June 30, 2004

LEFTOID FANTASIES ADDRESSED

Fine John Spooner cartoon in today’s Melbourne Age. And the accompanying article, by Tony Parkinson, isn’t bad either:

The leftist intelligentsia has persisted throughout with the absurd fantasy that the violence and bloodshed in Iraq in fact signifies widespread popular resistance to American power.

It's as if they have forgotten the lessons of the Cold War when, in the name of anti-Western ideology, many on the left became trapped in the odious embrace of dictators, averted their eyes to the murder of innocents, and sought to rationalise the crushing of dissent as a necessary evil on the path to creating a superior alternative social model. In fact, all they were doing all along was accommodating totalitarian thugs.

This Korean guy knows who the enemy is. But The Australian’s Bill Leak seems a little confused.

Posted by Tim Blair at June 30, 2004 06:30 PM
Comments

Just so I've got this straight.. It's good that one cartoon compares everyone who opposes the war for any number of reasons with terrorists, but it's bad that a cartoon compares John Howard to Hitler?

Posted by: Roger at June 30, 2004 at 06:36 PM

Not sure what you mean, Roger. Are you telling us that you believe that Howard is like Hitler but that people who support the Iraqi "resistance" don't support terrorists who behead hostages??

Anyway, the main differences between the cartoons is that Spooner is actually injecting something new (like it or not)into the debate, whereas the Howard/Hitler analogy has already been flogged to death by various leftoids for at least the last three years.

Posted by: Chris at June 30, 2004 at 06:51 PM

Tim, this paragraph serves as a rather effective template and works in remarkably truthful fashion in the opposite direction:

The RIGHTist intelligentsia has persisted throughout with the absurd fantasy that the violence and bloodshed in Iraq in fact" DOES NOT "signify widespread popular resistance to American power.


It's as if they have forgotten the lessons of the Cold War when, in the name of anti-COMMUNIST ideology, many on the right became trapped in the odious embrace of dictators, averted their eyes to the murder of innocents, and sought to rationalise the crushing of dissent as a necessary evil on the path to creating a superior alternative social model. In fact, all they were doing all along was accommodating totalitarian thugs."

CAPITALS mine.

Posted by: Thanasi at June 30, 2004 at 06:57 PM

It is not good and it is not bad, Its the Truth!

Posted by: JBB at June 30, 2004 at 07:08 PM

The world has been turned upside down by the leftoid lunacy.

Look how difficult it was to bring America into the second world war to fight the worst fascism the west had ever encountered!
TOday it would be a hundred times more difficult . you would need a dozen pearl harbours to move the population.
And then later
Patton, Eisenhower would be accused of war crimes by the american press who would ask the government to try them!
each SS prisoner would have a horde of human rights lawyers queueing to defend them and demanding they be tried on "shoplifter courts".
At the Nuremberg tribunal, college students would demonstrate and block the entrance demanding the inclusion of the American President in the list of accused.
If you think this is bad , think again. It's much worse in Europe!
We are living in a topsy turvy world in which the perpatrators of attrocities become heroes and no one gives a damn about the victims at least not the leftoids.


Posted by: davo at June 30, 2004 at 09:20 PM

Speaking of which, has anybody seen the leftoid shit for brains defending Serb War criminals saying that the massacres were all an invention of the media.

Posted by: JBB at June 30, 2004 at 11:15 PM

Thanasi
"The RIGHTist intelligentsia has persisted throughout with the absurd fantasy that the violence and bloodshed in Iraq in fact" DOES NOT "signify widespread popular resistance to American power"
Of course it signifies widespread resistance but SIGNIFICATION is NOT THE CAUSE !
THe Cause of widespread resistance is not american power , the reasons are far more historic and religious.
The Cause is the insult to Islam of the interfence of ANY non islamic nation be it FRENCH ITALIAN SPANISH AMERICAN et al, in the affairs of an islamic country.
That of course is the view of the wahabbist jihadists and not the view of many iraqis who want some kind of democracy. but whose opinions AND triumphs of late are seldom reported by our leftoid press.
because good news about Iraq is bad news for the leftoid press.
The drums of americanophobia have been beaten endlessly by the Islamofascists and have been echoed by our own dhimified press and the saudi finaced intellectuals of University ME departments.
Idiotic readers letters appear in the Australian telling us that "the americans have not really gone"
no indeed! if one American car mechanic or one american medecin sans frontieres was left in the country , it would be considered an "invasion".
I am no longer surprised by the western press , just disgusted at their stupidity .

