"A bit of a deal-breaker, that"

"This is not a program, really. It’s a wraparound justification for a violence whose real end is the expiation of shame through massacre,” says BBC editor Mark Urban, cited by The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik as a voice in the wilderness among Britain's chattering classes. "The theory that the terrorist threat was exaggerated or that it wasn’t immediate . . . had become extremely powerful on the respectable [Huh? --ed] left," writes Gopnik. Momentarily mugged by the reality of 7/7 and 7/21, they managed to quickly regain their "senses," explaining away the London bombings as "inevitable payback for the war in Iraq" [Bush/Blair Lied, People Died]:

Against this argument is the view that the new kind of terrorism is essentially nihilist and apocalyptic, and that Iraq is only a kind of inchoate excuse. “After all, the African embassy bombings happened before Iraq,” Mark Urban, the diplomatic editor of the BBC program “Newsnight,” said. “The I.R.A. had a political arm, and a political goal, however unreal: they killed to get people to the table. What is there to negotiate with these people? An end to the American presence in Saudi Arabia? All right, we’ll consider it. The elimination of the State of Israel? Hmm, that may be a bit more difficult. The restoration of a universal Islamic caliphate? It may be a bit of a deal-breaker, that.

Jolly good, Mr. Urban. We couldn't agree with you more. There may be hope for Western Civ yet. Even as the more numerous head-in-the-sand staffers continue to guzzle the Kool-Aid, the Beeb shows itself capable of popping its head up from time to time to see what's really going on out there.  Notes Clive Davis:

As you may be aware, BBC2 starts a series on Al Qaeda tonight. That's presumably the same terror network that Adam Curtis's "The Power of Nightmares" insisted was a figment of our imagination.

The new series looks promising:

In the aftermath of 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan much of al-Qaeda's infrastructure including its training camps were destroyed. Peter Taylor's three-part series examines the new al-Qaeda which has emerged and the threat it poses to the West. The first part, jihad.com explores how the internet has become the lifeblood of the new al-Qaeda.

The earlier documentary by Adam Curtis -- screened at Cannes last winter -- is "an influential [among useful idiots and fellow travelers] three-part BBC series that argued that Al Qaeda does not exist, except as a kind of collective hallucination on the part of American neoconservatives," notes Gopnik of The New Yorker.  For a well-informed review that sorts out the false from the true in the apparently compelling if flawed "The Power of Nightmares," check out Peter Bergen's take [via Clive Davis]. He's the author of Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden.  You've probably seen him from time to time on the cable networks expertly commenting on all things Al Qaeda.

Update:  Happiness returns.  Just in time, you Instalanched me just in time, before you Instalanched me, my time was running low:

As one of my anthropology professors noted, cultures learn. Even a flatworm is smart enough to turn away from pain.

'Course any animal worth its salt is still here today at this end of the winnowing process of evolution because it was smart enough to turn away from pain. It just so happens we did a petri-dish experiment with some hapless planaria in our undergraduate days.  You sliced the poor things' heads halfway along the body down the middle, and each side regrew the missing head parts.

Comments

[goomp]

Glad to see rumblings of reality in the British media.

[Kevin]

One hopes this is soon enough. Reality is amoral; it cares not whether an individual, a community, or a state perceives reality in time.

The price to pay for this juvenile refusal to acknowledge the evil before us is annihilation. I hope the rest of the US and the UK wake up before action is moot.

[M. Simon]

Neo-cons are ex-Democrats. Hardly harbingers of the theory of moral decay.

I myself am a neo-con. I favor democracy, whiskey, sexy. Sex, drugs, roc 'n roll even.

I think the film maker has confused the neo-cons with Jerry Fallwell.

A classic case of garbage-in, garbage-out. Or as I would put it - you can't comment usefully on cultures you don't understand.

[Cy]

Too little too late. You've probably got 5000+ potential terrorists in Londonistan alone, and when you attempt to deport them that's when the real bombing campaign is likely to begin.

[Jjay]

The suicidal European left will still continue looking for a way to blame the West and particularly the U.S. for the berserker rage of radical Islam. Remember the Indepedent's Robert Fisk? After he was set upon by a Muslim mob and beaten, he wiped away the blood and blamed America. Same deal.

[kcom]

"Or as I would put it - you can't comment usefully on cultures you don't understand."

You're right. Point of reference, the British writer Decca Aitkenhead who had this clever bit to say recently, "I Love New York [referring to the "I {heart} NY" advertising logo] was a clever response to 9/11, capturing both the city's need to win back fearful tourists, and the affection inspired by its trauma." As anyone who understands America would know, that slogan has been adorning T-shirts, mugs and sundry other items for about 30 years now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1523137,00.html

And here's one from Jonathan Freedland in the The Age newspaper in Australia last year reporting during the US presidential election: "Because of that event [9/11], the US has re-imagined itself as a victim nation: witness the yellow-ribbon bumper-stickers, usually bearing the slogan "Support America". (Ribbons were previously reserved for the suffering: red for AIDS, pink for breast cancer.)"

He has no clue that the yellow ribbon pre-dated all the other ribbons and in fact inspired those later AIDS and breast cancer ribbons. And he as no clue that the yellow ribbon isn't about suffering, it's about hope. It stands for hope in being reunited with a loved one currently far away. He just doesn't get anything about what the yellow ribbon is about and still feels free to make a sweeping generalization about America based on his false premise. Get a clue, buddy, and then open your mouth.

Quote courtesty of Tim Blair's site (quoted in the Comments section): http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/007848.php

[moptop]

Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't we (the US) pull out of Saudi Arabia, meeting one of Osamma's demands about garisonning the holy peninsula or something?

If the left is so ready to surrender, where do they show up in their top hats and tails if we did elect them? Some cave in Pakistan? This is more like fighting a civilizational disease than a war.

[rosignol]

What is there to negotiate with these people? An end to the American presence in Saudi Arabia?

Er, I hope he realizes that the reason al Qaeda wants the Americans out of Saudi Arabia is to make it easier to overthrow the House of Saud...

To be blunt, negotiating an end of the state of Israel would be more likely than negotiating to give al Qaeda control of the energy source that powers the economies of the industrialzied world.

[Doug]

The slowness with which we're coming around to hating our enemies is finally just boring. Can we please pick up the pace?

[Peter St. Onge]

This sort of insanity has been going on a long time. I don't recall a single Bob Dylan song protesting the gulags or lamenting Idi Amin or the Khmer Rouge. Even today where's Audioslave's forceful rhetoric when it comes to Islamic fundamentalists stoning homosexuals?

I don't know if this tendency to self-criticize came from Vietnam, but it's high-time we move from self-critique to self-defense.

[amba]

kcon,

Decca Aitkenhead was half onto something. After 9/11, Milton Glaser, who designed the original "I (Heart) NY" and gave the copyright to New York State, redesigned it with a little singed spot near the bottom and the legend, "I (Heart) NY More Than Ever."

I know about this because I designed my own post-9/11 T-shirt -- "I (Heart) NY," except the heart was broken. The T-shirt company would only make me two of them. They said more than that, even to give to friends, might be a copyright violation. That was what I wore for mourning for the first couple of months. (I live in Greenwich Village.)

[amba]

(I thought my idea was better than Milton Glaser's.)

[Sissy Willis]

Your idea was brilliant, my dear. :)