Liberal nonsense has no place in the war on terror

WE were entertaining an American guest at lunch - the editor of this newspaper, another colleague and I - less than a month ago. The talk was of Western peace and prosperity, and the peculiar ennui that seemed to have arisen from a long spell of such unprecedentedly widespread security.

I can remember suggesting that it was, perversely, the lack of any obvious threat that bred the neuroticism of the times. Human beings seem designed to feel a certain amount of anxiety: in the absence of war, famine and pestilence, they will turn that capacity in on itself and become obsessed with their own emotional and physical health.

Afterwards, we stood outside the doors of Canary Wharf tower - Britain's equivalent of the World Trade Centre - and said goodbye to the friend from New York, who was flying home the next day. A week later, his city was engulfed by cataclysm and our lunchtime conversation seemed to belong to another age.

A lot of people have been quoting W H Auden over these past weeks, but the first line of poetry that came into my mind was Robert Browning's Never glad confident morning again! Suddenly we have a focus for all the anxiety we could possibly want, and the calm certainties of a few weeks ago are history. That is an apocalyptic account, but it is increasingly the official one. For once, no amount of dramatic hyperbole about the popular state of mind seems excessive.

Perhaps it is because most people now alive have not lived through any great mass danger (although they will all have had their private tragedies) that this event seems mind-shattering. It has not only altered geopolitics, it has also undermined what seemed to be the birthright of the most powerful generation the world has known. The belief in absolute, inviolable public safety is finished. We can dispense with our self-absorbed, cosy fears now. Real danger is back.

But some of us are more deranged than others. There seems to be an inverse correlation between intellect and sense. Some of the utterances of the past weeks have been so startlingly stupid that only the erudite could entertain them. One species of this irrationality has been a variation on the great liberal refrain, "We are all guilty".

If anyone, for whatever criminal or maniacal reason, commits an outrage - whether it is the brutal mugging of an old woman or a suicidal terrorist attack - it must be somehow the fault of the most privileged class or the wealthiest nations. The perpetrator, however individually self-determining (or rich, in the case of Osama bin Laden) he may be, is simply a helpless victim of the dominant culture that we control.

There is nothing new, or even particularly modern, about this self-flagellation. It has been a feature of most puritanical or self-mortifying systems of belief since pre-Christian times. It is a mistake, I think, to see it simply as a species of self-loathing, a hatred of one's own people and background. Its basic assumption is, after all, wildly egotistical, assuming, as it does, that no one's beliefs amount to anything more than a reaction to some social or economic disadvantage in which we have put them.

So the Islamic fundamentalist pursuit of a glorious death is dismissed as a bizarre local myth because it is unintelligible to the liberal, humanist conscience. What all this must be about is poverty and deprivation. The West is being punished because it has not shared its wealth with the starving people for whom the terrorists are sacrificing their lives. So the only answer can be to carpet-bomb Afghanistan with food, not only on the obvious moral grounds that is a good thing to feed the hungry, but also because that will somehow expiate our guilt and thus undermine the just cause of the terrorists.

This is a quaintly parochial misunderstanding of Islamic fundamentalist terror, which is about the denunciation of wealth, not the envy of it. Incomprehensible as this may be to the social worker mentality of the British and American liberal consciousness, Islamic terrorists are seriously committed to the notion that poverty and death are morally superior to a life of pleasure.

They do not want what we have. They want to destroy what we have, because they see it as corrupting and degraded. Of course, there are good reasons for pouring food and aid into Afghanistan. There is an absolute moral duty to alleviate poverty and starvation. There is even a sound tactical reason for doing this: people who are desperately poor are more likely to fall prey to demagoguery and fanatical manipulation. But that is not the same as saying that Islamic terrorism is caused by our wealth and selfishness.

Why is it so important to make this distinction? Because to see Western, and specifically American, values as being the cause of the terrible events of last month is to undermine our only hope of a considered response to them. The attitude of the Left is, I suppose, a remnant of that pre-September 11 mentality on which we speculated at the lunch that now seems so long ago: it is solipsistic, self-indulgent and oddly complacent. It maintains, in spite of the onslaught of genuine external danger, that self-examination is the key to everything. That if, as the therapy merchants might say, we can just get ourselves sorted out, the problem will be solved.

Liberalism, to its great credit, makes an effort to understand and empathise with other points of view. But it has suffered over the past weeks from a great failure of imagination: the perspective that it is attempting to comprehend is simply too alien and too remote from the profound humane assumptions that underpin our political culture. In despair, it seems to cast doubt on the value of our basic beliefs. Not for the first time, it is the people who think less hard who have a clearer idea of what needs to be done.

I was just watching Brit Hume on Fox and saw excerpts of Blair's latest speech. I was very surprised when he stated (and I am greatly paraphrasing his acutal words) that there would not be simple missle attacks the day after the terror attacks 'as has been the routine in the past' but a steady and determined effort against the terrorists. This is coming from willy clinton's best?? friend. What a change. I sincerely hope this is not just posturing as he has been known to do so often in the past.

"They do not want what we have. They want to destroy what we have,"

This sentence nails it right to the wall.

Wow, maybe Blair is channeling the ghost of Churchill or something.

Whatever the cause for this turn to fortitude and resolve, it is very welcome to have our British cousins weigh in so heavily on our side.

Methinks the man took a cue from what he saw from a certain leader when he visited last week.

Ditto. Clinton is SO yesterday, in the eyes of millions.

"I sincerely hope this is not just posturing as he has been known to do so often in the past."

Probably more posturing with Clinton. . .Tony is still a Liberal; but love seeing him standing tall and for. . .America and our shared war against terrorism.

Fear also can make one strong.

The Liberal press, of course, tried to make a mockery out of GW's and Tony Blair's first meeting. Believe Tony knew, exactly who President Bush was, in integrity and 'mettle'.

Am certain, as well, with or without the friendship; that Tony Blair knew exactly who was the person, called Bill Clinton.

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