Blair is supposed to be a slick politician, yet the number of times he has engaged his mouth without first putting in place the brain of one of his many advisors are legion. Now he's done it again. As one set of political islamists (probably Al Qaeda though some SWP'ers like their Anonymous correspondent who has been posting here will no doubt try to say it was really the Occupation who did it) blow up a Mosque in Iraq Blair storms in with a promise that Britain will help to pay for its reconstruction. Well so now that in retaliation another set of political islamists have blown up a dozen Sunni Mosques is he now going to offer to pay for their reconstruction too, in order to be even handed?? But the question is why. One TV commentator said the Mosque was the Shiite equivalent of Canterbury Cathedral. Well if somebody blew up Canterbury Cathedral why on earth should British workers help to finance its reconstruction?

According to recent polls only 20% of people in Britain believe in any kind of God, and most of them probably do so because they are shit scared of the alternative fate when they die. Why should the 80% of people who have no such hang-ups pay for the reconstruction of a building such as Canterbury Cathedral that only a tiny minority of even that 20% ever use for their medieval ritual, particularly when the Church of Engalnd has loads of money of its own. Less still why should that 80% of people pay for a similar reconstruction of a building several thousand miles away used for similar medieval rituals.

I am all in favour of Britain and the US paying for the damage it has inflicted on the infrastructure of Iraq though it would be far better if that reconstruction work was done by Iraqi workers working for Iraqi companies rather than providing lucrative contracts for mainly US multinationls like Halliburton, but a Mosque blown up by Al Qaeda??? After all doesn't the extremely rich Bin Laden family own a large construction company. As its the followers of one of their offspring that are responsible shouldn't they be doing the work as a freeby?

It will be interesting to see how the SWP contort over this one. Like I said some of their more eccentric members like the Anonymous poster on seevral threads here will no doubt go into an hysterical rant that it was all done by the occupation to cause a rift in that well known and firm solidarity between the Shia and Sunni MUslims. But all reasonable observers recognise this as the work of foreign political islamists who have no concern for he lives of Iraqis either Sunni, Shia or secular, but who like our Anonymous SWP poster are consumed by their own little war against "imperialism", "Zionism" or whatever tag they can put on their real motive of trying to establish themselves as the reactionary rulers of the Middle East (and elsewhere if they could). Their motie here is to start a Civil War in Iraq, not because they believe tht such a war is necessary to improve the lives of Iraqi people, but because they believe this would create such chaos that it would mean the occupation forces would leave. Rather like Anonymous elsewhere has no concern for the thousands of Arab and Jewish workers who would die in his desired war to destroy Israel, these Islamists have no concern for the plight of Iraqis in their desire to drive out the occupation.

They have seized on the religious differences between Sunnis and Shia, which actually mask differences of material interest between the two groups i.e. the majority of the oil being in the Shia dominated South and Sunni fears they will not get a share of it, and used it to ferment the potential for Civil War that was already growing more strongly anyway. Which groups of reactionary political islamists will the SWP back in this conflict. After all they now have abandoned the idea of independent working class politics for siding with whoever the least reactionary force is - or at least presenting one side as less reactionary if doing so allows them to try to recruit from a mass movement supporting it.

All in all it puts the publication of a few anti-religious cartoons in proprtion doesn't it?