Bush and Blair- Evil and Evil Do'ers

[bigtree]

LONDON Jul 16, 2005 — Prime Minister Tony Blair warned of the "evil ideology" of Islamic extremists bent on inflicting terror Saturday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saturday that authorities were facing an "evil ideology" in their struggle against Islamic terrorism. "The greatest danger is that we fail to face up to the nature of the threat we're dealing with," Blair said in a speech in central London.

"And what we are confronting here is an evil ideology. … It is a battle of ideas, of hearts and of minds, both within Islam and outside it."


Bush speaks often about 'evil', as in: the evil ones, evil people, he's evil, no isolation from evil, evil has returned, evil is real, terrorism is evil, America faces an evil, we're fighting evil, an evil man that we're dealing with, we will not stop until we defeat evil.

There may be things that we correctly label evil, but are all attacks on Americans and our agents and allies 'evil'? Bush has always viewed any action against Americans, even against the occupiers of Iraq and Afghanistan, as evil while, at the same time, declaring our victory ordained by God herself.

Blair now seems to be rejecting the explanation of revenge as a motive for the suicide attacks in London and has settled on the old moniker of 'evil' for his next crusade in his 'war on terror'. He spoke at first the other day, about addressing the root causes of that type of violence with outreach and education, but what he really seems to be saying is that these groups who violently resist our interests are not only wrong in their actions, but that their beliefs are evil, as well. His comments imply that the London bombers were afflicted with an ailment instead of anger and dangerous resolve.

Is this a reasonable strategy? Should Blair continue to try to isolate acts like this under the same rubicon of terror that has had little visible success in stemming the tide of violence, or does he need to broaden his concern to address the obvious opposition of so many of these Arab factions and sympathizers to our own countries' violence and expansionism in the Middle East?

Or is that just plain evil thinking?

[CJCRANE]

1. Blair can't admit

that he put his own citizens in the line of fire.

[bigtree]

3. We can only hope that in this case he does what he usually does

. . . say one thing and do the opposite.

[funflower]

2. Calling everything and everyone "evil" means Shrub and Poodle

don't need to talk about what might have led to these (really) evil acts.

[gulliver]

4. "Barbaric" was better and more accurate.

Identifying evil is child's play, literally. The problem is getting rid of it. The Lord's Prayer asks God to "deliver us from evil." Bush and Blair have delivered us to it.

On edit: italics

[bigtree]

6. I think if he used barbaric it wouldn't have the political effect

that he desires. He may well call the acts barbaric. They are.

But there is that similar thread that runs through the ideology of Bush and Blair, and that of religious based factions which act against the U.S. and our interests. Both seek to shackle their followers to a deadly political pietism which uses religion to cosset and justify their use of violence to achieve political objectives. Of course, both cultures feel threatened now by the more extreme, deadly actions of their opposite leaderships and are now conditioned to react more forcefully and strike out in a more deadly manner.

It completes a cycle of violence and perpetuates the culture of violence. It's no wonder that there are suspicions that the goal of both sides is the cultivation of a chaotic state that keeps us locked in a perpetual war which serves the power they derive from the prosecution of their 'defenses'.

With Blair and Bush, as funflower said above, "Calling everything and everyone "evil" means Shrub and Poodle don't need to talk about what might have led to these (really) evil acts."

[1932]

5. Before people go off on this "Blair is evil" bender, read God's Politics.

Jim Wallis writes about what he thinks of Blair and the Labor government and Gordon Brown and he definitely doesn't think they're evil.

And remember, Blair is the person who has really worked hard to try to find a solution to the I-P conflict, who turned over political control in Basra to Iraqis withing the first weeks of the invasion, and who is committed, along with Gordon Brown, to reducing Washington Consensus debt obligations in developing countries, which will do more to reduce the economic inequalities and therefore vast disparities in political power that drive terrorism than any military solution.

