From the Times Online (UK):
On his last visit to relatives in Pakistan this year, one of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, boasted of wanting to die in a revenge attack over the way Muslims are treated.
While his family in Leeds had no idea about his suicide mission, Tanweer confessed to his cousin his ambition to become a “holy warriorâ€Â. At his father’s home village 30 miles from Faisalabad, Mohammad Saleem described yesterday how Tanweer, 22, hero-worshipped Osama bin Laden.
Mr Saleem supported his cousin’s bombing at Aldgate station which killed seven people, saying: “Whatever he has done, if he has done it, then he has done right.†He recalled how Tanweer argued with family and friends about the need for violent retaliation over US abuse of Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. [my emphasis]
I hope the next time George Galloway or Ken Livingstone feel compelled to preach about “root causes,’ they’re willing to look at themselves in the mirror. And by themselves I mean themselves—not some symbolic representative of the phantom white and wealthy capitalist /imperialist oppressor class.
The same goes for those Democrats here who have spent months and months decrying and sensationalizing the “torture” at Guantanamo that, it so happens, didn’t take place.
Perhaps now that their irresponsible rhetoric has resulted in actual loss of life, Teddy, Carl, Dick, Howard, et al—along with their mouthpieces in the mainstream press who, until recently, have been too busy questioning every Bush administration motive to investigate Gitmo on their own, relying instead on misleading press releases from Amnesty International—will tone down the rhetoric and try to substantiate their accusations before launching them so frequently, forcefully, and publicly—where, it turns out, Muslims, including westernized Muslims, are actually listening. But I doubt it.
The saddest part? Nobody will hold these power-hungry hyperpartisans and their ulterior motives to account—because to do so would be to commit the cardinal sin of “questioning their patriotism.”
Well, let me be the first to break that particular taboo: “THE LEFT LIED AND LONDONERS DIED!”
Somebody should make a frickin’ t-shirt.
update: and it looks like somebody has¹]
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(h/t SondraK, via quiggs)
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update: meanwhile, Antelope Valley, California is hosting a Muslim anti-terror rally, and mainstream media coverage is, predictably, scant. And Bill INDC notes (via IM) that “the Times Online piece will get play as PROOF that US Guantanamo abuse causes terror.”
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update 2: I should have thought this was clear, but in case it isn’t, let me set the record straight: I blame the terrorists for terrorist attacks. I blame those on the left (and not the left en masse) who continue to provide terrorists with rhetorical cover for providing them with rhetorical cover—and for helping to legitimize the terrorist’s medievalist longings to eradicate modernity. Such rhetorical decisions have practical consequences, as the linked Times Online story makes clear.
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update 3: Welcome MSNBC readers. I respond to Will Femia here.
¹This is, of course, meant as a tongue-in-cheek jab at the “Bush Lied, People Died” legend so popular with progressives, as regular readers of this site already understood. But today we have visitors who, while so famously proud of their nuance and their mastery of cultural dialogics, often, in my experience, require that irony be spelled out for them in excrutiating detail. Hence, this footnote.
The Left will never dare to look in the mirror. As long as the jihadis kill someone else, the Left will valorize them because, hey, it’s our right to dissent! What could be more patriotic?!
(Oh, yeah, signing up for the military. But then I might get hurt.- Leftist.)
For a second I was gonna make a lame joke about questioning that British citizen’s dissenting patriotism, but I can’t. Just too damn disgusted. I agree it’s about time to start unapolagetically questioning some people’s patriotism.
Or how about, “Durbin lied, Britons died”?
I have lived in the Antelope Valley most of my life, and I couldn scarcely be prouder of the community as a whole in both the protest and its reception by passers by. The only way I could be prouder is if the asshat with the finger were to stuff a rattlesnake down his pants. Failing that, a leprous armadillo would be a less satisfying alternative.
As to the claim that “radical” Muslims are just a tiny minority, see this story in Daily Telegraph, July 23, “ One in four [British] Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists”.
And see this in the Guardian, July 23, by Osama Saeed, a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain: “Back to you, Mr Blair: It is wrong to put the onus on British Muslims to defeat terror”.
Excerpts:
“Mr Blair has attacked the idea of the caliphate – the equivalent of criticising the Pope. He has also remained silent in the face of a rightwing smear campaign against such eminent scholars as Sheikh al-Qaradawi – a man who has worked hard to reconcile Islam with modern democracy. Such actions and omissions fuel the suspicion that we are witnessing a war on Islam itself…
…apologies need to be extended to Britain’s explicit roles in creating the injustices in the Muslim world – from the mess that colonial masters left in Kashmir…”
So, the Caliphate is OK; Osama will appreciate that (there go Spain and Portugal I guess). And Kashmir (problem started in 1947) is added to the list of Muslim grievances against the West (odd that Indian killing of tens of thousands in Kashmir more recently is not mentioned).
Where it will all end, knows Allah.
Mark
Ottawa
’Tanweer was motivated by a “need for violent retaliation over US abuse of Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay“‘
Are Americans imprisoning, mistreating, putting panties on the heads of, Muslims in the London tube?
Did Tanweer forbear to turn left at Greenland?
Could he not have taken a cheap package tour to Fidel’s island paradise and then blown up some innocent Cubans in the neighbourhood of Gitmo to express his displeasure at the Americans?
What we have here is a failure to imagine.
Col. Jessop to Galloway, Livingstone, Kennedy, Chretien, et al.: “You can’t handle the truth…You don’t want the truth.”
Mark
Ottawa
Well Jeff, I’m not seeing many trackbacks, but thanks for trying anyway.
TW: “shot,” as in … eh, screw it.
My trackbacks don’t always work, but for what it’s worth, this post has been referenced or linked by Patterico, smalldeadanimals, Western Standard, Baldilocks, and a few other sites.
I sent the link along with the story to Instapundit, but he evidently didn’t think it was as important as you and I. Or maybe he did and just hasn’t gotten to it.
Here’s the thing: I am not blaming “the Left” en masse. But I am blaming those who are actively out to make political hay out of whatever the latest manufactured, ginned up outrage. And I think it’s time we started to forcefully push back against a political and media culture that is at least tangentially responsible for creating terrorists and their sympathizers based on false premises.
I sent the link along with the story to Instapundit, but he evidently didn’t think it was as important as you and I.
Uh, Jeff? I came here off an Instapundit link to the story….
You’ve been Instalanched, so I guess Glenn agrees.
And you make a good point. Apologists for terrorism are enablers of terrorists.
“And I think it’s time we started to forcefully push back against a political and media culture that is at least tangentially responsible for creating terrorists and their sympathizers based on false premises.”
Are you saying then that if the premisses were TRUE that they would have been justified? Tangentially of course.
Are you saying then that if the premisses were TRUE that they would have been justified?
If the Gitmo/Koran stories were true, the terrorists would still be culpable. But people like Durban and Kennedy wouldn’t be.
Since they are lies, the people who spread the lies are culpable too.
It’s like yelling fire in a crowded theater. If it’s not true, the one yelling fire is guilty of murder.
Richard R —
Oops. When I responded to quiggs, I wasn’t aware of the link.
