England's Prime Minister Tony Blair comments today reminded me of Carl Alphert's column form 2000

Today's eloquent comments made by England's Prime Minister Tony Blair

• .....But actually, before September the 11th, this global movement with a global ideology was already in being. September the 11th was the culmination of what they wanted to do. But actually, you know _ and this is probably where the policymakers such as myself were truly in error _ is that even before September the 11th this was happening in all sorts of different ways in different countries.
  I mean, in Algeria for example, tens and tens of thousands of people lost their lives.
  This movement has grown. It is there. It will latch onto any cause that it possibly can and give it a dimension of terrorism and hatred.
  You can see this. You can see it in Kashmir, for example. You can see it in Chechnya, you know? You can see it in Palestine.
  Now, what is its purpose?
  .....How does their ideology flourish in such circumstances? So they have imported the terrorism into that country, preyed on whatever reactionary elements there are to boost it. And that's why we have the issue there.
  That's why the Taliban are trying to come back in Afghanistan. That is why the moment it looked as if you could get progress in Israel and Palestine, it had to be stopped.
  That's the moment when, as they say there was a problem in Gaza, so they realized: Well, there's a possibility now we can set Lebanon against Israel.
  Now, it's a global movement. It's a global ideology.
  And if there's any mistake that's ever made in these circumstances, it's if people are surprised that it's tough to fight, because you're up against an ideology that's prepared to us any means at all, including killing any number of wholly innocent people....
  ....And it is going to be difficult. Look, we've got a problem even in our own Muslim communities in Europe who will half buy into some of the propaganda that's pushed at it _the purpose of America is to suppress Islam; you know, Britain's joined with America in the suppression of Islam.
  And one of the things we've got to stop doing is stop apologizing for our own positions. Muslims in America, as far as I'm aware of, are free to worship.
  ....Muslims in Britain are free to worship. We have plural societies.
  You know, it's nonsense. The propaganda is nonsense. And we're not going to defeat this ideology until we in the West go out with sufficient confidence in our position and say, This is wrong. It's not just wrong in its methods; it's wrong in its ideas, it's wrong in its ideology, it's wrong in every single wretched reactionary thing about it...
  

regarding the Perversion of Islam by the Radicals that has wreaked mayhem across the Globe. The wars and attacks stretch from
Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Karachi,n Bali, Nigeria, Turkey, Spain England, France, United States of America and now Lebanon. As a friend of Michael Medved said: "If Hezbollah and Hams give up there weapons there will be peace. If Israel gives up its weapons it will cease to exist!" I think the same holds for the Occidental(Western) World. This I can say with confidence in light of the message by Al Qaeda's number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri yesterday:

• "In a taped message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahiri said the terrorist organization would not stand idly by while "these (Israeli) shells burn our brothers.
  "All the world is a battlefield open in front of us," said the Egyptian-born al-Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama bin Laden.
  "The war with Israel does not depend on cease-fires ... . It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," al-Zawahiri said. "We will attack everywhere." Spain was controlled by Arab Muslims until they were driven from the country at the turn of the 16th century.
  Al-Zawahiri declared that Arab regimes were complicit in Israeli fighting against Hezbollah and the Palestinians.
  "My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit...and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies...make yourselves martyrs."
  

The tone of P.M. Blair's words reminded me of Cal Alpert, an American Jew and a syndicated columnist, who moved to Haifa Israel and died in May 2005 at age 92 on Israel’s 57th Independence Day, and wrte an article in 2000 over a year before 9-11 entitled "Islamic Threat is not to Israel Alone": click on article to enlarge for reading.