Catsidhe

Shorter Jordan179:
“It's all very complicated, and no-one knows what's going on, but therefore India really should invade Pakistan now, so they don't have to nuke it later. No, really.”

But, you might say, Pakistan has not only denounced the atrocity, but has called for India to share what information it finds quickly and openly, so that it knows who it has to go after in Pakistan. Ahah! comes the response, that's just a cunning ruse, and anyway, the Indians have said that it was Pakistan, and they'd know, so shut up you Muslim-lover!

The Indian government, of course, has shown itself to be far more intelligent that the usual idiots, and has demonstrated that it understands the difference between “Pakistan” and “Pakistanis”

Of other interest is that because of Pakistan — quite reasonably — worrying about India retaliating for this, they have moved troops to the border Just In Case. What were these troops doing before? They were roaming the backlots of Pakistan, hunting for Al Qa'eda and Taliban and Lashkar e Toiba. So for the price of (how many? a score?) some terrorists and a couple of boats, whoever was behind this has just gained themselves time to hide and/or dig in. Or set up something that needs Pakistan's attention diverted somewhere else... And what this attack demonstrated was a clear knowledge of the use of diversion.




But, as a counter of all this, I agree with what DrewKitty says here. If the word ‘Hero’ means something, here are some people to whom it can be applied.

His ‘crime’, remember — the only thing they could hang on him after twelve hours of questioning and two weeks of turning his life over with a fine-tooth-comb — was that he gave a SIM card, worthless to him, to his cousin a year ago. And as Julian Burnside points out, there are several layers of the betrayal of the presumption of innocence. He is to be imprisoned under the severest of conditions for an otherwise innocent act in another country to a person whose own guilt has been presumed. (Remember, technically, he is not guilty until a judge has found him so.)



This is neither the action of a rational executive, nor a sign of a free country.

If you're not angry, you are part of the problem.

It's complicated.

That, of course, never stops frothing lunatics like Andrew Bolt. Before I expound what I think, lets rip Bolt a new one, eh?

SO it wasn't a political stunt. It isn't about Iraq. And the threat of Islamist
terror right here is more real than many pretend.

Out of the gate with bullshit. If the raids weren't to be used a stunt, why were the cameras invited along for the 2:30 am kick-off? This is not to say that those arrested aren't guilty (more on this aspect later), but the presence of cameras in large number added a distinct odour of stuntness to the operation.

Yet only last week, Prime Minister John Howard was pilloried by many for having
warned of an "imminent" terrorist threat and recalling Parliament to amend our terror laws to deal with it.

He was just distracting us from his industrial relations changes, wasn't he? It was by "incredibly coincidence or by political design" that the terror warning came just as the IR bill was unveiled, said The Age with a sneer.

Why not both? That one-word change was certainly rushed through in a hurry, but from all accounts, it was completely irrelevant to this operation. That 'immanent threat' warning may well have been true. But fuck it was convenient. And remember as well that the single biggest threat to the successful execution of the operation was warning. You know, the PM and AG going on national TV at primetime to warn that there was an imminent terrist threat might be considered a 'warning'. Indeed, many reports are that 1) surveillance showed that those targetted knew that the warning was about them, and 2) the police were furious.

Why does the ratbastard support terrists?

And how silly were these sedition laws in his new anti-terrorism Bill that ban the preaching of violent change?

Well, as they will ban the discussion of violent change, and heavily supress the preaching of peaceful change (especially if it involves 'bringing the government into disrepute', even especially if deserved), I'd still call them pretty damn silly.
No, actually, I wouldn't. I'd call them abhorrant and frightening.

(cut a cheap dig at Lefty Entertainers who Want the Terrists to Win or something.)

We do not know that the 17 Muslims arrested in Melbourne and Sydney yesterday are guilty of any crime. That is for a court to decide.

... BUT ...
(He was obviously very careful to put in this disclaimer in. It would not do for the poster boy of the Right to subject himself to charges of Contempt of Court.
It is nice to see that he at least aknowledges the Rule of Law, even while he advocates its legislative overturn.)

We do know, however, enough to be sure this was not cooked up by Adolf Howard just the other day when his polls slid south.

Ooooh, the Left compare the ratbastard to Hitler, see how subtly he intimated that? That means that anyone who disagrees with that same ratbastard can be labelled a hyperbolist. See how clever Bolt is?

These arrests follow an investigation that's lasted 18 months, and were conducted by three police forces.

This line bears repeating, with some highlighting.

These arrests follow an investigation that's lasted 18 months, and were conducted by three police forces.

1. 18 months. How meaningful was that one-word change, less than a week before the denoument, then?
   
2. 18 months. Ratbastard's little excursion in dissent supression wasn't being mooted then, so normal legal measures must have been sufficient. Who'da thunk it?
   
