Category: War on Terror

This weeks Newsweek, courtesy of Michael Isikoff and John Barry, release this story which sparks riots in Afghanistan leaving 15 dead and years of hard work up in smoke and then release this account of how Newsweek got it wrong. The military are still to blame. True, one would have to question a group of people who riot and kill each other because of a story about a book being damaged but I think Newsweek rushed the story to press, as trivial and unimportant as it was, to get an anti-Bush/Military article on the newsstands. Austin Bay posts and mentions that news and pictures travels so fast and far in today’s e-world that Editors need to be aware of the ramifications of what they print because it’ll be read by some savage in the mountains of Afghanistan that very day. They are not writing for their readers in the Western world but for everybody in the world with all their weird thoughts on what is right or wrong One particular reader leaves a telling comment,

AUSTIN: I’m on my way back to Kabul, as I typically do every summer, but my family is completely opposed to my travel and work this year in Afghanistan even though I’ve safely transited there, in and out of State and UN/NGO service for nearly 20 years. The word I receive from Kabuli friends is that Isikoff has singlehandedly turned US triumph in the country to a total disaster. It was thought an anamoly last summer that some wonderful–and tragically forgotten–American DynCorps workers (mostly ex-military and my good friends) were killed in an environment that was pro-American to the core. That could be seen as a terrible tragedy, an unreasonable sad event impinging on an overall positive atmosphere–a last ditch effort by desperate Al Qa’eda remnants from outside Afghanistan to vent anger at the overwhelming success of the Americans. Now thanks to one Bush-hating reporter (google Isikoff if you doubt his intentions,) the recidivist Taliban-Pathans of southeast Afghanistan once again have an issue to de-legitimize the Karzai-US alliance. This is a disaster perpetrated by a single reckless reporter…will he ever be required to answer for his sins? Fifteen dead so far…how many more? The streets of Afghanistan, just days ago filled with pro-American citizens, are now roiled with hatred. What has Newsweek wrought? Who will call Isikoff to answer in courts or Congress for his destruction of an important alliance? GW…it’s time for you to step up to the plate and talk directly about this issue, this renegade journalist, to both the American public and the Afghan people.

MSM treatment of the misdemeanours at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have done nothing but damage the fight against terrorism, giving the fanatics, both left wing and Moslem, the chance to rant about the evil US. Evil is slitting some innocent’s throat or forcing youths to blow themselves up in the presence of women and kids. It is not taking happy snaps of tied up prisoners. Neither is flushing pages from a book down the toilet. This type of rubbish enflames and emboldens weirdos and subsequently lengthens the war. Soldiers die because of this rubbish and still it comes. Can we expect the Left to mention the futile deaths in Afghanistan and apportion blame to the media.. No. Can we expect a meaningful apology from Newsweek. No UPDATE: Another viewpoint via Silent Running UPDATE II:Quote of the day from Right Wing News

“The media does in fact have an impressive fact-checking system. If a quote or purported fact portrays Republicans, the military, or America generally in a positive light, they check it to death to make sure they’re not spreading propaganda. But… if the quote or purported fact portrays those things in a negative light, it pretty much gets into print with only the most cursory once-over by the editors. If it agrees with their basic world-view — if it feels “right” in their gut — then it runs.

Sounds about right to me.

Tim Dunlop takes a quantum leap in faith. He agrees with Bush for not hosting Gerry Adams but can’t help himself. Any positive comment about Bush must be put into perspective and balanced with a ‘torture’ comment.

Come on guys – if you get that the IRA’s summary justice is to be condemned, it shouldn’t be such a leap to figure out that torture deserves the same unreserved condemnation, should it?

Well yes, torture does deserve condemnation but Tim isn’t talking about torture, he’s talking about interrogation and will never know the difference.

Most of the right of the blogosphere is singing the president’s praises, which is more than fair enough under the circumstances. Still, it’d be nice if they applied the same moral clarity to their attitude towards the Bush administration’s licensing of torture and the introduction of extraordinary renditions and the like.

How anyone can compare garroting, kneecapping, dismemberment in front of family, blowing up innocents – woman, children, horses, Mountbatten and his granddaughter and other niceties of the IRA with Private English posing for a S&M shot or a terrorist being forced to listen to Michael Jackson music is totally beyond me. But then I could never understand why supposedly educated and intelligent people thought communism was a winner either. I figure they’re the same people.

