THE ATROCITY ATTEMPTS IN BRITAIN PROVE ONE THING...

A

nd it isn't that terrorism is a real threat which can strike anywhere in the world, or that it's more than a simple bumper sticker slogan (pace John Edwards). Anyone who is reasonably aware of the world around them will know these things already.

No, what is proven by the attempted double car bombing in London's theatre district (foiled by alert and diligent emergency service responders, capable investigating services, and more than a small contribution by good old fashioned luck), and the marginally more successful attack on Glasgow's airport, is the fact that those naysayers who sneer at the reality of global terrorism will bend themselves into unbelievable contortions in the face of such events, simply to be able to continue to hold their untenable beliefs.

Your humble correspondent currently has a very important guest, who will be doing research here in Asia over the summer between terms at a London university. She had left the British capital just hours before the Haymarket incident, and was keen to hear whatever details were known in the just breaking story when I picked her up at the airport. She is one who has her eyes open, and nothing like the types mentioned in the paragraph above. As an aside, I'm taking her to Aceh and Java next week, so blogging will be light to non-existent in the latter part of the month.

On Saturday evening, as is my wont, I watched a portion of C-SPAN's Washington Journal. The opening subject for the open phones segment was the attempted attacks in London. Good grief, the moonbattiness was out of this world! I've certainly seen it before on that program, but it's astounding that there are so many absolute loons out there running around without restraints.

Caller after caller (whenever she hit the "Democrats line") denounced the moderator in frequently very rude terms, simply for reading snippets of the news stories from that morning's papers. "You are just obeying your corporate masters by reading that garbage," went the general thrust of many, "and giving credence to Bush's terrorism nonsense to keep Americans afraid. You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Corporate masters? C-SPAN? It just went on like that for the full hour -- most Republican and Independent callers were quite rational and reasonable, while almost all who called on the Democrat line were absolutely consumed with conspiratorial lunacy and foaming anger that this was even a subject for discussion. Of course many of these idiots "questioned the timing" -- to the point of suggesting a CIA plot to scare new Brit PM Gordon Brown into sticking with the "Cheney doctrine," or a parting screw you to Brown from some of Blair's vengeful henchmen, or a diversion of attention away from the failed US immigration bill, the disaster of Iraq, or any number of other things.

I wish I could find these attitudes funnier, but I just get creeped out by them. That anyone who is literate, or even able to string five words together into a comprehensible statement, is willing to stubbornly hold on to that level of stupidity as though their life depended on it, is a phenomenon I find completely staggering.

Looking over memeorandum was quite enlightening. The blogging sinistrosphere was mostly silent -- with a few exceptions -- as though this was a total non-event, while the dextrosphere was carrying the ball with frequent updates on many sites as new facts came to light. Investigators were learning new facts literally by the hour, but it was all so uninteresting for firedogs, kos kiddies and the rest. The few who did deign to mention it, led with snarky headlines such as "terrorism expert" Larry Johnson's unforgettable London Bomb--What a Crock of Crap!! (and later, Glasgow's Burning--Run For Your Lives). Remember now, Dangerous Larry is the "expert" who penned a much-noted opinion piece in the New York Times on July 10, 2001, telling us all that terrorism is a "declining threat" and nothing to worry our little heads about.

You'd think someone with that history would be a little more circumspect about trying to debunk reality, but there you go. Larry is really keen on being invited to news shows as a "terrorism expert" (it's disturbing that Jim Lehrer still calls him in as a source, as recently as a few months ago), even though people who read the blogs already know how unhinged this creep really is. But between threats against people he disagrees with, he still retains status among some in the old media, apparently. Dangerous Larry and Herr Olbermann -- it's a match made in heaven. AllahPundit has the video, and he introduces the denialist fest this way:

Whom do you call on in a pinch for expertise about jihadist plots if you’re a guy who hasn’t taken terrorism seriously since 9/11? Why, a guy who hasn’t taken terrorism seriously since before 9/11, of course.

