The Prime Minister seems to have some difficulty distinguishing between opponents of his foreign policy and terrorists.
Mr Blair pointed out that the same poll shows the majority of Muslims (78%) are utterly opposed to terrorism."The government can't defeat this alone. You've got to defeat the ideas, and the completely false sense of grievance against the west," Mr Blair told MPs.
"You can't defeat the ideology of extremist Islam by saying we half agree with your grievances but you're wrong to deal with it that way - you have to defeat it entirely.
Only when people stop opposing my foreign policy can terrorists be defeated. Got that one cleared up, then. Of course, terrorists are certain to be among the wider community of people who oppose the government's foreign policy, just as they're certain to be among the wider community of people who believe that the sun rises in the East. Tell you what, I bet Osama bin Laden believes that the sun rises in the east. What are you, some kind of appeaser?
![](http://<a href="http://www.no2id.net/"><img src="http://www.no2id.net/images/buttons/square_1.gif" alt="NO2ID - Stop ID cards and the database state" style="width:120px;height:90px;border:0"/></a>){kind=link}
This is so similar to the Italian experience it's not even funny. How can we believe they're opposed to violence if they haven't denounced the men of violence? How can we believe their denunciation of the men of violence if they're still using the language of violence? And so on, until you can't actually trust anyone unless they agree with you - and anyone who you don't trust is ipso facto a suspect.
What's even less funny is that the people pushing this line in Italy were Communists, by and large - which is to say, they weren't actually running the government.
Posted by: Phil | July 04, 2006 at 02:25 PM
He really is a colossal prick, isn't he? There was I, thinking my opinion of Blair had bottomed out already, but no, turns out he wants us to think even less of him.
Posted by: Charlie Whitaker | July 04, 2006 at 07:25 PM
I read TB's whole speech as "As long as you're safe, and haven't been blown up, you should thank the government; if you have been blown up, it's your own fault, you weren't pulling together enough." Or something like that. And what Charlie said.
Posted by: Backword Dave | July 04, 2006 at 09:58 PM
Jesus, why don't you just RESIGN? RESIGN. RESIGN. RESIGN.
Posted by: Alex | July 05, 2006 at 12:55 PM