January 06, 2004
NEWSPAPER WARS
This bright new Guardian columnist will really provide some competition for The Independent’s Robert Fisk. He’s punchy and controversial, and seems to have a deeper affection for Islamic terrorists than even Fisk himself.
UPDATE. Andrew of Pathetic Earthlings reveals an earlier celebrated UK columnist.
Posted by Tim Blair at January 6, 2004 05:42 PM"...Zionist-crusader chain of evil"
I hate to have to point this out to the Guardian's star recruit, but Zionists and Crusaders want different things. The former want the holy land for Jews and the latter want it for Christians.
During the Crusades, Jews were occasional victims. The Church recently gave one of these trendy apologies for it.
Posted by: Mike Hunt at January 6, 2004 at 06:09 PMit's kinda medieval, kinda stilted. that boy will go places!!
Posted by: rosce.p at January 6, 2004 at 06:31 PMI, in a round-about way, tackled this yesterday. Came to a pretty similar conclusion, I guess.
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Posted by: Marty at January 6, 2004 at 07:11 PMThe Guardian’s new columnist Mr. Current Events is bit of a yawn. Same old same old. It won’t help the Guardian to sell more newspapers but I suppose you have got to keep the existing readers happy.
Why is it called a Jihad why not a Jigunna? And the Crusaders to win the Super 12 this year.
Posted by: Simon at January 6, 2004 at 07:35 PMApparantly Osama was going to join the Mirror instead, but he found John Pilger to be a bit too extreme.
Posted by: Ross at January 6, 2004 at 07:42 PMWhat is the beef western journalists have with the Crusades?
For hundreds of years the followers of Islam sweep across the globe, conquering Christian Egypt, Palestine, Spain and North Africa.
The Europeans go and try to take some back. Sure, a lot of people died and brutalities were committed, but by both sides, and not unusual for the time period. (First Crusade was the most successful for the West and was around 1060 AD)
Posted by: Quentin George at January 6, 2004 at 07:55 PMTruth imitates parody.
I argued, in response to people complaining about a speech by Fidel Castro being featured in the guardian:
Re Fidel Castro being regarded as an op-ed for the Guardian: it's an edited transcript of a speech, not a column. It'd be like saying Osama bin dead (?) had been doing op-ed for CNN.
Zulubaby responded by saying:
LOL! That would really be something, eh? Although I wouldn't be that surprised ;-)
Posted by: Andjam at January 6, 2004 at 08:03 PMWow. That's less extreme than some of stuff I've read on Counterpunch.
Posted by: hast at January 6, 2004 at 09:10 PMHast,
Counterpunch was one of the places "The Rape Of Iraq" was hosted. As featured in an earlier blog post as a "anti-war" column thought to have helped incite a terrorist attack.
Posted by: Andjam at January 6, 2004 at 09:15 PMYou know, if the Grauniad's readership actually read what this stuff says rather than just getting a pleasant frisson at how very very subversive it all is, they would see that Bin Laden (or whoever is releasing tapes in his name) really doesn't have any motivations matching theirs other than anti-Americanism in general. But the Grauniad even puts a headline on the damned thing making it look like the complaints in the tape were the usual anti-"imperialism" stuff that the Left complains about, rather than recognizing the actual anti-"infidel" motivations expressed.
Posted by: Combustible Boy at January 6, 2004 at 10:48 PMI give a 3.
Can't dance to it...cuz they'd shoot me for dancing.
Posted by: LB at January 6, 2004 at 11:12 PMThey really need a new picture of the guy to go with the column...
Posted by: John at January 6, 2004 at 11:44 PMThey really need a new picture of the guy to go with the column...
Posted by: John at January 6, 2004 at 11:44 PMThat would be easy to fake. Strawberry jam on a cave wall. Posted by: Ernie G at January 7, 2004 at 12:02 AM
THE TIMES OF LONDON
Dateline: August 1, 1940
Adolf Hitler
In order to establish the necessary conditions for the final conquest of England I intend to intensify air and sea warfare against the English homeland. I therefore order as follows:
1. The German Air Force is to overpower the English Air Force with all the forces at its command, in the shortest time possible. The attacks are to be directed primarily against flying units, their ground installations, and their supply organizations, but also against the aircraft industry, including that manufacturing anti-aircraft equipment.
2. After achieving temporary or local air superiority the air war is to be continued against ports, in particular against stores of food, and also against stores of provisions in the interior of the country.
Attacks on the south coast ports will be made on the smallest possible scale, in view of our own forthcoming operations.
3. On the other hand, air attacks on enemy warships and merchant ships may be reduced except where some particularly favourable target happens to present itself, where such attacks would lend
additional effectiveness to those mentioned in Paragraph 2, or where such attacks are necessary for the training of air crews for further operations.
4. The intensified air warfare will be carried out in such a way that the Air Force can at any time be called upon to give adequate support to naval operations against suitable targets. It must also be ready to take part in full force in Operation Seelowe.
5. I reserve to myself the right to decide on terror attacks as measures of reprisal.
6. The intensification of the air war may begin on or after 5 August. The exact time is to be decided by the Air Force after completion of preparations and in the light of the weather.
The Navy is authorized to begin the proposed intensified naval war at the same time.
Adolf Hitler is Chancellor and Reichsfueher of Germany. He resides in Berlin and Berchtesgardten and reserves to himself the right to decide on terror attacks as measures of reprisal.
Posted by: Andrew at January 7, 2004 at 12:03 AMI hope this new columnist is right about the Islamists losing Riyadh next. That would be a step in the right direction in the war on terror.
Posted by: Randal Robinson at January 7, 2004 at 01:00 AMIn my own post on the Guardian's new star columnist, I speculated that they had done the column with that traditional method for contacting those in the spirit world, the Ouija board. (Their claim to have gotten in via the BBC an al Jazeera can not be accepted without more evidence, since neither is a reliable sourc.)
Posted by: Jim Miller at January 7, 2004 at 02:07 AMI think prima facie the Guardian has committed a major criminal offence, such as incitement. Will Blair have the balls to prosecute it?
Posted by: sue at January 7, 2004 at 11:56 AM