Let's Get Serious, Say Spy, Blair, and Noonan

Now that the Democrats are back it’s Happy Days Are Here Again, right?

But yesterday Prime Minister Tony Blair has trundled out the head of MI5, the British spy agency, for a little straight talk. Said Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller at a speech on November 9:

What I can say is that today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don't know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas. The extremists are motivated by a sense of grievance and injustice driven by their interpretation of the history between the West and the Muslim world.

...

I do not speak in this way to alarm (nor as the cynics might claim to enhance the reputation of my organisation) but to give the most frank account I can of the Al-Qaida threat to the UK. That threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation.

Some were upset by the “alarming tone” of her speech, according to Philip Johnston. So Tony Blair came out to back her up.

The Prime Minister today came to the defence of Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, who has been criticised by some for the alarming tone of her assessment.


Mr Blair said that Dame Eliza's speech echoed "what I have been saying for several years."


"It's a very long and deep struggle but we have to stand up and be counted for what we believe in and take the fight to those people who want to entice young people into something wicked and violent but utterly futile," he said.

That is why Peggy Noonan is right when she says today about the new Congress:

We are in a 30-year war. It is no good for it to be led by, identified with, one party. It is no good for half the nation to feel estranged from its government's decisions. It's no good for us to be broken up more than a nation normally would be.

...

Go, Democrats, be great and serious. Go, minority Republicans, refind yourselves. Go, conservatives.

Because we have got to treat each other like adults and gird ourselves for the great clash of civilizations ahead.