April 17, 2004
Site changes
I am trying to work on the site redesign this weekend so please don't be alarmed if the site looks odd when you log on.
It is more than likely just a temporary change as I experiment during the quiet hours over the weekend.
Also I am limiting comments to my posts for a while.
There are a group of people who have recently discovered this blog who insist on adding irrelevant comments that have nothing to do with the original post.
I haven't got the time or the inclination to delete them all or deal with the trolls through administrative means so for a while at least comments will be restricted on some posts.
My apologies for those of you who have enjoyed the discussion in the boxes.
For those of you who for whatever reason wish to carry on debating the troll you can of course find him and others of his ilk in the 'Chat' area of this website.
Have fun.
Betrayal? They saved dissent
Think back 18 months to when the debate about intervention in Iraq started to hot up. No-one talked about a division of opinion on the British left then. Certainly no-one talked about a ‘pro-war left’. After all anyone who was a socialist or a liberal was opposed to an attempt at using force to end the Ba’athist dictatorship.
At least that was how it appeared to most people, myself included, who did not spend their days trawling through the newspapers. No, to be left was to be anti-war, end of story. Everyone had fallen in line from Charles Kennedy to Tony Benn.
In fact there were three noted newspaper columnists who as the debate unfolded took a different line – David Aaronovitch, Johann Hari and Nick Cohen. Now they stand accused, along with those who made similar arguments in the States such as Christopher Hitchens, of 'betraying dissent'.
I don't want to give excessive importance to a book I have yet to read but the title itself and the arguments we have heard in its defence so far are not uncommon ideas among leftists. I think those ideas need to be challenged.
Of course the debate over Iraq was heated. When you are pointing out that anti-war means leaving a fascist dictator in power it is hardly surprising that some people imagine they are being accused of actually being a fascist. Too often the anti-war response to the tough questions asked was to mock ‘Left Wing Warmongers’ with the frequent claim that those who had chosen to back the war had somehow made a shameful compromise with imperialism, had sold out.
I don’t want to rehash the whole debate again (don’t we do enough of that here?) nor do I fail to recognise that some in the anti-war camp were willing to seriously engage with the points made by their left critics. But I do want to make a few points in relation to this nonsense about betraying dissent.
The real dissent inside the left media came from that trio of columnists. Were it not for Hari, Cohen and Aaronovitch, it is possible that we would not have had a real debate on the left about the war. Blair was Bush’s poodle and anyone who supported him a loyalist hack.
Want to imagine what it would have been like without dissent on the left? Well go to Germany or France and try telling left-wingers there that you are a Marxist or socialist who supported the intervention when not only their entire left but most of their right-wing was anti-war.
Even in Italy, where there are wonderful, small circulation daily newspapers that consist of nothing but intra-left debates, the mention of an explicitly pro-war left position usually brings looks of puzzlement. Believe me, I’ve tried it with some of my Italian communist friends and it is startlingly evident that they haven’t had that discussion.
Indeed in large parts of continental Europe there has been no real debate. That’s not only bad news for those of us who would like the left to take another look at modern day fascism, its not healthy for the anti-war camp either. They haven’t had to really think through their positions, to deal with the dilemmas that the more honest anti-war people in the UK have at least accepted exist. They have simply hung out the peace flag.
Of course there is a large part of the left that actually likes not having discussion about uncomfortable new realities. For all its liberal rhetoric, the left has always had an intolerant streak and found disagreement hard to cope with. And too often the fall-back position is to label the dissenters as betrayers.
At times over the past year we have discussed on this blog whether being pro-war meant you could no longer be considered part of the left. After all the anti-war left has constantly reminded us that we have ‘resigned from the left’ over this issue. Hitchens seems to get asked that question in every interview he gives in the States.
Perhaps that is what upsets the anti-war people the most about the dissenters on the left. They may have been able to get large numbers on the streets to protest and they may have dominated discussion in the liberal media but it was never total domination, never absolute unanimity.
In some of the darker parts of the left there is a longing for the ‘glorious day’ when all are lined up under one banner, when once again the people march in unison behind the wise leaders. Those darker parts of the left are well represented in the anti-war movement. In that respect they certainly have some common ground with their newly found Islamist allies whose position on heretics bares a striking resemblance to that of Stalin’s.
