Tony Blair addressed a discourse to the congress of the United States of America (USA) on July, 17th, 2003. It is a political text strongly related to the political context at that point of time, which I will discuss later on. The discourse can be explained by looking at each of the sentences and relating them to other concepts. Some of these key concepts are America's fear of the unknown, Blair's ambivalence in politics, the relativist versus the absolute theory of ethics. First of all, the text being addressed in July 2003, many crucial events occurred on the world arena of international relations not long before that. The war on Iraq had only "ended" a few months earlier (may 2003). A lot of issues still had to be solved regarding Iraq. Earlier before, the war on Afghanistan had been conducted by the US, and the war on terrorism was still going on. The world was divided on these war. Blair and the US were in favor of the war whereas some others countries were against it (i.e. France, Germany, Russia). That led Mr Blair to a serious problem, which stance should he take, the American or the European one? The people of the UK were mostly against the Iraq war, however the historical background has to be taken into account here.
[...] - "President Blair ,Americans love our leader but may cause his downfall", by Timothy Garton Ash, Washington, Thursday July The Guardian < http:>, 4http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1004735,00.html - "Final countdown,An hour-by-hour chronology of diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iraq crisis", Staff and agencies, Wednesday March The Guardian < http:> , http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,916007,00.html - La pratique de la pholosophie de A à Z. edited by Elizabeth Clément, Chantal Demonique, Lauren Hassen-Love, Pierre Kahn. Hatier : 2000, Paris. - Writing security, United states foreign policy and the politics of identity. [...]
[...] To conclude, Tony Blair made a very powerful speech to the members of the congress. He didn't directly raise any question but he stated believes and facts that were accepted among most of his audience. Although he had to be cautious with words he still used some controversial concepts such as ‘universal values'. He gave a strong support to the US policy by backing up their feeling of being under threat even though threat is only a subjective concept. Therefore, the outcome of the speech is favorable for the UK, the US would continue to help the UK, and the strong relationship between these two countries would continue. [...]
[...] Having so wonderfully succeeded in protecting the country from being attacked until 9/11, they then lost their whole confidence So, here Mister Blair tells us that the situation has changed and some new solving methods had to be found because in previous history such an event never occurred: breach in the security of the North American mainland, an event neither feared nor imagined by those who devise war-games for the Pentagon”. To conclude on this first sentence, Mr. Blair is trying to establish that the wars were needed and that using the old methods that history provided would have been of no use because the situation had changed. [...]
[...] However, the war already took place, so with this sentence Tony Blair is justifying it by saying that the values he and his country stand for are worth fighting for, and should be fought for. The last sentence of the text "And anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police." is made of oppositions and strong representing words. [...]
[...] So by choosing these notions he is trying people to think that everything not being democratic or ruled by the law is an error, and has to be fixed. Additionally, the speech may be argued biased because not objective. As a matter of fact, both the speaker, and the people he is addressing his speech to (primarily members of the congress) are westerners with a set of values that they hold for true. Hence can we say that we have an objective point of view on this text? [...]
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