One to Avoid

Paul Monk's review of Douglas Murray's book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam tells us more about the Islamophobia of the Monks and Murrays of this world than it does about either contemporary Europe, the Middle East or Islam. (Murray, BTW, is an associate editor of the Spectator.)

Here's Monk's hilarious opening paragraph:

"Douglas Murray was born in London in July 1979, putting him midpoint between Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's January flight from Paris to Tehran to lead the Shia Muslim revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, which triggered a global Sunni Muslim jihadist reaction." (Resisting Europe's Muslim tide, The Australian, 26/8/17)

No hint here that the Iranian revolution was a popular revolt against the repressive US client regime of the Shah, which emerged as the result of a CIA-engineered coup against the democratically-elected  government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. Just a "Shia" brainsnap on Khomeini's part, apparently.

Likewise, there's no hint that Monk's grand "global Sunni Muslim jihadist reaction" was kicked off in Afghanistan by the US, which funded, trained and armed Sunni Arab jihadis such as bin Laden for use against the Russian-backed secular government of Afghanistan.

IOW, poor old Murray had the terrible misfortune to be born at a time when those fiendish Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, experienced a sudden rush of blood to the head, which caused them to drop everything, and plot the forced Islamification of Europe, while the imperialist West, both the US and its European clients, was just innocently standing by, minding its own business as usual.

"In short, this journalist, author and political commentator has lived all his life against a background of Muslim insurgency and terrorism, as well as massive and now all-but-unrestricted Muslim immigration into Europe."

Of course, what prompted said "massive" Muslim immigration into Europe just may have had something to do with US/US client regime-change wars in Libya and Syria, but hush, we don't want to go there, it might spoil the story.

"Against that background, he reflects on the angry last writings of the great Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, denouncing what she saw as the betrayal of the West and the capitulation of its leaders to Iranian and Sunni jihadist intimidation."

"Great"? Totally unhinged, actually.

Monk concludes his review with his own (and - what a coincidence! - Murray's) "uncomfortable" reflection on "the Gothic and other Germanic migrations into the Roman Empire," and "the Arab migrations of the 7th and 8th centuries that swamped the southern and eastern littorals of the Roman world and overran the Persian and Turkish worlds."

So the Arabs are the new Goths and Vandals, and the Turks, who did not appear on the scene until the 11th (Seljuqs) and 13th (Othmanlis) centuries were rolled (swamped!) by the Arabs in the 7th and 8th centuries? Right...

Bin Laden Begs to Differ

You who do not read Murdoch's Australian will be pleased to know that, after remaining uncharacteristically silent throughout Jewish State's recent bloodletting in the Gaza Strip, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor extraordinaire, has recovered his tongue from the proverbial cat, and is once more setting Australians straight on matters Middle Eastern:

"[T]he Australian debate [over future involvement in Syria] is bedevilled by three truly ludicrous myths peddled variously... by Greens, lefties, professional anti-Americans, and that great undifferentiated and largely uninformed cadre of general commentators on everything who figure so ubiquitously, and so repetitively, on the ABC. The myths are: that the rise of Islamic State in Iraq is a consequence of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq; that recent US counter-terrorist activities and aggressive actions in the Middle East have spurred the terrorist threat on; and that Israel remains the core issue, or the root cause, of the Middle East's problems. To believe these myths, you have to be taking something strange in your morning coffee, because they are not remotely supported by the facts. Professing, as opposed to actually believing, these myths offers a high level of psychological comfort, because they give you the two favourite pantomime villains of international politics: the US and Israel." (Debunking the myths about extremists' rise, 24/9/14)

Now I won't bore you with our resident Suppository of All Wisdom's discharges on the first two "truly ludicrous myths."

Let's proceed straight to the biggie, number three:

"The most important and destructive dynamic in the Middle East today is the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia... Israel's role in the basic Shia-Sunni hostilities is absolutely zero." (ibid)

OK, far be it for me to contradict the "most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism." I'm just an amateur anti-USraeli after all.

But surely, if anyone were to do so, who better than the daddy of all SUNNI EXTREMISTS, Osama bin Laden, right? With "sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia" being "the most important and  destructive dynamic in the Middle East today," you'd expect that if anyone'd be oozing anti-Shia sectarianism from every pore, it'd be bin Laden, right?

Well, as much as I hate to break it to Greg and his fans, in all of bin Laden's 24 manifestos issued between 1994 and 2004 (and compiled by Bruce Lawrence in 2005 as Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden) there's not a whisper about the Shia, not a negative word about Iran, nothing FFS.

When it comes to USrael, however, the guy just won't shut up.

But then, what would bin Laden know about the Middle East compared with our Greg?

Related post: Here's looking at you, Greg (10/1/11)

Follow the Thread...

So who was behind the latest suicide bombings at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut?

The Al-Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigade, we are told in press reports.

And who is/was Abdullah Azzam?

