“They can’t see why they are hated” wrote Seamus Milne two days after the 9/11 attacks.
Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don’t get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force – just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible.
Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process – or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world – seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world.
But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will calls for the defence of “civilisation”, with its overtones of Samuel Huntington’s poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy.
As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush’s father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel’s 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages.
Gaza, eh? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Seamus Milne continued as a Guardian columnist for another fifteen years until he left to become Executive Director of Strategy and Communications for the Labour Party under its then-leader Jeremy Corbyn. In all that time I never once saw him recommend that Palestinians, or Muslims more generally, or anyone other than Westerners should ask themselves why they are hated.
A useful reminder that the left are scum – utter and complete scum.
The wealthy Islamic man, Osama Bin Laden, was not “driven” to a carry out his atrocities – and nor were the men he sent, he choose to do so – in order to attack infidels. Just as the Barbary Pirates that President Jefferson fought – justified their attacks on religious grounds.
Muhammed himself was not “driven” to carry out his atrocities – yes he was an orphan and he did not receive much of an education, allegedly being only semi-literate, but he married well and was a successful merchant – before he started to claim he was a messenger form God and had the right, indeed moral duty, to crush infidels (the Medina verses coming after he had his own army – before then he was rather more polite).
The Red-Green alliance was clearly on display even in 2001 – thus making the claims of the left to stand for the rights of women and the freedom of homosexuals, obviously false – as Islam (the Green part of the Red-Green alliance) rejects both these things.
A useful reminder, if needed, that the Grauniad was almost as septic then as it is now.
David Norman – the Guardian is typical of the left, it is not a special case – it is the norm for the left.
The hatred of Western Civilization,the sneer that it does really exist, hides a long term campaign to undermine and destroy it – a campaign which has been, tragically, partly successful. And the attack on any defense of the West as “racism” is typical of the left.
Ironically Muhammed himself was a racist – he sneered at black people as “raisin heads” and claimed they looked like Satan, and he bought and sold black slaves (although he also traded in white slaves – for higher prices) – yet where does Mr Milne attack Muhammed?
As for Israel – yes vicious lies against the Jewish state can be found in the Guardian in 2001 and 2026 (indeed there were some on the front page of the Guardian only yesterday – lies about how Jews target Muslim civilians in the Gaza area), but, again, this is typical of the international left now – it is part of the general Red-Green Alliance, the Guardian is nothing special in this.
If the Guardian has become like Der Sturmer of the late Julius Streicher – it is because the left generally has embraced this, not just in Britain – in every Western nation.
Jews are portrayed as capitalist exploiters (and, yes, pet Jews can always be found to repeat this lie about other Jews – “Kapos”, Camp Police “anti Zionist intellectuals”, are a feature) – to be destroyed. Muslims are portrayed as exploited and oppressed (part of the proletariat – although that word is no longer used) – exploited and oppressed not just be Jews, but by Christians as well – the left has wanted to destroy, or subvert from within, Christianity – for hundreds of years (long before Karl Marx).
As it does with women and homosexuals (and others) the left presents Muslims as a “victim group” exploited and oppressed by “capitalist society” – for which “America” or “Israel” is just a code word.
Here’s Seamus Milne in 2013 on the murder of a British man on a London street in broad daylight, which
He’s also had superior information than the rest of us on Assad, and on Boy Assad’s friend in Moscow.
I’m reading the 2nd of the 4 Tim Shipman books (the ‘Out’ quartet), and I’m at the stage where the Tories’ massive poll lead in 2017 collapses in the face of their bungled manifesto launch and the Corbyn surge. Seamus Milne was a nasty piece of work in 2017, instrumental in Corbyn’s shameless weaponising of the Manchester Arena Murders, the legitimising of Anti-Semitism, and the ‘We’re To Blame’ riff which so enthused a couple of classes of students to put Magic Grandpa within a polling-error’s distance from the nuclear launch-codes he’d told our enemies he’d never use – before those students grew up and got jobs, and dogs, and mortgages.
As a rock-solid EU Exiteer, and a despairing ex-Tory, I’m mightily grateful Theresa May scraped through in 2017: the alternative in No.10 would have been worse than 9 years of EU membership under High Tory consensus waffle.
As for Milne, for what he wrote 25 years ago, and for what he got others to say 9 years ago, blaming ourselves for the actions of people who hate us is a sign of Motivated Reasoning. “Our foreign policy towards Muslims abroad causes us problems with Muslims at home, you dummy” is uttered as a self-evident truth. Islamist craziness is always contextualised to minute detail, and always turned back like the point of a pistol to our own heads.
Some things are simple and some things are complex. It’s that simple for the Seamus Milnes amongst us. To paraphrase Conor Cruise O’Brien, Useful Idiots are very light sleepers.
X Trapnel – yes indeed.
I also could not stand Theresa May – Kemi Badenoch is (thankfully) nothing like Theresa May. But Mr Corbyn was indeed a lot worse than Theresa May.
Officials and “experts” have most power in Britain – but Mr Corbyn (and creatures such as Seamus Milnes) would have broken free of that – done whatever they had to do to get power into their hands – to be in power as well as in office.
And they would have used that power for evil – so the officials and “experts”, but Mr Corbyn and co would have used the power for evil on another level.
Milne is an unreconstructed and unrepentant Marxist.
