Our thoughts and prayers are with our British friends.
(War on Terror) -- Touching and heartening messages of sympathy and solidarity have been arriving in Britain from across the world after today's horrendous acts of mass murder in London. For me, however, the most poignant are those which call up the heroic image of the British wartime spirit: that stoical, phlegmatic response which is determined to continue as before in the face of unspeakable acts because to do otherwise is to give terror its victory. And yes, there's plenty of that stoicism and quiet heroism around, and it was on display today.
But alas, there is something else, something horrible and warped, also lurking just below the surface. It is the belief that this monstrous event would never have occurred had Tony Blair not taken us to war in Iraq, that that war has created more not less terror and that the British would not have been a target at all had we distanced ourselves from the US. It is a view which has so far only been expressed openly, as far as I am aware, by far left groups such as the SWP. But it is believed far more widely than that, and I expect to see mainstream writers saying as much over the next few days. The great question is which of these rival impulses will define the mood among the British public as a whole. Are Britons still the people of the Blitz, or have they become like Spain after the Madrid bombings?
Our friends in America look at Tony Blair, whom they admire so much for his staunchness in the struggle to defend the west, and they imagine that Britain overall is in that same mould. Well, it is not. It is impossible to overstate the pernicious influence of the viciously anti-American, defeatist, appeasement-minded media and intellectual class, which has quite simply shifted the centre of moral gravity and subjected the country to a remorseless diet of distortions, lies and illogicality.
As a result, Britain has never properly understood or faced up to the nature and scale of the threat it faces, or indeed that it was always a target of attack along with the US. This lack of understanding of the war against the west may well lead the British to blame not al Qaeda but Blair and Bush - the very outcome desired by al Qaeda, and which therefore makes it so much more likely that it will attack countries where the population is perceived to be flaky. Every utterance since 9/11 by an appeasenik, it has to be said, made today's attacks that much more certain.
On the other hand, the British who are so slow to anger are bloody-mindedly warlike when finally roused. How they react to today's obscenity will be a critical turning point in this war. As we grieve for those who have lost their lives or who have sustained terrible injury in today's act of war, we must also hold our breath.
