ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN WRONG AGAIN

PhD candidate Damian Lataan reckons Antony Loewenstein is harshly dealt with here because he's "making a dent in your Islamophobic rhetoric and propaganda". Nope, Loewenstein is ridiculed because he can't write and wouldn't have a clue. Here's Loewy's latest post, as an example:

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has spent the last while hanging out with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concludes the following:

After spending a week traveling the frontline of the “war on terrorism” — from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to northern Iraq, to Afghanistan and into northwest Pakistan — I can comfortably report the following: The bad guys are losing.

That’s right, world. From his perch alongside the US military, things seem to moving along swimmingly against the enemy.

The US government must be pleased with yet another successful embed.

Friedman says he "followed Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he visited a vast, choking-hot and dust-covered refugee tent camp in Jalozai". The article contains nothing about him "hanging out" with Admiral Mullen.

The premise of the article is not that we are winning but rather that Islamists are alienating their subjects:

They have failed to persuade people by either their arguments or their performances in power that their puritanical versions of Islam are the answer. Having lost the argument, though, the radicals still hang on thanks to gun barrels and oil barrels — and they can for a while.

The article does not mention military operations.

Friedman was not embedded with U.S. forces.

Loewenstein can't read a newspaper article pitched at high school level and get it right. Over to you Mr. Lataan.