Category Archives: ‘Terror’

Melanie Phillips is a terrorist

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One of the current stars of the right-wing (or rather, neo-con) blog circuit is the English columnist and author, Melanie Phillips. Her vociferous hatred of Islam, her certainty that, left to the pansy-liberals, Britain is doomed to become a caliphate (her book’s called Londonistan) and her… vociferous hatred of the left have all earned her a certain cachet among the broadly American neo-conservatives whose praise she courts. Personally, I think they like her even more because she’s English and serious-looking: far easier to like than the dangerously blonde and completely mad scourge of common sense, Ann Coulter. Oh, and because she’s very good at telling certain people that their ill-fouded beliefs about Britain are correct.

Well I guess that’s enough praise for Melanie. The reason I’m writing is to have a look at some of her writing. Specifically, her recent article ‘Suicide Of The West‘ in the National Review Online.

The main gist of this article is that the British ‘establishment and chattering classes’ are making a huge mistake in their understanding of Islamist terrorism when they consider that it might be influenced by foreign policy. She states that this attitude ignores the fact that this terrorism has a religious aspect and that,

There was an al Qaeda plot in Birmingham to blow up Britain back in 2000 — before 9/11, let alone the war in Iraq. Similarly, jihadi attacks on the U.S. began 22 years before 9/11 with the Iran embassy hostage crisis in 1979, followed by two decades of further attacks.

It is undeniably true that Islamist terrorists existed before 2001 (they would have had to form their cells long before then in order to carry out their earlier attacks on the WTC, the east-African embassies etc etc). What she omits to mention is that US/UK foreign policy also existed prior to 2001. For example, the ‘war in Iraq’ didn’t begin in 2003. It could reasonably be stated that the war began as early as 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Our military took up positions in Saudi Arabia (at the behest of the regime there) and continued assaults on Iraq throughout most of the subsequent thirteen years.

Prior to the Iraq war, the United States supported Iraq in its war against Iran, supported jihadis in Afghanistan against the Soviets, supported the Shah in Iran (this was before it was all about ‘freedom and democracy’) – all policies which had their as their base a fairly sound (if unpleasant) strategic intention but which undoubtedly fomented anger and hatred against the west long before 2000. When remembered, these facts make it clear that while it’s perfectly obvious that al Qaeda started before 2000, so did the foreign policies which allegedly enraged them. I’ll go further and say that Melanie Phillips knew all of this perfectly well but chose to ignore historical fact in order to pursue her central theme: that we are facing a religious war rather than the hangover from decades of meddling, bombing and assassinating.

Why does Phillips think that she can get away with this? She is a journalist of many years’ experience with an excellent academic reputation. It’s puzzling that she can be rigorous while constructing arguments based utter mendacity. Well, it’s not really. Her rhetoric has been carefully honed to fit its intended audience: the American right-wing. Who else would believe the myth of the religious war when no war has ever really been about religion?

Phillips goes on to say that the radicalisation of British Muslims is the fault of (wait for it…) the BBC. By bombarding the British people with anti-USA, anti-Israel propaganda, the BBC is ‘culpable’ for al Qaeda terrorist attacks.

[The BBC] powerfully incites hatred by persistently misrepresenting Israel’s self-defence as unwarranted aggression, and giving air-time to an endless procession of Islamic jihadists, propagandists, anti-Western activists and bigots with rarely even a hint of a challenge.

While I am unable to review every minute of the BBC’s news coverage over the last ten years, I can remember plenty of interviews and airtime given to Israeli officials, US Army generals and modern neo-conservatives which I have seen with my own eyes. If you watched the BBC at the time of the invasion of Iraq, you too will remember the ghoulish blood lust that seems to overtake every news outlet at times of war. The Guardian had rather too many graphics of how laser-glide bombs work for my liking. My point is that it’s unreasonable to accuse the BBC of prejudice unless you’re willing to accept that ‘when it counts’, the BBC always backs up ‘our boys’.

Add to that the campaign led by the BBC against the Taliban regime in Kabul (extensive reporting of human rights abuses, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, a Despatches documentary about the religious/moral police force), joyous reports of democratic elections in Afghanistan and Iraq… I’ve looked hard for this alleged bias in the BBC but I’ve never found it.

For Israel’s fight is the world’s fight. Lose Israel, and the world is lost
…

…yes, that’s true. But how do we best secure the safe future of Israel? By deciding that we’re locked in some sort of esoteric ‘religious war’? Melanie Phillips is committed to selling the concept of a clash of cultures, a war of ideals. This war exists but it’s not between Christians and Muslims. The war of ideas in the west is between truth and lies, between power and democracy, between terror and debate, between reason and hate. Those of us dedicated to truth, democracy, debate and reason – from accross the political spectrum – need to stand up soon to prevent these people from controlling the dialogue.

