Posted on 10/04/2004 9:18:09 AM PDT by hardworking
Our divisions are summarized by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his Tuesday address to Britain's Labor Party Conference.
Reiterating Britain's necessary alliance with the United States, he described two conflicting worldviews that define today's politics both here and abroad:
One view is that there are isolated individuals, extremists, engaged in essentially isolated acts of terrorism . not qualitatively different from the terrorism we have always lived with. If you believe this, we carry on the same path as before 11th September. We try not to provoke them and hope in time they will wither.
The other view is that this is a wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism . If you take this view, you believe September 11th changed the world; that Bali, Beslan, Madrid and scores of other atrocities that never make the news are part of the same threat, and the only path to take is to confront this terrorism, remove it root and branch, and at all costs stop them (from) acquiring the weapons to kill on a massive scale because these terrorists would not hesitate to use them.
While Blair expressed regret that the evidence on weapons of mass destruction was wrong, he said he couldn't apologize for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein. Advancing democracy in the Middle East is the only hope for security at home, he said.
They (terrorists) are in Iraq for the very reason we should be. They have chosen this battleground because they know success for us in Iraq is not success for America or Britain or even Iraq itself but for the values and way of life that democracy represents. That's why they are there. That is why we should be there .
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Damn, I wish that our socialists would have half the intelligence of Blair....
He understands that regardless of how many nifty social welfare programs a country has, they don't help the dead...
Blair's a socialist, but if his reforms take root, the way will be cleared for an authentic U.S.-style conservative movement. Blair wants to create a class-less society, in which ordinary people can aspire to do better than their parents. In class-ridden Britain, this sort of thing is frowned upon--only uppity people want to rise above their class, and no matter what they achieve, they cannot realistically aspire to be accepted by their "betters." Even Mrs. Thatcher is still that "shopkeeper's daughter." Until you have some contact with the UK, you don't really understand what a wonderful country the United States is, and why so many people would risk their lives to become day laborers here. The Tory party is a mess--it's a hidebound, elitist, anti-progress, anti-internationalist relic that is hardly congruent with the Republican party.
Good luck to him and to Briton.
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