Wasn’t a knock on Glenn—lord knows he gets enough emails in a day—just assuring quiggs, who sent me the initial link, that I’d tried to get the word out.
Lest we forget – the Synagogue bombing in Turkey had their root cause in the firm belief of one of the terrorists that US soldiers in Iraq had raped more than a thousand Muslim women. As reported by Western media first, and then picked up in the whole Islamic world. (Yes, Turkey is part of that, too.)
“Since they are lies, the people who spread the lies are culpable too.”
Was the fact that Sadadm Hussein had WMD a lie?
No.
ht – Have dead Kurds lied to you?
You think that’s profound, ht?
It’s conceivable that Saddam Hussein spent more money in the 1980s
trying to develop an atomic bomb than the U.S. spent on the Manhattan
project to develop the first atomic bomb.
It’s abundantly clear that once the pressure was off Hussein
would have restarted efforts to acquire nuclear, biologic
and chemical weapons.
As U.N. weapons inspectors have testified Iraq had the equipment
to make chemical weapons and, as U.S. forces discovered, massive
supplies of the precursor chemicals at many weapons depots. Saddam
also had warning of the coming U.S. attack and the ample time to
ship out whatever prohibited equipment he did have, plus the
cooperation of the Russians, the French and possibly others in
any such effort.
As Saddam has stated he worked hard to persuade everyone he
did have weapons of mass destruction and managed to fool (where they
really fooled?) every intelligence agency in europe and america and
quite possibly across the globe. Most people in the Iraqi armed forces
believed they had such. Iraqi troops were supplied with gas masks.
The purpose of UN weapons inspectors was not to certify that Iraq
did not have weapons of mass destruction—an impossible mandate.
The purpose was to test whether Iraq cooperated in the effort to
demonstrate that they didn’t. Anyone that tells you that this was
not the purpose of the weapons inspectors, whether they work for the
UN or not, is a liar. For over a decade Saddam Hussein did not
cooperate and made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.
No – he just thought that the gas attacks in Hlaba had something to do with a bad diet…
Big misunderstanding. Sheesh.
This burns me up. Reckless endangerment is serious.
When someone is killed over another’s words, that’s bad.
When the words were false, that’s really bad.
When the words were uttered by someone who already knew they were false, and already knew that their words could kill people, that’s so bad it’s almost enough to one agree with the terrorists, who say our system is irretrievably corrupt. It’s not entirely stupid, either. Enough of such murderous perfidy in a nation’s leaders, and who’ll give a damn anymore about who’s running the place, or to what ends. Utter public cynicism about politics historically works very well for a corrupt political party willing to be thought wrong by accident, rather than wrong by design.
Keep up the good work, Jeff.
The cockroaches of the Left run from the light of truth. It’s our duty to shine it on them.
THE SAUDS MUST BE DESTROYED!
Jeff:
   I tried to trackback, but haloscan doesn’t think your trackback address is properly formed.
   Don’t ask me why.
   But I do have a link to you up on my site.
   Again, keep up the good work.
THE SAUDS MUST BE DESTROYED!
You have to go back a little further. It’s parasitic on the needs of the media.
The product of news media is not news. It is you. They sell you to advertisers.
The problem is that people don’t want hard news. They say they do, but they don’t tune in much (think city council meetings). So the media can’t pay the daily bills with the hard news audience.
The largest daily audience available is soap opera women (40% of women, a minority but a big one). They come every day whether news happens or not. So news is produced that will hold that audience. The stories must be simple in that they follow a template, and the audience must be able to relate to it.
So that’s what’s happened. If you want to put your sound bite out, you need to tailor it for the needs of the media. The effect is that the national debate is guided by soap opera women. Hence blogs, in revulsion.
Powerful men abusing authority is a fine template and shows up all over the media. That’s mostly the line of the left. If somebody dies, that’s just the next day’s soap opera. Powerful men don’t know what they’re doing, another template.
The solution isn’t appealing for responsibility on the left, but ridiculing the soap opera audience into oblivion as an audience. The media will then program for the next larger audience, which we can hope is better. The sound bites from politicians will change accordingly.
So soap opera news audience : you are not serious people! You are morons. It’s shameful to spend your time watching that crap. Spend it instead doing good in your own neighborhood. That pleasure is what soap opera is parasitic on.
I have no theory of the NYT or lefty blogs.
Guess what? The failure to stop the terrorists has nothing to do with the “Left.” Somehow, you seem to think that those in charge are powerless, and those without political power are somehow responsible for the continuing inability of the U.S. to win the war on terror.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Right seemed certainly able to take credit for the war on terror when Bush landed on the deck of the carrier and claimed victory’s laurel. Now anyone but Bush and his go-hung supporters are responsible for the mess he created. My daddy had a word for people like that–pussies.
Its amazing how the right has adopted moral relativism. Instead of the buck-stops-here mentality, they are eager to blame anyone but themselves for the terrible mess they have gotten us into. There are prosecutions going on of Gitmo interrogators. That means misconduct went on. It also means that their commanders are responsible. It means that memos put out by the Republic Administration told generals to take the gloves off. The results were predictiable.
Once upon a time, Republic party members pointed out the important role that personal responsiblity played in our lives. They reminded liberals like me that any solution we came up with for the problems of the world could not change the fact that each of us has a personal responsiblity for what we do.
Now we see that those ideals are lost from the current Republic party. From the party in power’s current evasive manuvering on the scandal du jour to its blaming of the CIA because there were no WMD’s, everything is not their fault, despite the fact that they have controlled every single branch of government, with minor exceptions, since 2000. They were given a blank check after September 11, 2001 to fight this war.
They have failed. The Washington Post ran an article today indicating that the latest round of bombings in London and Egypt have all of the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda operation, top to bottom. Not only is Osama not caught, he is actively working to strike us day after day. What are we doing about it? Nothing. We are tied up in a war of choice hundreds of miles away from where the real enemies are.
Hey RobW, watch, out the courageous patriots hereabouts have got your number even if they don’t have a clue how to fight the enemy. The dishonor of the likes of Karl Rove who can make a Nascar dad hate a New Yorker is evident just as the changing of the standards of “victory” will encompass equivicating with Iran and North Korea and a quiet retreat from an Iraq in chaos.
Wrote Orwell: “It is hardly an exxageration to state that if the intellectuals had done their work a little more effectively, England would have surrendered in 1940.” (“Antisemitism in Britain”, 1945)
Ah Orwell!
“ A few biographical notes about Orwell are in order: First, Orwell identified himself as a Democratic Socialist.” http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/
“Orwell began supporting himself by writing book reviews for the New English Weekly until 1940. During World War II he was a member of the Home Guard and in 1941 began work for the BBC Eastern Service, mostly working on programmes to gain Indian and East Asian support for Britain’s war efforts. He was well aware that he was shaping propaganda, and wrote that he felt like “an orange that’s been trodden on by a very dirty boot.” Despite the good pay, he resigned in 1943 to become literary editor of Tribune, the left-wing weekly then edited by Aneurin Bevan and Jon Kimche. Orwell contributed a regular column entitled “As I Please.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell
–
That Orwell?