3. 18 months. How really pissed off do you think the police were when ratbastard and his pet zombie came this close to screwing the pooch at this stage? Indeed, if the final stage had to be rushed because of those warnings, that pooch may yet turn up dead, after the courts have finished. But maybe that's what ratbastard wants... after all, with his proposals this would never need get as far as a trial, let alone judicial oversight of evidence and the opportunity for vindication. A failed series of trials might be gist for ratbastards mill: 'see, the normal court system couldn't save you! But don't worry, now that we've passed these laws, you need never hear from any of these men again...'
   
4. police forces. Not ASIO, you'll notice. Funny that. And no-one had electrodes attached to their genitals. Just police doing what they do.
   

One of the men arrested is Algerian-born Melbourne preacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who recently told ABC television that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was "a great man". Another was shot yesterday when he allegedly pulled a gun.

OK, the idiot who pulled a gun deserves what he gets. (Aside: see how effective taking guns away from perfectly safe law-abiding citizens has been in preventing their use by criminals?)
But Benbrika has arguably been misrepresented:

Omran has stated that he doesn't believe these horrific acts were conducted by Muslims, because they are too evil for someone with a "Muslim heart" to perpetrate and the consequences of these actions prove detrimental to Muslims worldwide. In a letter to the Prime Minister this year, he said: "I am not satisfied the individuals behind these evil acts have an Islamic agenda." In addition, he believes, along with many others who have studied the events of 9/11, that the issues related to the attacks are not as clear-cut as the authorities would like us to believe.

More importantly, ASWJ and Omran have always publicly denounced all acts of terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks, the Bali bombings, the Spanish rail bombings and the London bombings. He has made clear the Islamic prohibition of such acts by saying openly in the media: "This has happened in evil hands for an evil action …" Public statements against terrorism are also posted regularly on the association's official website for all to see.

With regard to bin Laden, Omran said on national television: "If Osama bin Laden did it (9/11), of course, we are the first one to condemn the action and the person or the persons behind that action." The sheikh also acknowledges that bin Laden has done good deeds by feeding the poor and helping the needy with his wealth, so in his balanced opinion he believes: "He is a good man in some ways, and not in other ways." Unfortunately, all the media and the Prime Minister could remember of this sentence was "He is a good man …"

In other words, in Bolt's universe it is illegal to state that Osama bin Ladin has done good things, or that one doubts in any way that he might be Evil Incarnate. Indeed, to claim that a Bad Man might have done Good Things may even approach seditious.

I'll cut the tendentious crap linking all violence involving Muslims, anywhere on the planet, no matter what the cause(s). All Muslims are dangerous and evil, of course. When I saw him on TV this morning he was very careful to say that 'Most Muslims are decent people', so maybe he is just trying to say that Islam is evil -- which of course intimates that no matter how decent and law-abiding a Muslim might be, they are suspect by virtue of being Muslim, and might start rioting and bombing at any second!!!1!

... We often repeat that most Muslims are moderate, which I believe, but we don't do much to make sure that's actually the case -- and stays so.

In fact, we've been so naive that we've instead imported preachers of this new Islamist hate, and not just the Algerian Benbrika.

He intimates that Muslims in Australia are mere moments from replicating the French Riots, thereby displaying a staggering display of ignorance about some fundamental differences between Australia and France.

It took us long to realise that such calls to war had willing hearers, even after Islamist convert Jack Roche was jailed for plotting the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Canberra.

Would it be tasteless to point out that Roche was himself the whistleblower, and tried (in futility) over and over again to get ASIO to listen to his warnings?


But then comes his conclusion.

Have you finally had warning enough? Do you finally see the threat is so real that it demands real solutions?

At home, multiculturalism must go, and true integration promoted. Radical preachers must be kept out, or held to account. We must let in only Muslims with the skills and desire to adapt and thrive. We can afford no French-style ghettos here, including ghettos of the mind.

A BROAD, the solutions seem clear, too, but hard. The countries breeding Islamist hatred -- and breeding the immigrants who overwhelm Europe -- must be hurried into freedom. As Iraq is already beginning to show, a free country does not turn its citizens into refugees. It gives them a future back home. A reason not to hate.

Yeah, those crazy Iraqi's are burdened with such a surfeit of freedom, as their levelled country devolves into bloody civil war.

Someone should tell this rabid lunatic that assimilation at gunpoint doesn't work. The Normans tried it on the English, for example, and yet Bolt fulminates in English, not French. The Timorese did not magically become Indonesians simply because they were told to, any more than the Acehnese did, or the Papuans. Similarly the Caucasus and Russia. Or Ireland and England.

Ah, sod it. The only reason I bother with him is because otherwise intelligent people mistake his flying spittle for rational argument.

... and after Los Angeles and Melbourne, we shall attack the Satanic dens of iniquity called Anchorage and Bendigo, nor shall we show any mercy. And your little dog, too!


As Mim said, it's like they're pulling names out of a hat.

And as my colleague here at work said; they didn't specify Melbourne, Australia — it could just as easily been Melbourne Florida...

Either way, I'm not exactly quaking in my boots.