You think there's a difference between a reason and an excuse?

Well, yes, actually.

This rather hysterical Grauniad article makes an astonishing admission (astonishing, that is, for the Grauniad) then immediately tries to gloss over it.

The roots of the international conspiracy to mount a bomb attack in the UK,
which was intended to kill and maim as many people as possible and cause
unprecedented disruption, can be traced to a point long before the war in Iraq.

Really? So what you're saying is that when Islamists try to blow us up, it's not because went dictator hunting in Iraq and ended up getting the blame whenever Sunnis and Shias kill each other with that special, indiscriminate bloodthirstiness of which only the truly devout are capable? Indeed not:

Several of the plotters had come together in 2001, some had discussed "hitting"
British targets before the invasion, and at least one had undergone terrorist
training before 9/11.

So the war really has nothing to do with all this? But then, whatever else can be the cause, oh Grauniad? Surely the war in Iraq is responsible for anything and everything? Ah, well, quite:

The war, however, clearly provided the impetus - or at least the excuse - for a
plan to target the UK.

I like that: "the impetus - or at least the excuse". In other words, let's get back to what we do best - ignorantly blaming the war in Iraq for troubles here that have been brewing for up to half a century. Because there's really no difference between a reason and an excuse, right?

Well, just because the guy in Traffic says so, doesn't mean it's the case. There is a difference between a reason and an excuse. An excuse is what you offer when you don't want to give the reason. "The dog ate my homework" instead of "I couldn't be bothered to do it". "My phone was dead" instead of "I knew you'd call, and didn't fancy spending the next hour listening to your self-absorbed dissection of your relationship troubles, so I switched it off". "They were perfectly peaceable until we started gratuitously killing them in Iraq" instead of, oh, gosh, I don't know, "They are fanatical adherents of an acquisitive, repressive, bloodthirsty creed that finds nothing but contempt for the decadence of the Western liberal tradition, and they're still stinging from being kicked out of Spain 500 years ago, and this kind of shit is just the excuse they need to wage their campaign of terror with the tacit approval of the America-hating, Jew-baiting left-wing media."