Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Whose al-Qaida problem?
Sasha Abramsky in Opendemocracy, 4 October 2005, asks.
Much of the left’s opposition to the Iraq war and the Bush administration’s anti-terror campaigns – voiced by figures like Tariq Ali, Robert Fisk, George Galloway, Naomi Klein, and John Pilger – has blinded it to the need to engage with real problems and threats, says Sasha Abramsky.This is a continuation of what I was writing using Pilger's John Pilger blames Basrah on the British and Elias Akleh's,
Al Zarqawi and his “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” are inventions of the occupying forces
My words:
...creature of technique. Both Pilger and Dr. Dr. Akleh have similar methods: an admixture of correct facts, wrong facts, ridiculous (and even unnecessary) assertions and incorrect conclusions, inside a general claim which is known to be widely accepted, such as ' There is injustice in the world'. But the inaccuracy, unfounded assertions mixed with reasonable ones, plus sets of untruths together, side by side, with the undisputed facts are meant to link the two in the mind of the reader. That's the point: this is a technique not an argument.
¶ Wednesday, October 05, 2005
