The sin of omission is an important part of any columnist's ammunition. Without selection, facts cannot bolster the direction of the argument. A new maestro of this tool is Dr Steven Harris of Al-Jazeera whose new column is dedicated to rubbishing Blair's foreign policy.
Who would be the first to defend Blair's foolish efforts to support the United States? Not me, although they have the unforeseen bonus of alienating other EU members. Look for that silver lining as my mother told me.
First of all, it is not common usage for the War on Terror to be known as TWAT, although cribbing Armando Ianucci for your Arab readers is a mental reaming that they may want to do without.
The major source of damage is the representation of the British public as a practical group, who can see the link between foreign adventures and terrorism. Citing poll evidence, Harris argues that the British reject the foreign policy of the Blair administration and adopt a less deferential attitude to the United States. Yet, the use of such words as "invading forces" for the Afghanistan war gives the impression that Harris would have left the Taliban in place.
And this is the question that arises when the cause is portrayed in a sympathetic light that could legitimate terrorist action:
The government argues that to change policy in the face of a
"terrorist" threat would be an act of moral cowardice that would put
Britain in even greater danger. But that would only be true where the
policy in question was both legitimate and necessary in order to combat
terrorism or serve some other vital objective. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq
posed any threat beyond their borders, and the main effect of British
intervention has been to create an enormous terrorist threat that
didn't previously exist.
Since Afghanistan provided state support for Al-Qaeda in its plots to attack the United States, the argument that it did not pose a threat beyond its borders depends upon a denial of terrorist activities. The rest of the article is riven with such fallacies and assertions.
Since the arrests on 10th August 2006 following claims of an alleged
plot to commit ‘murder on an unimaginable scale’ (as claimed by the UK
Home Secretary), the public has been treated to massive confusion at
airports – although it is now clear that nothing was imminent and few
of the people charged even had passports. It has led one of the main
airlines involved to sue the British government for millions of pounds
in lost revenue, claiming the measures invoked were’ nonsensical and
ineffective’. It seems likely at this stage that only around 12 of the
arrested will actually be charged with act preparatory to a "terrorist"
act and a few others have been charged with less serious offences and
around a third of the original 24 arrests will be released without
charge.
You see, the terror threat was just the police having a bit of a tizz. "It seems likely" that Harris has to second-guess since he doesn't actually know.
Curiously, it is difficult to pin down who Harris actually is or whether he is affiliated to a university/newspaper.