So, even as we heave a sigh of relief over the thousands of mainly British and American lives saved in the thwarted aircraft explosions last week, we are duty-bound to ask ourselves the inescapable question: Who is responsible for the death of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians in all those ‘‘shock and awe’’ bombings, a macabre reality-TV spectacle which the world community watched helplessly? Who is responsible for the horrendous bloodletting that is still taking place in Iraq on almost a daily basis?

Saddam was by no means an angel. He was a ruthless dictator. But by overthrowing his regime in such wantonly illegitimate manner, the Bush administration has actually aided and abetted the cause of jehadi terrorism. This cause no doubt predates Bush, and will continue to menace countries that cherish pluralism and democracy long after Bush has gone. But none can deny that, post-Iraq, jehadi terrorism has won thousands of new sympathisers in the Muslim world. Those who plotted the aerial version of last year’s bomb blasts in London might well have thought of it as their own low-tech response to the hi-tech war that Bush ordered in Iraq.

The Bush administration has spent upwards of $140 billion on the Iraq war, and the cost is increasing by $177 million a day. But an even greater cost is the steady arrival of ‘bodybags’ in a war that American soldiers don’t know why they are fighting. They only know that they will never win it. This explains why Connecticut—and much of the rest of the US—is angry with Bush and those like Lieberman who support his indefensible war.

... contd.