TONY BLAIR MAKES THE ROUNDS WITH SENSE ON ISLAM…..SEE NOTE
CAN THIS BE THE SAME TONY BLAIR WHO BOUNCED AROUND WITH A KORAN IN HIS HAND RIGHT AFTER 9/11 CLAIMING HE HAD READ IT AND DECLARING ISLAM A “RELIGION OF PEACE” HIJACKED BY A TEENY TINY MINORITY? WELL, BETTER LATE THAN NEVER BUT IT IS VERY LATE NOW THAT ENGLAND AND ITS VAUNTED INSTITUTIONS ARE RAPIDLY SUCCUMBING TO SHARIA…..RSK
http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/10/blair-islamists-have-outmaneuvered-western Blair: Islamists Have Outmaneuvered Western Democracies
by IPT News • Oct 7, 2010 at 2:21 pm
The civilized world is at a critical juncture in the struggle with radical Islam, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a New York audience Wednesday.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Blair said the West has failed to confront the Islamists’ false narrative – that “Islam is basically oppressed by the West; disrespected and treated unfairly; that the military action we took post-9/11 was against countries because they are Muslim; and that in the Middle East we ignore the injustice done to the Palestinians in our desire to support Israel, because the Palestinians are Muslims and the Israelis Jews.”
Blair emphasized that it will be impossible to defeat Islamist radicalism without rebutting and “defeating” these slanders in the arena of popular opinion. He noted that many websites, blogs and organizations around the world have adopted this narrative oppose terrorism. But the widespread support for the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East illustrates that “far too many” Muslims “buy into far too much of the analysis of the extremists, if not their methodology,” Blair said.
The refusal of Western leaders to challenge this world view undermines moderate Muslims who abhor Islamism. Western leaders seem to believe that if they sympathize with the narrative, admit they are partly to blame for radicalism and try to meet the Islamists halfway, they will help Muslim “modernizers,” Blair said.
But this approach actually projects weakness and undercuts moderates. It triggers anti-Muslim resentment from people who believe their governments are “pandering” to radicalism, the former prime minister emphasized:
“What we should be doing instead is confronting the narrative head on, forming an alliance across the faiths and across the divides of culture and civilization to defeat it. We should point out with vigor that in Kosovo America and Britain went to the aid of Kosovan Muslims and not because they were Muslims but because they were a people in distress.”
Similarly, Western leaders need to emphasize that “9/11 was an utterly unprovoked attack on all who share civilized values,” he said. “In Iraq and Afghanistan, whatever you think of the original action, we enabled the people to choose their government….They did so, and the terrorism that seeks to destabilize both countries is not about so-called ‘liberation from occupation’ but about attacking fellow Muslims just because they want the same freedoms as us.”
Blair criticized the premise that world leaders should treat Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb as they would atomic weapons possessed by France or India. Anyone who believes that, he said, should read Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the United Nations last month, during which he suggested that 9/11 might have been planned by “segments of the American government” for Israel’s benefit.
“We should wake up to the absurdity of our surprise at the prevalence of this extremism. Look at the funds it receives. Examine the education systems that succor it. And then measure, over the years, the paucity of our counterattack in the name of peaceful co-existence,” Blair said. “We have been outspent, outmaneuvered and out-strategized.”
___________ http://www.buzzbox.com/top/default/preview/the-west-is-being-outmanoeuvred-by-violent-islamist-extremists-t/?clusterId=2091312&id=9544148&topic=islam%3Atony-blair
The West is being ‘outmanoeuvred’ by violent Islamist extremists: Tony Blair
Western democracies have been “outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised” by violent Islamist extremists, Tony Blair has claimed.
By Jon Swaine,
In a speech in New York, the former prime minister said that warnings over the past week of new terrorist plots against Europe should remind people that they remain under threat.
Mr Blair said a “narrative” that Muslims were under attack from the US and its allies, who act out of support for Israel, had been allowed to take hold, aided by “websites and blogs”.
A fresh confrontation is needed because it will be impossible to defeat extremism “without defeating the narrative that nurtures it”, he said.
“The practitioners of extremism are small in number. The adherents of the narrative stretch far broader into parts of mainstream thinking,” Mr Blair told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“It is a narrative that now has vast numbers of assembled websites, blogs and organisations.” Mr Blair said it was “absurd” that some people were surprised at how powerful Islamist extremist groups were, given the amount of funding they received and indoctrination they spread.
“Measure, over the years, the paucity of our counter-attack in the name of peaceful coexistence,” he said. “We have been outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised.”
Mr Blair said a tendency to “sympathise” with extremism was not only dangerous but also disempowering for moderate Muslims, because it made people resent them as much as extremists.
He said he was “intrigued” by the fact that western leaders, including Barack Obama, the US President, felt the need to condemn Terry Jones, a pastor who threatened to burn a Koran.
“Suppose an Imam, with thirty followers, in Karachi was to burn a bible,” he said. “I can barely imagine a murmur of protest. It wouldn’t be necessary for the President of Pakistan to condemn it because no one here would remotely consider he supported it.”
The former prime minister also called on the west to make it “crystal clear” to Iran that their acquisition of a nuclear bomb would be unacceptable to the entire “civilised world”.
“Go and read the speech of Iran’s President to the United Nations just days ago here in New York, and tell me that is someone you want with a nuclear bomb,” he told those who disagree.
He stressed that the achievement of a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine would remove “much of the poison which the extremists use”.
And he defended his decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, saying: “whatever you think of the original action, we enabled the people to choose their Government”
*Mr Blair last night appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman on American television. He said that satirists like Letterman had been wrong to paint George W. Bush as unintelligent. “You don’t get to this position by being a fool,” he said.
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