In the third part of King Henry VI, Warwick, is mortally wounded in battle near against the forces of York at the battle of Barnet. As in other Shakespeare plays characters, wounded and dying still have the time and the strength to make statements about themselves, the world, their philosophy of life etc.

In my view the lines of the dying Warwick are one of the most poignant Shakespeare monologues and I am surprised it is not as well known as others, Reflecting upon his own life now at an end, Warwick says,

Here I will deal with some recent secret (or not so secret) treasons of the world.

The most notable events of July 2005 have included the terrorist attacks in London, and other attacks in Egypt. Again and again and again, the response of the corporate media and politicians is a cry to escalate the so-called war on terror and to drive fear into the population at large. Fear, as we well know, is a powerful tool of political control. Under the color of fear politicians and dictators have been able to impose their will and to prevent social reforms.

Incidentally, there was one event that did not get much publicity in the media but earlier in July a small private plane drifted into the Washington air space. Whereupon President George W. Bush headed directly for the bunker under the White House. The event is in itself historically insignificant, but the symbolism is clear. The mouse can frighten the elephant into the cellar. The appropriate reference also comes from King Henry VI part 3.

Speaking of thefts, the current administration has stolen from the political discourse is a basic respect for truth and buried it fathoms deep. Someone could equally argue that if a government, under the cover of conscious lies, spends the commonwealth’s money on wars of destruction, the government is committing a theft. An article on the Oregonian reports that the approved budget for the wars of invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan is 322 billion dollars. Assume, for the sake of simplification, that there are 322 million citizens and legal residents in the US. This means that the wars of invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan cost each citizen one thousand dollars. Therefore, an average family of 4 has virtually spent 4,000 dollars to invade, bomb, kill and destroy two totally independent countries. I am sure that many families could use 4,000$ in much more constructive pursuits, such as education or even direct charity. And for a homeless person or a family in strained circumstances one thousand dollars per head is an economic shot in the arm, a much healthier shot than shooting other people in order to invade and colonize their country.

You will not find these simple mathematics reported by the corporate media – any news that may cause the viewers to think independently is to be avoided. Rather than calling the invasion of Iraq by its name, the media calls it ‘War for Iraq’. That grammatical particle ‘for’ is treasonous.

Here then are two ‘secrets’ treasons, one, hiding the real cost of the war to each individual and two, the usage of grammar to hide a capital sin.

I call it capital sin because the current administration is filled with Christian values. You remember how the Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing a sculpture with the ten commandments to be installed in the State Justice Building in Texas. Now, if I am not mistaken one of the commandments engraved in the sculpture is ‘Thou shall not kill’. But I do not belong to any religion and perhaps I got the commandments wrong.

This is a clear case where the statement by Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice applies,

I would suggest, however, that along with the statue of the ten commandments, the justices so keen on Christianity, show for example the picture of the Afghan father is holding the body of a young girl, probably his daughter, killed by courtesy of the US Air Force.

And I would like to ask my viewers, to imagine themselves in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and to visualize your country targeted and destroyed by US and British bombs since 1991, now 14 years. If you had seen or witnessed the murder of civilians and the annihilation of soldiers, fighting single-handed against the only empire left in the world, I ask you, what would be your reaction? Would you not feel a sense of complete hatred for anything and anybody connected with the evil empire?

And here is another not so secret treason. You can rest assured that Bush and his crew are super-protected by layers of security men and military units. They sow the hatred, the innocent citizens reap the rewards.

As for the London bombings, the Labor government responded with the usual massive hypocrisy. The fact that the Labor party in England still calls itself Labor is an insult to anybody who does an honest work for a living. This is treason to the idea of the labor movement itself, but I am digressing.

The question was not even raised if there was a connection between the London bombings and the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does not require great insight or political genius to anticipate that the response to Britain’s participation in a predatory and illegal war would be acts of terrorism. The alliance of a Labor Government with the warmongers of the White-House and Pentagon establishment and the totally hypocritical invocations of democracy make a toxic combination. The consequences would be inevitable.

Yet, the British government and the corporate media line is that Islam wants to impose its views on the Western World. Were it not for the tragedies of death and destruction, these official government statements would be almost funny.

In one of Aesop’s fable the wolf and the lamb are drinking at a mountain stream and the wolf is upstream from the lamb. The wolf says to the lamb ‘You are dirtying my water’ and the lamb replies, ‘How could I do that if the water comes downstream’. ‘But six months ago you said bad things about me’ says the wolf. ‘But 6 months ago I wasn’t even born’ says the lamb. At this point the wolf says ‘By Hercules, your father spoke evil of me’ and kills the lamb. Aesop concludes ‘This fable was written because there are men who oppress other men under false pretences’.

If Bush had knowledge of the classics (his usage of English suggests he doesn’t), he would say that the wolf ate the lamb to give him freedom and democracy.

But Islam is not the lamb. I am not an expert on Islam, and while many are eager to cast opinions on what they have not seen or studied, I can only say that I have traveled extensively in the Middle East on behalf of my employer and on my own. I also spent quite some time in Iran during the 5 years before the revolution that led to the establishing of the current Islamic Republic. I opened an office in Tehran, as well as in Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.

This experience, having to deal with people at all levels, the grocer, the telephone man, the school teacher, etc. plus the technical professionals directly connected with my work, gave me a good perspective, I think, on the local culture. I cannot think of a less stereotyped word but let’s call it culture.