I suspect if you link to the ENTIRE SPEECH, you're going to find an intelligent statement of the problems the UK and the world faces in this confronation with an ideology that is in many ways the ideological other side of the same coin of Western Imperialism. Blair's solutions for confronting one are actually probably the best solution to confronting the other (for example. notice how the US won't cooperate with Blair's I-P strategies, were pissed off when the UK turned political control of Basra over to Iraqis, and don't want to end the Washington Consensus/IMF shock therapy debt burdens?). Saying Blair is just like Bush is a big mistake, I think.

[julianer]

7. You need to lower your admiration of Blair

He is trying to frame the debate and avoid comparisons between his violence and the tube bombers'.

This is a really nasty angle for him to adopt because if the bombers are 'evil' and their ideology is also 'evil' the problem must be firmly rooted in the muslim community, which, by extension, is a host of evil.

It's racist and communalist.

But he is willing to accept a worsening in community tensions if it allows him to escape close attention of the Iraq/bombers link. And he must avoid a rational, open discussion about his foreign policy because he would lose it hands down.

Also he has not acted well in regard to Israel/Palestine: he tore up the UK's longstanding pro-Palestinian policy on the White House lawn when he agreed to the Gaza ultimatum from Sharon. This is a bitter betrayal of the Palestinians and an additional factor for the anger of much of the muslim community in the UK.

I can see that in comparison with Bush he is great, but in comparison with a decent human being he is a bastard.

Edit for punctuation.

[1932]

8. If you're going to call Blair evil, you need to read God's Politics.

You also need to do an honest comparison of Republican responses to terrorism and what is happening in the UK.

[shance]

11. What if Tony Blair is lying to you about these attacks? Who's evil then?

The "Islamic terrorists"?

It's the truth I hope you are looking for 1932, and not the protection of someone, however "well intentioned" (and right now that could be viewed as quite a stretch)they may in fact be.

We will all lose if lies are not honestly confronted, whatever those lies may be.

[bigtree]

14. McDonnell, chair of the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, said:

" . . . there was no excusing the bombers, but even the security services had warned of a potential upsurge in domestic terrorism if Iraq was invaded.

'The mindset of many young Muslims across the world is being framed by images of the shock and awe bombing of Baghdad, of the massacres in Fallujah, of torture in Abu Ghraib, of the orange-clad, chained prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and, of course, the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people,' he told a London conference called by the Labour Representative Committee yesterday.

'For as long as Britain remains in occupation of Iraq, the terrorist recruiters will have the argument they seek to attract more susceptible young recruits to their bomb teams.'

http://www.newszoom.com/search/read/blair/085149000.1121619256/6/02/

[shance]

16. You imply as our white media does, that no one else is a suspect?

That it is automatically "Islamic extremists" that did this.

Im white, and I find that pretty racist and certainly sloppy journalism.

More importantly, with all the credibility being lost these past few years, how can we trust what the press has so very quickly picked up as being absolute fact?

In addition, there are increasing numbers of interesting coincidences seemingly popping up connecting private American and British security companies and demolition services to the scene of the crime.

I guess that's not important?

[bigtree]

17. The evidence seems to point to young men who became agitated

in the past few years about our invasion and occupation of Iraq, according to family and friends interviewed.

That's not the definition of an extremist in my judgement. Angry and dangerously resolute, yes. But extremisim, I think in this case, should be measured against what we know about the mindset of the individual bombers, as well as the violence against innocent civilians committed by our misguided military in Iraq, rather than attributing every motive or past act to their attack in London.

[shance]

18. Could be. However, imo, its best to remain skeptical at this point.

It's all been promoted so quickly and without what I would consider adequate time for the media to make such conclusions.

[bigtree]

21. The investigators seem to be on top of this

unlike ours here in the States.

[julianer]

20. I haven't called Blair evil

If I compared the Tories to the Republicans they'd come out the winners, so it's not hard for Blair to be better. The comparison I'd prefer to make is Blair and any previous leader of the Labour Party. He loses in every case, IMO.

Edit to correct idiocy.

