This entry was posted on
Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at
10:09 am and is filed
under The War on Stupid.

Oh, FFS…

First we were assured that Iraq played no part in the London bombings because 11/9 happened before Iraq and the roots went so deep that it obviously didn’t matter how much water we fed them – or that we allowed terrorists to take root in Iraq. Therefore, we should abandon this line of thinking.

Then Iraq was a factor, but it was inferred heavily that anyone who mentioned this was actually suggesting that we ‘give in’ to the terrorists. Therefore, we should abandon this line of thinking.

Now Blair denies the denial, and assures us that anyone not holding his position on terror seeks to justify the actions of terrorists. (Which – we can assume – would be a far worse crime than using terrorists to justify an illegal invasion, torture of men, women and children, use of napalm on civilians, etc. etc. etc.)

Therefore… oh, hell, you know the rest.

Tony Blair (26 July): My point to you is this – it’s time we stopped saying ‘OK, we abhor their methods but we kinda see something in their ideas or maybe they’ve got a sliver of excuse or justification’. They’ve got no justification for it…

Why, even the Isareli Foreign Minister agrees…

Silvan Shalom (26 July): There is no room for tolerance or understanding of the motives and justifications of these suicide bombers whether they live in London, or Sharm El-Sheik, or Tel Aviv, New York or Madrid. Nothing justifies the action of the taking of innocent lives.

Lovely logic. Don’t consider the motives, because nothing can justify the action.

You may want to check out this post at Perfect and the following three articles:

The Herald – Should Blair step down?: One danger in the present situation is that, in an effort to present a united front to the terrorists, the public loses its capacity for critical debate. It was absurd for Mr Blair to insist that linking the July 7 bombings and the Iraq war was tantamount to offering succour to terrorists. By doing so, he confused reason with justification, of which there is none in either London or Baghdad. Yesterday, he was prepared to retreat only slightly from his original position, admitting the conflict might affect the warped thinking of a small minority. That is the nub of it. We cannot undo the invasion of Iraq, however mistaken, so now the focus must be on tracking down and incapacitating that small minority. It is vital that, in the heat of this battle, the government does not rush through measures that could prove both counter-productive and destructive of hard-won civil liberties.

Guardian – The 5 per cent solution: The best current example of this is his support for the police call for the power of 14-days detention for questioning of terrorist suspects to be extended to three months – temporary internment by any other name. But Mr Blair also made clear yesterday that he wants to revisit the issue of indefinite detention of foreign suspects – on which the law lords ruled against the government last year. Both are bad calls both legally and politically; Mr Blair should think again. Presumably he thinks that because they play well in the tabloids the calls are worth making.

The Scum Says – Gloves Off: Britain is fighting al-Qaeda with one arm tied behind its back. In times of war, normal rules don’t apply. The bombers of 7/7 and 21/7 don’t live by any rules, or even the warped moral code the IRA used to justify its murders. We can’t stoop to the terrorists’ level, of course. But it IS time for the human rights laws which weaken us at every turn to be put on the back burner. Tony Blair wants to cage suspects for up to 90 days without trial. Good. He wants new laws, including the banning of extremist clerics, to destroy the evil at its roots. Good. But he’ll get nowhere if Britain’s judges back the suspects’ rights over our right to defend our country by whatever means. If they do it’ll be the fault, yet again, of the ridiculous and dangerous Human Rights Act that ironically the PM signed up to. It has no place in our society at a time like this. It’s time it was scrapped.

UPDATES:

A Big Stick and a Small Carrot – Pandering to the Terrorist Menace: What we need to do is isolate the extremists, whose number are still small, from their potential recruiting grounds. This takes far more courage than anything Blair has shown. It is not easy but it is the only way to win this “war”. We do not help our cause when we invade Iraq, change our minds about why we did it after we’d done it, and then make a spectacularly bad job of the occupation. In this way, and others, we have lent credence to the extremists rhetoric and driven large numbers of new recruits into their open arms. Blair can never win this “war”. He’s fighting it in the wrong place. (Link via Europhobia. Another hat-tip goes to Toby.)