"What is so striking about these protests is not just the discourtesy shown to a senior member of the government of our most powerful ally; it is not just that it is extraordinarily bone-headed to insult and alienate the ally on whom we continue to depend for our protection [this is so tony blair speak]; it is not just the craven appeasement of intimidation, as I wrote in the Mail this morning. It is the lethal moral inversion of the argument, which is not surprising since these protests are being fuelled -- if not orchestrated -- by the comrades of the Trotskyite/Islamist Stop the War Coalition, as can be clearly seen from their website which provides details of and helpful travel arrangements for marches and demonstrations today and tomorrow.
Here is a country which utters not a batsqueak of protest when Sheikh Qaradawi, who endorses and encourages human bomb terrorism in Iraq and Israel, speaks on a London platform – and indeed is actually embraced by the London Mayor Ken Livingstone as a hero of religious enlightenment – and yet is treating the US Secretary of State as if she is a major war criminal. Why? Because the US is apparently waging war against the innocent in Iraq. Excuse me?? The US is currently in Iraq at the express request of the Iraqis themselves to defend the innocent against the war being waged against them. The US went to war in Iraq to start unpicking the axis of terror that so threatens the world. The US remains in Iraq to help the Iraqis, at their express request, build the institutions of democracy, law and security. It is in Iraq to help protect innocent Iraqis against the forces of al Qaeda and the remains of the Ba’ath party who are determined to stop them and replace freedom by tyranny. It is in Iraq to help defend Iraqi lives and liberty against those who seek to destroy them."
I will think hard everyday when I turn on the evening news and see the new death toll, and think of your argument of what a great job we've done... and even harder about why we are there in the first place.