A Time to Stand Firm
What message did that send? To the Islamifascists, they are winning. So they are, with every whimper, every retreat, and with every endorsement of the nascent anti-Semitism among the elites of Europe (always ready to condemn an Israeli response but never to withdraw support from the suicide bombers and their Muslim financiers).
How much freedom do you give to enemies of freedom? In the classic question, Britain has been notably tolerant of Muslim dissidents. They have been free to preach their baleful idiocies and use their supposedly sacred mosques as recruiting grounds for al Qaeda. Only a few days ago, before the outrages, Blair's sensible plan to introduce biometric identity cards was met by a wail of disapproval from the left, sincere in their devotion to civil liberties but as blind as ever to the real nature of evil.
The terrorists misjudge the inner spiritual resources of the democracies just as Hitler did when he asked, "What is America but millionaires, beauty queens, stupid phonograph records, and Hollywood?" But they have to be shown what they do not see. The strategy to defeat the evildoers must be as cunning and resolute as they are. It must unite the West, and it must unite the West with the forces of freedom in the East (notably India and Japan). Grave mistakes were made over Iraq, in diplomacy before and in military containment thereafter, and the lessons must be absorbed. But the coalition efforts in Iraq deserve the unremitting support of all the democracies. And every country must cooperate in a new drive to root out the cancerous cells. Even to the end.
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