http://thewideawakes.org/archives/2006/07/17/british-left-have-moment-of-hon esty-bbc-unaffected/ <http://thewideawakes.org/archives/2006/07/17/british-left-have-moment-of-ho nesty-bbc-unaffected/> British Left Have Moment of Honesty: BBC Unaffected One of the problems faced by anyone attempting to tackle leftists is their tendency to avoid reasoned argument in favour of invective, half-truths and victimhood. Now, these tactics might lead an unkind person to conclude that leftists do not, in fact, have any arguments, but this is untrue. The problem for L3 is the creeping suspicion that if they just flat out explained their reasoning, no one would ever take them seriously again. It's quite the delight, then, that every so often a leftist forgets this Golden Rule and blurts out some of the things most members of the reality-based community only privately believe. This week, one, Dr Antony Whitehead, senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Huddersfield, is the guy having a <http://www.sundayherald.com/56589> liberal-left Tourette's moment: The driving force behind the devastating 7/7 suicide bomb attacks in London last year was not Islam but a desire by the terrorists to prove their masculinity, academics have claimed. They claim that in Britain's consumerist society, in which masculine success is equated with material wealth, young Asians who are poor or disenfranchised or who feel oppressed will feel inadequate and will be vulnerable to manipulation by older men to commit horrific acts such as mass murder. There's so much wrong with this thesis that it's difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps, by pointing out that the bearded-crazies responsible for 7/7 took the trouble to <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5154714.stm> film themselves ranting about Global Jihad. See, for a normal person, a taped admission of motive would be enough to settle any doubts they might have as to the reason a particular bearded crazy self-detonated. As he sets out to prove, however, Dr. Whitehead is no normal person: "The bombers have said that they are motivated by loyalty to Allah, which they may entirely believe. But if you are going to start to unpick their motivation, you need to consider their experience as young men as much as their adherence to Islam." Alright, it's certainly nice to learn that Islamopaths have as much difficulty getting through to leftists as the rest of us. But. Still. It's important that we don't view Whitehead as a solitary nut. Sure, he's loopy enough to claim that Islamofascist suicide bombers aren't really self-detonating for Allah, and that, further, the bomber's own thoughts on the subject are quite irrelevant when it comes to reaching this conclusion. Only, consider the following two statements, the first from Hezbollah's head-hacker in-chief, <http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP86705> Hassan Nasrallah "Israel is our enemy. This is an aggressive, illegal, and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.'" [.] America. This American administration is an enemy. Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: 'Death to America.'" Okay. Death to Israel. Death to America. Not much room for ambiguity or nuance there. Plainly, Nasrallah, like so many of his co-religionists, didn't get the memo about wiping out other people's countries being a Very Bad Thing . So how come the BBC's Nick Thorpe, just this weekend, could seriously <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5181628.st m> ponder the following: Until there is a broad peace agreement in the Middle East, it seems to me, not imposed by Israel, but agreed by all sides, I fear his people, and for that matter mine, will be the targets. Question: Just what part of 'Death To Israel' is it that Nick Thorpe doesn't understand? This is something a great many conservatives find themselves asking, and particularly at a time, when whole sections of the left are screeching about the 'plight' of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the supposedly 'disproportionate' nature of Israel's self-defence. While there undoubtedly are quite a few on the extreme left who do, indeed, believe that the destruction of Israel (and America, for that matter) would be a good thing, it's a fair bet that the majority of leftists fall into to the Whitehead camp, deluding themselves that when the likes of Nasrallah scream 'Death to Israel', they're indulging in 'rhetoric', or, at the very least, would settle for something less than the murder of four million innocent Jews. So far, so tedious. The problem with Nick Thorpe and so many of his soft-left MSM cronies is that, rather than troubling themselves to set-out their reasoning, they skip straight to the conclusion that Israel, or any of us, can reach a peaceful accommodation with Islamofascism. If only more leftists took the time to explain their arguments, far fewer people would have drifted into the anti-Israel camp. Then again, perhaps that's why these Whitehead-moments are so very rare.
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