Friday, August 26, 2005

Saeed Naqvi

Via Indian Express, columnist Saeed Naqvi observes:

The collapsing consensus on Iraq is sought to be replaced by introducing more glue into the apparatus being erected for the war against terror. This will work as long as terrorists, jihadis, intelligence operatives continue to oblige with 9/11s and 7/7s. But skepticism, without which good journalism is not possible, will soon set in. Who knows, a reformed BBC, eager to rediscover its once peerless credibility, may sponsor a series of well researched, balanced documentaries on "jihad". The authors may even stumble upon John Buchan's wartime thriller (1914), Greenmantle: "It looks as if Islam had a bigger hand in the thing than we thought" I said. "You are right -- there is a Jehad preparing." "Supposing they had got some tremendous sacred sanction -- some holy thing...which will madden the remotest Moslem peasant with dreams of Paradise?" "Then there will be hell let loose".

This "jehad" was brewing in European minds before the First World War. As A.F.S. Talyarkhan used to ask: "Do you get me, Steve?"

The throwaway mention of intelligence operatives (that we've bolded for emphasis) in connection with 9/11 and 7/7 is puzzling. What does he mean there? Is he referring to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- or is he alluding to ridiculous conspiracy theories, widely circulated in the Arab world, of West's own complicity in the murder of its people? Doesn't this need some clarification -- if not from Mr. Naqvi, then from Indian Express (a usually sensible newspaper).

Then, Mr. Naqvi goes on to suggest that the West has been building up to (or imagining) an anti-Jehad crusade, if you will, since before WWI. This is to say, the war (which he finds offensive) was on the cards even before Osama and his ilk (or perhaps the shadowy intelligence agencies he wants to blame!) pulled off 9/11 and 7/7 -- the latter then became excuses for the former.

In this airbrushed version of faux-reality, the evil genius is not Osama, rather the West (and its media, i.e., propaganda apparatus)! If this isn't an unhinged idea, what is? Frankly, we wouldn't care for Mr. Naqvi's thoughts, except that millions of young, impressionable Indian minds read this kind of garbage and begin accepting bizarre conspiracies as reality. We're not just talking about some poor Indian Muslims here -- in a December trip to rural India, we heard very well educated Hindus cycle through the same foolishness.

Mr. Naqvi blames the media (not terrorists and Wahabis) for demonizing Muslims and Jehad. We blame Mr. Naqvi and like fantasists in the media for demonizing the entirely valid war against terror.

It's a darn shame Indian Express continues to give this horrible columnist a perch to spew his nonsense from. Or if freedom of speech dictates he be given his say, at least it should be presented as mostly fiction.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another one of those terrorist apologists, everytime I read one of these I feel like puking.

libertarian said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
libertarian said...

This guy's been spouting this stuff for a while. Here's another clip from the archive.

It's unfortunate he gets as prominent a stage as he does. His dark hints at conspiracies all around are completely regressive.

The bright spot is that a couple of readers of the Indian Express article who cared to respond, called BS on the article. Doubt it will change him, but at least he doesn't get away unchallenged.

doubtinggaurav said...

PR,

I think that He is one of the leftovers from glory days of socialism.....
Terrorism, if committed against America, is perceived as fight of underdog against class buly, our modern David vs. Goliath.
The reason why even educated Hindus in rural India support such non sense is that, they are enamoured by the socialism, convinced that it was socialism (in form of great Gandhis),which delievered them from british tyranny.
This unhealthy obsession is also responsible for our counteries becoming a land of dole seekers instead of enterpreneurs

Regards

Primary Red said...

Nitin:

John Loftus is not always credible, but this scenario is quite possible.

One thing to keep in mind, however. Intel. agencies, given their profession, deal with all manner of horrendous people -- in fact, one of the big complaints CIA has had was Congress having barred it from dealing with people with bloody hands overseas. Likely MI6 was using this guy to get info. on Al Q. Looks like they got played -- which is certainly news.

We still don't know for sure if Aswat was the 7/7 mastermind. If he was, and circumstances suggest he might have been, then this is the familiar story of an agent gone rogue. This is clearly a nightmare but it does not follow that the controlling (& duped) intel. agency had caused the carnage -- this is what Naqvi seemingly suggests.

Regards

history_lover said...

How do you know it does'nt ?
We never get to know what all western intelligence agencies do I doubt they will release papers even after 30 years...

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