I'm very encouraged by Tony Blair's most recent statement. I take back my

[bennywhale]

previous disparaging remarks (in part)

He said that the object of terrorists is to terrorise, and we will not be. And also that in no way will this affect our values or way of life.

Now i see this as we will not scare the shit out of everyone like in America while slipping through nasty legislation.

We won't stoke fear up for possible political cover (Iraq)

And this does not mean we will use this to justify ID Cards.

I don't like Blair but his statement (just a few minutes ago on BBC) has filled me with a bit of hope.

Btw We are reacting with typical calm stoical determination and i'm proud of the way this has been dealt with by Londoners.

[wryter2000]

1. I appreciate your insight

I think Blair's learned something by his involvement with our disastrous "president."

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Bush said similar things on 9.12

Best of luck... over here we are going onto orange alert, duct tape, duct tape...

[jobycom]

3. That calm, stoic resolve is exactly how America reacted after 9-11

Bush corrupted the good intentions of our nation.

[brainshrub]

4. Say what you want about Blair: He's a competent leader.

Look at us, we had an idiot who wouldn't even stop reading a kids book when he found out we were under attack.

[non sociopath skin]

14. What I found very interesting was Charles Clarke saying soon after ...

... the London Bombings that ID cards would NOT have prevented them.

Imagine what the Neocons would have done had an ID card bill been in the offing ...

The Skin

[DemBones DemBones]

5. After 9/11 Bush* told us to go shopping.

Meanwhile, his Attorney General was getting Congress to pass the PATRIOT Act that, among other things, allows police to search our homes without a warrant and without telling us they searched.

I think that you must keep your eyes open and on Blair.

You have our sympathy and anger for what has been done to you today.

[Catfight]

6. Blair isn't entitled to respect, he's as much responsible for this as Bush

They both hold hands with terrorist to stay in power. If there were not terrorist acts there wouldn't be any need for Blair/Bush. That's the only decent marks they get, but somehow, I don't think this is working anymore. People believed they were safer under Bush/Blair, but they are waking up to reality, there is no Superhero presidents that are going to stop terrorism, they play by different rules. They need Blair/Bush as much as Blair/Bush need terrorism. It's a complete mess and I don't think this generation will be able to clean it up for many years to go. It will really have to take Bush/Blair being impeached and removed from office for the terrorist to feel desperation.

[Vladimir]

7. The way you see it is not, I suspect,

they way he sees it benny, but I will be glad to be wrong.

[bennywhale]

8. I know but i've heard that sort of language now all day from apparatchiks

of New Labour.

They are such deliberate media spinners and so slick they never just say anything. Why would they be setting up these arguments to be used against them if they were going to continue to pursue the police state?

[Vladimir]

9. Yes but on ID cards, for example

they will then say : we need these so that "they" won't force us to change "our" way of life. They will trade off one bunch of values against another, IMO.

[bennywhale]

10. Which is what they've been doing you're right. However they know they've

lost the ID card/terror argument and barely mentioned it in the commons last week. I can't see them resurrecting it. Charles Clark did once infuriate me by saying they are out to destroy our democracy and civilisation. HOW CHARLES? You are the only fucker who can do that.

[Vladimir]

11. Like I say, I would love it if you were right on this benny

I can't stand the idea of these fuckers using this as a carte blanche for five more years of tightening the authoritarian noose.

[Briar]

12. Bliar's most deadly weapon is his tongue

don't be deceived by it.

He is still peddling the notion that we are fighting a world war against monsters who "hate our way of life". It suits him (and Bush) to present "them" as an inhuman (or as the Pope would have it, anti-Christian) enemy acting out of some numinous evil. He wants to break the chain of cause and effect which links our actions to their consequences. This is a consequence, and these people are not motiveless monsters, murdering because they can. They have a cause too, and they are fighting for it using the same twisted logic that makes our murder of 100,000 innocents in Iraq somehow morally neutral if not heroic. This sort of thing will go on until we all realise that violence only begets violence, and that means seeing the connections. But Bliar specifically does not want that and will not let us do it.

[Matilda]

13. I don't think the attack had anything to do with British values

or way of life. Blair's throwing a red herring there.

It has more to do with wanting the West to stop exploiting the
Middle East for its own purposes. That's not something Blair is
going to address.

[fedsron2us]

15. Blair: attacks could not be stopped

No amount of surveillance could have prevented Thursday's terrorist attacks in London, Tony Blair said today as he paid tribute to the "great resilience" of the British people following the bombings.

The prime minister told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the government did everything it could to protect Britons, but added: "If people are actually prepared to go on to a tube or a bus and blow up wholly innocent people, people just at random, to do the maximum death and destruction without any thought for their human rights or human life, you can have all the surveillance in the world and you couldn't stop that happening."

"That is why ultimately, although we have to take the measures necessary, the underlying issues have to be dealt with too," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1524884,00.html

Yes. Tony, your government is never responsible for any of the shit things that happen in the UK. It is easy for you to praise the fortitude of Londoners when you have the entire security apparatus devoted to protecting your miserable neck. Of course, the fact that you have filled the top roles in the intelligence agencies with your place men who are devoted to fabricating evidence for your illegal wars rather than protecting the people of Britain has nothing to do with it. Every time I hear one of your - " I feel the peoples pain" - speeches I just want to puke.