Uh, Rob W? I blame the terrorists for terrorist attacks. I blame those on the left who continue to provide terrorists with rhetorical cover for providing them with rhetorical cover.
The rest of your post is comment is, frankly, incoherent. To point out that intelligence failures are the responsibility of those charged with gathering the intelligence is hardly passing the buck or avoiding responsibility. In fact, it’s the responsibility of the President to take on an entrenched intelligence bureaucracy and inject into it the kind of accountability we the taxpayers are entitled to, especially in light of documented intelligence failures. Still, I’m heartened to see you defending the CIA.
And to call the war a failure simply because terrorists are able to set off bombs is ludicrous. Such a standard means we should simply surrender now, because it is impossible—particularly in a liberal democracy, where privacy protections and freedom of movement are foundational expectations—to stop someone committed to blowing himself up from doing so without surrendering the liberal democracy itself.
ht —
You’re precisely the kind of unserious person I have no desire to argue with—the kind of person who on one hand will point to a (phantom) military failure in Iraq while simultaneously obliquely suggesting we should be doing more to combat the threat of Iran and North Korea than getting together with allies and using diplomatic measures. It’s pathetic, frankly.
go —
Who knows how Orwell would label himself now? What matters are his words on the subject of fascist and totalitarian threats and how to combat them. Playing ‘gotcha’ with labels that have evolved over the years is silly.
Of course this is no argument Jeff. Your main point is no argument it’s nonsense. My point about Iraq, Iran and North Korea is simply that we are not facing these challenges, fighting these wars intelligently.And you persist in spending more energy trying to identify the treachery among your nieighbors than evaluating the challenges themselves. Paying more attention to how the press expresses themselves as if you’ll discover a source of spirtual funding for the insurgency or the terrorists of Leeds.
I am but one the “little eichmanns” that go to work everyday in a target city. I went back a day after 9/11 and every day since. Like hundreds of thousands of others many of whom denounce Karl Rove for his insults and are fed up with the tin horn patriots who wish to threaten us into accepting every policy this adminsitration advances. My doughter’s school overlooks ground zero. My friends died on 9/11. I feel for every family and individual in London. I AM serious. Very serious. We need a more intelligent approach to this war than ferreting (forcefully) out your neighbors with the wrong opinions with their deadly tangential rays. You’re just building a career on anger and frankly, intellectual dishonesty.
But hey, it’s your blog and I have to put up with this nonsense.
And I’m happy to do it. I’m an American.
Rob W:
What Jeff said.
Or, to put it another way, taking your standard to its logical conclusion, all law enforcement is a failure if a single crime is committed, whether it be shoplifting or murder, so why bother with having a police force?
Nice argument for anarchy.
By the way, what would you have done, ignored Saddam? Lifted the sanctions against his regime? Left the Taliban in power in Afghanistan? If, after following that recipe, Saddam developed a nuclear threat and held the entire Middle East hostage, and/or we experienced a repeat of 9/11 (perhaps worse, with nuclear, radiological, chemical or biological weapons), whose fault would it have been, hmmm? Who are the real enemies, anyway, and where are they?
If you want to complain about what is, for my money you’d be a lot more convincing if you proposed a better alternative.
Let me get this straight, ht: pointing out that terrorists are given rhetorical cover by the kinds of grandstanding, hyperbolic arguments certain politicians keep repeating—even though they know the arguments to be false—and calling them to account for it…this is nonsensical?
My goodness. You’re beyond hope.
As to your suggestion that I spend more energy trying to identify treachery than evaluating challenges, I suspect regular readers of my site might beg to differ. And let’s face it: You don’t know me, and I’m quite certain your perusal of a couple of my posts puts you in no position to pronounce on my intellectual honesty.
After all, I have a post above that addresses Tom Tancredo’s controversial remarks of the other day from a strategic standpoint—and in the comments section, you’ll see an actual exchange of ideas among us wingnuts; whereas your contribution to the debate here has been to bash Bush, Republicans, me, and to ask if “Bush lied” about weapons of mass destruction.
Lots of people had friends who died on 911. You get no special dispensation from me for that. In fact, you might do your friend’s memory the honor of not using him as a rhetorical crutch and either address the thrust of my argument or stop making a fool of yourself by preening about your self-styled seriousness.
Because honestly? I have yet to see you utter a serious remark.
My particular peeve is with Amnesty international and their ‘gulag of our time’ comment. There is far too much of this sort of thing and it isn’t limited to the benighted ones at antiwar.com, Counterpunch, Zmag or the Nation. It is so pervasive that it has gone beyond cult status to mainstream. There are more ‘peace’ demonstrations planned by the likes of UFPJ, ANSWER and NOIN on Sept 24 so expect to see more of the same propaganda working its way into the general conciousness. It works, in that it encourages terrorism and every attack can of course be blamed on Bush, Blair etc; ie. anyone but the killers.
(Linked but your trackback isn’t working)
There is no point in responding further to any LLL/MMM who posts to any messageboard, or voices their opinion anywhere else.
They have been proven wrong time and time again.
They are spouting off their same tired talking points like a Parrot. Doesn’t make any difference what proof you give them they are not listening nor do they really care to.
Why?
Because they are on the side of the Islamoterrorists. They are on the side of anyone who wishes to destroy western civilization in favor of Marxism/Communism/Islamofascism. They are their propaganda machine. Despite their bloviations about how they love “peace” and are concerned about “human rights” they consistantly support (and make excuses for) some of the most brutal regimes in the world. They get all bent out of shape when someone dares question their patriotism yet they day-in-and-day-out do all they can to undermine the US and any free society. In short they are seditionists and traitors, sorry if that is not politically correct but it is the truth. The problem for them is that increasing amounts of people see them for who and what they are-a fifth column rooting for the terrorists. They are losing their grip on things, too. They are no longer in control, no one is listening anymore and they no longer getting their way. They never truly grasped the fact that the world fundamentally changed on a bright Manhattan morning in September. That shrill, shrieking sound coming from them is their death rattle. They figure that if they scream their big lies loud enough and long enough people will believe them. It isn’t working.
They are desperate.
Considering that the vast majority of them are rather unstable (to put it mildly and kindly) I would not be a bit surprised to see some of them pulling terrorist acts themselves in the near future. Unfortunately for them all that will get them is a long stay in a federal prison at best or a one way ticket to ride the lightning at worst.
Jeff,
Iowahawk described our boy Bart to a “T”,
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2005/07/stop_comparing_.html
“Man, I just don’t get it. There are lots of other American groups who are joining us against Bush’s crusade, like David Duke and Fred Phelps and Stormfront. But who do I get automatically lumped in with? East Village Rage Against My Allowance fuckwits in Fred Perry tracksuits who can’t figure out the controls on an iPod, let alone an international revolution.
It’s not fair, and I swear to Allah the next time somebody tries to link the jihad with these infidel dipshits, I am totally going to snap. And the next time one of you chicken martyrs puts on a keffiya and starts babbling about “solidarity with the resistance,†remember this: just because we are planning to kill you last doesn’t make you our buddy.”
