Uncle Tony Rocks!

Great Satan's coolest Uncle ever - the former PM of Great Britain - prob one the most eloquent, articulate speakers of the Queen's English scores another hit recently

"It is almost ten years to the day that I stood in this city and gave an address at the height of the Kosovo crisis. In that speech, I set out what I described as a doctrine of international community that sought to justify intervention, including if necessary military intervention, not only when a nation's interests are directly engaged; but also where there exists a humanitarian crisis or gross oppression of a civilian population.

"An active and engaged foreign policy, not a reactive or isolationist one: better to intervene than to leave well alone. Be bold, adventurous even in what we can achieve."

"As for me, I am older, better educated by the events that shaped my premiership, but I still believe that those who oppress and brutalise their citizens are better put out of power than kept in it."

Whoa! The rocking Uncle Tony delivers heavy metal daemoneoconic hook laden tunes that sweetly segues from the "Blair Doctrine" - the killer "Universal Values of the Human Spirit" into his refreshingly unapologetic call for Regime Changes - whenever the need or opportunity arises.

And just like the passing of blunts at concerts everywhere this is serious meds for Great Satan fans.

"So: should we now revert to a more traditional foreign policy, less bold, more cautious; less idealistic, more pragmatic, more willing to tolerate the intolerable because of fear of the unpredictable consequences that intervention can bring?

"My argument is that the case for the doctrine I advocated ten years ago, remains as strong now as it was then; and that what has really changed is the context in which the doctrine has to be applied.

"The struggle in which we are joined today is profound in its danger; requires engagement of a different and more comprehensive kind; and can only be won by the long haul. The context therefore is much tougher. But the principle is the same.

"The ideology we are fighting is not based on justice. That is a cause we can understand. And world-wide these groups are adept, certainly, at using causes that indeed are about justice, like Palestine. Their cause, at its core, however, is not about the pursuit of values that we can relate to; but in pursuit of values that directly contradict our way of life. They don't believe in democracy, equality or freedom.

"They will espouse, tactically, any of these values if necessary. But at heart what they want is a society and state run on their view of Mohammedism. They are not pluralists. They are the antithesis of pluralism.

"And they don't think that only their own community or state should be like that. They think the world should be governed like that.

"In other words, there may well be groups, or even Governments, that can be treated with, and with whom we can reach an accommodation. Negotiation and persuasion can work and should be our first resort. If they do, that's great, which is why if Hamas were to accept the principle of a peaceful two state solution, they could be part of the process agreeing it. But the ideology, as a movement within Mohammedism, has to be defeated. It is incompatible not with 'the West' but with any society of open and tolerant people

"So I understand completely the fatigue with an interventionist foreign policy - especially when it involves military action that takes its toll on the nation's psyche, when we see those who grieve for the fallen in battle.

"The struggle seems so vast, so complex, so full of layers and intersections that daunt us, that they make us unsure where we start, how we proceed and where and how on earth we end.

" 'Look there are people in this world who are crazy,' a friend said to me the other day, 'leave them to be crazy.' Except the problem is that they won't leave us in the comfort of our lives."

Uncle Tony lists out the strategy (here's the pdf) for confounding, hounding and if the wind is right - annihilating intolerant, corrupt, illegit regimes and any of their myriad fanboys - rocket rich or not!

"The same is true for the security threat we face. We are standing up for what is right. The body of ideas that has given us this liberty, to speak and think as we wish, that allows us to vote in and vote out our rulers, that provides a rule of law on which we can rely, and a political space infinitely more transparent than anything that went before ; that body isn't decaying. It is in the prime of life.

"It is the future. And though the extremists that confront us have their new adherents, we have ours too, nations democratic for the first time, people tasting freedom and liking it."

"And that is why we should not revert to the foreign policy of years gone by, of the world weary, the supposedly sensible practitioners of caution and expediency, who think they see the world for what it is, without the illusions of the idealist who sees what it could be.

"The statesmanship that went before regarded politics as a Bismarck or Machiavelli regarded it. It's all a power play; a matter, not of right or wrong, but of who's on our side, and our side defined by our interests, not our values. The notion of humanitarian intervention was the meddling of the unwise, untutored and inexperienced.

"Or to form alliances with any regime, however bad, because they solve 'today' without asking whether they will imperil 'tomorrow'? This isn't statesmanship. It is just politics practiced for the most comfort and the least disturbance in the present moment.

"And this struggle we face now cannot be defeated by staying out; but by sticking in, abiding by our values not retreating from them.


"It is a cause that must be defeated by a better cause. That cause is one of open, tolerant, outward-looking societies in which people respect diversity and difference in which peaceful co-existence can flourish.

"It is a cause that has to be fought for; with hearts and minds as well as arms, of course.

"But fought for, nonetheless with the courage to see it through and the confidence that the cause is just, right and the only way the future of our world can work.

"We have to understand one very simple thing: where we are called upon to fight, we have to do it. If we are defeated anywhere, we are at risk of being defeated everywhere."

Pic - "Uncle Tony Rocks!"