Posted by: davo at June 30, 2004 at 11:33 PM

Thanasi - the "resistance" in Iraq is not domestic, it is the product of Iranian, Syrian, and other terrorist agitators. The Americans are finding that many of the "insurgents" they kill are not Iraqis, but are imported.

So it is not a noble domestic resistance, it is the attempted destabilization of Iraq by its neighbors and various bad actors for their own purposes. Kinda changes the rhetoric, no?

Posted by: R C Dean at July 1, 2004 at 12:28 AM

The cartoon was a refreshing view and the article was pretty good for its common sense view.

I kept checking the url. How could this be The Age?

I was opposed to the war in iraq. Yet, is it not as plain as day that US needs to be in iraq to protect and rebuild the country? The lefties seem to expediently wish a bloodbath of iraqi lives just to continue their idealogical opposement to America.

Mr Lathan, leave the troops in iraq!

Posted by: madison at July 1, 2004 at 12:36 AM

The pathetic, limp dicked Left are just going to have to get back to dissing CO2 and other "imperialist" gasses once Iraq is a paragon of Arab democracy in some years time. How their mung bean, organic Bullshit Tucker will turn to ashes in their mealy mouths as we chow down on some Halal Big Macs with our Iraqi mates in Baghdad in the largest MacDonalds Resteraunt in the Middle East.

Posted by: Dog at July 1, 2004 at 12:40 AM

JBB
All I know about is the massive ommissions of the media regarding the massacres commited by bosnian muslims on Serbs, who incidently have been regularly massacred by the kaliphate for centuries.
And i have not yet visited the splendid latrines in kosovo created from the historic christian churches, -see the new guide to the loos of the Balkans
it seems that the media have trouble handling more than one villain at a time in any conflict.
Any mention of atrocities by bosnian muslims would only have served to diminish the demonification of milosevic by nato and undermine their causes.
humanitarian warfare (love that oxymoron) has to have a stage of actors prepared before it is engaged.
1 find a suitable minority that is being oppressed or slaughtered.
Hitler chose the "oppressed" Chezch germans for this purpose . ( an inspired propaganda campaign by mr Goebels)
America chose the asphyxiated Kurds, (those splendid slaughters of the Armenian christians) under saddam
Clinton selected the slaughtered Balkan muslims of srebenica

2 Demonize the head of state with whom you previously did business with and invited to your barbies.
3 under the guise of liberation of the oppressed wage your humanitarian war and free the minorities.
4 setup war crimes tribunals and ensure the mud stick firmly.
make sure you only reveal the war crimes commited by the side you are prosecuting.
Any leakages from your side, you describe as militant insurgency and make good use of euphemisms in press releases to minimize the impact.


Posted by: davo at July 1, 2004 at 12:54 AM

Of course, exposing the truth solves nothing. The lunatic left will simply claim that Iraqis who rejoice in their newfound freedom and wish to live under self-rule (thoughtfully provided by the U.S. military), are deluded/misguided/bribed/tricked by their American masters. Everyone knows the Arabs want to live under the thumb of a strongman, like good little brown people should.

Posted by: Rebecca at July 1, 2004 at 02:06 AM

Look, we all know Bush is Hitler, not Howard, our domestic Yankee Leftees keep telling us this.

Re the caption on the Yahoo photo of the guy protesting the execution of the Korean civilian: why is he described as "a supporter of the U.S. military" ? Looks to me he is just plain pissed about the execution of an innocent by the Islamofascists.

Support, or not, of the U.S. military is nowhere implied in the photo.

Posted by: Carl in N.H. at July 1, 2004 at 04:42 AM

Look, we all know Bush is Hitler, not Howard, our domestic Yankee Leftees keep telling us this.

You see, that stupid Bush is so incompetent he even fails at being a full-time Hitler, so his lapdog Howard needs to help him out occasionally.

/leftoidspeak

Posted by: PW at July 1, 2004 at 06:18 AM

Re Parkinson's comments: It was all for the common good!

Oh wait, someone else said that yesterday...

Posted by: Chrees at July 1, 2004 at 06:34 AM

Like Madison, I'm amazed such an intelligent,thoughtful article could appear in The Age. It wouldn't do for the SMH and can you imagine such views on(everybody's)ABC? Not bloody likely.

Posted by: Freddyboy at July 1, 2004 at 02:07 PM