This entry was posted on
Monday, July 25th, 2005 at
1:16 pm and is filed
under The War on Stupid.

Tony Blair: This is the battle that must be won, a battle not just about the terrorist methods but their views. Not just their barbaric acts, but their barbaric ideas. Not only what they do but what they think and the thinking they would impose on others… Neither is it true that they have no demands. They do. It is just that no sane person would negotiate on them… They demand the elimination of Israel; the withdrawal of all Westerners from Muslim countries, irrespective of the wishes of people and government; the establishment of effectively Taleban states and Sharia law in the Arab world en route to one caliphate of all Muslim nations… This is a religious ideology… Those who kill in its name believe genuinely that in doing it, they do God’s work; they go to paradise.

What, I wonder, is Blair’s view of the religious extremists who hold sway over the Bush administration? They have equally extreme views on the individual rights of others (and on the state of Israel, as it happens) that are closely tied to their own belief in their eventual delivery to paradise. Take their approach to abortion and abstinence as two clear examples of the willingness to kill and the imposition of their thinking on others.

Are we not going to negotiate with the Bush administration any more? Or are we perhaps going to urge the Christian community to ‘clean up their own back yard‘?

Guardian – Denunciation doesn’t work: The argument of post-Brighton Blair and his supporters is that the bombers are simply evil and any attempt to understand them in a different context leads us to conclusions that reward terrorism and thus encourage further violence.

Talk Politics – Prejudice without a Halo: You cannot defeat terrorism through ignorance of its drives, motives and objectives, by dehumanising the terrorist and turning them into a bogeyman, or by denying even the possibility, let alone reality, that own actions have, in a multiplicity of ways, contributed to and, in some instances, created the context in which terrorism exists.

A Little Bit Left – Still Winning That War On Terror: So, where are all of the apologists for this war on terror? How do you continue to say that what is being done is the right way to do it? What will it take for you to admit that this has been a colossal failure?