Over at C-Span.org I found a speech Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered at the Labour Party Conference in the UK. About 38 minutes into the speech Primer Minister Blair lays out, once again, his reasons for joining the coalition to oust Saddam from Iraq. I find him so impressive that I have transcribed it here. One note though, some expressions are pretty British, so I have probably transcribed them incorrectly. Also, to be fair, Prime Minister Blair has more to say about foreign affairs after I end transcribing, especially on Israel and Palestine, but I wanted to highlight just the Iraq part. Check it out yourself if you want to see more.
…It’s [trust in Prime Minister Blair] over the decisions I have taken, the judgments about our future’s security I have made since I stood here, in this hall about to address the TUC on Sept 11. 3 years ago. And since then as with every other countries leader the world over, those with America, those against America, political life has been dominated in a way we never foresaw. There was talk before this conference that I wanted to put aside discussion of Iraq. That was never my intention. I want to deal with it head on. The evidence about Saddam Hussein having actual chemical and biological weapons as opposed to the capability to develop them has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that. I accept it. I simply point out such evidence was agreed by the whole international community not least because Saddam had used such weapons against his own people and neighbouring countries. And the problem is that I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power.
But at that heart of this is a belief of a more profound nature. That the basic judgment that I have made since September 11th including on Iraq is wrong. That by our actions we have made matters worse, not better. And I know this issue has divided the country. I entirely understand why many disagree. And I know to, as people see me struggling with it, they think he stopped caring about us or worse he’s just pandering to George Bush in what more is a cause that is irrelevant to us. And it’s been hard for you. The delegator told me, she said, “I’ve defended you so well to everyone I’ve almost convinced myself.” That’s loyalty for you. Do I know I’m right? Judgments are not the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I’m like any other human being, as fallible, as capable of doing wrong. I only know what I believe.
There are two views of what is happening in the world today. One view is that there are isolated individuals, extremists, engaged in essentially isolated acts of terrorism. But what is happening is not qualitatively different from the terrorism we have always lived with. And if you believe this we carry on the same path as before September 11th, we try not to provoke them, we hope in time they will wither. The other view is that this is a wholly new phenomenon. A worldwide global terrorism, based on a perversion of the true honourable, peaceful faith of Islam, that it’s roots are not superficial but deep in the begrassis in Pakistan, in the extreme forms of wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia, in training camps of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, in the corner of Chechnia in parts of the politics of most of the countries in the Middle East and many in Asia, in the extremist minority now in every European city that preach hatred of us and our way of life. And if you take this view you believe September 11th changed the world. That Bali, Beslan, Madrid, scores of other atrocities that never make the news are part of the same threat and that the only path to take is to confront this terrorism, remove it root and branch and at all costs stop them acquiring the weapons to kill on a massive scale because these terrorists would use them.
And likewise when you take the first view and you see the terror brought to Iraq you saw, there, we told you so. Look what you stirred up. Now stop provoking them. But if you take the second view you don’t believe the terrorists are in Iraq to liberate it. There not protesting of the rights of women, the same people who stopped Afghan girls going to school, made women wear the burka and beat women in the streets of Kabul and assassinate women just for daring to register to vote in Afghanistan’s first every democratic ballot. Though you know 4 million women have done so. They’re not provoked by our actions but by our existence. They are in Iraq for the very reason we should be. They have chosen this battleground because they know success for us in Iraq is not success for Britain, America or even Iraq itself, but for the values and the way of life that democracy represents. They know that. That’s why they are there. That’s why we should be there and whatever disagreements we have had, we should unite now in our determination to stand by the Iraqi people until the job is done.
And of course, at first the consequence is more vital but Iraq was not a safe country before March 2003. Few had heard of the Taliban before September 11th but Afghanistan was not a nation at peace. So it is not that I care more about foreign affairs than the state of our economy, NHS, schools or crime it’s simply that I believe democracy there means security here. And if I don’t care and act on this terrorist threat then the day will come when all our good work on this issues that decide peoples lives will be undone. Because the stability on which our economy in an era of globalization depends. And that stability will vanish. And I never, I never expected this to happen on that bright dawn of the first of May 1997 and neither did you. I never anticipated spending time working out how terrorists training is some remote part of the Hindu coothe could end up present on British streets threatening our way of life. And the irony for me is that I as a progressive politician know that despite the opposition of so much of progressive politics to what I have done the only lasting way to defeat this terrorism is through progressive politics and values.
Salvation from it will not come solely from a gunship. Military action will be futile unless we address the condition in which this terrorisms breads and the causes it preys upon. That’s why it is worth staying the course, to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. Because then people the world over will see that this is not and never has been some new war of religion but the oldest struggle that human kind knows, between liberty or oppression, tolerance or hate, between government by terror or by the rule of law.
Clearly the only sane response to this speech would from the likes of MP Carolyn Parrish; PM Blair, what an idiot!
