Just Google 'Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline' and you will see why Britain, the USA and assorted UN countries are there, not because the Taleban stone people to death and imprison women in educationless lives of unending domestic slavery - after all, they were the very people we anxiously got onside when those blasted Russkies invaded the benighted country. We briskly supplied them with the ammunition with which they now whack foreign troops, ours included. Whoops!
Let's get the reason for being there straight. It's the oil, stupid. Otherwise we'd have overrun Zimbabwe by now (to hell with 'let Africa sort out its own problems') to depose Mugabe and reinstate ownership of the farms which now lie rotten and fallow, no longer able to feed not just its own population (under - I know it's so not popular to say it - white Zimbabwean supervision) but export tonnes of meat and vegetables annually. If it had been worthwhile in the long run for us to do so, we'd have done it. But it isn't, so we haven't.
Back to Islamic Centre - it's thrown up some very interesting reactions in the US and outside, hasn't it? I think Ground Zero is now so entrenched in American history that it will take many decades, maybe even a century or two, before it's faded enough to be viewed as anything other than a Muslim atrocity. But we mustn't forget that the USA has never had anything like this happen to it via a foreign or outside source. It's had a civil war, which was - obviously - entirely internal. It's had a couple of mad white Americans, Tim McVey and the Unabomber, cause brief mayhem. But with the exception of the prior bombing attempt at the same venue, which wasn't very successful, this is the first time the country has borne a malign foreign-based, foreign-instigated attack. It just isn't used to being kicked on its own soil by outsiders. We British, on the other hand, have a glorious lineage of being invaded by the Nords, the Romans, the French, bombardment beyond belief by the Nazis, and latterly the influence of millions of foreign language students. The USA hasn't - quite the opposite. It's so used to barging into most conflicts or creating entirely unnecessary ones of its own that it was no doubt a huge shock to its system when a tiny handful of dedicated (also read fanatical, nutty, or brave, according to taste) dissidents could cause such a monster physical and psychological blow within its rather smug confines. Not just in its major city, but at the - gasp! - Pentagon, from which its many military adventures flow. Not only a slap, but a deeply symbolic slap.
It would be nice to think that Americans could divorce the idea of Islam = worldwide terror, but we're talking about what is still a remarkably ill-informed country when it comes to knowing how the rest of the world really lives. When most Americans tour, they like to know they'll stay in American-owned hotels, eat American-style food, and travel with their own kind. They're not much given - bar people like Ernest Hemingway - to exploring the deeper recesses of foreign life. So we can't be too surprised that they've immediately equated an Islamic centre - regardless of whether it's two blocks or two miles from Ground Zero - with Muslim terrorism.
I think it'd be just fine to have the centre in New York, but not in Manhattan. America is still too raw from the attack, and too ignorant of Islam, to accept that graciously. I think it'd be better for the centre, too, since I can see it as a target for - at the least - mild vandalism, but also, in true American style, for the gun-toting loon who will one day go bursting in, 'avenging' the fallen of 9/11. Which isn't likely to do much for inter-faith relationships.