Perfect. I can't view the video (YouTube is still blocked here, although that's expected to be lifted imminently according to local reports), but you gentle readers may as well enjoy it.

For some time now, I've been a fan of the way writer Greg Gutfeld skewers these types of lefty conspiracists on the Huffington Post. He writes in a very satirical manner, spoofing the sacred cows of "progressive" thinking, and while some of his parodies hit the mark better than others, the real gold invariably comes from the HuffPo commenters themselves. It seems obvious that he loves pushing their buttons for predictable reactions -- trolling for leaping moonbats in a lake that's fully stocked -- and they never fail to deliver the funny. So it was with pleasure that a new Gutfeld article was spotted (a rarity these days, as he seems pretty occupied with his new show Red Eye), lampooning the predominant leftist reaction almost immediately after the Haymarket incidents.

Folks, I just spent three hours surfing the net and did I learn a lot! Did you know that most of the news we get is controlled by the Bu$hies? Let me enlighten you about today's so-called terrorist bombing attempt in London:

1. There is no proof that this was terrorism. With Blair gone, there IS no more terrorism in the UK. This was obviously just someone's car, probably belonging to a nail salesman, who kept a lot of samples in his car. He was on his way to a barbecue, of course, which explains the propane. And he needed the extra gas, too, because - hello! - he was driving a gas-guzzler (instead of a hybrid, which is really mean-spirited).

So in effect, this was some right-wing, global warming-enabling carpenter on his way to char little animals for his own gratification.

There are six more points worth reading, though the responses of the Huffing-and-Puffing posters seems a bit more subdued and far less numerous than usual.

Doug Ross also noticed the humourous mental acrobatics from threat denialists, remarking that, "Today's progressives are sufficiently divorced from reality that their statements seem indistinguishable from satire." Which is why Gutfeld loves them so much, and why his love will remain unreturned.

To turn deadly serious for a moment, a useful antidote to the frothing madness that discounts all of this as manufactured fairy tales to keep the sheep in line, might be found in the words of a sane and normal Muslim. Wishful thinking perhaps, but I live in hope that the experiences of people such as the (purportedly) reformed British jihadist Hassan Butt, who wrote yesterday in the Observer, might serve to open some eyes.

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

There is a lot more there, and please read it. The warped rationale which enables people to carefully plan ways to slaughter "infidels," even to justify it in contravention of a basic tenet of professional conduct (among the five persons arrested so far in connection with the London and Glasgow incidents are two doctors - warning, graphic images), can likely only be corrected along the lines described in Hassan Butt's article.

Meanwhile, in that other front against Global Jihad, Michael Yon brings us a truly gut-wrenching episode of the ongoing horror endured by Iraqis at the hands of soul-less al Qaeda savages. Will this story attain one-twentieth the amount of the coverage given to the Haditha killings, much less Abu Ghraib? Not likely. Bless the Beasts and Children, headlines Yon (a true wartime reporter).

But where did those children go, not to mention their parents, in this agricultural village outside Baqubah? Take the journey with Michael, accompanied by soldiers from Charley Company (1-12 CAV) and the Iraqi 5th Army, and you will find out. Not for the weak of heart (another graphic content warning). Dan at Protein Wisdom wonders if this is al Qaeda's My Lai. It could well be, but it will also be handled quite differently by the media, of that I'm sure. The mentality which can self-justify an atrocity such as this, is the same one that can enable a doctor to justify mass murder as a religious obligation.

They claim they are "fighting in the way of Allah," and they divide the entire world into Dar al Islam (Lands of Islam) and Dar al Harb (Lands of War). Surrender in Iraq or Afghanistan or Thailand is not going to end it, and a Palestinian state is not going to end it. When normal Muslims feel confident enough (and many already do, but far too few) to ridicule the perverted and twisted ideology which has taken root among them, we may begin to see some light. Until then, the civilised world will be required to fight them in every way possible. Regardless of the irrational contortions posed by boneheads like the "terrorism expert" cited above.
- posted by Agam @ 8:31 PM 0 comments

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