I can say I never found a people with such an antique, almost Homeric sense of hospitality. What made the experience pleasurable went beyond the excellent food or the various acts of kindness. I perceived that at that moment I was both the visiting king and a member of the family, an instant brother.

At times I asked myself how I could ever reciprocate. And yet on reflection I realized that all they expected was my friendship and respect – everything else I would do for them was completely optional.

You may say that this is obvious but respect is an interesting concept that cannot be dealt with adequately in a short time. If I can inadequately generalize, respect in Islamic cultures extends to areas of behavior and social life about which we could not care less - or if we do, we mostly keep it to ourselves, because we are resigned to the fact that we cannot do anything about it.

Here is an example. The people of Sisters, Oregon do not want another McDonald in their town. You would assume that the will of the people prevails. But McDonald has the money to buy the politicians, to get the permit, to open yet another outlet over the will of the people. The only way to stop it (at least temporarily) is or was an act of terrorism, as in fact it happened. The young man who lighted the fire at the construction site is now in jail and branded a criminal. I am not saying that he was right to torch the construction, I am saying that democracy (in the etymology of the word, the power of the people) in 95% of the cases is powerless against money.

This fact, in a confused and not totally articulated way, is what Islam rejects. The way of life of Islam is incompatible with the unwritten rules of consumption-driven capitalism, specifically the equivalence of sex and money and consequent use of women as tools for the promotion of sales.

Equally, the unfettered display of wealth as the only symbol of success goes against the grain of the culture. I am sure there are extremely wealthy people in Iran, but they contained the display of wealth. And from what I could understand by looking at the pictures of magazines, the local media was not obsessed by the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

All this is not because Muslims dislike trade. Though it is generally unknown, Mohammed made salesmanship respectable. In Roman times the term merchant implied some inferiority, and even today the term ‘merchant’ has a mild sound of unpleasantness. Instead, Islam associated the idea of fair trade with a virtuous life.

Shopping in the covered bazaar of Tehran or any other large Muslim City is a true experience. There are thousands of one stall, one-man stores, selling just about everything. You can quickly assess that by Western standards they cannot make a large profit, but I did not detect a sense of discontent among the salesmen or the customers. And when I bought something the inevitable negotiation on price added a bit of amusement to the transaction.

I was in Iran at the time when the Shah ‘opened to the West’. In a very small way, my work in Iran was a consequence of that policy. But I could see how very quickly Western ways were making inroads. The main thoroughfare in Tehran was plastered with huge billboards of Coca Cola and Pepsi. Fast Food Franchises were opened, night clubs were opened importing strippers from Europe. In the North part of Tehran they opened a country club for the elite and the rich who mixed with visiting western executives. And the local new rich were beginning to parrot the West, especially in the least desirable aspects of the cults of profit, glorification of wealth, glitter and of course sex.

You may ask what does all this have to do with current terrorism and bombings. Let’s make one thing clear. It is not Islam that wants to impose its tenets to the US and England, it’s the US with the help of England that wants to impose its rules on Islam by military, economic and cultural colonialism.

I quote from a statement in the New York Times, written at the time when the US (under the Clinton administration) decided to start bombing Yugoslavia. The article was called "The hidden hand of the market," and it goes

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist—McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies, for Walmart, McDonald and Burgerking is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps ... Without America on duty, there will be no America Online."

Thomas Friedman, the writer of the statement, has been for years the mouth of the pro-Israel and right-wing warmongers in the US Governments.

This man denounces those who spread hate while he himself has cynically advocated policies that created the hatred and caused the death of many Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani people and children.

For the US and English governments to condemn the bombings is an act of supreme hypocrisy. As Timon comments on the poet,

"…wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?"

The tears of these governments are as false as their motives.

As Malcolm says of Macbeth,

"To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy."

Why? Because, as I said, the lives of the warmongers are super-protected. And instead of eliminating the source of terror by quenching the thirst of imperialist domination of nations and peoples and their resources, the warmongers capitalize on the blood of the innocents to feed the fear and with the fear submission. And they still hope that the hatred they inspire will justify them to crush, eliminate and kill any opposition, at home and abroad.

When did all this start? It started in 1967 when Israel occupied and colonized Palestine under the same color and pretence as now the US have invaded and colonized Iraq. And the trail that has led to the recent London bombings started with the changes in British society brought along by Margaret Thatcher.

I use the term "British society," but it was Margaret Thatcher, who, in support of her dog-eat-dog political and economic philosophy, declared, "There is no such thing as society."

Thatcher showed contempt for ordinary working people while fostering the creation of extraordinary wealth for a select few. During the last 25 years, the complex social arrangements and institutions that once gave the British people a connection to a broader community have disintegrated. On one hand, the elevation and glorification of the powerful individual—the billionaire businessman, the fabulously rich "celebrity"—as the epitome of success, on the other the impoverishment of millions in Britain and all over the world.

The injustice of imperialism and the inherent exasperated deepening of class division in a nominally egalitarian society are two breeding grounds of hatred. It is a tragedy that the blood of the innocents should become the only remaining option to demonstrate the consequence of the original evil.

Thatcher declared that society does not exist, America’s response was ‘trickle down economics’, a beautiful expression that recalls the biblical image of the poor feeding on the crumbs falling from the table of the rich.

We can apply to the election of Margaret Thatcher (or Reagan) the line that Romeo utters when his friend Mercutio is slain by Tybalt,