I am not suggesting though that all those who join in the vilification of the pro-liberation left would send us to the gulag or have us beheaded in the town square. There is also a more common attitude that sees any argument which offers consent to the actions of the state or ‘ the power’ to be inexplicable other than as an act of betrayal. It prefers to view those who have ‘fallen for the lies’ of the state as either naïve fools or cynical sell-outs on the make. How much easier it is, we are told, to go along with Bush and Blair, to abandon critical thinking in favour of ‘cheering on’ the powers that be.
Again this viewpoint is an insulting and dangerous negation of the possibility that critical thinking, serious analysis might be able to lead to a conclusion which, at times, coincides with that of power. The very possibility is eliminated from the outset, particularly by the followers of Chomsky who appear to imagine themselves living in the world of the Matrix film.
In the Matrix there are no grey areas, no possibility of even a temporary convergence of interests between the oppressed and ‘the power’. Instead a small and enlightened group of co-thinkers struggle against an omnipotent elite, occasionally suffering the defection of a traitor who has been tempted by the easy life and promise of good times from those who control the world. Anything which sounds promising from the ‘power’ must be a trick aimed at confusing people away from the one and true path of liberation.
Once again it is not hard to avoid the comparison with totalitarian ideology, either of the political or the mystical kind. All answers are to be found within the group of believers, any dissent is giving into ‘temptation’.
A large part of the left has crossed the line from scepticism, a quality necessary for any attempt to analyse the world, to a cynicism which negates the need to even undertake creative, critical thinking. The left has failed to break with the fossilised sectarian thinking of the last century and has merely reinvented it, stripping it of the messianic delusions of the vanguardists of the past and replacing it with an all-embracing cynicism which at its very core is nothing more than nihilism.
Which is why the saving of dissent within the left is important and why this is not only a debate about the media and about the opinions of a few columnists. If the left is one day to again become a force for change, it needs to be rooted in a world view that understands the way in which change occurs, in order to be able to spot opportunities within that process. It needs to again understand the real dynamics of power, of change, of capitalism, of liberal democracy and of history itself.
To do so the dominance of nihilism on the left needs to be broken. That will be a process that involves a challenge to the imagined unanimity of the left on many issues, but for the moment the pressing issues are, of course, the response to Islamist jihad and the struggle for democracy in the Middle East.
It is abundantly clear that the left that dominanates the anti-war movement is not capable of such a transformation – it is trapped in the nihilistic grip of pure oppositionalism.
So we need all the dissenters we can find if we are to even start the process of creating a different left.
April 16, 2004
Iraqis to insurgent-backing Arabs: bug off
A remarkable post by Baghdad resident Omar at Iraq the Model. He's been participating in a BBC-hosted online forum in Arabic. And he has found a sharp division of opinion on the uprisings in Iraq between Iraqis themselves-- who overwhelmingly reject the insurgents-- and Arabs in many other countries-- who support them:
...I was surprised when I found that the almost all the Iraqis who took part in the debates are on our side, maybe 95% of Iraqis expressed their rejection to the violent behavior of some Iraqis and condemned the terrorists attacks on both Iraqis and the coalition saying that the Arab world must stop supporting the terrorists and the thugs from inside Iraq. It's also surprising that many of those Iraqis live in areas that are recognized to have a public anti American attitude in general like A'adhamiya, Diyala and Najaf. I feel that those people are still afraid to voice their points of view in public in such hostile atmospheres but the internet is providing them freedom and safety to say whatever they believe in.
Remind me, who is the poodle?
Remember how George Bush and the Republican administration had given up on the United Nations and considered the body 'irrelevant'?
How the unilateralist US had given up on greater international involvement?
That the US was determined to force its own model upon Iraq during the 'sham' handover which would lack any legitimacy either in Iraq or internationally.
Now read today's news:
The proposals are almost identical to those outlined last month by senior British officials dealing with Iraq.
Bush, Blair look to U.N. for help on Iraq
Bush said (the UN's) Brahimi has "identified a way forward to establishing an interim government that is broadly acceptable to the Iraqi people. Our coalition will continue to work with the United Nations to prepare for nationwide elections that will choose a new government in January of 2005."
The president expressed gratitude that Brahimi "will soon return to Iraq and continue his important work."