I closed a series of comments in an exchange between myself and a Florida State law student named Bart Motes (who, frankly, couldn’t have been more of an asshole had he stood in my kitchen spitting turds out of his mouth). Those of you who must read them, go here. But I’d like to keep this thread on track.
Yeah it’s all the LEFT’s fault for daring to talk about human rights abuses at Gitmo. Not the fault of the regime perpetrating those abuses.
Right wing logic – ya can’t beat it if you want a good belly laugh on a Monday morning.
Leo, what abuses? Seriously, answer the question, and with actual facts, not “facts.” That’s Jeff’s point – the standards of evidence applied by the Left are:
1. For allegations made by a certified Person of the Left, the standard of evidence is “unsubstantiated allegation.” Such allegations will be considered proven due to the righteousness of the cause.
2. For allegations by persons not of the Left that contradict allegations made by Persons of the Left, these shall be presumed a pack of filthy lies promulgated by the fascist RethugliKKKan neocon Chimpy McHitlerburton worshippers. The more factual support such allegations have is not proof of the truth of said allegations. It is, in fact, conclusive proof of their falsity, because only the evil fascists, with their complete control of right-wing media outlets like the New York Times, have the ability to disguise lies to look like facts. The more convincing the fact, the more that’s proof of its falsity.
Ignorance is strength!
David C, you don’t get the concept of modern applied Human Rights(tm). It’s an expanding concept. By the time they were crafted they fit on a couple of nice standard sheets of paper, but nowadays Human Rights(tm) seem to include (1) a fresh copy of your holy book handed to you w/ white satin gloves each day even when you’re in custody for having been caught as an illegal combatant w/o proper uniform or military rank in a theater of war, (2) growing olive trees on a location of your wishing even though that had been sold to Zionists by your father 20 years ago, and unlike the other 3 billion peasants on this planet moving your trolley from A to B on a straight line while maximizing the encounters with international camera crew, and (3) being party to the assassination of a high-ranking UN official at the local headquarter in Baghdad – who, by the way, helped broker the peace in East Timor, another place of massive Human Rights(tm) abuses according to OBL -, but then being immediately released after a few of your fellow inmates had to endure a single night of s/m fantasies.
Think of the US Constitution. Written centuries ago, the Fathers dealt with some very, uhm, shall I say, discrete concepts. Nowadays mainstream judges discover by the week that even partial birth abortion is right in there. Go figure.
It’s clear from this comment thread that you’ve encountered a semantic problem, or well-developed Newspeak. The leftoid trolls genuinely don’t know what the word “lies” means. It’s like arguing about “racism” with some blacks – “racism” is some characteristic of Whitey, and can’t possibly apply to blacks, no matter how blatant it might be – think the Black Caucus or the NAACP. To far too many leftoids, “lies” are something you hear from the arch-Right, and can’t possibly come from fellow travellers. So to the rational types who know their English, leftoids sound like they’re nuts.
Leo couldn’t be bothered to read the thread. Hell, he couldn’t even be bothered to read the post evidently.
Because it strays from his pre-drawn narrative of how righties blame “the Left” in its entirety—not simply those on the left who are actually engaging in the behavior described.
That this is even a matter of dispute to people like Leo shows a predilection for willful blindness that does not bode well for the prospect of any kind of reasonable discussion.
And let’s face it: it’s easier to scoff at the straw man he’s created than to admit that some of his ideological fellow travelers are doing damage to the cause of fighting terrorism.
After all, straw men aren’t likely to blow his shit up.
Goldstein: I blame the terrorists for terrorist attacks. I blame those on the left who continue to provide terrorists with rhetorical cover for providing them with rhetorical cover.
No, you don’t. You said: THE LEFT LIED AND LONDONERS DIED!. Pretty clearly you’re blaming “THE LEFT” for the deaths of Londoners, such an important and ground-breaking insight that you had to put it in all caps. This backtracking is pathetic.
So Londoners died because of “rhetorical cover”? This is pretty dumb, even by Keyboard Warrior standards.
Uh, that was a play on “BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED!” Points out the irony of that particular (ridiculous) formulation. Anybody who reads my site with any regularity understands the all-caps thing. BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!
Of course, you are a particularly daft lefty, so you probably only read the all-caps stuff. Here, let me help you. I’ll even put the operable terms in bold:
“The same goes for those Democrats here who have spent months…”
“I should have thought this was clear, but in case it isn’t, let me set the record straight: I blame the terrorists for terrorist attacks. I blame those on the left who continue to provide…”
And finally, from the comments: “Here’s the thing: I am not blaming “the Left†en masse. But I am blaming those who are actively out to make political hay out of whatever the latest manufactured, ginned up outrage.”
Eventually, with enough work, I’m sure that I can make the distinction clear enough even for someone like you, Big Worm.
If as you claim no abuses occured at Abu Grahib then why is the Cheney administration defying a court order and refusing to turn over the photos and videos that show the abuse that didn’t occur?
Who are gonna believe the Administration or your lying eyes? Wisdom indeed.
And because none of these photos and videos have materialized we got evidence that they exist, did I get that right?
It’s fascinating what passes as logic in your corner of the web.
Spent much time in Gitmo, have you?
I linked to the report that concluded that no torture occurred. Abuse, depending on how you define such, is a different matter.
And the question, really, is whether or not there was systemic torture, or whether Gitmo was the horror show it was made out to be. Now that lawmakers have actually visited the place, the answer seems to be no.
Seems David has you pegged, esp. no. 2.
That’s all very nice, but irrelevant. You think “THE LEFT” or some ill-defined segment thereof, is responsible for the deaths of Londoners. You’re going to have to do a lot more work to establish a causal connection between the statements of Durbin et. al. and the bombings than merely finding one quote from a terrorist that he was inspired by abuse (emphasis added) at Guantanamo. I didn’t read where Tanweer said “I was kinda on the fence, but when Carl Levin said the magic word ‘torture,’ I knew I had to bomb someone.”
So, nice try, but no banana for you.
“It’s fascinating what passes as logic in your corner of the web.”
Why would the administration send lawyers to argue against the release of something that doesn’t exist?
Why would Senators claim to have seen the videos that don’t exist?
Brilliant reasoning.
I lobotomized my dog this morning, now he’s a conservative.
Ill-defined? Howsabout specifically defined.
And I’d press Tanweer more on his claim that reports of Gitmo abuses led him to strap on a bomb and blow himself (along with a bunch of infidels) to kingdom come, but, well, you know. Humpty Dumpty and all that.
So I guess you’re right. Until we have a definitive answer—that is, until we know with absolute certainty that providing terrorists with excuses, scapegoats, and rhetorical cover actually contributes to their actions, we should not be questioning those who do so.
Too judgmental.
I lobotomized my dog this morning, now he’s a conservative.
You should have fucked him. Reaffirm your “progressive” bona fides.
Incidentally, do you have links for any of this stuff? Senators claiming to see videos, lawyers arguing against the release of something that doesn’t exist…
Jeff–
Your execuction of the strawman gambit is predictable. I’m saying we need to invest more money and troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq was a stupid, stupid mistake, but we are there. I’m also saying that Bush is going to have really put it on the line–war bonds, tax increases, a DRAFT, whatever it takes to win the war.
