Guilty Unless Proved Innocent

kmp responds to the previous post:

Recklessness rather than intention!?

It means “Guilty unless proved innocent”

It does.

Also found some good rejoinders to Hasan Suroor's uncharacteristically illogical piece on The Hindu's Letters to the Editor:

Debate or denial

Hasan Suroor in the article “Debate or denial: the Muslim dilemma” (July 17) would like Muslims to stop blaming the west for the violence caused by the jihadists. He feels Muslims are in a state of denial. George Bush will agree with the author. While I strongly oppose Al-Qaeda, I cannot overlook the role of the west in the havoc caused in Muslim lands. Wise western leaders such as President Jimmy Carter had opposed any regime change in Muslim countries.

The example of Iran is too obvious where, in 1953, a duly elected Prime Minister, Mossadegh, was overthrown and later killed in a CIA coup. His crime: he opposed the Anglo Iran Oil Company paying more taxes in Britain, and much less royalty to Iran. The reaction eventually led to the theocratic revolution of Khomeini. Similarly Iraq was invaded in spite of worldwide protests and over 6 lakh civilians have died in the war so far. Yet there is hardly any reference to these horrors today. But an unexploded bomb in Glasgow can so disturb Mr. Suroor. Muslims do not need the west to run their own affairs. In particular, they must stop patronising autocratic Muslim rulers. Our true path is independent of both Osama bin Laden and George Bush.

J.S. Bandukwala,

Vadodara

* * *

I agree that the real challenge to Islamic society comes from the despotic regimes of most Muslim countries that are aided and abetted by the west.

Any sensitive person should be angered by the U.S. foreign policy, particularly in Iraq. Everyone cannot be expected to be a mute spectator while a handful of business interests orchestrate war and butchery under false pretexts. It is amply clear from Dr. Mohammed Haneef’s ordeal that the west has a fairly clear cut agenda — if you aren’t in the Salman Rushdie frame of mind you may as well be a terrorist. Terrorism is a natural by-product of the top heavy world order that doesn’t lend an ear to the weak and despairing.

Sanjay Ghosh,
New Delhi

Hasan Suroor's piece flies in the face of facts - all the major terrorist attacks recently (7/7, Madrid train bombings, and the recent UK attempts) are political and mostly in response to the Iraq war, the Palestinian problem, and in general western foreign policy. As for Mr Butt and other 'reformed' extremists, like Mr Suroor himself says:

Arguably, defectors are not the most reliable of people and there is, inevitably, an element of exaggeration in what they say about the organisation they have left and of their own role in it.

You could say that again Mr Suroor.