Of course nothing to do with Tony Blair or British efforts to win the US over to working with the UN.
And in the light of this how long before those Stoppers who 18 months ago suddenly became the defenders of the 'important role of the United Nations' decide that the UN is a puppet of the USA after all?
"You have no idea how ridiculous you sound"
On the same theme as below, there was a brief item on the Today programme this morning where Scott Lucas, whose book the 'Betrayal of dissent' has prompted some discussion on this site, was challenged by Christopher Hitchens about his claim.
You can listen to it here.
'Closing down debate'
I really do find this latest charge from elements of anti-war opinion that those left-wingers who took a different view from them over Iraq are guilty of 'closing down debate' or 'policing the left', to be hilarious.
Having spent the past 18 months shaking my head (and occassionally fist) at the Guardian's op-ed pages, the idea that the so-called pro-war left (which does not even exist in organised form) has had any impact on the media or the wider debate other than offer an occassional minority, dissenting view, is sheer fantasy.
And then there is the letters page - a daily demonstration of Stopper orthodoxy. I'm sure the Guardian have scores of letters they don't publish but it is interesting that they couldn't squeeze this one in this week:
What is happening to Guardian Comment and Analysis? Yesterday (April 14) readers were urged to back the fascistic (but 'insurgent') Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr against the 'blinkered reactionary' Paul Bremer (Paul Foot). We were told that Tony Blair is just a very naughty boy whose foreign policy (not al-Queda's bombs, apparently) is putting us 'in appalling peril' (Terry-Monty-Python-Jones). And that the same Tony Blair only wants to 'bask in the reflected glory of American power' (David Clark).
The very idea of democracy for the Iraqi people was dismissed as a 'neo-con fantasy' that should be dumped so that the Labour Party can increase its majority at the next election (Polly Toynbee).
Anyway, 'democracy' should be put inside scare quotes because it is a western fraud (this from Mohammad Ali Eskandari, whose knowledge of democracy has been gained as Press Attache at the Iranian Embassy). Oh yes, and Isaiah Berlin was a 'CIA stooge' whose political philosophy was a 'self-serving academic industry' (Hywel Williams). Is Seamus Milne trying to create a dumbed-down and idiotarian left?
Alan Johnson
Well there you go. Its been published now.
And here is an offer - if you are a pro-liberation lefty and have a letter to the Guardian unpublished - just send it in an email to us and we will put it in the public domain.
James Yee is Innocent OK
James Yee was the Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo: arrested last year for espionage and treason, charges which later became adultery and downloading pornography. Well, he has been cleared of all charges. Andrew Sullivan observes:
This incident is particularly noxious at a time when we need to reassure patriotic Muslim-Americans that they are not going to come under clouds of suspicion for their faith or their identity - especially Muslims who are actually serving this country in uniform. This story is a travesty of justice and fairness. And no one really seems to give a damn.
And he is absolutely right.
Democrats should make the case for Iraq
Pro-war leftist Paul Berman, writing in The New York Times, says that in the wake of the Bush administration's bungling on Iraq, it's time for the Democrats to display some leadership and clarity:
...And why shouldn't they show a bit of leadership? After the Spanish election last month, America needed to reach out to the new Spanish leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his voters. Mr. Bush was in no position to do this, given that in November he had delivered a speech that was all-too characteristically insulting to the European left. Instead, it was Senator John Kerry who made a public appeal to Mr. Zapatero to keep troops in Iraq.
I wish the Democrats would follow Mr. Kerry's example and take it a step further by putting together a small contingent of Democrats with international reputations, a kind of shadow government — not to undermine American policy but to achieve what Mr. Bush seems unable to do. The Democrats ought to explain the dangers of modern totalitarianism and the goals of the war. They ought to make the call for patience and sacrifice that Mr. Bush has steadfastly avoided. And the Democratic contingent ought to go around the world making that case.
The Democrats ought to thank and congratulate the countries that have sent troops, and ought to remind the economically powerful Switzerlands of this world that they, too, have responsibilities. The Democrats ought to assure everyone that support for a successful outcome in Iraq does not have to mean support for George W. Bush. And how should the Democrats make these several arguments? They should speak about something more than the United Nations and stability in Iraq. They should talk about fascism. About death cults. About the experiences of the 20th century. About the need for democratic solidarity.
