The new Brown government in Britain is pontificating about U.S. moral standards in Guantanamo, but at the same time it is behaving abysmally toward its own moral obligations in Iraq. The British Army is moving from engagement to "overwatch" in southern Iraq as it prepares to withdraw in the next few months, almost regardless of concerns in Washington.
Though the lion's share of publicity surrounding Tony Blair's recent departure as Britain's prime minister focused on his legacy as George W. Bush's top foreign cheerleader, a more lasting legacy for Mr. Blair's lengthy tenure as Britain's chief "decider" will be that he greatly accelerated Great Britain's ascendancy to the position of the "most surveilled" society in the world. Still, Michael Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor of New York is giving Mr. Blair a run for the money as the most surveillance-hungry public official in the world.
The sorry spectacle that took place on Capitol Hill in recent days was an outbreak of Bush Derangement Syndrome (Charles Krauthammer's term) that has threatened to cripple our ability to intercept international terrorist telephone calls. In the end, coalitions of responsible Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate were able to pass legislation that met the minimum recommendations of Director of National Intelligence Adm. Mike McConnell: modernizing the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to ensure that our intelligence agencies can intercept jihadist telephone calls abroad without having to get judicial approval. But it only happened after an ugly scorched-earth campaign by congressional Democrats who suggested that Adm. McConnell and the Bush administration were negotiating in bad faith and that the changes they wanted would undermine Americans' constitutional rights. Both assertions are false.
Detentions of alleged enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) and extraordinary renditions smack more of Franz Kafka's "The Trial" than of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago," although the question is not free from doubt. But they are not jokes.
Elizabeth I, who ruled Great Britain from 1558 to 1603, continues to fascinate. Never a constitutional monarch, she had very real power, which she employed with relish. The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she inherited much of her father's guile without his conspicuous cruelty. But she faced formidable challenges: Religious divisions and political rivals at home and powerful enemies abroad. How did the queen deal with these challenges and transform her puny, debt-ridden kingdom into a major power?
Elizabeth I, who ruled Great Britain from 1558 to 1603, continues to fascinate. Never a constitutional monarch, she had very real power, which she employed with relish. The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she inherited much of her father's guile without his conspicuous cruelty. But she faced formidable challenges: Religious divisions and political rivals at home and powerful enemies abroad. How did the queen deal with these challenges and transform her puny, debt-ridden kingdom into a major power?
In one of his very first acts as British prime minister, Gordon Brown prohibited his cabinet ministers from using the words "Muslim," "Islam," or "War on Terror" to describe a June 29 attempt to use Mercedes-Benzes to spray blazing gasoline and red-hot nails onto pedestrians in Central London. The day after this failed effort, a Jeep Cherokee caught fire and soon ignited a Scottish airport concourse.
In one of his very first acts as British prime minister, Gordon Brown prohibited his cabinet ministers from using the words "Muslim," "Islam," or "War on Terror" to describe a June 29 attempt to use Mercedes-Benzes to spray blazing gasoline and red-hot nails onto pedestrians in Central London. The day after this failed effort, a Jeep Cherokee caught fire and soon ignited a Scottish airport concourse.
Let's not learn the wrong lessons from the gang of terrorists in Great Britain who could not shoot straight. It's tempting to equate their failure with a diminished capacity for terrorists attacking the United States. That's just what the terrorists want us to do. The botched events in London and Glasgow point to the growing dangers of the al Qaeda ideology. The threat is much more complex and sophisticated than it was on September 11.