[bigtree]

9. well, I don't think I said that Blair is evil. Just a hook in the title

I read the speech. (edit: exerpts) Here is what he says are the root causes of the violence:

`What we are confronting is an evil ideology,'' Blair said. ``They demand the elimination of Israel, the withdrawal of all westerners from Muslim states'' and ``the establishment of a Taliban state on the way to one caliphate of all Muslim nations.'

No mention by Blair of what the friends of the bombers say were the concerns of that seemed to engulf the young men's otherwise industrious lives. Consider these two accounts:

Shahzad Tanweer, the 22-year-old son of a Pakistani-born affluent businessman, turned to Islam, the religion of his birth, a few years ago. The transformation was gradual, but then his relentless reading of the Quran and daily prayers became almost an obsession, his friends told The Associated Press. He became withdrawn and increasingly angry over the war in Iraq, according to those who knew him best.

The U.S.-led war was what likely drove him to blow himself up on a subway train last week, said his friends.
__________________________________________

The Prime Minister has dismissed the idea that the London bombings were motivated by revenge for the invasion of Iraq. Tony Blair said the fanatics who killed more than 50 people in the bombings were driven by "evil ideology" rather than opposition to any policy.

He told Labour Party activists it would be a "misunderstanding of a catastrophic order" to think that if we changed our behaviour they would change theirs.

"Their cause is not founded on an injustice," he said. "It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such that it can't be moderated.

"It can't be remedied. It has to be stood up to."

[1932]

10. Do you have the full text of the speech?

[bigtree]

12. Patial W/key statements

http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200507/91c5ea69-4e87-4d7d-bb8c-947831263727.htm

They'll probably post the rest on his PM site Monday.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. They're just "picking up the White Man's Burden".

The lesser breeds can't handle their own affairs without the benevolent guidance of the superior White Race and their equally benevolent and compassionate armies.

Perish the thought that we might have economic or political interests in offering them a helping hand.

In a few decades we may offer an apology for the mass murder and exploitation of your countries.

Bush and Blair are merely protecting "our vital interests" ($$$) that are unluckily located in someone else's countries.

[bigtree]

15. The WMB is an industrialist, big buisness excuse for domination

over less developed countries, in this case, the ones against which they encouraged their military industry cohorts within government to use our military to tear these once prosperous countries down so that they could rebuild their economies under their own terms and advantage.

TAKE up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
-Rudyard Kipling

Kipling argued that the white race had an obligation to 'save' the 'savages', particularily in the Phillipines in regard to the Phillipine-American war.

This article quotes Mark Twain's reaction to the imperialism of the war that he supported in the beginning. Many in that time sought to exploit the :

In the southern Philippines the U.S. colonial army was at war with Muslim Filipinos, known as Moros. In 1906 what came to be known as the Moro Massacre was carried out by U.S. troops when at least nine hundred Filipinos, including women and children, were trapped in a volcanic crater on the island of Jolo and shot at and bombarded for days. All of the Filipinos were killed while the U.S. troops suffered only a handful of casualties. Mark Twain responded to early reports (which indicated that those massacred totaled six hundred rather than nine hundred men, women and children as later determined) with bitter satire: “With six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded—counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred—including women and children—and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.”

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. I enjoy Kipling's poetry, if not his sentiments. Mark Twain was a giant.

My grandfather fought on the Northwest Frontier of the Raj. Now Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was an Irishman in the Brit army shooting the same kind of guys they're trying to subdue now. An equally fruitless venture.

As I'm sure you're aware, my post was meant as sarcasm, rather bitter sarcasm, about the hubris and sheer inhumanity of the original colonialists and their newly minted successors.

As to Mark Twain, I consider him one of, if not THE, greatest American writers and thinkers.

[bigtree]

22. Twain's initial support for the war in the Phillipines eventually

gave way to serious reservations about our expansionism. Although specific to that conflict, his statements and writings at the time are some of the best commentary on U.S. imperialism that exists.