This is not a project for after the election — this is a project for right now. America needs allies. Today, and not just tomorrow. And America needs leaders. If the Bush administration cannot rally support around the world, let other people give it a try.
As usual, he's right.
April 15, 2004
Music for Pleasure
Currently receiving repeat plays on the turntable/iPod:
1. Velvet Underground - All Tomorrow's Parties.
Nico's monotonous German drone fits this - the best Velvets song - perfectly. Try to imagine the ideal background music at an expensive S & M establishment if you haven't heard it before and want a clue.
2. The Roches - Losing True.
Underestimated 1980's collaboration between three singing sisters and Robert Fripp ex of King Crimson. The trio also recorded a completely unaccompanied version of the Hallelujah Chorus to give you an idea of their unorthodox approach.
3. Joy Division - Atmosphere.
I bought this on vinyl when it came out in 1980 when I was forced to listen to music on one of these really cheap brown 'wood-effect' record players. For some reason I hadn't played it in about twelve years. It sounds more at home on a Linn Sondek LP12 with it's own phono amplifier.
4. Mogwai - Stop Coming to My House.
Only discovered this bunch of 'Wegies last week. Their instrumental songs are difficult to describe. Fragile beauty meets sonic terror according to one reviewer. Whatever - it's extremely addictive.
5. Elton John - Tiny Dancer.
Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.
Translation Service
Emily explains what Osama's proposed deal actually means:
"I'll stop bombing your innocents if you leave me and my fellow fascists to plunder, kill and treat women like second-class crap in peace."
and replies for all of us
Yeah Osama, I'll forge you something. Bend over, you skinny piece of shit.
Second Class Mail
Stoppers to the left of me, Stoppers to the right
Michael Gove has a go at the official organ of middle England.
As the war on terror has progressed, we’ve seen a remarkable new coalition form. The nation’s most powerful reactionary force, the Daily Mail, has become the objective ally of the British Left in the struggle of the moment — the war against America.
and takes issue with
the Daily Mail’s decision to become a full-throated, anti-war, anti-US, anti-Bush propaganda sheet
before reminding us that
There has always been a strain in Conservative thinking, the Little Englander or isolationist tendency, that has been deeply suspicious of foreign intervention. A majority of Conservatives supported appeasement in the Thirties and did not want British troops to ‘die for Danzig’. John Major’s government shied away from confronting the dictator Milosevic and stood aside from the tragedy in Rwanda.
By the way...
As a leftist living in Israel, one of my biggest frustrations was the way that the endless parade of international crises (with the Palestinians, Hizbollah, Syria, etc.) always trumped the issues of social and economic justice in the country. Israel has a large and growing gap between it wealthy and its poor (Jews as well as Arabs), and the potential for a strong political movement to narrow that gap. But of course a bus bombing in Jerusalem will take the headlines away from, say, a demonstration for jobs and better housing in poor neighborhoods and development towns-- every time.
In recent weeks-- with so much attention focused on Iraq and the 9/11 commission-- I've noticed the same phenomenon here in the US. And so it was that a remarkable report from the government's General Accounting Office created barely a ripple in the churning media sea.
According to that report:
--More than half of US corporations paid no federal income taxes during the boom years of the late 1990s.
--An estimated 94 percent of US corporations reported tax liabilities amounting to less than 5 percent of their total income in 2000. The corporate income tax rate is ostensibly 35 percent, but companies are able to reduce their effective burden by claiming various deductions and credits.
--The percentage of federal tax collections paid by corporations has tumbled from a high of 39.8 percent in 1943 to a low of 7.4 percent last year.
Said Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a former state tax commissioner:
"We've got a bad tax law that tells ordinary folks, `You pay up,' and allows some of the largest enterprises to avoid paying."
Meanwhile President Bush and Vice President Cheney are among the wealthy Americans doing their bit to drive the nation deeper into debt by paying a smaller share of their income in federal taxes in 2003 than the year before-- thanks to the administration's gargantuan tax cuts for the rich.
Does it bother anyone else that the only Americans being called on to sacrifice in these perilous times are the soldiers on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan-- and their loved ones?
