Condoleezza Rice - war criminal, terrorist or ally

A war criminal in Liverpool and a terrorist in Blackburn? And on both occasions, accompanied by the UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw?

Has the UK government changed its policies to so that it can be a complicit to known unlawful and illegal acts?

Come on now, what is happening? Don't fret. It's just the people's reactions to the visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to northern England this week.

The Stop The War coalition in Liverpool says it will demonstrate against the Iraq war everywhere Rice goes. The movement has labelled her as a war criminal for the US-led invasion into Iraq three years ago.

Some of them had gathered outside her Liverpool hotel and chanted slogans on Thursday night.

A spokeswoman for Stop the War, Lindsey German said:

"It is disgusting that a woman who was so central to it (the war) should be
wined and dined and feted in this way, at the taxpayers' expense."

And in Blackburn, Ms Rice was denied entry into a local mosque over her government's involvement in the war.

And mind you, Muslim voters in Blackburn were vital in electing Mr Straw in the last two elections and their blunt objection against Ms Rice is surely a slap in the face for the state secretary and his government.

A Blackburn cleric Cleric Saeed Ahmed said:

"Letting Ms Rice inside a mosque is like allowing Ariel Sharon inside or a terrorist. We don't think it is right that a woman with thousands of people's blood on her hands should be able to visit our mosques and have her picture taken."

Obviously there will be other community leaders who will think it is okay to have Ms Rice visiting the mosque. Like Ibrahim Master, who said:

"We need to show that, far from producing terrorists, mosques create citizens
that respect other people's values."

And Mr Straw himself is said to be furious. His spokesman said:

"To claim a leading figure of one of our great allies is a terrorist is totally
inappropriate. Everything is being done with respect to communities involved and taking people's views into consideration."

However the community's largest lobby group in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), is not surprised by the mosque's decision.

MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala said:

"This particular US administration has upset many Muslims in the UK and around
the world ... so it is not particularly surprising that the visit to a Blackburn
mosque has had to be canceled."

And what about the lady herself? She is clearly unperturbed by all these and continues with her visit and says she is enjoying the warm welcome.

She said:

"People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights. I am equally - if not more - impressed with the warm welcome."

How gracious of her. But surely she must also believe that in a democratic state, the views of the majority matters just as much as the views of the minority.

Right now I think it is only the minority that still wants the US troops to remain in Iraq. And I believe the majority of Iraqis themselves believe they can self-govern.

Will she listen and adhere to these democratic rights too?

(p/s: photographs courtesy of agencies.)