Fighting on two fronts

Today's Times Online publishes another pathetic attempt to discredit Tony Blair, rehashing - badly - the old refrain of "they attack us because we are in Iraq":

ATTEMPTS by Tony Blair to deny a link between the occupation of Iraq and last month’s London bombings were further undermined yesterday by the leak of a letter by a top diplomat.
Correspondence was published showing that Sir Michael Jay, head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, gave warning a year earlier that Britain’s foreign policy was a key factor in recruitment by extremist organisations.

This is outrageous; you would expect to read such drivel on a tabloid. Sir Michael Jay, according to the article, recommends adjusting Britain's foreign Policy to the terrorists' demands. Mr Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, put it very well:

...that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away...

Here the scribbler is plainly trying to sell a lie; he takes as a given that Blair denied the link between the London bombings and the liberation of Iraq, when he never did that.

“Most people with common sense would say there is probably some link in terms of making it easier to recruit extremists from the Muslim community.” ....

Which, of course, is exactly what Blair said in reply to the usual stupid question:

Look Angus, as I have tried to say when people have asked me about this, there is absolutely no doubt that these terrorists will use Iraq as a reason, and before Iraq Afghanistan, and before Iraq and Afghanistan, around September 11, they used different justifications. But I think most people understand the roots of this are deeper, and we have also got to be careful of getting ourselves in the frame of mind where we see what they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan now, which is basically the same terrorist ideology, killing innocent people, of having any sort of justification at all. And so I don't doubt that they will use these issues wherever it suits them to use them, but nothing can excuse or justify what they have done, and if you look at the roots of this they are far, far deeper.

And again the next day:

Question: You said that it was being used to recruit more people, more terrorists, and act as a motivator for them. Now I understand the argument of cause and effect and saying that Iraq didn't cause as you put it the London bombings, but is the effect that we are going to have more terrorists now, that we have got a recruiting sergeant out there?

Prime Minister: You know you can go through all these arguments, and I went through them at the press conference. I think the real point is that people will use, they will use whatever issue is there, because you go back to September 11 and that was before Iraq and Afghanistan and they were using something else then, and if you got rid of all these issues they would use something else, and if you look at what they use in respect of Saudi Arabia, or Turkey, or Egypt or any of these other countries where terrorist acts happen, they will always use something different. I think most people understand that the roots of it go deeper and that is really what I was trying to say at the press conference earlier, and I think, and as I said this morning, and I probably said it more than enough, people can debate this issue forever, but I think most people recognise there is absolutely no excuse for what has been done.

To watch the appeasers squirm and being reduced to outright lying in order to be noticed is reassuring. However, we should not forget that we are at war and an article on the Times that echoes the words of Al Zawahri is no help at all. If we add to a corrupt media the various Galloways, Livingstones, and the like, it is easy to see that we are fighting terrorism on two fronts.

Let’s not misunderstand the word “democracy”. Democracy does not mean we should put up with terrorists' sympathizers, does not mean we should let those who take money from our enemies go around free to spread their propaganda, does not mean we should bear the insults and lies of collaborators.

Their opportunism and intellectual dishonesty should not go unchecked and unpunished.

Terrorism, Blair, Iraq, London