Pack of Lies
Revelations like this sort of put the lie to the complaint that American abuses of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are creating fresh generations of jihadi terrorists.
Hani Al-Siba'i, director of the Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies in London, has in recent days praised the bloody attacks in his adopted city. Here's an interview he gave on AMB TV which aired on Feb. 22. The questioner probes Al-Siba'i's banket defense of Islamist attrocities in Iraq:
Emphasis added. But those photos were exposed in the West as a fraud more than a year ago (though not after some overzealous media outlets ran them anyway). Most of the pics were pulled off Internet porn sites like "Iraq Babes" and "Sex in War," which cater to violent rape fetishes. The pictures were cheesy posed pornography featuring paid models.
But that doesn't make a damn bit of difference to Al-Siba'i or tens of thousands like him in the Islamic world. If the evidence fits his pre-conceived notion that America is the Great Satan, then, however tenuous, it must be true. If the evidence is later logically exploded and repudiated by the original sources from which he gleaned it, that proves it must be true, because the Zionists have the power to repress the truth with their control of the media.
Hell, even if there's no evidence at all, that proves it's true, too, because the enemy is just that good at covering things up. Hatred and a willful disregard for logic sent the modern Arab world off on a chain reaction of paranoia.
It doesn't help that so few Western books ever are translated into Arabic, and so few Arabs could read them if they were. It doesn't help, either, that this people inhabits a tent city of the most repressive and defective regimes on the globe. The habit of seeking and believing in the truth, in an authoritarian state, is a habit that can get you killed in a hurry. And the governments find it convenient to tell their subjects to blame every national failure on the Americans and the Jews rather than owning up to their own incompetence.
Thus they have conceived a world where their enemies are sinister subhumans with superhuman capacity, capable of any depravity, who will stop at nothing to stymie the supposedly god-ordained world triumph of Islam. Those enemies are at the same time omnipotent and cowardly. They can stage elaborate hoaxes to make it appear Muslims have done terrible things, or else Muslims really do terrible things to them, but in righteous and religiously approved retribution. The Arab mind doesn't seem to be made up on this one, nor does it seem to care about the contradiction.
Motive doesn't matter. The fact that Arabs were hurt or killed - or insulted -- is motive enough, since this is the presumed purpose of everything the enemy does.
Thus not only are random porn pics used to justify the slaughter of Iraqi Shi'ites and Kurds, the official American explanation of the fatal crash of Egypt Air flight 990 is scorned and the tragedy blamed, in childish and irreconcilable conspiracy theories, on the U.S. and Israel.
Thus the world campaign against polio suffers a setback because Muslim clerics in northern Nigeria tell their followers the vaccine has been contaminated as part of a western plot to sterilize women.
Thus a Turkish suicide bomber kills himself and dozens more, while "boiling with rage" over reports of mass rapes of Iraqi women by U.S. troops that turned out to be the Turkish gutter press' misreading of a crude metaphor used by an online sex therapist in an anti-Bush screed on an American anti-war Web site.
Thus with every terrorist attack, including the London bombing of last week, faster than the police can recover the bodies a cobbled together story of how the Jews really did it spreads through the Muslim world, encouraged by Western anti-Semites.
All the more reason to support and encourage a free and democratic Iraq, and a reborn Lebanon. Worry about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo for what they mean to America and our values and our military. But don't bother yourself over the notion that they are the match that lights the Islamist terrorists' powder keg. That's a self-starter.
Hani Al-Siba'i, director of the Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies in London, has in recent days praised the bloody attacks in his adopted city. Here's an interview he gave on AMB TV which aired on Feb. 22. The questioner probes Al-Siba'i's banket defense of Islamist attrocities in Iraq:
Host: "Dr. Al-Siba'i, do you personally condemn anything they do? Can you say that even though you support these groups' case, they use such means? Is there a single method you are willing to condemn?"
Al-Siba'i: "... I condemn the occupation, which is the cause of all these tragedies. The occupation caused all these disasters. The country was safe and peaceful, until the Americans came, and we are expected to blame those who fight in defense of their honor?! ... I received a picture over the internet, and when I opened it I saw a woman being raped by seven men. An Iraqi woman in prison – this is on American websites now – and when I saw her, I couldn't sleep a wink. A woman being raped, completely naked, in prison."
Emphasis added. But those photos were exposed in the West as a fraud more than a year ago (though not after some overzealous media outlets ran them anyway). Most of the pics were pulled off Internet porn sites like "Iraq Babes" and "Sex in War," which cater to violent rape fetishes. The pictures were cheesy posed pornography featuring paid models.
But that doesn't make a damn bit of difference to Al-Siba'i or tens of thousands like him in the Islamic world. If the evidence fits his pre-conceived notion that America is the Great Satan, then, however tenuous, it must be true. If the evidence is later logically exploded and repudiated by the original sources from which he gleaned it, that proves it must be true, because the Zionists have the power to repress the truth with their control of the media.
Hell, even if there's no evidence at all, that proves it's true, too, because the enemy is just that good at covering things up. Hatred and a willful disregard for logic sent the modern Arab world off on a chain reaction of paranoia.
It doesn't help that so few Western books ever are translated into Arabic, and so few Arabs could read them if they were. It doesn't help, either, that this people inhabits a tent city of the most repressive and defective regimes on the globe. The habit of seeking and believing in the truth, in an authoritarian state, is a habit that can get you killed in a hurry. And the governments find it convenient to tell their subjects to blame every national failure on the Americans and the Jews rather than owning up to their own incompetence.
Thus they have conceived a world where their enemies are sinister subhumans with superhuman capacity, capable of any depravity, who will stop at nothing to stymie the supposedly god-ordained world triumph of Islam. Those enemies are at the same time omnipotent and cowardly. They can stage elaborate hoaxes to make it appear Muslims have done terrible things, or else Muslims really do terrible things to them, but in righteous and religiously approved retribution. The Arab mind doesn't seem to be made up on this one, nor does it seem to care about the contradiction.
Motive doesn't matter. The fact that Arabs were hurt or killed - or insulted -- is motive enough, since this is the presumed purpose of everything the enemy does.
Thus not only are random porn pics used to justify the slaughter of Iraqi Shi'ites and Kurds, the official American explanation of the fatal crash of Egypt Air flight 990 is scorned and the tragedy blamed, in childish and irreconcilable conspiracy theories, on the U.S. and Israel.
Flight 990 is a particularly inviting target for conspiracy theorists. It carried 33 top Egyptian military officers, plus it originated in New York, the city with the world's largest Jewish population. That's enough to convince many Egyptians that someone purposely brought down the plane to harm Egyptian interests.
Thus the world campaign against polio suffers a setback because Muslim clerics in northern Nigeria tell their followers the vaccine has been contaminated as part of a western plot to sterilize women.
Thus a Turkish suicide bomber kills himself and dozens more, while "boiling with rage" over reports of mass rapes of Iraqi women by U.S. troops that turned out to be the Turkish gutter press' misreading of a crude metaphor used by an online sex therapist in an anti-Bush screed on an American anti-war Web site.
Thus with every terrorist attack, including the London bombing of last week, faster than the police can recover the bodies a cobbled together story of how the Jews really did it spreads through the Muslim world, encouraged by Western anti-Semites.
All the more reason to support and encourage a free and democratic Iraq, and a reborn Lebanon. Worry about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo for what they mean to America and our values and our military. But don't bother yourself over the notion that they are the match that lights the Islamist terrorists' powder keg. That's a self-starter.
Labels: conspiracy theories
