I ARRIVED IN CANADA for a short visit a few days before the terrorist bombings in London. The horrendous scenes brought into light by mass media are a calamity for the humanity. One would have mixed feelings; resentment, protest, rage, pain and hatred. One would ask, "Why this would happen?" One would ask," What would the bombings and killing people, who are not politicians or might have never tracked Bin Ladinıs and Zarqawi news, have to do with the acts of the American, the British and the Israeli forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine!

I have stayed in Iraq for two years. I was about to die three times in bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk, though I am a tough opponent to the occupation and its pro-government. The thugs that bomb the residency, work and public places, never care for who is or against the occupation. Everyday, in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Baquba and Ramadi, crimes, as the London bombings, occur. Everyday, children, women, the young and the old, as those in London, fall dead. The only difference is that victims of London are treated as human beings by the G8 leaders and mass media, but those who die in Iraq are not, simply because they are from the Middle East. The mass media in the west covered the London tragedy so well that it has won the international opinion to the victimsı side and inflamed rage all over the world against the Islamic groups, whereas in Iraq, the victims of terrorism are just numbers.

In an interview with the person in-charge of political sections in the US embassy in Iraq, she said that they formed an ethnocentric sectarian government in Iraq because the society in Iraq is diverse in ethnicities and religions and that this government will bring about security. I replied, " why do not you form such a government in the United States of America? Does the US society not have multiple ethnicities and sects?" Are not there red Indians, the white, Mexicans, Iranians, Asians, Christians, Arabs and Muslims? I continued saying that the government you formed will not establish security and stability. She said that my reply is very stimulating. Today, the officials in America and Britain and the mass media think that the society in Iraq does not deserve but an ethnocentric religious government and the people there are not talk about the international declaration of human rights. According to this perspective, those who die in London are not the same as those who die in Iraq. This is sheer racist politics and that is what Paul Bremer expressed when saying that they would fight terrorism in Iraq instead of Washington and New York. In other words, let the victims of terrorism be Iraqis not Americans.

Today more than anytime ever, it is crystal clear that the western governments, though secularist before their citizens, have supported inter-societal laws that put Muslims communities in ghettos and provided political, media and moral support to the Islamic groups that manipulate charity organizations and associations as a cover to pursue their goals in the so-called Islamic countries. This could be the tax of the cold war being paid by the innocent in the west on behalf of their governments, which have supported these Islamic groups in the face of the Eastern Bloc.

On the other hand, the western governments have provided the same support, according the same perspectives, to the governments that declare Islam their ideology. The best example is Iraq where the US and Britain governments have pushed to divide the society in Iraq on ethnic and religious bases not on humane ones. The same government set a blockade against Haider of Switzerland because his agenda was Nazi and fascist while they provided all the support available to the Governing Council and the government that consider women second rate people and do not recognize the youthıs aspirations and political freedoms. The Islamic thugs have displaced 45 000 Christians in front of the British troops from Basra under death threats and forcing their girls to wear veil. A civil set-in has been going on for two weeks in Najaf, the Shiat stronghold, against the Islamic laws that ban western haircuts and wearing jeans, but the mass media in the west has not covered this action so as not to refute the big myth and illusion, created by the same media, that the Iraqi society is a tribal, ethnic and religious one.

If we want the crimes in London, New York, Washington, Madrid, Istanbul, Baghdad and Kirkuk not to be repeated, the governments should abolish the laws the encourage disintegration of the communities within the society, and support the secular libertarian trend in Iraq and the region that demand a non-ethnic and non-religious government that takes people according to their humanity definition. The governments in the west should stop categorizing Islam as moderate when aligning with them, and extremist when against them. Islam is a religion like Christianity. And the government in the west separated Christianity from the state, and they should do the same and support hat trend in Iraq that demands the separation of Islam from the state and education. For these governments not to lose face before their peoples, they should support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, refrain from supporting Sharonıs government, and end the occupation in Iraq immediately since it pulls the rug from under these ante humanity thugs that uses the occupation as justification for their crimes.

* Samir Adil, the Editor-in-Chief of "Ila Alamam" newspaper, Baghdad.