Those Medialens charmers
I've just been e-mailed a link to the Medialens discussion board. (I should point out that anybody can post there; the comments don't necessarily reflect the opinions of the Medialens editors). Those lovely humanitarians have started - in a charming way - to abuse my Iraqi friends. Nice. For example, SueC says:
"This is probably a really stupid question but why, exactly, is the Iraqi Prospect Organisation ("a group of young Iraqis campaigning for democracy in their homeland") based in the UK? Can you build democracy from a thousand miles or so distance? Doesn't being in the country itself help? The fact that none of Hari's 'Iraqi' (actually, I suspect, UK born children of Iraqi parents) friends have chosen to go back to live in the new, free Iraq speaks volumes."
This is just one of several sneering comments I have been sent by anti-war people about the IPO. They get hate-mail all the time. Do these people have no concept how hurtful that is?
A few points, which she could have discovered by going to theri site: (1) They are in Britain because their families were gassed and murdered by Saddam's regime.
(2) Yassir and Sama are studying to be doctors here in Britain, and as soon as they graduate they will return to provide medical help to Iraqis. They have been back to Iraq in every break they have; they both considered quitting and staying out there, but they know the desperate need for Iraqi doctors. This is why they are still here, a fact which apparently "speaks volumes".
(3) Can you build democracy from thousands of miles away? They have raised money here. They are lobbying the British government. They have established a huge network of students campaigning for democracy in Iraq. Yes, you can help contribute to democracy from thousands of miles away. Another question: Can you sneer at people who are trying to build democracy in Iraq from your comfy home thousands of miles away? Sure. SueC is doing it right now.
A quarter of the Iraqi population were forced into exile by Saddam. The sneering at Iraqi exiles makes me sick - they are some of the most honest and decent opponents of the Ba'athist regime. Should they have stayed and been slaughtered? This sneering is a new low for a Gallowayite sliver of the anti-war movement that I thought could sink no further. Note to the far left: spitting at the victims of genocide and their children isn't OK.
Spring Dusk?
If like us you have been patiently following the fortunes of Stephen Pollard's race horse Spring Dawn you will be saddened to hear this piece of news:
Whatever, he is most likely to run on Friday week at Perth. And then - unless he does something to surprise us - the liklihood is we'll sell at him at the Doncaster May Sales.
The prospect of blog-reading without a weekly update on the fortunes of the luckless Spring is hard to take. I see two alternatives:
1. We all pile up to Doncaster and ensure that Spring Dawn is not lost to the blogosphere.
2. We at Harry's Place decide to adopt a more proletarian racing beast to keep the blogosphere's sporting interest intact. I suggest we adopt a greyhound.
In fact I think I've found the perfect dog for us to get behind.
Stayin' Alive
Now, I'm no wide-eyed survivalist, but my guess is that the "Survival Box" will not significantly enhance my chances of surviving a terrorist attack on the London Tube.
What you get for your £29.50 is:
an aluminium flashlight (batteries included!), a loud whistle to attrack [sic] attention, a particle mask to stop dust hindering breathing and a pack of drinking water. All this is contained in a tough nylon fabric orange pouch for easy visibility.
That said, it might just get me through rush hour.
What crucial items have Survival Box omitted from their pouch?
Divide and Conquer
The oldest trick in the book.
I mean, who's going to fall for that one?
No, seriously...
The power worshipper
Not having access to HBO, I won't be able to watch Oliver Stone's documentary on Castro tonight. But this is from the New York Times review:
There is a brief moment when the no pasaran rhetoric falls away, and Fidel Castro gives Oliver Stone a look that says everything about the Cuban dictator's senescent struggle to keep a foothold on the world stage.
Mr. Stone was asking Mr. Castro about a recent roundup of dissidents, a population that he insists does not exist. "There is no braver people in the world and more capable of saying what they think," Mr. Castro fiercely tells Mr. Stone, the director of "Looking for Fidel," a documentary on HBO tonight.
When Mr. Stone asks if a person who protested would be in trouble, Mr. Castro suddenly drops the virtuous indignation and looks at his guest through narrowed eyes. "Hombre," he says, "he is sentenced to 20 years in prison." And then he smiles, a crafty, wizened grin that signals — far more than his labored breath, liver spots or thinning beard — that he is in the final throes of his tenure as president-for-life.
