John Kass: London Bombs Answered With Voice of Courage

The Chicgao Tribune
July 8, 2005

America woke to the news that terrorists had bombed London, and a few of us wondered: Will the British remain the British, or will they become Spaniards and cave?

But then Prime Minister Tony Blair began to speak. As he did so, images flashed in a corner of the television screen, the crumpled bus and the frightened people, and emergency vehicles with lights flashing.

There was no trembling in Blair's voice, no trembling over whether the attacks were Britain's payback for joining the United States against Islamofascism in Iraq.

Unfortunately, a reedy sound of fear was barely audible here, just hours after London was bombed, as Americans were jarred from summer sleep by the reminder that we remain targets, too.

So, certainly, today you may read that fear trickling from some terrified fingertips, anticipating the next attack while arguing that we are somehow to blame for possible future attacks on our own soil.

But I didn't hear that sort of bleating from the British people or from Blair on Thursday. His was the voice of a leader, angry, yes, hurt, yes, but in command. "It is important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people, to impose extremism on the world."

"Whatever they do," Blair said, "it is our determination they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and other civilized nations throughout the world."

Perhaps it's too early to tell if the British will hold, or whether domestic political squabbling will cause them to step away from the U.S.Spain walked. Three days before their national elections in 2004, 191 people were killed and more than 1,500 were injured in a series of train bombings in Madrid.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose support for the U.S. in Iraq was increasingly unpopular, insisted on lying and blaming Basque separatists. Yet on the eve of the March 14, 2004 election, Aznar's government announced the arrests of three Moroccans and two Indians and found a videotape by an alleged Al Qaeda official claiming responsibility.

It was a political disaster for Aznar, and the Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was elected. Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq, and the U.S. lost another ally.

The same could happen to Blair. But I doubt it. The Brits are made of sterner stuff, and they've lived through much worse. What is more--and what many here may have forgotten--is that the Brits know who they are. They are men and women of the West. And so are we.

There were casualties, terrible casualties, but nothing close to what happened in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and nothing like the bombing of London during World War II, night after night after night.

Yet Britain has been attacked because we are allies in Iraq, because we together support Israel, but primarily because we are of the West and the Islamofascist terrorists are threatened and fearful of the West.

It is about time that we acknowledge it. The terrorists aren't merely offended by our culture. They're deathly afraid of it, by the cliches of Coke and blue jeans, by the fact that women of the West don't bow to men, by what's in our great libraries, by what we value, and by the promise of Islamic democracy threatening them in the Middle East.

This isn't a new conflict. It goes back nearly 2,500 years, to when East met West in a narrow passage called Thermopylae.

This is not only about our support of Israel. We could abandon Israel tomorrow and, walking away, try convincing ourselves that we've removed another pretext for terrorist attacks. Would the terrorists stop then? Of course not.

Others wonder, passively yet quite politically, whether our alleged arrogance in detaining suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay may have provoked the attacks in London. We provoked them? By offering detainees Froot Loops for breakfast and pushing hard for answers?
Again, I figure Britain will stick with us, but if they do not, do we have the national will to continue as Americans opposed to our involvement in Iraq speculate about what may come next?

For an answer, I'd like to rely on another courageous British prime minister, the late Sir Winston Churchill, from his speech of Oct. 29, 1941:

"Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone . . . this is the lesson: Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to the convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force."

jskass@tribune.com
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