Student Stuart McMillen feels assaulted. And he was, by an ABC news team who couldn’t get to him quickly enough to beat up his 30 seconds of fame into an international incident. Stuart, trying to up his 30 seconds of fame to a minute shows his lack of understanding of world events when he ‘realized’;

“… that that was an Australian Army soldier pointing their gun at an Australian citizen in Australia, where there’s currently no wars happening, so I thought that was a bit inappropriate.”

Poor bloody diggers. Training for war, risking life and limb to ensure the ABC and other loosers can be free to put shit on them and an undergrad says there’s currently no wars happening The Army are on the move in the streets of Brisbane training for a very dangerous deployment to Iraq and a part of that training involves moving their vehicles through urban territory. Another part of the training involves carrying their personal weapons and soldiers are trained to carry their rifles in both hands and move the rifle with their vision. If the soldier is looking at you, so is his rifle. He isn’t targeting civilians. If he were to carry his rifle in any other manner then he is training for defeat. Civilians can be scared when and if the soldier suddenly adopts an agressive stance, lowers his profile, raises the rifle to his shoulder and aims it at you. That is aiming a rifle. That is when you phone up the ABC. And that will never happen in Australia. Anything else is carrying it in training Stuart, enjoy your 30 – 60 seconds of fame. You even have an old soldier’s permission to tell war stories about how you were targeted. Throw in a couple of AASLAVs with .50 cal MGs. Impresses the girls – does nothing for the rest of society. Right. You’ve had your 30 seconds – get back to study and try and read a newspaper every now and then. Look up Iraq, War, Australia’s involvement. Dropkick! UPDATE: Stuart, it’s not a gun, it’s a rifle Try this little poem to help you remember This is my rifle (brandish rifle) This is my gun (point to groin) This is for shooting (brandish rifle) This is for fun (point to groin) Courtesy Sgt Vic Edwards, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, 1963 (and all other Sergeants and corporals over the years).

The IRA/Sinn Fein Terror Inc are under the spotlight lately with the brave actions of five sisters of murdered Robert McCartney. In the latest it has emerged one of the Sinn Fein’s candidates for election, Cora Groogan, was present in the pub at the time of the murder.

BELFAST: Sinn Fein’s fitness for government has been challenged by the family of Robert McCartney, said to have been murdered by IRA men in a pub brawl, after it emerged that one of the party’s election candidates was in the Belfast bar on the night he was killed.

But it’s alright your Honour, I was in the toilet at the time – along with every other pub patron who in an amazing set of coincidental circumstances all felt a need to relieve themselves of the build up of Guiness at the same time. 70 of them have claimed to have been in the toilet together. What manner of pub is this Magennis’s. On first hearing of the murder I thought of a typical Irish pub, but no, what we’re obviously talking about is a full city-block monolith with sufficient rest room space to handle 70 punters at once. Lying hounds but terrified to bear witness to the murder. Over in the US the Sinn Fein have been disinvited to the White House for Wednesdays St Paddy’s day celebrations by none other than Senator Ted Kennedy. As Mark Stein says; (heads up from Tim Blair)

There’s a lesson there in the reformability of terrorists. The IRA’s first instinct is to kill. If you complain about the killing, they offer to kill the killers. If you complain about the manner of the killing, they offer to kill more tastefully — “compassionate terrorism,” as it were. But it’s like Monty Python’s spam sketch: There’s no menu item that doesn’t involve killing. You can get it in any color as long as it’s blood-red.

Some years ago the Irish Association of Queensland invited Adams to a lunch at the Brisbane Irish Club premises. Maintaining my ‘never support a terrorist under any circumstances’ policy, I phoned the club management and told them they could do so without the benefit of my membership fees and to this day I have been a non-member. I claim Irish anscestory but not the associated baggage of hatred of all things British. What Lord Lucan and others did to the Irish in the 1820’s is unspeakable, arrogant and so lacking in compassion that it was the base of the Irish being everywhere in the world, except in Ireland. But that was then and the IRA/Sinn Fein Terror Inc is now – and equally unnaceptable. Terrorism is terrorism under any form and the Sinn Fein group is as bad as it’s Middle East counterparts.