Unlike in an earlier film he did about Fidel, Stone apparently asks the Commandante about the Cuban regime's suppression of dissent and arrest of dissidents.
But in the end Stone is simply too besotted by his subject to say anything genuinely critical of him-- as you can hear in this interview.
Stone, I think, is a classic example of that recurring figure which Orwell identified more than 60 years ago-- the left-wing power worshipper.
April 14, 2004
Were we wrong about Iraq?
If my inbox is any indicator, a lot of liberal hawks have been experiencing a lot of doubt over the past week. I think all we can do is be honest about our thought processes. My piece from the Indie today talks about this:
It was in a Kerbala market square in September 2002 that the justice of the war in Iraq first settled on me. It was an unexpected and embarrassing sensation because, like every other British person that autumn not on the payroll of Halliburton, I had been convinced that George Bush was about to launch a disgusting assault on a country dreading American bombs.
But I could not ignore what I saw. Not the fear that seized - occupied - the bodies of ordinary Iraqis if you tried to discuss politics, nor the messages ordinary Iraqis were trying to send. If you were alone - although you never really felt alone in Saddam's Iraq - many would offer the least subtle signals they dared. They would pointedly praise British democracy, then talk about their hopes for the future and ask when you thought the war would begin.
When I returned, confused and uncomfortable with feeling support for US bombing programmes, I tracked down the Iraqi groups in London. Exiles sent running for their lives from Saddam made up one quarter of the Iraqi population. Almost all exiles gave the same message: Yes, our families trapped in Iraq want this war to proceed. No, they don't have any illusions about US power - they remember who armed and funded Saddam - but without this war, they certainly face life imprisonment with no chance of parole.
Except at the very height of the war - when I forced myself to look at the pictures of slaughtered Iraqi children on the internet and asked myself, should I be cheering this?- I have had few doubts. Yes, I felt a low sense of horror when I saw the Americans imposing on Iraq the same IMF neoliberalism they have catastrophically forced on Latin America and Russia. This is a form of capitalism far, far more extreme and destructive than domestic US market forces. So I gave as much cash as I could to the new, free Iraqi trade unions to try - pathetically - to counterbalance this. (You can donate at www.iraqitradeunions.org; spread the word.) I tried to remind myself that if the war hadn't happened, Iraqi trade unionists would still be tortured and burned today.
But even despite America's forced market fundamentalism, nothing shook my faith that this war, whatever its motives, produced a net good. Until, that is, one fetid moment last Thursday morning. I woke up to angry Iraqis on BBC News 24. It was a depressingly familiar scene, but then I spotted something stupidly disturbing. They were screaming and shooting in that same Kerbala market square, the one where I sat a year and a half ago. All the accumulated doubts of the past year hit me like a tidal wave.
That night, sullen, I went to visit my friends from the Iraqi Prospect Organisation - a group of young Iraqis campaigning for democracy in their homeland - and, over a melancholic pizza, confessed my doubts.
Read what happened next - and some very important facts I hadn't heard before - here.
Song of choice
Some of the reactions to the post below brought to mind this song, which I know from Dick Gaughan's album 'A different kind of love song' but which was written by Peggy Seeger. It does seem to get the point across very well.
Early every year the seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before their leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?
If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Shut your mouth then how can you know ?
For seeds you cannot hear may not be there
Seeds you cannot see may never grow
In January you've still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow high they'll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood
So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know
Every day another vulture takes flight
There's another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can't recognise a warning?
Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there's millions going hungry you needn't disengage
For it's them, not you, that's fallen in the hole
It's alright for you if you run with the pack
It's alright if you agree with all they do
If fascism is slowly climbing back
It's not here yet so what's it got to do with you?
The weeds are all around us and they're growing
It'll soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life
So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and never dare
And if it happens here they'll never come for you
Because they'll know you really didn't care
Simplistic analogy?
We can debate the term 'Islamofascism' as much as we want. Others are drawing the links for us in quite an explicit way:
A PLOT to bomb a Holocaust museum in Budapest was foiled yesterday after Hungarian police arrested three suspected terrorists as Israel’s president Moshe Katsav arrived in the city to open the building.
The men included the leader of a small Islamic community in the country and two Syrians.
