Terror

[poliphilo]

We've been sold a lie.

There is no Al Quaida.

I mean, if there was a big, scary, SPECTRE-like, terrorist organisation lurking in the shadows waiting to get us, it would have managed another hit against the US mainland in the years since 9/11.

There are terrorists, sure- but they're not centrally organised or well-armed or particularly smart. They're capable of one-off attacks on soft targets- as in Madrid and London.

Consider that last- aborted- attack on the London underground. One of the guys- the one the Italians are holding- has said the bombs were never meant to go off. I don't know whether he's lying or telling the truth, but either way his gang were a Mickey Mouse outfit.

I don't want to down-play the danger. There have been bombs and there will be more bombs, but this isn't World War III. We're not up against a Big Enemy, we're up against a scattered bunch of stupid, idealistic young men, all fired up by the same stupid, fascistic ideology.

It's one for the police, not the military.

But the lie about Al Quaida, complicated by further lies about WMDs and the politics of the Middle East, has landed us in an illegal and unwinnable war that is simply stengthening the stupid, fascistic ideology that inspires the stupid, idealistic young men.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The American press has been unhappy about the war in Iraq for a very long time. As a matter of fact, some mainstream American papers were calling the war a "quagmire" on Day 3.

I don't think that anyone who stops and thinks about it for any length of time can escape the conclusion that the press is sending us nothing but the bad news from Iraq. My husband expressed similar frustrations about Vietnam -- when he'd see media reports on the fighting, he had trouble believing they were reporting on the same campaign he'd just been involved in.

I feel a bit the same way about the evening news here in Philadelphia. In any given 24-hour period some 25 people die or are wounded as the result of fire, violent crime, or automobile accidents. A very scary place, this metro area, one would think. No one is reminding us about the other five million people who lived their ordinary lives with nothing amiss. Or the team of middle school students who just kicked butt at an international robotics competition in Japan.

I'm not suggesting that everything is perfect in Philadelphia -- or in Afghanistan or Iraq. And clearly, we still have a long way to go in Iraq. But I have to say that every time I read a bad news story about the war that's unalloyed bad news -- and then a good news story that shifts rapidly to "yes, but," and goes on to become a bad news story, I find myself wondering just what kind of editorial judgment is at work here.

I read three papers regularly (I didn't mention one in another comment to poliphilo earlier today. One is the Wall Street Journal. Another is the Philadelphia Inquirer, which this morning used the disaster of Hurricane Katrina as a teaser for an editorial about the shameful lack of a national health care system. The third is the Philadelphia Tribune, a long-established African American newspaper. It's quite enlightening to read about the same events from three such divergent perspectives.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's drummed into us here in Europe that the whole of the U.S. media is craven in its support for Bush and that the only voices of dissent are to be found on the internet.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Despite my complaints about the left slant of the U.S. media, I must say they have *never* been craven in their support for any sitting president. They take their responsibility as the fourth estate very seriously -- besides, taking potshots at the administration sells papers.

Interestingly enough, it appears to be the mainstream media that is willing to believe questionable stories if they attack the administration, and the blogosphere that brings them down. See, for instance, Dan Rather and the case of the forged documents about Bush...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Strange....

We get the impression that the US press is monolithically right-wing- and mainly owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Perhaps we're projecting- because our press IS monolithically right-wing and mainly owned by rupert Murdoch.

Odd how popular perception is so at odds with reality.