But we’re also going to have to acknowledge what is going on in Islam as well. Much as some on your side (Tom Tancredo) would like to bomb Mecca (talk about opening your mouth and putting our troops in danger), we need to engage Islam. We possess the greatest entertainment and advertising minds around–why can’t we reach these people.
We haven’t even begun to try. If you say it can’t be done, we’ve already lost.
As for the Left enabling terror? How? As if our attack on Iraq didn’t do it? The result of our invasion is that people in the Middle East hate us. Blaming Durbin for attacks on U.S. troops is like blaming the fire alarm for the fire. American troops have mistreated Iraqis and others. It doesn’t matter if they are or are not guilty. It doesn’t matter if we are justifiably angry at them–Every time an American soldier mistreats a muslim prisoner, it makes it harder for us to win the war.
What’s wrong with Republic party people like yourself is that you fail to see that the political element is always the dominant one in war. A liberal application of firepower does not solve every military problem. Here we have to learn how to fight smart, how to make sure we are only hitting terrorists so as not to create more terrorists out of regular people. That means treating the enemy better than he treats us–because it helps us win!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And as for making political hay–good Lord, haven’t you been watching TV at all? Bush’s entire Presidency is based on making hay off of these attacks. Remember the terror alert for the “financial districts” right in the middle of the Democratic National Convention? That’s right, the one that applied to three square blocks of the entire U.S. Well, turns out that because Bush let people know where the information came from, (Khan’s Computer), the British had to move prematurely on terrorist bombers they had under surveillance. Some got away. Guess what they did this last month.
Nahanni: That’s just garbage what you wrote. Simply garbage. Go on creating these fake images of liberals in your head so you can feel better about yourself. Because that’s all you are doing.
The American people are tired of all of your garbage. That’s why Bush is running at 43% right now and why the Republic party is going to be out of luck in the next election.
Prudence,
are you referring to the Boston Herald article that got replicated all over the web, and which put words into the mouths of a bi-partisan panel whereas those actually originated from unidentified NBC journalists?
But good question about Democrats (because that’s what you meant, not some “Senators”) claiming something that’s untrue. Why would they do such a thing?
Sorry my name’s not Santorum or Cornyn.
Sorry you took my joke too seriously, it was just a little play on a conservative t-shirt I saw on one of the sites you linked to.
NYT article
“In the letter sent Thursday, Sean Lane, an assistant United States attorney, said that the government was withholding the photographs because they “could result in harm to individuals,” and that it would outline the reasons in a sealed brief to the court.”
So what photos, which don’t exist, are they witholding?
Talk about straw men, Rob. I’ve addressed every one of those issues you mention at one time or another. Are you suggesting that because I didn’t incorporate them into my criticism of grandstanding Democratic Senators whose words are providing rhetorical cover for terrorists who thrive in the chinks of the public armor, my argument about grandstanding Democratic Senators whose words are providing rhetorical cover for terrorists is somehow diminished?
You lump me in with everyone in the Republican party, make claims about my beliefs regarding war strategy that are completely untrue (and that you provide no evidence for) and you presume to accuse conservatives of making generalizations?
And I’ll tell the families of the USS Cole dead—as well as the 911 families—how our Iraq campaign caused terror.
I’m through with this.
You’re right, Goldstein. “Those who would make political hay,” and “those who provide rhetorical cover” are models of precision. Is the traitors list limited to Teddy, Dick, Carl, et. al. or are Hillary and Hagel also to be purged?
Your underlying point is well-taken, though. We shouldn’t do stuff that makes terrorists angry, or at least shouldn’t let them hear about it. Any suggestions as to how we can keep them from finding out about Iraq?
Prudence.
You do know that Abu Ghraib and Gitmo are different facilities, right?
Right?
From your link:
Oh, what’s the use.
Uhm, Prudence, I hate to shatter the illusion, but in which way did that New York Times article shed some more light into the affair, specifically concerning the urge that you put forth names of US government officials saying that there were “photos and videos that show the abuse”?
Media Info
Is Don Rumsfeld a reliable source for you?
That is Abu Ghraib again, Prudence. Not the same as Gitmo.
Concentrate.
Big Worm:
Sorry. I should have made a larger list of those on the Left who are guilty of the kind of grandstanding I’m talking about. Because I didn’t, you’re free to conclude that such people don’t exist, and that such rhetoric has never taken place.
As to whether or not Iraq is creating new terrorists. Yes, it is. But it is a strategic attempt to change the political culture of the region. Whereas, highlighting tortures that don’t exist?—not sure I understand the strategic value of that. Well, at least not to our side.
I understand that they are different, but the article that you linked to at FrontPage says that no abuses occured at either facility and that the “false” reports of abuse at both prisons are of a piece.
I also believe we have the General Miller conection.
For a person that divines all the connections between the left and Islamic terrorist and fails to see any connecton between Guantanamo & Abu Graihb, you are pretty obtuse.
Prudence,
do your homework. Here’s how Donald Rumsfeld is quoted:
The point is that you and your activist groups argue that somehow there were pictures from Abu Ghraib that depict unknown crimes. Yet none of these claims ever substantiated.
But feel free to keep on trying.
I didn’t write the Front Page article. I noted that there was no torture at Gitmo. The bomber? He noted Gitmo. And in my post, I also linked this piece—while singling out those who’d made hyperbolic statements about…wait for it…Gitmo!
You made a mistake. It’s okay. It can happen. Don’t let’s compound it by drawing more attention to it digging deeper.
Prudence wrote,
In actual fact, nowhere does the FP article purport that. The only conflation of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo appears here,
Rob,
It wasn’t the invasion of Iraq that resulted in hatred against us, rather it is the portrayal of it, the propaganda about it that fuels the hatred. By toppling Saddam the US reached out to 80% of the Iraqi population (Shiites and Kurds) and by staying and helping continue to reach out.
By concentrating on strawmen (A liberal application of firepower does not solve every military problem) you completely missed the vital ideological component; the proposition that liberal democracy has more to offer than the nihilistic fantasy ideologies of religious and secular fascism. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein was calculated to demonstrate this proposition. The fact is that the majority of Iraqis needed little convincing, but segments of the Left dismiss it outright and truly do favour the totalitarians by glorifying their murder sprees as ‘resistance to colonial oppression’. Try the archives at Counterpunch or Zmag to get the flavour.
There is however a portion of the left does recognize this problem and adresses it. I recommend the writings of Christopher Hitchens or Paul Berman and blogs like normblog, Oliver Kamm, Harry’s place, Hakmao and Drink-soaked Trotsyites for war.
Unite against terror was started by leftists;
“The point is that you and your activist groups argue that somehow there were pictures from Abu Ghraib that depict unknown crimes. Yet none of these claims ever substantiated.”
My point is there are photos which depict crimes which are known but that the public has not seen. That the fear is that if the American people actually saw what we were doing, instead of just thinking about it in the abstract, some of us might change our minds about what torture is or is not taking place.
And I will no longer conflate Guantanamo & Abu Graihb. There is no connection between the two. Each prison is it’s own discrete entity. One thing has nothing to do with the other. There are no dots to connect. But there certainly is a connection between what Dick Durbin says and what some murderous scumbag in London does. I think I get it now.
