Pink Phizz

Friday, May 26, 2006

Mr. Blair, unfortunately not enough people do.

I just finished watching the news conference that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair gave last night. I have also had the opportunity to read and watched on tv what the MSM took away from this news conference. I'm not going to write about what the MSM grasped, it's the same old blah, blah, blah...

What I do want to point out was something that Prime Minister Blair spoke about which I thought should be the most important answer of the news conference; however, which will be the most ignored.

Q: You both presented the Iraqi government as a substantial vindication of the conflict. Do you also accept, as a matter of harsh political reality, that the Iraq conflict has also left both of you politically weakened and, whether justly or unjustly, less able to give the kind of moral leadership that you're discussing today?

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: I don't really think it's a matter of our vindication. I think, in a way, that's the least important part of it. But I do think that occasionally we should just take a step back and ask, why are we doing this? Why is it so important?

Saddam was removed from power three years ago. Since then, incidentally, our forces have been there with the United Nations mandate and with the consent of the Iraqi government, itself, the Iraqi government, becoming progressively more the product of direct democracy.

So whatever people thought about removing Saddam -- you agree with it, you didn't agree with it for these last three years, the issue in Iraq has not been, these people are here without any international support, because we haven't had any United Nations resolution governing our presence there. The issue is not, you're there, but the Iraqi people don't want you there, because the Iraqi government, and now this directly-elected Iraqi government has said they want us to stay until the job is done.

So why is it that for three years, we have had this violence and bloodshed? Now, people have tried to say it's because the Iraqi people -- you people, you don't understand; you went in with this Western concept of democracy and you didn't understand that their whole culture was different, they weren't interested in these types of freedom. These people have gone out and voted -- a higher turnout, I have to say -- I'm afraid to say, I think, than either your election or mine. These people have gone out and voted -- [cut]

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: They have gone out and voted despite terrorism, despite bloodshed, despite literally the prospect of death for exercising their democratic right.

So they have kept faith with the very democratic values that we say we believe in, and the people trying to wrest that democracy from them are opposed to absolutely everything we stand for and everything the Iraqi people stand for.

So what do we do in response to this? And the problem we have is very, very simple. A large part of the perspective with which we look at this is to see every act of terrorism in Iraq, every piece of ghastly carnage on our television screens, every tragic loss of our own forces -- we see that as a setback and as a failure when we should be seeing that as a renewed urgency for us to rise to the challenge of defeating these people who are committing this carnage. Because over these past three years, at every stage, the reason they have been fighting is not, as we can see, because Iraqi people don't believe in democracy, Iraqi people don't want liberty. It is precisely because they fear Iraqi people do want democracy, Iraqi people do want liberty.

And if the idea became implanted in the minds of people in the Arab and Muslim world that democracy was as much their right as our right, where do these terrorists go? What do they do? How do they recruit? How do they say, America is the evil Satan? How do they say the purpose of the West is to spoil your lands, wreck your religion, take your wealth? How can they say that? They can't say that.So these people who are fighting us there know what is at stake. The question is, do we?

These two lines should be tattooed on every appeaser out there; on every "hippie peace and love and flowers in their hair" type of individual; on every blame the military, blame America, blame the West type of individual; on people that believe that Naval ships and/or fighter planes are "killing machines" killing machines! and oh, "it's for the oil" donchaknow kind of individual.

Right. Keep on thinking that.

8 Comments:

At 10:10 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

just saw your comment, Alice. now i understand why i don't seem to get any decent traffic lately - which is mighty scary. don't know if the site is monitored or summat [scary x 2], but i tend to get visits from em bots. in short, i'm here to reply just in case you can't access it again [touch wood!!]. you have a good weekend too, yes? hope to catch up with you again @ the massive whingher.

b.
x

 
At 7:02 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bravo Tony. Thanks for posting this Alice

 
At 6:25 AM , Blogger Grizzly Mama said...

He did good!

I hadn't paid any attention to it - just saw briefly on TV that Tony and 'W' seemed to be in the White House together. I've been totally out of touch with all this school lately.

He did real good.

 
At 4:04 PM , Blogger Fred said...

As usual, well done.

 
At 12:54 PM , Blogger Wolfie said...

I feel a devil's advocate moment coming on here...

But if the new, elected government of Iraq turn out to be every bit as repressive and violent as Saddam; If they form an axis of power with Iran - will he still say that?

 
At 5:40 PM , Blogger Wolfie said...

Can I please add...

In his memoirs, A World Transformed, written more than five years ago, George Bush, Sr. wrote the following to explain why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible...We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ...there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

 
At 2:44 AM , Blogger Mike's America said...

"destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression"

???

What international response? Worthless UN resolutions?

Blair points out that we ARE AT WAR! It's not about Iraq or Afghanistan any more than World War 2 was about particular battles or theaters of operation.

Some of us know that we ARE at war and what the stakes are. Sadly, too many others have their judgement poisoned by hatred for President Bush, or some equally stupid anti-war idiocy that refuses to recognize ANY threat (and underneath it all they think we deserve to get killed).

 
At 5:59 AM , Blogger Grizzly Mama said...

Bush 41 COULD NOT go after Saddam - no matter how much he may have wanted to do that. For one - we were only there at the behest of the surrounding Arab nations, begging and pleading with us to save them but DON'T GO AFTER SADDAM!!! Oh no! They wanted him to remain in power in Iraq because it served their purposes quite well to maintain the status quo. They were afraid. They didn't know what would result with Saddam taken out and atleast they knew what kind of madman they were dealing with.

For two - The Coalition forces had agreed to honor the UN mandate NOT to take Saddam out.

For three - the Bush Doctrine is a result of 9/11 and is an appropriate response to that act of war. It is a sound doctrine in my opinion and I agree with it 100%, however I may not have agreed with such a doctrine prior to 9/11.

 

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