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Last updated on July 21st, 2017 at 03:25 pm
Why do terrorists attack innocent civilians? Bob Ellis explains:
Well, they hold that a democracy elects a government, and if that government bombs, invades, and subjugates another country in an illegal baseless war involving innumerable war crimes, house demolitions, desecrations of cemetaries and holy shrines, torturing of innocents and burnings of libraries, then the electors of that government can be held accountable for what the government they elected subsequently does.
Quite eloquent, these terrorists. Ellis also claims that war and sanctions have killed 500,000 Iraqi children, and that 150,000 have died in the current conflict. Those figures may be a little inflated:
The number of Iraqi civilians who met violent deaths in the two years after the US-led invasion was today put at 24,865 by an independent research team …
The Iraq Body Count project is the most complete attempt of its kind to record the civilian dead in Iraq. The researchers work from media reports, information from mortuary officials and on-the-ground research projects. Its figures, which the group regards as conservative estimates, do not include irregular fighters or others who died while attacking coalition or Iraqi government forces.
A report published last year in the medical journal the Lancet suggested the chances of a violent death in Iraq were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University in the US and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad put the civilian death toll at up to 100,000 since the invasion.
The study was based on interviews with Iraqis, most of them doctors, but conceded that the data on which the projections were based was of “limited precision”.
Limited? Limited? If coalition weapons were that imprecise, the Lancet study may have been believable.
(Via Ellis editor Raff)
The Thin Man Returns — Maybe as fertilizer…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 07/19 at 11:58 PM • permalink
All well and good, but by burning the libraries, they’ve lost their instruction manuals and warranties– I know that makes me jolly baity.
Oops try this link.
If the Lancet “study” consisted of “…data on which the projections were based was of “limited precision””, then Tim Lambert must be of even more “limited precision”.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 07/20 at 12:41 AM • permalink
And of course, if they’re children, they might grow up to be electors, so best hold them accountable in advance…
The Islamofascists are medieval death cultists. What the hell is Ellis’ excuse?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 07/20 at 01:15 AM • permalink
LOL, lingus4! I never realized that……
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 07/20 at 01:53 AM • permalink
- Desecration of “cemetaries”?
No such word, Bobbie.Posted by Honkie Hammer on 07/20 at 02:09 AM • permalink
Yeah, SteveGW, what is it with this obsession over body counts by the left? I thought that went out with Vietnam.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 07/20 at 02:28 AM • permalink
The Lancet damaged its own reputation by publishing the study—its author demanded that the Lancet publish it very shortly before the US Presidential election, even though (c’est a dire, precisely because) the study had been insufficiently peer-reviewed and there’d be little time for a serious response to make it into press hullabaloo. Otherwise he was not going to let the Lancet publish it at all. The pressure under which the Lancet found itself was quite understandable—NOT. The author’s pressure was merely the closest thing that the Lancet had for a cover, an excuse. It was all about propaganda. But even the Washington Post reported it as dubious right at the start. The Lancet bartered its scientific gonads in a failed attempt to wield its influence to tip an election, and what does it have to show for it? The Lancet became more like Bob Ellis. So one can’t expect Ellis to inform himself about the sanctions. But it’s good to keep the links handy anyway.
“100,000 Dead—or 8,000: How many Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war?”
— Fred Kaplan, Slate Oct. 29, 2004 http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2108887&“100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq”—Rob Stein, Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html“Bogus Lancet Study”—Shannon Love, The Chicago Boyz, Oct. 29, 2004
http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.htmlThe Lancet’s decline—http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=lancet+site%3Awww.techcentralstation.com
Re: the sanctions
“Saddam’s parades of dead babies are exposed as a cynical charade”
— Charlotte Edwards, filed May 25, 2003, the Telegraph (UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/25/wirq25.xml“Propagandizing Sanctions” (also published as “Blood of Innocents” and “MDs now blame Saddam, not sanctions, in babies’ deaths”—Matthew McAllester of Newsday (NYC), May 24, 2003, Sun Journal via Newsday and other newspapers.