Me and my activist groups have to go take a piss now.
Me and my activist groups have to go take a piss now.
But not on your Qurans, I hope. That would be torture.
And I will no longer conflate Guantanamo & Abu Graihb. There is no connection between the two. Each prison is it’s own discrete entity. One thing has nothing to do with the other. There are no dots to connect. But there certainly is a connection between what Dick Durbin says and what some murderous scumbag in London does. I think I get it now.
Well, only if you believe the bomber himself. But then again, what does i>he</i> know, right? He’s just an ignorant subhuman in need of the loving protection of the magnanimous left who presumes to speak for him. Kinda like when Usama bin Laden pens a declaration of war in which he outlines his reasons for that war, but we’re instructed by George Galloway, et al to ignore those reasons, because Usama knows not of which he speaks. Silly Arab. Pontificating above his station.
The Senator from Illionois said on the Senate floor:
And here’s how the Times reports:
Certainly Mr Tanweer pulled the allegations out of the dry air, and it’s really just a coincidence that the Senator from Illinois made remarks to the same effect.
Jeff,
I’m sorry, this is a wildly overheated comment thread, many folish things have been said on both sides, and I should know better than to join in. But…
You wrote (in comments):
“I linked to the report that concluded that no torture occurred. Abuse, depending on how you define such, is a different matter.”
And the asshole terrorist-sympathizer in the story you quoted said:
“He recalled how Tanweer argued with family and friends about the need for violent retaliation over US abuse of Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.”
You’re both using the word “abuse” (not “torture”) at Gitmo (not Abu Ghraib). You seem to have acknowledged that, in fact, some of the events at Gitmo could be reasonably described as abuse. It isn’t obvious why this should get you so angry at the Left.
And, of course, I meant to say “foolish”.
“He’s just an ignorant subhuman in need of the loving protection of the magnanimous left who presumes to speak for him.”
No he was a disgusting human being who murdered innocent people. The only protection I want to give murderers is whatever protection the Justice system or whatever god you choose to believe in metes out.
And I don’t care in the least what some murdering scumbag has to say, there is no excuse for murder period.
See where I am coming from now? I hate murdering scumbags no matter what their ideology is, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro included.ÂÂ
And I think that pissing on the Quaran is as much torture as pissing on the Bible, or the Stars & Bars.
Or, you could always go to the abuse allegations made by actual British detainees at Guantanamo about a year ago (here’s a similar article from Fox News, dated 8/4/04 that also talks about their claims of Koran desecration). I’m pretty sure that the average terrorist-to-be in Britain would probably not be unswayed from killing people upon reading a Front Page Magazine article concluding that no torture had occurred.
P.S. Of course, I am not making any opinion as to whether the linked allegations were substantiated.
Thanks for a thoughtful response, Ted. There were a few instances of abuse noted in the report, but I’d argue that both the amount and the degree of critical rhetoric directed at Gitmo abuses (often framed as “torture”) and publicized all over the world—including the wildly overheated rhetoric from many of our own lawmakers—turned out not to match the facts on the ground. And my point was not to blame “the Left” for terrorism, but to point out that because such rhetoric is potentially quite harmful to the prosecution of the war, it would be helpful if our elected officials would have facts at their disposal before they went about providing rhetorical cover for terrorists.
Re: “abuse” v. “torture”:
As Niko points out above, the article goes on to say “‘Whenever he would listen about sufferings of Muslims he would become very emotional and sentimental,’ Mr Saleem said. ‘He was a good Muslim . . . he also wished to take part in jihad and lay down his life.
‘He knew that excesses are being done to Muslims. Incidents like desecration of the Koran have always been in his mind.’”
I don’t want to get too hung up on the distinction between “torture” and “abuse,” because that necessarily forces us to question how the cousin making the statement is using the word (does he equate abuses with torture? Did Tanweer?) Instead, I’d focus on the idea of “excesses”. And on what kind of evidence an assimilated western Muslim like Tanweer used to draw such a conclusion.
It is my hypothesis—and the point of my post— that terrorists are able to draw on the hyperbolic rhetoric of certain western leaders to provide themselves with, in their minds, corroboration of their worst fears. And because there is no earthly reason outside of partisan politics to publicize such speculation as fact (and worse, to carry on repeating it after it’s been debunked), I concluded that it needs to stop, and I excoriated those whom I felt were responsible.
Regular readers of this site will recognize that I’ve criticized Sean Hannity, or Bill O’Reilly, or Hugh Hewitt, etc, for similar offenses.
Actually there is a connection between Abu Ghraib and Gitmo–General Miller, who put together the interrogation packages for both. He was tasked with “Gitmoizing” Abu Ghraib.
I hope I haven’t been too overheated, but the fact of the matter is that thinking that offhand comments by American politicians such as Tancredo (bombing Mecca) or Durbin (Gitmo) somehow has anything to do with the terror attacks is ridiculous. Is your first impulse to bomb innocent civilians when you watched Mr. Berg viciously beheaded? I don’t think so. These terrorists have responses to political information which can only be classed as pathological.
Thus the idea that whatever Durbin said caused attacks anywhere doesn’t hold water. Terrorists will attack because we have lawfully imprisoned their allies. Terrorists need to be confronted, not fellow Americans. Let’s see us concentrate on getting Osama, who apparently is doing more than just hanging out in Pakistan now.
Essentially the liberal critique is this: We need to fight by a different code than the terrorists, a code of our own honor, even if it means fighting with one hand behind our back because (1) it is what is required to win the political battle for allies inside and outside the Arab world; and (2) because it is morally right that we treat those we detain in the war in our custody as we want to see our own prisoners treated. That’s the golden rule that Jesus taught. There is also has a practical dimension–treating prisoners correctly leads to our soldiers being treated better on the battlefield. Perhaps by these bad guys, perhaps not. But more importantly, by other enemies we will face in the future. That’s the whole idea behind the Geneva conventions. Its in our interest to follow them. Don’t shoot the messenger, shoot the terrorists.
Characterizing the prepared comments of Durbin, Kennedy, Dean, Reid, Pelosi, et al as “offhand” is part of the problem. My thesis is that these comments are anything but—that in fact they are calculated political statements meant to score points against a Republican administration whose foreign policy ideas are at odds with those of the Democrats (who, ironically, are now the “realists” they so despised under Nixon and Bush I).
And the argument was never that the comments caused the terror attacks, just that they provide rhetorical cover for them.
The liberal critique you offer is fine except where it begs the question: that is, wanting the prisoners to be treated well while assuming (and worse, asserting, publicly and hyperbolically, and without evidence) that they are not, then wringing your hands ostentatiously in the service of that “code of honor” for the purposes of scoring political points—this is unacceptable, and under my critique, militates against the prosecution of the war on terror.
I appreciate the level-headed response, though.
Brian O’Connell has other thoughts here, if you’re interested.
Leftists, your religion is dying. Its flame is going out in the universe.
Your obsession with a redemption myth and on a utopia that can never happen due to the animal nature of mankind, a nature that you naively refuse to understand, is bad enough.
