Why do we call the New York Times the “New Duranty Times”? See here. Also, read “Blair’s Rising Star Runs Into a Treacherous Future” by Alan Cowell, which appears in today’s edition. Cowell repeats Vidkun Quisling Galloway‘s contention that the bombings were the “price” of “ignoring” the “warnings” that had been issued about Britain’s involvement in Iraq. In other words: play the dhimmi, accede to jihadist intimidation and grant them all they demand, and this kind of thing won’t happen.
LONDON, July 7 – It is said, usually as a kind of joke, that a day is a long time in politics. Rarely has that been so true – and so bloodily so – as in the past 24 hours of Prime Minister Tony’s Blair’s roller coaster ride from triumph to tragedy….
Perhaps the crudest lesson to be drawn was that, in adopting the stance he took after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Blair had finally reaped the bitter harvest of the war on terrorism – so often forecast but never quite seeming real until the explosions boomed across London.
The war in Iraq has been increasingly unpopular here, with taunts that Mr. Blair had become President Bush’s poodle. The anger about Iraq led to Mr. Blair’s shaky showing in the May elections: a third term with a severely reduced majority. Now, as long predicted and feared, his support of the war appears to have cost British lives at home. Thursday was a day of rallying behind the leader, but there were indications that the bombing could take a political toll.
No mainstream politician would say so out loud, but George Galloway, the maverick, onetime Labor legislator who had met with Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war, had no hesitation. “We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain,” he said. “Tragically, Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings.”…
“We argued, as did the security services in this country, that if we fought the jihadists in Afghanistan and Iraq, they would fight back in Britain. Tragically, Londoners have now paid the price of the government ignoring such warnings. Let us not resist the jihadists, and all will go well for us.”
This is how this curious piece ends:
Mr. Blair said Thursday that “the vast majority” of Muslims opposed terrorism. Indeed, Musa Admani, a Muslim scholar at Metropolitan University in London, told the BBC that support for militant Islam among young British Muslims was “on the decline.”
Glad to hear it. I suppose British Muslims are energetically hunting down the jihadists. But I also wonder what this paragraph is doing in a piece scolding Blair for Iraq. Is Cowell trying to suggest that really, if we do capitulate, it won’t be so bad for us — the militants are “on the decline,” after all?