Relax

I've been amazed at how easily pleased Westerners seem to be, with conscious appeasing gimicks to saving the earth.

Never minding the fact that the West has used all kinds of lethal materials in their bombs, are using genetically modified materials to grow food and yet people have recently been concerned about the use of plastic bags to carry food home in.

How nice it must be to also have that option, to carry food home in with relative security whilst walking down the streets, knowing full well that death squads are'nt lurking down dark allies or marching into shops asking, do you use paper of plastic?

"You use Plastic!" they'd shout in aghast before pulling out a gun and shooting the shop workers in the head.

A Song for Al-Qaida

All to often, when debating issues along the lines of bombs going off, fires etc etc there is always a reference to Al-Qaida, a network of people who align themselve to the vague mutterrings of Osama Bin Laden, a man who appears every so often in musci videos on al-Jazeera.

Up until now, every incident that has taken place since 9/11 has occurred at the hands of this strange "network", which nobody seems to be able to explain or understand exactly what it stands for.

I think the reasons why this is, is because Al-Qaida does not appear to have any clear political programme or even any objectives appart from the use of shock tactics, which grab headlines or they claim to have carried out an attack to get "credit" for something that another group has done.

Again, it is all unclear because Al-Qaida is the bogey man, which unlike other movements appears in a Burkha, wears a beard, shouts and dances around fires in Afghanistan shooting bullets into the air.

Now as an Iraqi, many people have asked if I support Al-Qaida and to set the record straight the answer is no - why is that? Because simply the thought of dancing around a camp fire in Afghanistan is simply a bit too camp.

So what about the people who blew up the Tube Station and bus in London, those British citizens who strapped on bombs to kill other British citizens, British citizens who found God in some East End Mosque and went on their holy pilgrimage to a training camp in Pakistan.

Similar to those, who dressed up as Suicide Bombers for a demonstration in London, in protest to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed but unlike the prophet Mohammed, who was neither a suicide bomber or a drug dealer - amazing that the press does still jump up and down and claim the phantom menace of Al-Qaida is living in our back yard and still the left find some obscure connection to Iraq.

I must admit that I do find Al-Qaida quite funny, because I have heard many people make claims about Islam which if I wanted to, could jump up and down and claim are made by Al-Qaida. Did you know and these are allegations which have been made in the West, that Muslims "have got to wear Burkha", that its a Muslims right "to kill a female relative" who has either an affair or disobeys her relative and "to be a proper Muslim you must speak Urdu".

The funniest one I ever heard was an Arab man and his non-Arab friend, who whilst at College recently was told that he couldnt take part in an Arabic dance class because it would "offend the Muslims", who were not allowed to "participate" in the class themselves without a male escort.

When the English dance teacher of Arabic dance was challenged on this, her response was the Arab man did not look "Muslim enough" to take part and yet the College claimed this was not an act of Racism.

Whilst fun is still to be had, when dealing with the Al-Qaida question and preferably it can take place over a good old fashioned Bacon - lettuce - tomatoe sandwich, something which I think would make me an "infidel", along with the celebration of Christmas and Easter but then again who wants to celebrate a Middle Eastern tradition out of fear of offending religious fundamentalists and minorities in the West?

I would like to dedicate my own song to the religious wackos out there, this ones for you!