Your willful recklessness towards dismantling and destroying the current society with little regard to what might replace it – which is most likely a totalitarian regime led by a madman that will kill tens or hundreds of millions, including you and your own families – is a sign of unadulterated mental derangement.
Your de facto alliances with, and apologetics for, the most brutal and oppressive movements on the face of the earth, and your sociopathic disregard for the mass injustice and the horrible deaths of 100 million people your enablement of monsters has already caused, is the final symptom of your madness.
You hate the U.S. and Israel, arguably the most decent nations on the planet, and the Jews with their l’chaim-let’s-celebrate-life culture, because those are the major groups that block your glorious, nihilistic destruction of the West.
Reasonable people are now being informed of the truth about your religion due to the stunning defeat of your mainstream media’s lock-hold on information dissemination, a defeat led by the US-military-created Internet.
This will be your undoing as more reasonable people increase their political and, yes, physical resistance against you. Rathergate was just the very mild beginning.
Your secrets are out; your madness and stupidity exposed; you will not survive.
May I remind what Churchill said of the leftists’ friend, the Islamists:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
I should have made a larger list of those on the Left who are guilty of the kind of grandstanding I’m talking about. Because I didn’t, you’re free to conclude that such people don’t exist, and that such rhetoric has never taken place.
Indeed, I am free to conclude that. But I didn’t. I just asked for a litte more precision when charges of terrorist-incitement are hurled. But consider another vicious straw man valiantly vanquished!
As for the strategic value of not treating people like animals, there may be none, but I’d nonetheless prefer that my government avoid it.
I just asked for a litte more precision when charges of terrorist-incitement are hurled.
Actually, what you asked for was a little more precision in addition to my citations of Galloway, Livingstone, Dean, Durbin, Teddy Kennedy, and Carl Levin, which were further coupled with the descriptions, “Those who would make political hay,†and “those who provide rhetorical cover.â€Â
I provided you with a set of specific actors, and then a set of potential behaviors to identify previous, unmentioned actors and future potential actors that fit the criteria of my criticism.
Pray tell, what constitutes “further precision” beyond what I’ve already given you? And what is it that would NOT be a straw man in your understanding?
So Jeff, how does this “there is no turture going on here” square with this from last month (the original article is gone, so you’ll have to go through my Furl archive)
The article does say that the incidents are isolated and not systematic, but they are admitting that torture happened.
Oh, and slightly off topic, there’s a wonderful little bit on the central players here.
Well, Hal, the sourcing on that, from what I understand, is a single anonymous UN spokesman. But if you look at the actual document, you’ll see that the spin put on this by AFP (and it later appeared a few more places, including Forbes) is very misleading.
See here.
As I mentioned somewhere (I’ve written on all this too many time at too many places today), the outrage over Gitmo among Democratic party leaders and the press has died down since the official report on Guantanamo abuses was released, and since lawmakers started actually visiting the facility. So what you’re left with is the official report against an unnamed UN source who doesn’t seem to be addressing any kind of specific incident, but who instead seems to be misunderstand what constitutes an “admission”.
Thanks for being genial, by the way.
More flies with honey, yada yada yada.
WRT anonymous UN officials, point taken.
It’s interesting to read the actual report – thanks. Even more interesting to see that the US has reversed it’s previous change on the definition of torture, and it would seem that the things described by the objective Red Cross clearly fit the current (and previous) definition of torture.
It seems like the US is saying that, under its now reversed position on what constitutes torture, no torture occurred. Which is kind of convenient. Ref
Leading us into a strange fantasy world where – at the time the acts were committed, they weren’t considered torture. But before the infamous memo, they were, and after reversing the memo, they are.
Far better at this semantic parsing than the Clinton administration ever was…
If I may:
1) You emphasize a statement about how _abuse_ at Gitmo made a bomber angry.
2) You supposedly refute that _abuse_ occurred by referring to a credulous report of a Pentagon investigation of itself in which the assertion is made that _torture_ did not occur—an investigation which nevertheless recommended the general in charge be punished, a recommendation that was overruled, so that the investigation had exactly zero effect on discouraging future abuse.
3) You focus on one site, Gitmo, to the exclusion of numerous other known instances of human rights abuses by the US military. That’s OK, though, because we _only_ know the bomber was angry about Gitmo, he may have been fine with all the rest of it.
4) You say that reports of _torture_ are both false and inflammatory.
5) You conclude “THE LEFT LIED AND LONDONERS DIED”
It’s a ridiculous and offensive piece that simultaneously
1) denies abuses and/or torture occurred
2) relies on a fairly specious torture/abuse distinction
3) relies on the government, which never ever lies, honestly relaying the facts about whatever-it-was, torture-or-abuse
4) denies the seriousness of these incidents as a recruiting tool for terrorist networks, and
5) blames those publicly denouncing these abuses for
6) recruiting terrorists to terror networks
I think Mr. Edroso got your post exactly right: it’s “blame the left for whatever goes wrong” because their words matter more than the deeds those words are about.
Ah yes—“the Pentagon investigation is illegitimate” rebuttal, from which all else flows. Wonderful. It’s amazing how when you begin by begging the question, everything falls so neatly into place.
As for concluding the “THE LEFT LIED AND LONDONERS DIED,” I’ve explained that for those who don’t read this site on a daily basis. Please see the footnote.
Anyway, here’s your argument, paraphrased, without all the fancy enumeration:
Abuse DID occur on a wide and systematic scale, regardless of what the self-serving Pentagon report says. BUSH / RUMSFELD / THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX LIED! And even if widespread abuse didn’t occur at Gitmo, it DID occur at Abu Ghraib. No matter that the military itself uncovered those abuses and punished the offenders. Such doesn’t really matter, because Muslims, as we know, are incapable of acknowledging that we punish our law breakers. Or rather, they acknowledge it, but they’re just too barbaric to forgive it. Because let’s face it: They just aren’t quite as human as us.
Following on the heels of Abu Ghraib, having western leaders—people ostensibly fighting a war on terror—publicaly attributing to Gitmo the same kinds of goings on from Abu Ghraib (in advance of any formal findings, in the most hyperbolic rhetoric imaginable) is not at all inflammatory. And even if it is, so what? Imprisoning terrorists is a recruiting tool for terrorists, and the quicker we learn that, the more likely we are to win over the terrorists.
So rather than criticizing those public spokespeople who denounced, in hyperbolic terms, Gitmo abuses that didn’t exist on anything like the scale they initially claimed (which, though you argue you are criticizing them for giving the terrorists rhetorical cover and not for the terrorists acts themselves, I’m unconvinced that you actually mean that), why don’t you simply admit that you hate liberals, that your argument is ridiculous, and that you are lying about not blaming the entire left? Why? Why? Liar.
****
that about sum it up?
“… because their words matter more than the deeds those words are about.” The Leftists are obsessed with panties on a terrorist’s head rather than NO HEAD on some poor kidnapped “infidel”. That is why we must fight the Secular Religion of the Left and Islamofacism. They are allied in their cynical use of each other toward the same end – the death of the Judeo-Christian West. Both of these twisted theologies of hate and oppression believe they will be able to deal with their ally when their primary mission is accomplished. The Secular Religion and Islamofacism must both be eradicated, root and branch.
