“Blair placed this city in the firing line”

Quote:

The bomb blasts were grimly predictable. Indeed, they had been widely and repeatedly predicted--not least by rank-and-file Londoners, who knew that by taking Britain into Iraq side-by-side with the U.S., Tony Blair had placed their city in the firing line. As I write, the wreckage is being cleared and the casualties counted. But Blair has already appeared on television to address the nation, pledging to defend “our values” and “our way of life” against those who would “impose extremism on the world.” He spoke of the unity of “civilized nations” in resisting “terrorism.” While the delivery may be slicker, his “us vs. them” worldview was indistinguishable from Bush’s. Even by Blair’s standards, it was a performance of nauseating hypocrisy, as he sought to seize the moral high ground in relation to violence and destruction that he himself helped unleash.