Azzam was the CIA's right arm in its jihad against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s:

"Azzam traveled the globe under CIA patronage. He appeared on Saudi television and at rallies in the United States. A CIA asset who appeared as the embodiment of of the holy warrior and 'toured the length and breadth of the United States in the early and mid-1980s recruiting for holy war, ostensibly only in Afghanistan." (Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, & the Roots of Terror, Mahmood Mamdani, 2004, p 127)

He was also the teacher of the CIA's star recruit in its Afghan jihad, a wealthy Saudi contractor by the name of Osama bin Laden.

So was Azzam a Saudi?

No. He was a Palestinian, born in the West Bank. He was part of the refugee exodus into Jordan during the Israeli conquest and occupation of the West Bank in June, 1967.

So who was ultimately responsible for the latest bloody Beirut bombing?

If the phrase 'the big picture' has any meaning, Israel and the CIA.

Just follow the thread...

Go Ahead, Make My Day... in Iraq

Could their be any sillier analysis than this, by the Sydney Morning Herald's twice (2009, 2011) rambammed* international editor Peter Hartcher?

"It was the US decision to invade Iraq, using September 11 and bin Laden as a pretext, and supported by Britain and Australia, that proved so destructive. Bin Laden died knowing that he had not only killed nearly 3000 people in his attacks on the US. He had also successfully goaded the US into pointlessly invading Iraq, damaging US credibility, sacrificing more than 4000 of its own soldiers, hundreds of allied forces, and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians." (Bin Laden offers us a few lessons, 3/5/11)

On the one hand bin Laden is a mere pretext for the US invasion of Iraq. On the other, he actually goaded the US into invading Iraq.

Bin Laden said, in the only kind of language Bush could possibly understand, and deliberately chosen for maximum effect, Go ahead, make my day, infidel dog... in Iraq; and poor old Uncle Sam, 'e just lost 'is cool completely, y' know, bellowed Them's fightin' words, bin Laden, barged on in, steam a comin' outta 'is ears somethin' terrible, furiously started pokin' around in every nook and cranny, but, godammit, just couldn't find that varmint bin Laden nowheres, nosiree, Bob.

Oh really?

OK, if any of you out there can find any evidence of bin Laden goading Uncle Sam in the following introduction and precis, by Bruce Lawrence, editor of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden (2005), of bin Laden's 11/2/03 Message to the Iraqi People, then congratulations, there's a job as international editor of a mainstream newspaper waiting for you:

"From the autumn of 2002 onwards, it became increasingly clear that the United States was preparing to invade Iraq and overthrow the Ba'ath regime... Five weeks before the assault was finally launched, the first of 3 messages from bin Laden to the Iraqi people, consisting of a 16 minute-long audio tape, was delivered to al- Jazeera, and immediately broadcast. It appears to have been issued in response to appearances on al-Jazeera by leading figures of the Bush administration, including Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. Although al-Jazeera broadcast the message within hours of receiving it, Washington seems to have known about the tape in advance, for shortly before the letter was aired, Secretary of State Powell told a Senate panel that a tape that al-Jazeera was about to broadcast was evidence of bin Laden's partnership with Iraq.

"Condemning in advance the invasion of Iraq, which he predicts will combine massive airstrikes and a non-stop propaganda campaign, bin Laden encourages the population to resist by recounting in detail the defensive tactics that enabled him and his fellow fighters to survive the saturation bombing of their redoubts in the Tora Bora mountains in December 2001. But in Iraq, he writes, 'What the enemy fears most is urban and street warfare, in which heavy and costly human losses can be expected'. Insisting on 'the importance of dragging the enemy into a protracted, exhausting, close combat, making the most of camouflaged defense positions in plains, farms, hills, and cities', he also stresses the capacity of 'martydom operations' to inflict 'unprecedented harm' on the enemy. These prescriptions describe with remarkable accuracy the tactics that would be successfully adopted by much of the Iraqi resistance from the summer of 2003 onwards.

"In the great new battle that is imminent, bin Laden excoriates the Arab leaders who act as accomplices to America, declaring them hypocrites and apostates who have put themselves outside the community of Islam: 'It is possible to take their money and their blood'. The Saudi rulers, though nervous of the upcoming war, had in fact already closed a number of airports near the Iraqi border to civilian aircraft so they could be secretly used by the US military. Muslims must rise up and free themselves from such traitorous tyrants... In Iraq itself, Muslims can fight with a good conscience alongside Ba'athists, however atheist they may be, against the common enemy - since socialist rulers are finished anyway, whether in Aden or Baghdad..." (pp 179-180)

[* See my 30/3/09 I've been to Israel too]

The CIA Holocaust

When the party's over, anyone seriously concerned with the issues of terrorism and mass murder (indeed anyone serious) will know that Osama bin Laden and his fanatics are mere pikers in comparison with his killers, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

But don't just take my word for it. Listen to what 14 ex-CIA officials had to say back in 1987 about the agency's then 40-year killing spree. The truly staggering and deeply resonant figure they advance (see below) beggars belief. Factor in the agency's death-dealing in the 24-year period since 1987, the extent of which I am not privy, and the mind, as they say, boggles.

