UK foreign policy denies blame for terrorism
Regional-UK, Politics, 8/16/2006

UK Defence Secretary Des Brown yesterday denied that the UK's foreign policy was to blame for provoking terrorist attacks in Britain.

But Browne acknowledged that foreign policy gave "a new focus to people in terms of the way they want to present this particular problem." "I don't believe that it changes people's minds. I believe that it may give them a focus around which they want to frame their grievances," he said in an interview with BBC Radio's Today program.

The official added that it can be "explained to some degree by people looking to find another argument for their own opposition to our foreign policy." His comments came as deputy prime minister was meeting Britain's four Muslim MPs, including three who signed a letter with other Muslim organizations last week, urging the government not to ignore the effects of his foreign policies in endangering UK lives.

"The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region," they said in an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But Browne repeated the government's argument that the nature of terrorist attacks "predates" Britain's involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan war.

He said he did not accept that British foreign policy was "some kind of reason" for the radicalization of Muslims and that it could not account for why members of the community might become "indiscriminate terrorist killers." In a meeting with Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly on Monday, Khurshid Ahmed, chairman of the British Muslim Forum, also repeated the call for the government to review the excesses of its foreign policy.

"What we're saying is that there's a massive amount of disquiet about British foreign policy. And some of our young people have the perception that this foreign policy is directed against the Muslim world and therefore needs to be looked at," Ahmed said.

At their meeting with Prescott, Muslim MPs were expected to warn that they will not be treated as "patsies" to defend unpopular foreign policies in Iraq and Lebanon, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper Tuesday.

Labour MP, Sadique Khan, said MPs were particularly angry with comments from Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells, who claimed that they wanted foreign policy to be decided by fear of terrorism.

"Nobody is suggesting that foreign policy should be decided by six extremists in Dewsbury, but it is foolish to suggest or even expect us to go around defending government policy that is extremely unpopular in Muslim communities," he said.

But his colleague, Khalid Mahmood, who refused to sign the letter, claimed that the other Muslim MPs were engaged in a "PR stunt." Mahmood, who is Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Parry in central England was expected instead to repeat his call instead for renewed government action to tackle extreme deprivation in all communities, Muslim and non-Muslim, to tackle the problems of terrorism.

Previous Stories:
  UK lowers terror alert but threat still very serious   (8/14/2006)
  UK terrorist bomb story a fabrication: Welsh Muslims   (8/14/2006)
  UK pressures Muslims to counter foreign policy allegations   (8/14/2006)

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