http://www.canadiangrassroots.ca/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=3562“Confessions of an Anti-Sanctions Activist”
—Charles M. Brown, Summer 2003, Middle East Forum http://www.meforum.org/article/548“Suffer The Children”—Andrew Bolt, June 16, 2003, Herald Sun (Australia)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=There-are-skeletal-children&btnG=SearchAnd last, but not least “Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs,” AFP, April 8, 2003 http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/jailied.htm
As Wookie at Lucianne.com said, “You have to be this tall to go on the Saddam Jail Ride”:
Photo: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/photography/siraq/graphics/siraq11.jpg
when a noisome, rancid, raddled, brain dead lunatic squats obscenely on the opinion pages smearing his treasonous filth before the unsuspecting public, perhaps it’s time to retaliate by sending him some of those cane toads we were discussing before tim came back – preferably the ones that have been dead for a decent interval
- The ABC’s Kerry O’Brien on 7.30 Report has just enlightened us on this important question.
With the help of Robert Pape.
He explained that, contrary to popular opinion, the attacks were not by islamofascists intent on world domination. They were by secular and educated people who objected to the presence in their much valued lands of foreigners.
Ok! That’s fine then. I object to foreigners too! How about I just blow myself up to make that point? Of course, some sophists would say that we have not been here in Australia as long as the aborigines. Agreed. But nor were the Saudis on the Saudi Peninsula, or the Arabs in the home of the Jews. So no problem.
There. Thanks Robert and Kerry. We now have a “legitimate” reason to go ape-shit and blow up whoever we like by whatever means we can, because being upset (and perhaps secular and educated – at least a Diploma of Splodeybusiness Administration)is all it takes.
‘I thought it was Bob Ellis welding’. Hey Habib, the day that Bob Ellis does something useful like welding will be the day that Michael Jackson mistakes ME for Macaulay Culkin.
Posted by Deo Vindice on 07/20 at 06:16 AM • permalink
Pape’s entire argument seemed to be that Islam did not drive suicide attacks – rather the presence of military forces from country A being stationed in country B drove people whose ancestors came from country C and who are citizens of country D to indiscriminately murders their fellow citizens. Apparently, that’s logical in the world of Pape.
The other stinker was Pape’s comment that Hezbollah had stopped using violence as a means of political persuasion (ie terrorism) since the Israeli and US withdrawals from Lebanon. Tell that to the citizens of Northen Israel Robbie.
Oh. And BTW. What Red Kezza and his new mate Robbie the Robot forgot to tell the audience is that the conclusion that the majority of suicide bombers are secular comes from the fact that Tamil suicide bombers constitute more than half of the data sample. So Robbie has completely ignored the fact that Sri Lanka is a localised conflict with suicide bombers driven to the deed by a cult of personality and extreme Marxist-Leninist indoctrination.
Secondly, his theory of that occupation by foreign military forces drives suicide bombers leaves a little to be desired. The Sri Lankan issue is a bit more complicated than that. He’s trying to stuff a square peg in a round hole.
- Bob Ellis and anyone else that thinks that this is all about Iraq should read this:
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/07/walid_phares_ji.html#more
This is a jihad that has been in the making for quite a while.
Isn’t time Ellis was put out to pasture?— Nick
Well, he is reduced to writing for the Bryon Bay Echo
Well, they hold that a population follows a religion, and if that religion actively encourages attacking, invading, and subjugating any number of other countries in illegal baseless wars involving innumerable war crimes, house demolitions, desecrations of cemeteries and holy shrines, torturing of innocents and burnings of libraries, then the worshippers in that religion can be held accountable for what the religion they follow subsequently teaches.
… and Ellis’s explanation for the Muslim terrorist bombings against the electors in Indonesia, the Phillipines, Thailand,Lebanon, etc is ????
Well, they might have elected governments that stood up to Islamic fanatics… might as well get an early start on the day’s work…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 07/20 at 09:57 AM • permalink
- Robert is an author.He was probably quoting from his book.He wouldn’t be looking to increase its sales would he?
