Could Helmand be the Dubai of Afghanistan?

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Dispatches does the Israel Lobby. Hurray!

Dispatches does a Muslim organisation. Booo.

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Remember the “ricin plot” where there was no ricin, where the recipe which Kamel Bourgass had could not have produced ricin and where his plan, to smear it on doorknobs and car door handles wouldn’t have killed anyone as the poison needs to be either injected, ingested or inhaled to work? It was the first real “terror plot” post-9/11 in this country, came two months before the invasion of Iraq (in the context of which it was used by Colin Powell during his now notorious presentation to the UN), and the press coverage was massive in both response and in its hyperbole, the government doing its best to help it along by not bothering to inform anyone until Bourgass’ trial was over that there had been no ricin after all.

You would then expect a case where ricin actually was found to provoke a similar media response. After all, while ricin is not the most deadly of potential “biological/chemical” warfare poisons, it is still usually deadly when used “properly”, as in the assassination of Georgi Markov, a cold war precursor to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

It’s strange then that almost no coverage whatsoever has been given to the case of Ian Davison, although perhaps that name itself somewhat gives the game away.

I noticed that the Jihad Jane story was on the front of major British news outlets. Yet the arrest of Crusader Christopher wasn’t on the front page (and still isn’t) despite: a. the regional nature of the threat compared to someone tapping from their computer in the US; and b. the fact that ricin and handbooks on making bombs (i.e. ‘terrorist materials’) were actually found in his possession (unlike in the case of a number of high-profile, non-white, terrorists).

If this doesn’t highlight the racism of the British press, nothing short of headlines screaming “Kill All Pakis” ever will.

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At one point Murray (whose tag team partner was Flemming Rose) suggested that being European and Muslim wasn’t possible at the same time, and made some blather about European values. It’s a shame no one asked Murray to explain whether these ‘values’ included the use, and covering up of, torture and the fascination with mindless warfare on others to spread your own ‘values’. And perhaps it would have been interested if Rose, who declared himself a believer in ‘universal human rights’, how he felt sitting alongside someone who has spent a lot of time attacking the Human Rights Act.

There were also the usual, and mindless, arguments about how great it was to be a Muslim in Britain compared to, say, Saudi Arabia. Who cares what they do in Saudi?

In the end the audience voted against the motion, although I don’t think this meant people supported Murray. For example, one of the audience members — a former British diplomat to an Arab country who also used to work for the Muslim West Facts Project — also objected to the motion, but noted that his reasons for doing so would probably differ to those being promoted by Murray. I felt that even Rose, who would usually be cast as an anti-Muslim bigot (Zeinab Badawi certainly did her best to constantly remind the audience of his claim to fame), came off better than Murray.

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As usual, there is some brilliant commentary by Septic Isle on this.

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But it seems perfectly ok for boorish bigots like Bruce Anderson to openly fantasise about torturing someone’s wife and children; or perfectly ok for warmongering bastards like Nick Cohen to pretend to debate the ethics of torture.

Enlightenment, anyone?

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The local news report prominently referenced a ‘documentary’ by the Christian Action Network about Jamaat ul-Fuqra communities, including one in central Tennessee called Islamville. I blogged about both the alarmist irresponsible CAN film and the Fuqra last year (also here and here).

Amanda Terkel writes about what happened in Tennessee:

…the Nashville CBS affiliate (Channel 5) decided to give the film legitimacy by conducting an “EXCLUSIVE” investigation into a Muslim community in rural Tennessee called Islamville, which is featured in the movie. “Some believe it is a secret Islamic terrorist training camp,” reads the Channel 5 article. “Others have said that’s simply not true.

The two-part ’special’ report found nothing of concern, but the two days of hype leading up to the report may have precipitated this:

There was also a note taped to a youth facility nearby with a bunch of comments about Islam being the enemy, satanic, etc, etc. A spokesman for the mostly Somali mosque said:

“It’s unexpected,” he adds. “The only thing I can think of is the sensationalized reporting [by Channel 5] over Sunday and Monday. That’s the only thing I can think of. Even after 9/11 we have never had any vandalism.“

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