You righties still doubt that human rights abuses occurred at Gitmo? Regardless of the “interrogation techniques” detailed in the US administration’s own Fay report or the statements of released detainees such as Moazzam Begg, you might like to know that in civilised countries it’s still considered an abuse of human rights to incarcerate people without trial.
And Gitmo’s a relatively pleasant place compared to, for example, the detention centres in Uzbekistan that the US and UK ‘farmed out’ their interrogation to.
You’re suggesting that the essence of your post wasn’t that Lefties caused the bombings by inflaming the Muslim world with their invented tales of abuse in Gitmo? What was the essence of your post then?
As a Londoner and regular commuter by tube and by bus (I missed the Kings Cross bomb by about 15 mins) I have a pretty strong desire to see terrorism stopped. Where we differ is in how we think this goal is best achieved.
I also find it pretty repugnant that right wingers and Islamophobes are cynically trying to gain political capital from these attacks.
Actually, Leo, it seems to me it’s the “right wingers” who are calling for particular lefties (and certain righties, as well—do a search on here for Justin Raimondo, for instance) to stop trying to capitalize politically off of things like detainee claims of “torture” and hysterical tales of widespread abuse in Gitmo. Or, as I’ve said now fifty times, this post and my subsequent comments specifically call for westerners to stop providing terrorists with scapegoats and rhetorical cover for their acts (which, again, for the thousandth time, I blame on the terrorists themselves). It is simply inconceivable to me that this point is even debatable: when you are in a war, it is counterproductive to help the enemy with its propaganda.
All you have to offer is some feeble appeal to authenticity (you ride the Tube), and the offensive suggestion that by taking in interest in how our politicians comport themselves during war time, we are “Islamohobes.”
First time reader.
I suppose to keep on thread the discussion should be on whether or not it is rhetoric that is to blame for terrorist actions.
Let us say that it is. That raises the question of balance. Do we cease in our observations of the 1st Amendment just because of a few bombers? I say no, but others may disagree. Freedom is, by its nature, means less security than an autocratic state.
To continue this line of thought, let us consider what would happen if this rhetoric were to stop. Would the terrorists get discouraged and cease their activities? I would venture to say…no.
Do you truly believe it is simple rhetoric that spurs on this war? No, actions do. And it will be in our actions that Americans succeed or fail, not rhetoric.
Both Left and Right should pay more attention to what is being done rather than what is being said.
Perhaps then we can adjust our strategy and act intelligently, not loudly.
A thought.
Thanks, Satori_Cowboy —
First, let me say upfront that I don’t agree with your characterization of my post (for additional clarification, see here). But for the sake of argument, I’ll answer your concerns this way: the First Amendment gives you the right to say just about whatever you wish (though, famously, you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater if there is no fire, and I’ll leave it up to readers to decide if shouting “torture” in the middle of a war when there is no torture constitutes a similar offense); but just because you have that right doesn’t mean you need to exercise it—particularly with the kind of poor judgment that guarantees your words will be used against the US and its allies by our enemies.
Further, analyzing what is being said in no way precludes one from paying attention to what is being done—and I’ve posted plenty here on strategy and operations. This post just happened to focus on what is being said. And, as some of my more “nuanced” readers never tire of lecturing me, we must look at all aspects of this crisis, including the political solutions we can employ to reduce the terror threat. And that’s just what I’ve done here.
Do I truly believe that “simple rhetoric” spurs this war? Well, firstly, I blame terrorists for their own actions; but I hardly see how anyone—especially in the wake of Nazi propaganda in WWII, the anti-semitic rhetoric in the middle east, and the Soviet propaganda mills that were an important component of Cold War strategy—could reasonably conclude that rhetoric is a minimal concern in this war.
This comment comes to me by way of Chris L, via email:
Commenter Prudence Goodwife relied heavily on a recent NYT article about the DoD refusing to turn over Abu Ghraib materials, supposedly in defiance of a Court order, starting with this 7/25, 11:22 a.m. post:
That’s an accurate summary, as far as it goes, of an article that ran this weekend in the NY Times. What ran this Monday in the NY Times was the following “correction”:
“An article on Saturday about a federal judge’s order regarding photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal misstated a deadline and the response by Defense Department lawyers. The government was given until Friday to black out some identifying details in the material, not to release it. Defense Department lawyers met that deadline, but asked the court to block the public release of the materials. They did not refuse to cooperate with an order for the materials’ release.”
In other words, the entire story was wrong, wrong, and more wrong. Judging from the correction, the NYT “reporter” could not have spoken to the DoD lawyers at all before publishing, or she couldn’t have gotten the story so entirely bollixed up in every detail. The entire business is <a href=”
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011150.php“>here</a>:
Prudence, indeed.
****
thanks, Chris.
THE LEFT LIED AND LONDONERS DIED – This is, of course, meant as a tongue-in-cheek jab at the “Bush Lied, People Died†legend so popular with progressives, as regular readers of this site already understood. But today we have visitors who, while so famously proud of their nuance and their mastery of cultural dialogics, often, in my experience, require that irony be spelled out for them in excrutiating detail. Hence, this footnote.
Jesus Christ, a turgid explanation of a joke that wasn’t even funny in the first place.
I now await the confidant reassurance that right wingers are much funnier than lefties.
Sorry, are you somebody important, Joe? Because if not, what the fuck gave you the idea anyone cares what you “await”?
Don’t know if that’s a non-turgid-enough response for you, but I am “confidant” [sic] I don’t give a shit either way.
Dear Jeff,
(can I call you Jeff?), thanks for your quick response. Judging from your angry replay I would say you do give a shit. However, as much as I would love to stay and chew the fat and exchange spelling flames I have no real inclination to do so. But please, keep up whatever it is you do exactly, and keep those gags coming.
Best regards
Joe
I’m “confidant” [sic] my angry “replay” [sic] was no such thing, Joe. I was merely responding in kind to someone clearly not a regular reader who was kind enough to drop in and use my bandwidth to offer a well-thought out critique of my turn of phrase.
After all, nothing says “I’m interested in engaging in a substantive debate” more than the kind of reasoned response you took pains to craft, Joe.
Well, I’m very sorry. If I’d known “vaguely patronising†was the appropriate tone for the infrequent commenter, I would have acquiesced.
Well, that’s up to you. But for future reference, you’ll get a reasoned response from me if you begin by engaging the argument rather than simply attacking me personally without first having some idea of the context into which you’re tossing your two cents.
Jeff (on your original post):
For crying out loud Jeff. Sheesh…be serious!
Well, no……don’t….
Please…
DON’T!
“The Left will never dare to look in the mirror. As long as the jihadis kill someone else, the Left will valorize them because, hey, it’s our right to dissent! What could be more patriotic?!”
What a convoluted and outright moronically generalized statement. Additionally, it is total bullshit to actually believe something so contrived..
[…] are more evil than the bigotry of people like JD and Thor. What Goldstein does is both provide intellectual cover for bigots and advance a political agenda on behalf of homophobic bigotry [I support civil […]