The ugly monster called terrorism has reared its ugly head yet again and this time it is the ‘Cottonopolis’ of Manchester that has been targeted.
The multi-faith and multi-cultural city of immigrants best known for its textile mills and for being home to the beloved ‘Red Devils’ has been bedeviled today by an infernal evil that has managed to claim 19 innocent lives.
This assault has all the imprints of a Bataclan type copycat attack. According to initial reportage, it was an explosion near the foyer of a concert venue which was playing host to the pop sensation Ariana Grande that rocked the venue. Scores have been injured and the final accounting is yet to be settled.
This attack should serve as a ringing reminder that nobody is safe from the specter of violent extremist terrorism even if they are geographically isolated.
Therefore, it is imperative that Europe and the U.K. must put the rancorous Brexit divorce behind and come together as one force to take this cancer head-on as separated parents often do to secure the welfare of their offspring.
That said, we must examine a great hypocrisy in the wake of an even greater tragedy.
America just solemnized an arms deal worth an eye-popping $110 Billion with Saudi Arabia a nation which is arguably one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism and most importantly the ideological home as well as the most diligent exporters of the ultra-conservative and fanatical strand of Islam that experts say promotes and inspires the kind of violent extremism that groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS subscribe to.
How do you square that circle!!!
On one hand the US and its allies are fighting an existential battle against these forces of evil and on the other hand they are pumping in weapons to the very states that are the sanctuaries for these killers!
The Western powers are hostages of their own military industrial complexes. They are so used to the easy money that has for long poured into their coffers from weaponizing the world that it is almost impossible to wean themselves off of that. What makes it even worse is that the customers with the deepest pockets are despots, dictators and nation states ruled by authoritarian and repressive regimes who sponsor terrorism in one form or the other.
These war games being played under the garb of maintaining geopolitical balance of power must stop with immediate effect.
It is blood money of the worst variety! Moreover, it is inevitable that the chickens will one day come home to roost.
I fervently hope that this latest installment of death and destruction shakes the wise men and women who wield the reins of power out of their self induced torpor and forces thier collective conscience to reflect upon the mistakes of the past and consequently attempt to remedy them.
The world must endeavor to cut off the head of the monster so that no more Manchesters are witnessed but they must also ensure they starve the depraved ideology, its virulent ideologues and its habitat to extinction so that no more monsters are born from that filth.