A moment of clarity - (Do the Brits "get it" now?)

JEWISH WORLD REVIEW.COM ^ | JULY 14, 2005 | Ruben Navarrette Jr.

[CHARLITE]

When our British counterparts did broach the subject in private conversations, you'd hear things such as "Well, that's your problem" or — with the memories of terrorist attacks by the Irish Republican Army in the 1970s and '80s still fresh in their minds — "Well, now you understand."

You could even get into an argument over whether Tony Blair and the British government had been right to send British troops to fight in the U.S.-led war to root out terrorists in Afghanistan.

The message was clear — that the Americans had somehow brought the Sept. 11 attacks upon themselves by meddling in the affairs of other countries, and that the British need not be concerned about something similar happening to them.

Now that bombs have ripped through three underground trains and a double-decker bus in London, the British elites have learned differently.

I would hope that most of the British people now realize that what matters now is that they are here. And they need to figure out where they go from here. The British have no choice but to take the fight to the enemy now that the enemy has taken the fight home to them.

There has always been some portion of British society who identified with the United States and saw the need to come to Americans' aid after Sept. 11.

But that's the point. Before last week, the more common view among the British chattering classes was that this is America's fight and that all the British needed to do was decide whether to lend a hand.

The issue here is simple: There are people out there who wish to destroy us. Regardless of who is in the White House or at 10 Downing Street, we have no choice but to find and destroy them first.

[Oztrich Boy]

Did the New York Irish get a moment of clarity about the IRA and terrorism after 9/11?

[Travis McGee]

MEIN KAMPF = MEIN KORAN

ALLAHU AKBAR! = HEIL HITLER!

[Ciexyz]

It's deja vu all over again, seeing the Brits holding memorial services for their 7/7 dead.

[thegreatbeast]

Listen, we have nothing to lecture the British about. If anything, they are far more experienced than we. And I'll tell you, I was flabbergasted by the way they reacted to what was happening eight days ago--- there is a genuine British reserve, a British steel. All that you could see were people going about their business without the histrionics you would see over here in similar circumstances.