Quote of the Day

This quote is so good, I have to post it in its entirety (almost):

Look, of course people are going to use Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed if you look at what a lot of these terrorist statements say they use both Iraq and Afghanistan incidentally. Often people just talk about Iraq, but they use both of them. They will use Iraq to try and recruit and motivate people. They will use Afghanistan. Before Iraq and Afghanistan, and 11 September, which happened before those two things, they used other things. But I think most people understand that the roots of this go far deeper. And in any event where does this argument take us in the end. And I want to make one thing very clear to you. Whatever excuse or justification these people use I do not believe we should give one inch to them, not in this country and the way we live our lives here, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in our support for two States, Israel and Palestine, not in our support for the alliances we choose, including with America, not one inch should we give to these people. And I want to say this to you, and I may offend people when I say this, but I am going to say it nonetheless. 11 September for me was a wake-up call. Do you know what I think the problem is? That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again. And we are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level. And not just their methods, but their ideas.

Let us just take this issue of Iraq and expose it for a moment. Frankly the obscenity of these people saying it is concern for Iraq that drives them to terrorism. If it is concern for Iraq, why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a group of children and killing them. Why are they every day in Iraq trying to kill people whose only desire is for their country to become a democracy. Why are they trying to kill people in Afghanistan. Why are they trying, every time Israel and Palestine look as if they could come together in some sort of settlement, they go and wreck it. Why are they killing people in Turkey. What is their excuse there, or in Egypt, or in Saudi Arabia. They will always have a reason and I am not saying that any of these things don't affect their warped reasoning and warped logic as to what they do, or that they don't use these things to try and recruit people. But I do say we shouldn't compromise with it. I am not saying anyone says any of these things justify it, but we shouldn't even allow them the vestige of an excuse for what they do. That is my answer to that.

That was UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at a press conference today. As I have said before, Iraq and Israel/Palestine are all important issues, but the terrorists are not as interested in those issues as one would like to think.

Shortly after the 2001 attacks in the US, I recieved a newsletter from a Christian peace organization I used to be involved in. It included a letter from a Baptist minister in Arizona who basically blamed 9/11 for the policies of the Bush Administration and for the US actions at the UN conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa in August of 2001.

I found such reasoning ubelieveable, to say the least.

What if these bombers were Christian fundamentalists? What if they blew up gay discos and abortion clinics? Would there be talk of wondering if they have a point? No. We would want justice and damn the reasons for the bombings. Such indiscriminate killing is beyond explaination. And this is what happened with bomber William Eric Rudolph who did just what I've described.

So no, let's not bomb Mecca, but let's not try to somehow excuse the terrorists, either. No reason is worth killing innocents. None.