The UK leader of the Green Party blamed Israel, and the New York Times perpetrated the gross fallacy that
"It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."Of course words from the sole surviving terrorist contradict this vile piece of propaganda (via The Times of India)
"Kasab has told police that they were sent with a specific mission of targeting Israelis to avenge atrocities on Palestinians. This was why they targetted Nariman House, a complex meant for Israelis. Sources said Kasab's colleagues killed in the operation had stayed in Nariman House earlier. "Doesn't quite sound like it was "an accidental hostage scene". I doubt a retraction of the article from America's "paper of record" is forthcoming.
The sole surviving Mumbai terrorist (Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21), pointing to the complete lack of halal snacks availableat the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway kiosk, before gunning down 54 people in retaliation for this grievance.
(Picture source)
William Dalrymple, writing for The Observer in the UK blames the Mumbai atrocities on the US, UK, India, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, blah blah blah and strawberry ice-cream (I may have added that last one):
"These were not poor, madrasah-educated Pakistanis from the villages, brainwashed by mullahs, but angry and well-educated, middle-class kids furious at the gross injustice they perceive being done to Muslims by Israel, the US, the UK and India in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir respectively."There is not a grievance anywhere in the world (or time) that the Islamists will not fail to take offence to and that Western apologetics will not use as excuses for their atrocities. Read a cogent takedown of this git at Harry's Place.
William Kristol, writing for the New York Times, mentions a few other egregious incidents of "false finger pointing", such as Martha Nussbaums op-ed for the LA times who spends the whole column equivocating Islamic terrorism with anything but the actual cause:
"If, as now seems likely, last week's terrible events in Mumbai were the work of Islamic terrorists, that's more bad news for India's minority Muslim population."I would have said it's actual bad news for those that got KILLED and their surviving relatives. But no, it's that "vulnerable minority" root cause again.
"Never mind that the perpetrators were probably funded from outside India, in connection with the ongoing conflict over Kashmir."So absolutely nothing, NOTHING AT ALL to do with a particular barbaric ideology??
As Kristol writes in his column:
"So jihadists kill innocents in Mumbai and Nussbaum ends up decrying racial profiling here. Is it just that liberal academics are required to include some alleged ugly American phenomenon in everything they write? "The Australian has a good column about the tendency of Western media agencies to give Islamic terrorists all the grievances they could possibly need:
"When it comes to terrorists and their grievances, nearly all the Western media have provided them with a rich diet on which to feed."Another op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Tom Gross details the disgraceful behaviour of Western media. The major point:
"But then the terrorists in Mumbai didn't need to make any public announcements. They knew that many deluded Western journalists and academics will do that job for them, explaining that the West is to blame, especially the Zionists."I don't know what can be done to reverse this situation, but it would be nice occasionally for the mainstream media to, you know, maybe stand up for the ideas and values that make their existence possible. But once again, I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon.
Here is a spot-on segment from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart about the Mumbai terrorists. I hasten to add I doubt Jon Stewart and his Daily show would do anything that would require real risk, like standing up for free speech (for example displaying those Mohammed cartoons), however their take on this particular issue matches my own...almost to the letter.
