. Either way, it’s astonishing that the British continue to put up with such errant nonsense — which makes it beyond mind-blowing that we are.