My reference to the assessment of these former CIA officials comes from a polemic by Washington Post journalist (and peace activist) Colman McCarthy published in The Guardian Weekly of December 20, 1987:

"Philip Roettinger is an old boy enrolling in a new school. Tall, straight-backed, and well-spoken, Roettinger, 72, is an alumnus of the CIA. Among other inglorious deeds in the spying trade, he was part of the 1954 successful effort to overthrow left-leaning Guatemalen President Jacobo Arbenz... Roettinger, ex-CIA case officer and former Marine colonel, is now president of the newly formed Association for Responsible Dissent (ARDIS). Some of that dissenting was heard recently when Roettinger and 13 other former CIA officials - from undercover agents to counterintelligence specialists - announced the purpose of their group: 'We are going to try to expose covert action. We're going to try to get it legally banned because we can find no reason, no justification, for covert action on the part of the American people'.

"The group spoke of the congressional and public records being 'replete with accounts of US covert operations that killed, wounded and terrorized millions of people whose countries were not at war with the United States nor possessed the capabilities to do remarkable physical hurt to the United States, who themselves bore the United States no ill will nor cared greatly about the issues of 'communism' or 'capitalism'. With the group estimating that 'at least 6 million people have died as a consequence of US covert operations since World War II', one question rushes in from the cold. With 6 million dead, why not go beyond the banning of only covert actions to abolishing the CIA altogether?" (Excesses of the CIA)

Indeed!

Here's looking at you, Greg

Well I never! Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, this country's most vocal Gentile Zionist, and lover of 50s American sitcoms ("I wasted a lot of time on TV."*), is off in exotic Morocco, rocking the Casbah and bothering the locals something terrible.

"... [Moroccan MP] Abdel-wahed Radi somewhat shocks me... by saying he thinks the Israel-Palestinian dispute is the main cause of Islamist terrorism internationally." (Optimistic Morocco reaches out to the West for friendship, 8/1/11)

But Radi's shocking assault on the key Israeli PR talking point that Israel's wiping of Palestine (and Palestinians) off the map, is not, repeat not, driving Islamist terrorism internationally, simply cannot be tolerated. So:

"I take this up later in the day with Ouzzine Mohammed, the sleek, smooth Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs... Surely, I ask, this view is hard to sustain when you consider the vast multiplicity of issues and disputes, from Western pornography to Kashmir to Iraq to American troop presence in the Middle East to the murderous sectarian Sunni-Shia disputes and a million other things that have been used to justify Islamist violence?"

How to get a jihadi going? Let me count the ways...

"Moreover, Osama bin Laden himself barely mentioned Israel in his first several years of terrorist operations. His chief initial grievance was the presence of US troops on sacred Islamic soil in Saudi Arabia. Ouzzine replies, in part, 'Just because Osama bin Laden says something is no reason to believe it'."

If only Sheridan could tear himself away from those re-runs of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver, he might actually have twigged that the Wily Oriental Gentleman's statement, Just because Osama bin Laden says something is no reason to believe it, was actually polite diplomatic code reserved for just such an occasion as he describes. What the WOG meant was: Shit, not that garbage again! Please don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, Zionist dupe.

But no, there's no stopping our Greg. Israeli talking points are gospel. So:

"That surely is true enough, but must be the oddest argument yet for the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to global terrorism. Instead I take these Moroccan sentiments to mean that this is more or less what an Arab government has to say these days, even if it knows how analytically weak the proposition is."

So Palestine was never part of the Big O's justificatory repertoire at the beginning of his jihad, eh? Well, we've been here before with The Australian's editorialist (was that you, Greg?),** but here we go again:

"Bin Laden, who had been living in exile in Sudan since 1991, was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in the spring of 1994. According to his own account, the repression of the sahwa [Saudi dissidents] was the chief motive for the creation of the 'Advice & Reform Committee' (ARC) that he set up in the summer of 1994, based in north London. His open letter to [Chief Mufti, the foremost juridical authority in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia] bin Baz was issued through the London office of ARC 5 months later, establishing his credentials as a scholar of the moral intent of Islamic law, one able to speak on behalf of the spirit and not just the letter of the law. The background to the letter is a repudiation of the corruption of the Saudi dynasty, and the collusion of bin Baz with the degeneration of its rule - illustrated by the spread of usury in the kingdom, the failure to uproot communism in Yemen, the imprisonment of devout scholars. But the specific object of bin Laden's protest, in his first major public declaration, is bin Baz's endorsement of of the Oslo accords of August 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) - 'your latest astonishing juridical decree', a betrayal of the word of God and of the community of the faithful, 'clearly a response to the political wishes of the regime'. The letter makes it plain that Palestine, far from being a late addition to bin Laden's agenda, was at the centre of it from the start." (Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, edited & translated by Bruce Lawrence, 2005, p 4)

[* The Forum, Weekend Australian, 8/1/11]

[** See my 6/3/09 post Don't Mention the War Criminal 2]