I am glad I checked back in at Whispers in the Loggia tonight. Ex Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke at the biggest gala event in American Catholicism. That is the Al Smith in New York. His appearance caused some controversy because of his views on abortion and other life issues. We saw some tension between when he visted the Vatican on his farewell visit. However his visit was pretty anticipated.. Whispers has a great post here with a vid too at In White Tie, TB Tackles the Dark Side. It is a good read.
It appears contrary to the Fleet Street Tabloids and some American liberals that Tony Blair is indeed not Bush's poodle. It appears that he remains his own man and his beliefs and thoughts are truly his own. Let me quote just a part of the Loggia post which is a excerpt from the London Times. It is quite striking. I posted this on my fottabll board and one person said he is like Senator Lieberman. A liberal but one that that has foreign policy views and a World outlook that once was very part of the mainstream of the Democrat party. You will note that he got three standing ovations. That is what happens sometimes when truth is spoken. Here is a part:
The Times (London's, that is) on the former PM's keynote:
“Out there in the Middle East, we’ve seen... the ideology driving this extremism and terror is not exhausted. On the contrary it believes it can and will exhaust us first," he said.
“Analogies with the past are never properly accurate, and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading but, in pure chronology, I sometimes wonder if we’re not in the 1920s or 1930s again.
“This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace.”
He added: “There is a tendency even now, even in some of our own circles, to believe that they are as they are because we have provoked them and if we left them alone they would leave us alone.
“I fear this is mistaken. They have no intention of leaving us alone.
“They have made their choice and leave us with only one to make - to be forced into retreat or to exhibit even greater determination and belief in standing up for our values than they do in standing up for their’s.”...“I said straight after the attack of September 2001 that this was not an attack on America but on all of us. That Britain’s duty was to be shoulder to shoulder with you in confronting it. I meant it then and I mean it now.”
He added: “America and Europe should not be divided, we should stand up together.
“The values we share are as vital and true and, above all, needed today as they have been at any time in the last 100 years.”
Mr Blair received three standing ovations during the evening.
Earlier, the former Prime Minister said: “Out of this region the Middle East has been exported a deadly ideology based on a perversion of the proper faith of Islam but nonetheless articulated with demonic skill playing on the fears and grievances of Muslims everywhere.
“It did not originate from the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, of course, far from it. But this dispute is used to great effect as a means of dividing people, sowing seeds of hatred and sectarianism.
“The impact of this global ideology is now no longer felt simply in the terrorism that afflicts Lebanon or Iran or Palestine. It is there also now in Pakistan, Afghanistan, in India, of course in Europe, in Madrid and London, and in the series of failed attempts to create terror across our continent.
“And here in New York you felt it in the thousands who died and who still mourn their lost ones.”
On several occasions the dinner chairman said he would have liked to see Mr Blair run for US president in 2008.
Referring to the Middle East, Mr Blair said: “The challenge is global, therefore our response must be global.
“Either the argument will be as our enemies want it framed as Islam versus the west. Or it will be as we want it framed as moderates of whatever faith, colour or race against extremism however it manifests itself.”
Check the Loggia link for more.
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