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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

Blair’

Inside the Mind of a Suicide Bomber…?

“Their cause is not founded on injustice. It is founded on belief, one whose fanaticism is such that it can’t be moderated. It can’t be remedied. It has to be stood up to.” – Tony Blair, London, Saturday 16 July 2005. In every point in that statement, other than the first one, Tony Blair is correct. In saying it is not founded on injustice, he makes a fundamental error. Injustice, in fact, feeds their cause. Back in the Autumn of 2001, I was seriously impressed with the way Blair went around the capitols of the Middle East and Asia, persuading the kings and the sheiks and the generals and the dictators that, if they would not openly support the imminent American onslaught on Afghanistan, then at least not to publicly oppose it. He learned passages from the Qur’an to support his case with Muslim leaders. For a time I actually wondered if Blair could do 2nd Tier thinking. What he did was certainly way beyond the red/BLUE simplistic black & white thinking of George W Bush. However, Blair’s support for Bush’s 2003 war on Iraq showed a distinct dearth of global or strategic thinking. Defeating the military of Saddam Hussein, seriously degraded… Read More

Suicide Bomber – right or wrong?

by Dave Lowe As the country reels from the London bombings, I received this thought-provoking message from Dave Lowe, a graphics artist and trainee counsellor in Hull. Dave wants it put up for public discussion. So here goes… I listened to Bush on the news and yet again he said “We will find the perpetrators of these terrible acts.” Does that guy have any idea that it’s not about 10, 100, 1,000 guys with olive skin trying to blow up some folks on a bus?! Bush sees only goodies & baddies in his singular ORANGE view. There are very different thought and value structures in different parts of the planet. All Bush sees is the free individual acting for his/her rights, being attacked.( ORANGE in the US, orange/GREEN in Europe). He sees the attackers as the same as him, just with darker skin. How wrong he and Blair have been has been recently shown when they have tried to present the people of Iraq with the freedom to choose a multi-party democracy (just like the one at home) – and they didn’t want it. Offering GREEN values to a BLUE society that is in RED turmoil ! Bush does not see that the Arab and Muslim… Read More

Are the Tories sitting on an Election Winner?

The received wisdom of the political pundits is that 2005 will be an election year. It doesn’t need to be, of course. Constitutionally Tony Blair can go on to May 2006; but prime ministers often like to put themselves to the vote after 4 years – especially if they think they are ahead of the Opposition and/or they think things are likely to get worse. The Labour Government looks tired and no longer so sure of itself – particularly in terms of  policies. (For example, House of Lords reform is bogged down and the fox hunting ban is a mess.) Blair is unpopular with much of his own party and much of the country – tainted by his unremitting support for the American war on/in Iraq. The media continue to speculate on just how sour relations are between Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown. And the Prime Minister’s unequivocal public support for Home Secretary David Blunkett right upto the morning of his forced resignation has once again brought into question his judgement. With the Government seeming to stumble from one poor/unpopular decision to another, you would think Blair would want to hang on as long as possible in the hope of things somehow improving. That to go to the… Read More