Like a conga line of authors,including Lucky spot Doogue.Using the ABC to spruik for customers and then anty gets to sell the book.Propaganda on site and profits too.I like it.
…and they can cross promote using radio,fm,radio strine,tv,bookshops,online etc.
Bob is the renowned author of “First abolish the customer”.He could bring out a current edition-“First abolish the infidels”.
Bombs have parts of speech and a grammar. A pronoun bomb, for example, is a small bomb referring to a larger bomb previously used (anaphoric bomb) or to be used (cataphoric bomb). They name things by pointing, though Wittenstein says that this is insufficient for a language, but they make do.
For grievances you need a tense of some kind.
Academics have worked it out.
With guys like Ellis they make so many factual and logical errors it’s hard to know where to start refuting them. Let’start with one.
A “baseless” war. Are we to presume then that if we had found enough WMD’s in Iraq to destroy two planets, joint Osama Bin Laden and Sadam Hussein bank accounts and a program for Sadam to produce mutant Islamo-dwarfs with special cavities in their chests for bombs to be carried, then the terrorists would have stood back and said “Oh well, looks like the attack on Iraq was justified. Let’s lay off the western world for a while.” ?
I mean what does it matter to Al Quaeda and their friends if the war is justified or not.
If terror attacks happen against civilians because they are accountable for the actions of their government, isn’t that an implicit acknowledgement of the democratic legitimacy of the American-backed Iraqi regime?
Posted by Michael Levy on 07/20 at 08:48 PM • permalink
Someone just introduced me to the writings of Ann Coulter. I think I now have the definitive answer to “why do they hate us/blow us up/etc”.
They are obviously hoping to get Ann. She makes you lot look tame.
But seriously: I believe they blow us up in order to frighten the living bejasus out of us, so we will bow to their demands. This seems reasonably clear. Historically speaking, terrorism often works, so in their crazed heads it’s not a stupid tactic.
Their demands, if I recall correctly, include: Get out of Saudi Arabia, and stop supporting Israel. They may also want Al-Andalus (Spain) back, possibly (quite, why when it’s full of sunburnt lager swilling Poms, is beyond me).
Until now, we have declined their invitations, ergo the terrorism continues. (Now, if we complied, would they stop – or would they simply invent some new demand? Who can say?)
Now, and contrary to the initial position on this thread, I suspect that most of the terrorists are indifferent as to whether or not we get out of Iraq. After, all Al Qaeda hated Saddam even more than we did, so doubtless they applauded the invasion. In the end I think they quite like having us there.
Saddam – a guy that AQ may have hated, but who they could grudgingly accept and possibly collaborate with against a common enemy, the Great Satan.
United States – top-notch military that hunts down and kills AQ members in the thousands. Extra bonus: Having the population of Iraq slowly turn hostile to you and rat out your terror operatives at increasing rates.
Yep, I can see how they’re much happier after the invasion.
Nemesis: “Their demands, if I recall correctly, include: Get out of Saudi Arabia, and stop supporting Israel. They may also want Al-Andalus (Spain) back, possibly (quite, why when it’s full of sunburnt lager swilling Poms, is beyond me).”
Not too long ago… maybe a year or so… Osama bin Laden wrote a Letter to America that was published in the Guardian.
Once you sift through all of the flowery language and hokey complaints, OBL has three demands of the US:
1) Kill all of our elected officials (not just the ones in the Bush Administration, but all of them, down to our local city councils)
2) Accept Sha’ria Law (the reason we kill the elected officials… the mullahs have to control our lives, ya’ know)
3) Convert to his own, twisted version of Islam.
This is how we can stop the terrorist attacks, he said.
Nice, huh?
Posted by mamapajamas on 07/21 at 03:06 AM • permalink
#39. Great post Nemo! Stuff like that should be published!
Posted by Deo Vindice on 07/21 at 05:49 AM • permalink
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Oh good – that means we should be able to summarily execute Saddam Hussein because as dictator he did all the nasty things by himself…
Isn’t time Ellis was put out to pasture?
— Nick