The following is the transcript of Milan Rai’s recent interview on Democracy Now! If you would like to listen to this segment please visit Democracy Now!

Wednesday, July 13th, 2005
Before London Bombing, Leaked UK Memo Warned Iraq War a Key Cause for Growth of “Extremism” in Britain

By Milan Rai, Justice Not Vengeance

13 July 2005: The Bombers Identified, The Report Censored

1) Censoring Crucial Information

Now that the police have identified at least three of the four bombers who struck London last Thursday as young British Muslim men, the question of how British Muslims could become so alienated as to carry out such a horrific attack has come to the centre of political and public attention.

In this context, it is absolutely extraordinary that the most authoritative source of information about this crisis, the joint Home Office and Foreign Office report, ‘Young Muslims and Extremism’, which was leaked to the Sunday Times and published with a front-page headline three days ago, has been entirely censored from today’s coverage and commentary in the serious British newspapers.

DAY ONE: 8 July 2005

The atrocities in London have shocked the world, and the world demands answers. Unfortunately, the answers being given in the British media are often highly misleading. (A brief analysis is here.)

JNV Briefing 77
By Milan Rai
(pdf available from JNV)

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE WRONG ANSWERS

Five days after the 11 September attacks, President Bush said that Osama bin Laden was ‘the prime suspect’. He added, ‘Now, I want to remind the American people that the prime suspect’s organization is in a lot of countries-it’s a widespread organization based upon one thing: terrorizing. They can’t stand freedom; they hate what America stands for.’

Addressing Congress on 20 Sept. 2001, President Bush said, ‘Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world-and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.’ He added, ‘Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber-a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.’

Prime Minister Blair told the House of Commons on 14 Sept. 2001 that Parliament had been specially recalled because ‘these attacks were not just attacks upon people and buildings; nor even merely upon the USA; these were attacks on the basic democratic values in which we all believe so passionately and on the civilised world’.

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE REAL ANSWERS

The US Government’s official ‘9/11 Commission’ reported that bin Laden’s grievance with the United States ’started in reaction to specific US policies’. Bin Laden and his group ’say that America had attacked Islam… Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.’ The US is also ‘held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as “your agents”.

Such charges, says the Commission, ‘found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers.’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: Norton & Co, 2004, p. 51)

How Washington Plans To Dominate The New Iraqi National Assembly
By Milan Rai

The elections in Iraq have been an unprecedented opportunity for ordinary people to influence the destiny of their country, but the National Assembly they have elected is so hedged in with US-imposed restrictions that the cabinet it produces will be more like a chain-gang of prisoners than an independent government.

A prominent Iraqi politician in the Shia coalition told the New Yorker in January that the US had quietly told the parties before the election that there were three conditions for the new government: it should not be under the influence of Iran; it should not ask for the withdrawal of US troops; and it should not install an Islamic state.