‘Islamo-fascism’ – an emotional term

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An excellent piece in The Nation’s September 11 2006 issue criticises the misuse of the term ‘fascism’ in today’s political dialogue, as well as the nonsense of a concept of ‘Islamic-fascism’ (or ‘Islamo-fascism).

“Islamo-fascism” enrages to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don’t already hate us. At the same time, it clouds with ideology a range of situations–Lebanon, Palestine, airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq–we need to see clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.

Crystalising perfectly my feelings about this silly term, Katha Pollitt only hints at what I’ve said before about who precisely is closer to fascism if one compares Osama bin Laden and George Bush, Jr. At least I can be sure of one thing: some people out there continue to care about the meaning of words.

Oh, and while I’m here, I’ve a nice article in the works about Melanie Phillips, the sour-mouthed darling of the right-wing blogging world.

Why does everyone hate the BBC?

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There is a widespread trend in the so-called ‘blogosphere’ which consists of bashing the BBC for an alleged bias behind their coverage of home and international news. Sites like ‘Biased BBC’, ‘Busting BBC Bias’, and several others are dedicated to highlighting a perceived anti-conservative or more often anti-Israeli agenda.

Analysis of state-run news agencies is important. I have witnessed plenty of occasions when the BBC has taken up its ‘public service – unite the people’ mantle with a bit too much enthusiasm. Golden Jubilees and other uninteresting royal events leap to mind.

However, I have never detected anything in their coverage of the Israel-Palestine or Israel-Lebanon which amounted to anti-Israeli bias. Every news report I’ve watched over the last few weeks has matched Fox News for the amount of content broadcast from the Israeli side of the frontier, spending plenty of time talking to Israeli civilians in shelters, inspecting damage to houses and shops, asking for the opinions of shoppers and holidaymakers in Tel Aviv. All of this was done in a sensitive, humane way with absolutely no hint of malice or put-downs on the part of the BBC.

Of course, the BBC also showed images of devastation in southern Lebanon. Blocks of flats which had collapsed, two-storey-deep holes in Beirut, dead women and children. Several times, it was noted that the BBC weren’t allowed to enter Hezbollah-controlled zones. It was made clear at these times that this might have been because Hezbollah had ‘command and control bunkers’ or ‘armed fighters’ on the streets. Continue reading Why does everyone hate the BBC? →

The PP loves victims of terrorism

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During their time in power as well as during their disgraceful period in opposition, the PP have put nearly all of their energy into dividing Spain. Their constant jibes and threats – targeted against not only the left-wing but against distinct national groups within Spain – have changed this country and have increased tensions between Catalans, Basques, Spaniards, immigrants, conservatives, liberals and socialists.

This is a typical modus operandi for a one-policy party. Political entities of this type have no real philosophy or plan behind them other than the manufacture of fear among the populus. And they’re very successful at it. Intelligent, reserved Spaniards and Catalans whom I know are hesitant to pursue their own political goals because of a perceived threat that if modernisation of this country ‘goes too far’, the right wing will ruin things again.

The PP use this fear to divide the people of Spain. They use it to radicalise Spanish politics. These methods only ever benefit the PP and are all the more disgraceful because they are merely a means to attempt to regain power: as we have made very clear before, the PP does not believe in anything except its own right to control Spain.

To try and derail peace talks between the government and ETA, peace talks which the PP have already agreed to, purely in order to win political points, is the most abhorrent and repulsive act so far committed by this party. Their aim is clearly to gain power at all costs: even if it means that the streets of Spain run with the blood of more victims of terrorism. To call the PP simply power-hungry and divisive is to miss the point. The PP care so little for the people of Spain that they would rather see them dead than alive; if it meant that they controlled la Moncloa. So the question now is whether you’d like to see more victims of terrorism or fewer. The PP know which they’d prefer, and that’s why they’re trying to provoke more violence.

Where’s the threat?

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John Barrass’s editorial on Barcelona Reporter is unduly critical of Catalan national sentiments, and of the groups committed to further autonomy for Catalonia. Indeed, the piece urges readers to ignore threats by a top Spanish military officer that the army would have to intervene should Catalonia – as irrelevant, all the while pointing out that it is Catalan seperatist elements who are the real threat to democracy.

What worries me about these claims is that I don’t believe it’s wise to discount the growing far right sentiment in Spain as unthreatening. The PP have successfully radicalised a large percentage of Spanish conservatives, via groups like the fictitious AVT (Victims of terrorism Association, dedicated to campaigning against PSOE policies and filling PP rallies), via highly suggestive rhetoric (the so called ‘Balkanisation’ of Spain) and by openly referring to ‘the socialists, communists and anarchists’ when what they meant was the centre-left PSOE government. The words ‘communist’ and ‘anarchist’ have a particularly powerful effect on Spaniards of a certain generation.

