Blair's conference speech
I said on Harry's place that Blair's view on terrorism makes no sense, and I'm glad that someone more intelligent, David Runciman, agrees with me.In a piece in the LRB (not online I'm afraid) he notes that Blair's view of terrorism:
There are two views of what is happening in the world today. One view is that there are isolated individuals, extremists, engaged in essentially isolated acts of terrorism. That what is happening is not qualitatively different from the terrorism we have always lived with. If you believe this, we carry on the same path as before 11th September. We try not to provoke them and hope in time they will wither.
The other view is that this is a wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism based on a perversion of the true, peaceful and honourable faith of Islam; that's its roots are not superficial but deep, in the madrassehs of Pakistan, in the extreme forms of Wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia, in the former training camps of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; in the cauldron of Chechnya; in parts of the politics of most countries of the Middle East and many in Asia; in the extremist minority that now in every European city preach hatred of the West and our way of life.
As Runciman (and I) noted this is nonsense:
It does not follow from your believing that separate acts of terrorism can be isolated, that you must also believe either that they are the work of 'isolated individuals', or that the only thing to do is to avoid provoking the terrorists. You might equally believe that having isolated the causes of terrorism in different parts of the world, the only thing to do is to address them, as forcefully as possible
Second, Runciman notes that 'progressivism', which Blair claims to believe in:
If it means anything it means a readiness to unshackle the problems of politics from the apparent certainties of the past, in order to indentify where change is possible... it is an assualt on the conservative assumption that nothing can be made better without making something worse.
whereas Blair's view of the war is:
one where everthing is connected in a great chain of being, where it is not possible to sever the links between separate political challenges in order to identify what can be changed, and what our priorities should be.
Not for the first time Blair's actions must be a delight to terrorists. Their attempts to link their disaparate causes across the world in one global terrorist cause (which Blair believes they are doing) has only be helped by Blair's insistence of linking them thus with very little evidence. As Runciman notes he should have tried to sever the global links not build them up.
posted by Matthew @ 10/14/2004 08:10:00 PM
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