TRANSMISSION FROM BEHIND ENEMY LINES: WHAT'S A TERRORIST?
Late last night one of our top operatives returned. After having been under-cover and behind enemy lines on special assignment for 3 weeks with nothing to eat but granola and organic yogurt, she came back exhausted with hours of tapes left to transcribe.These tapes, show first hand evidence of the types of discussions that people are engaging in outside in the battle zone. As The War Room’s audio technicians work extra hours to transcribe these conversations, we bring you a taste of what is to come. This conversation, recorded at approximately 20:38 hundred hours central time on July 18, 2005 seems to be between a CBC employee and his son, named Billy, who sounds about 6 years old. We cannot confirm this though.
It came from a park somewhere in the downtown Toronto core.
Billy: Dad, what’s a terrorist?
Dad: Where did you here that word, Billy?
Billy: Ben Feingold used it in the school yard today.
Dad: Feingold? We don’t use those words. It’s a moral value judgment that puts us in a position of acting like we are better than other people.
Billy: But he said terrorists like to blow things up and kill people; like British and American people. Isn’t that bad?
Dad: It’s not for us to say, son. After all, don’t British and Americans kill people and blow things up too?
Billy: I s’pose. Are the Americans terrorists then?
Dad: Some people think so.
Billy: What do you think, Dad?
Dad: I think we should always try to be tolerant and open minded of other people’s point of view; just like I taught you.
Billy: So the Islami…err…they might be right?
Dad: Islamic Fundamentalists; yes, they might be right.
Billy: Or the Americans might be right?
Dad: No.
Billy: I’m confused.
Dad: Don’t be. It’s really just about tolerance and being open-minded.
Billy: But you just said…
Dad: Exactly.
Billy: So then are we on the side of the Islamic Fundawhatmalists?
Dad: Not really.
Billy: Are we on the side of America?
Dad: No.
Billy: Why do the Islamic Fundawhomalists hate America?
Dad: Well son, that’s very complex and nuanced. See, they hate capitalism, inequity, Christianity and Zionists.
Billy: Aren’t those all things you said you hate too? When you brought me to work last week, it seemed that’s all everyone talked about; especially that MacNeil woman. She went on and on and on…
Dad: Son, all of those are bad, evil things.
Billy: Then didn’t you just make a moral value judgment? Just like Ben Feingold.
Dad: Of course not. My position comes from having looked at both sides thoroughly and from having a complex, nuanced world view. Your little friend Ben…Feingold you say… can’t certainly be as complex as that.
Billy: I s’pose not. Why does America hate Islamic Fundamenta…?
Dad: ...because America is a bigoted, white, racist Zionist Christian nation led by a totalitarian fascist.
Billy: Totaliwho?
Dad: Totalitarian. It’s another evil thing you want nothin’ from.
Billy: So then, if we want nothin’ from America which is led by a fasci…fasci
Dad: Fascist totalitarian.
Billy: Right. And we have the same concerns as the terror..err…I mean Islamic Fundamentalists…
Dad: Right.
Billy: Does that mean Ben Feingold is right when he says we are on the side of the terrorists?
End of transmission
posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 4:58 PM
10 Comments:
This is great. The rationalisations are spot-on.
Twisted.
Good stuff Nic!
this is trash, both sides??? I'll be honest, if we hate the US we would all be poor, food would cost 10 times the amount, we would have no trade and we would have 0 doctors.... Canada would be a land of sick poor people, with no hope for anything. Get a life and learn something before posting some total trash
I didn't say that we 'rationally'
hated the US.
Tell me, that 40% of Canadian teens that think America is an evil empire needing to be destroyed...who do you think taught them that attitude?
When I was in university, well before GW Bush came to power, I remember turning to a complete stranger in one of my classes and saying "Gee, they might as well just call this 'We hate America 101'."
Everything we were taught was evil-America this, pro-Marxist that.
No friend. Canada has a nasty case of hateAmericaitis, and we'd better learn to cure it soon. We are not critical...we irrationally hate. Mostly out of little sibling jealously I suspect.
It's already cost us our credibity in many better foreign circles.
Anonymous - have you read a newspaper, watched a news broadcast, listened to people talk about Americans?
You don't have to like someone to know where your bread is buttered.
Canadians regularly bash Americans in subtle enough ways that we don't even realise it. That's why this post is priceless -- the father doesn't even realise he's being biased and holding a double standard.
It puts me in mind of a Donato cartoon from the 1980s. There was a picture of an average Canadian, with a nuclear missle on each side of his head, one with a US flag, one with a Soviet flag.
The Canadian guy is looking pretty worried, so he turns around and smashes the American missle and it disappears in the next frame. The Canadian is again sitting there, this time with just the Soviet missle pointing at his head, but now he has a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face.
Thanks Canadianna,
People like to flatter themselves and say that Canadians just disagree with GW Bush. But you are right...America bashing up here goes back a long time.
"Does that mean Ben Feingold is right when he says we are on the side of the terrorists?"
Billy, of course it does not. One can be critical of neoliberalism and imperialism without
subscribing to terror tactics. It is not a case of 'you're with us, or are with the terrorists'.
In fact, many opponents of neoliberalism and imperialism will also detest terrorism for
the same reasons, chief among them the harming of innocent life. Also, one can
recognize that to classify bombers as terrorists tends to halt exploration of their political
motives. These political motives should be examined by the nations that fall victim to
acts of terror so that they can be dismissed as irrational, or confirmed as rational
grievances even if you find acts of terror disgusting and unjust.
"Also, one can
recognize that to classify bombers as terrorists tends to halt exploration of their political
motives."
What exactly would you call them manatee?
I don't care what they're called. Terrorists, bombers, mass murderers...
but I do care that when politicians use the term terrorist, they often pass their intentions off as 'trying to destroy our society' based on an 'ideology of hate' in the same breath. There are actual political grievances (mainly removing the west from holy lands), shared by millions of people in this world, that are going ignored due to such rhetoric. As long as we continue to ignore the root causes in the formation of al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda and like minded groups are bound to expand.
Manatee,
I believe you are sincere and concerned. Thank you for your comments.
However, it is not the rhetoric of 'politicians' that should concern you.
Removing the West from the Holy Lands?
President Bush is the only American president who has ever even referred to the prospect of a Palestinian State.
Also,let's not forget that the most horrific oppression that has ever occurred to Muslims was at the hand of the Ottoman Turks. Not the 'West'.
Similarly, many nations which persecute in the Middle East are of Muslim origin...Syria, Iran...hardly friends of the West and brutal to their own people.
When you give credence to Al- Qaeda's concerns on their level you also fail to do research that maybe those greivances ARE NOT valid.
These people(Al-Qaeda) are hysterical, murderous and yes...terrorists. They also do not speak for the majority of Muslim people. Never forget that.
Al Qaeda kill their own people too...not just Westerners.
Do you have any concerns for Christians in Egypt? How are Christians treated in the Holy Land? Brutally. Do they have no right to be there?
Remember, Bethlehem was once an overwhelmingly Christian city. They did not leave by choice.
Rhetoric certainly exists own both sides, but truth does exist and right now, the New Left (the Avi Lewis', the Naomi Klein's) seem to be the furthest from it.
The academic/journalistic left seem to have taken their hatred of the West to new heights with this one.
Don't call terrorists 'terrorists' the left says?
But it's okay to call George Bush Hitler? Or Pope Benedict a Nazi? This is why more and more people question the left. The very rhetoric they purport to be against they traffic in themselves.
Thank you and all the best.
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