LEFTARDED THINKING

Australian blogger Anthony "Leftard" Loewenstein reckons the Financial Times is spot on in claiming that the Islamists hate us for what we do, not for who we are. Thus, it is up to us to do something about it:

"Although we do not know for sure who carried out Thursday's vicious attacks on London, it was very likely part of the loose and protean franchise of fanatics inspired by 9/11 and its architects, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. But we cannot wait for the precise answer. We need now to engage fiercely with the substance of the problems that are proliferating jihadi terrorism. We need to find ways of isolating this minority before they make any further inroads into the Muslim mainstream.

"The most important thing to recognise is how the great democratic wave that freed east and central Europe, Latin America and swaths of sub-Saharan Africa over the past two decades ran into the sands of the Middle East, leaving the Arabs marooned in tyranny. That was in no small part because the US and its main allies shored up local despots in the interests of stability and cheap oil.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense for Muslims to attack the United States, Britain and bars in Indonesia frequented by Australians in order to liberate the oppressed of the Middle East. The gutless pricks go for the softest targets they can find.

Update: Another Loewenstein gem:

Are UN forces committing massacres in Haiti? This report, completely ignored in the Western media, indicates yet another mission of the UN's "war on terror" in the poverty-stricken nation.

The report, accessed via his link, is not from a news organisation, it's from the highly partisan HaitiAction.net. And, the story hasn't been ignored, it was covered by CNN, Newsday, The New Zealand Herald and lots of other news outlets.

In an earlier post, Loewenstein recycled the Jews-knew-about-the-London-attacks-before-they-happened rumour by linking to a Justin Raimondo piece at Antiwar.com:

Netanyahu was no doubt a target of the bomb plot – why else would the terrorists bomb an underground station directly below the hotel where the investment conference was going to take place? If Israeli intelligence knew about the attacks days in advance, and only thought to let Netanyahu in on the secret "minutes" before the bombs went off – well, that's a little hard to believe, now isn't it? (Oh, wait … maybe not.)

I don't believe that Scotland Yard knew diddly-squat about the terror plot, either days or minutes before the bombs exploded, although what seems beyond dispute is that Netanyahu was warned beforehand. The question is, who warned him?

As far as I can work out, Netanyahu was meant to speak at the Great Eastern Hotel, near one of the underground explosions but not directly above any of them. Not only that, if someone was trying to kill Netanyahu with a bomb, setting it off deep under a hotel is a pretty iffy way to get him. The terrorists go for sure things, not long shots – failure would make them look bad.

There has been no proof offered that Netanyahu, or any other Jew, knew about the attacks in advance. Raimondo's a fuckwit and so's Loewenstein for linking to his weak-arsed blame-the-evil-Jews bullshit.

Update II: Here's the latest from Loewenstein:

What's the chance of Bush's svengali, Karl Rove, resigning over the Valerie Plame scandal? We now know, finally, that Rove did indeed reveal the CIA agent's name to journalists. That's a crime.

As proof, Loewenstein links to a Sydney Morning Herald article that fails to conclude Rove has done anything illegal, or even improper:

Although Mr Rove has now been named as identifying Mr Wilson's wife as a CIA official, it is unclear if he faces prosecution. It is illegal for someone with a security clearance to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

The email, on its own, does not make it clear if Mr Rove knew she was an undercover agent or if he had the necessary security clearance.

It's possible that Rove will eventually be shown to have acted improperly or illegally but the linked article offers no such proof. The article does not claim that Rove revealed Plame's name.

Loewenstein has also posted this:

Is the US government hiding the true figure of US casualties in Iraq? The Government of Puerto Rico thinks so during investigations of its own war dead. They claim over 4000 US soldiers have been killed during 799 days of fighting.

Loewenstein's post links to an article at mediachannel.org that credits the article to Coastal Post Online, MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS MONTHLY - FREE PRESS, citing its address as a P.O. Box in Bolinas, California. The iffiness of these sources aside, Loewenstein didn't even bother to read them correctly. The 4,000 figure is not for US soldiers killed, it's the total number of casualties serving under US command:

According to documents reviewed by this paper, in addition to the 1,649 fatalities among US uniformed troops, there were 88 from Great Britain, 92 from other coalition member countries, 238 reported by private contractors, and at least 2,000 from members of the Iraqi Army.

Will Loewenstein be more careful with the sources for the book he's writing? Let's hope so.

Update III: Determined to destroy what credibility he still has, Loewenstein has now posted this (my emphasis):

17 Afghan civilians were murdered by an American airstrike in late June. The Washington Post reported the story on July 5. The US military apologised for the mistake but claimed they had targeted a "known operating base for terrorist attacks."

To commenter mj, who points out that murder requires intent, Loewenstein responds:

The central question remains: how many more bombings of civilian areas, towns, and cities have to happen before an 'accident' is seen as more than that?In Israel, for example, Israel deliberately targets civilians through bombing refugee camps and firing indescriminately into the occupied territory. Palestinian death are therefore far from accidental. It's all about making a point, as twisted as that point clearly is.
Similarly in Afghanistan and Iraq. America and British are engaged in a war that involves the regular killing of civilians, whether bombing villages, or at checkpoints etc. To suggest that none of this is accidental misses the point entirely. The rules of engagement are so skewed that civilians are likely to be killed, rather than avoided.
And no avoidance of the reality will change that.

The Israelis, British and Americans have some of the best trained, best equipped and most lethal armed forces in the world. If they're targeting civilians you'd reckon they'd be able to do it just a bit more efficiently. You know, to make a point.

Thus endeth my short stint as Loewenstein Watch – trying to see things from his point of view is making my head hurt.