9/11 was a Tuesday. Two days later, the same day Milne’s article appeared, there was the regular Thursday evening airing of BBC’s long-running political discussion panel programme ‘Question Time’. A former US ambassador to Britain, Philip Lader, was one of the panelists.
The point of the programme is that audience members ask questions of the panelists. But on this occasion it was not so much questions as accusations: America deserved everything it got. The former ambassador was reduced nearly to the point of tears by the comments.
More than 2,000 people complained to the Beeb about the programme, and two days later, the then-Director of the BBC, Greg Dyke, made an apology to
There were accusations that the audience selection had been skewed to select for more anti-American views.
Two days later, the Director General was forced to apologise for the programme.
Milne is an unreconstructed and unrepentant Marxist.
9/11 was a Tuesday. Two days later, the same day Milne’s article appeared, there was the regular Thursday evening airing of BBC’s long-running political discussion panel programme ‘Question Time’. A former US ambassador to Britain, Philip Lader, was one of the panelists.
The point of the programme is that audience members ask questions of the panelists. But on this occasion it was not so much questions as accusations: America deserved everything it got. The former ambassador was reduced nearly to the point of tears by the comments.
More than 2,000 people complained to the Beeb about the programme, and two days later, the then-Director of the BBC, Greg Dyke, made an apology to
There were accusations that the audience selection had been skewed to select for more anti-American views.
Two days later, the Director General was forced to apologise for the programme.
Philip Scott Thomas.
Yes – most people in Britain have not got a clue about Marxism (or any other political philosophy) and serve its “Critical Theory” agenda WITHOUT knowing they are doing so (it has “ideological hegemony”) – for example “America bad!” rather than “as a capitalist power, the United States is, by its very nature, engaged in the exploitation and oppression of proletarians at home and around the world”.
But the people who indoctrinate large parts of the public, such as Mr Milne, know exactly what they are doing – and the evil that they serve.
And it is more than demented shouting and endless lies, from the audience – not just panel members, on “Question Time”.
For example, the people who “sprung Blake” (helped the traitor, the Soviet agent, George Blake, escape from prison) were, eventually put on trial for their crime – because they endlessly boasted (yes boasted) about their treason – even publishing a book about it.
The jury found them “Not Guilty” – because the jury shared their politics.
Think about that – a more clear cut case of evil would be hard to think of, people openly boasting that they had helped a traitor (a Soviet agent) escape from prison – and they are found “Not Guilty”.
The trial is worth examining – because the defense council argued politically, but the prosecutor did not.
The “prosecution” (the government never really wanted to prosecute – the book forced their hand) did not have a clue about how to argue politically – they just kept to the “facts of the case”.
The British establishment is NOT all Marxist – indeed only a small part of it is Marxist, but the rest of it does not know how to argue against Marxism – and ends up serving the Critical Theory agenda by default.
This may go back a very long way – for example two powers (not one) invaded Poland in September 1939, National Socialist (not “Fascist” – National SOCIALIST Germany – their not being Marxist does mean they were not socialist) invaded Poland – but so did the Marxist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (NOT “Russia”).
Yet Britain and France declared war on National Socialist Germany – but NOT on the Marxist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And the answer “this piece of paper, signed by the Polish government, allowed Britain and France to declare war on one invader – but not the other invader” is utterly pathetic – indeed disgraceful.
The USSR also invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, part of Romania, and Finland (the Winter War) – but there was STILL no Declaration of War from Britain or France.
This was not because Britain and France were ruled by Marxists (they were not) – but pro Marxist elements already had influence (influence) on decisions, via their influence on advice and information to decision makers.
Later (1941) military resources that were desperately needed to safe guard the British Empire in the far east – were, instead, sent to the Soviet Union. The British government, in effect, betrayed its armed forces (as well as the civilian populations) in the far east to defeat and either death or brutal enslavement. This was NOT because the Prime Minister was a Marxist – Winston Churchill was a passionate ANTI Marxist, but the information he got to see and hear was influenced by…..
In the 1940s China, the largest population on Earth, was handed over to the Marxists – by such things as Western powers, including the United States – indeed mostly the United States, demanding an end to the Manchurian Offensive of 1946 – and demanding “talks” with the Marxists, talks with the Marxists (like talks with the followers of the Crescent Moon) can only end in disaster.
Was this because Harry Truman was a Marxist? No it was not – he was not a Marxist (far from it). But what he got to see and hear about China was largely controlled by people who were. Ditto Charles De Gaulle in the 1960s – he was personally ANTI Marxist, but the information he got to see and hear, was controlled by pro Marxists.
According to J.R.R. Tolkien the greatest warrior humans have ever produced was Huren, and his will was as strong as his body – indeed stronger.
No torture would have made this mighty man serve Morgoth (Satan) – so Morgoth did not resort to torture, he just made sure that he controlled everything that Huren got to see and hear over a long period of time – so that Huren would “see all things crooked”.
Then Morgoth released Huren – pretending to feel pity for him, Huren did not believe that – but he served the purposes of Morgoth (without knowing he was doing so) as the information Huren was working from was information that Morgoth had fed him over a long period of time.
When Huren finally worked out that he had been deceived and had, without knowing it, been serving the purposes of evil – he cast himself into the sea.
There is no verification Ghandi ever said it.