Barrass also drags up scraps of data about various local initiatives put in place to redress the inbalance caused by nearly forty years of brutal repression. TV3, the regional broadcaster, comes in for special attention. Apparently, it receives ‘far too much funding’, and yet it and 33 are the only watchable channels on Spanish television. What’s the problem with a strong regional broadcaster? The PP invested over five times more in Madrid than in Barcelona when it controlled the central government. Would it be preferable to return to that imbalance? I don’t think so.

Yet again, efforts are being made to ‘split the vote’ in Catalonia, suggesting that non-Catalans living here are somehow at risk of being disenfranchised (or even persecuted!) by the Govern de Catalunya. Needless to say, this is scaremongering. What Barrass is absolutely right on is that the rule of law and democracy must always prevail. Catalonia and Spain share a shameful history of corruption and nepotism. Before anything can really be improved, this culture should be changed.

‘Islamism’ in Swansea University

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The Guardian reports today that many universities across the UK house extremist and Islamist groups which ‘pose a threat to national security’. Swansea University is listed as one of the institutions where Islamist groups have been found to operate by professor Anthony Glees, head of Brunel University’s centre for intelligence and security studies.

While I haven’t been a student at Swansea for some time now, it’s true that there was a fair degree of student activism on campus. I took part in campaigns for the abolishment of university tuition fees, to prevent the closure of university departments and on behalf of the Socialist Workers’ Party against the war in Afghanistan.

At around the same time, a motion was put before the student union council to boycott Israeli academics and institutions because of acts being committed by the Israeli state against Palestinians. These were the days of Ramallah and Jenin where crimes against humanity were carried out by the Israeli army.

The main critics of the motion to boycott Israeli academics and institutions were American and Jewish students, understandably fearful that the left wing of the student body were turning to an anti-Semitic position. A synagogue was damaged in an attack in 2002 – and though it was never proven that this was connected with Muslim or socialist students – the suggestion was that the socialists had helped to create a culture of hatred in the town.

Naturally, I think that this was the wrong conclusion. At a time when the BNP were trying to claw their way into local politics, race riots were taking place in Bradford and Leeds, the US had started its racist war against Muslims in Asia, there were a lot of violent and malicious incidents occurring. I believe that the intellectual boycott brought about by the student union was one of the best considered political acts I have witnessed. It was absolutely not anti-Semitic, and I find it personally insulting that whenever there is any discussion of the wrongs that have been committed on either side of the Palestinian conflict, accusations to that effect will be made.

The reason I have brought this up is that I have a sneaking suspicion that Swansea’s ‘extremism’ and ‘Islamic’ will be found to be intrinsically linked with the boycott of Israeli academics and institutions – which just isn’t the truth. As ought to be expected in the climate of fear that the British government is doing its best to create, any free thinking or direct action is automatically challenged as a threat to security.

Anyone familiar with Swansea university, Swansea City Council and the Swansea Police’s attitude towards leftist student activism will already be aware of the attempts made to silence lecturers, terrorise students and prevent demonstrations. It seems that the next attempt might be to refer to Muslim student activists as ‘terrorists’. This is exactly the sort of thing warned about before, throughout and after my brief time in Swansea.

The defamation of any politicised student or worker body has reached such a degree of acceptance in the UK that we may well have gone beyond the point of no return. It’s imperative that anyone who can, speaks out against this attitude.

The legality of the war never mattered.

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Recent leaks and admissions over exactly what Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General said in his two bits of advice to the PM about war in Iraq has been generated by the Labour party to cloud our memories of why it is we opposed the war.

Legality was never the factor that bothered us. It was the only argument that could have been used to physically prevent our troops going into battle; but the argument against the war was always a moral one. And we were right. Today, Iraq still barely has a government, is under foreign occupation and suffers continual attacks from foreign insurgents. It seems trite to mention all this again, but there were no terrorists in Iraq until the US and the UK let them in. 21,000 civilians have died because of our greed. Half a million children died because of the hopelessly corrupt and inept UN Oil-for-Food programme and the allied air-strikes which went on for 10 years.

So now, Tony Blair says that he is happy to fight the election on trust, but at the same time, he makes the insupportable claim that if 10% of Labour voters stay at home, the Tories will get in “by the back door”.

We can trust Blair on some points: he’s committed to curtailing human rights in the UK; he’s willing to support the phoney wars started by the US; he will intentionally mislead the government and the electorate to pursue policies he believes are right; he cannot be trusted.

Of course, Michael Howard is no better.

So it makes sense to vote for smaller parties. England would benefit from an increase in the number of parties asking for support in the election. The Lib Dems might well still be interested in introducing proportional representation as a replacement for our current system.

Give Labour a bloody nose, but don’t let the Tories back in! Is what I think.