When a terrorist killed 22 at a May 22 concert filled with young people in England’s Manchester, most journalists—especially US ones—assumed it would help the struggling Conservative Party and its standard-bearer, Prime Minister Theresa May, win the snap election she had called for June 8, just 17 days ahead.
The New York Times (5/24/17) thought the Manchester bombing would let Teresa May “reassert herself as Britain’s reassuring grown-up, a trusted pair of hands on security issues — especially in contrast with her main rival, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.”
That is, after all, the conventional wisdom: In times of crisis, like a terror attack, the public looks to its leaders for tough talk and dramatic action. New York Times correspondent Steven Erlanger (5/24/17), noting that May’s “easy glide” to re-election had run into trouble prior to the bombing, wrote an article on how the attack “Shifts Political Narrative as UK Election Looms”:
If the Manchester bombing was a horrible tragedy for Britain, it was a political boon, however unwanted, for Prime Minister Theresa May.
Monday’s terrorist attack has changed the narrative of Britain’s election, just two weeks away — and in her favor. As the incumbent prime minister, Mrs. May inevitably speaks both to and for the nation from 10 Downing Street. And having been home secretary for six years before becoming prime minister, she is knowledgeable and comfortable with the issues of security, policing and terrorism.
Erlanger went on to report that May’s opponent, leftist Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was seen to have a “weakness” on security, citing his “old sympathies with Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army.” Erlanger quoted a historian’s view that “there can only be more questions” for Corbyn after the bombing, which opened him to attacks from right-wing media for being “soft on terror.”
But Corbyn took a bold and unusual stand after the Manchester horror. On March 26, just four days after the suicide bombing, he gave a speech on foreign policy and terrorism that criticized May’s role as home secretary under former PM David Cameron. Noting that she had overseen cuts in public safety funding that had furloughed 20,000 police officers, Corbyn said, “You cannot protect the public on the cheap.”
Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-war speech made headlines on Democracy Now! and Common Dreams, but not in the New York Times.
More importantly, Corbyn went on to say, “We must be brave enough to admit the war on terror is simply not working.” A life-long anti-war activist and critic of British participation in US-led wars, even under his own party’s leaders, Corbyn charged that British interventions, particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, had made the country less rather than more safe, saying:
Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home.
While Corbyn’s dramatic words were widely reported in the British media, mostly in the context of scathing criticism, one struggled to find them mentioned in the US media—especially on the TV news—despite the heavy attention being paid to the bombing, and to a later truck attack on London Bridge. Apparently, when it comes to the US news media, talking about such notions is something to be left to alternative outlets like Common Dreams (5/26/17) and Democracy Now! (5/26/17), and to the more radical elements of the US peace movement.
Although it’s hard to imagine a presidential or congressional candidate of either major US party making a similar speech following a terror attack, Corbyn’s views have been a non-story in the view of most American news editors.
A USA Today piece (5/26/17) had a one-paragraph preview of Corbyn’s speech, making sure to mention that his “party is expected to perform poorly in the June 8 vote.” Bloomberg News (5/26/17) had a longer report on Corbyn’s speech, though it gave the last word to Conservative critics who said that Corbyn came from “an extreme and ideological world that is too quick to make excuses for the actions of our enemies and too willing to oppose the measures and people that keep us safe”—though polling found the British public largely in agreement with his view that the “War on Terror” had made them less safe.
Only the Washington Post (5/27/17) suggested the possibility that Corbyn might benefit by linking the Manchester terror bombing to British policies in the Middle East, at least if his intention was to “galvanize his base.” In an article headlined “Manchester Bombing Makes Terrorism Central Campaign Issue in June Elections,” Post correspondents Karla Adam and Michael Birnbaum quoted Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University in London. He said while the Corbyn speech would predictably outrage Conservatives, “If his aim is to mobilize his core left liberal vote, then it could work,” adding, “Now, how that will play with the majority of voters is another matter.”
The expert the New York Times turned to for a take on Corbyn’s speech.
As for the New York Times, it largely ignored Corbyn’s remarkable speech, though one article (5/26/17) cited his quote about security officials seeing a link between UK military actions and domestic terror attacks. (The Times then cited British Defense Minister Michael Fallon retorting that his speech showed Corbyn was “unfit to be prime minister.”) There was also a second-hand reference the same day: An article (5/26/17) about right-wing Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins quoted her saying Corbyn had given a “rancid speech” calling the war on terror a “failure.”
That was it. Although the Times’ bureau in London surely must have noticed after the speech in question that Corbyn and his Labour Party continued their rise in the polls, they filed no article discussing the phenomenon or the speech itself.
In “Theresa May Doesn’t Crack and Jeremy Corbyn Keeps His Cool in UK Debate,” (5/29/17), the Times’ Erlanger and colleague Stephen Castle reported on a pseudo-debate between May and Corbyn. (May had refused to share the stage with Corbyn, so each candidate instead faced questions alone with the moderator.) The two journalists wrote only that Corbyn in the debate was “challenged over his comment that the war on terror was ‘not working,’” failing to note that that line had been not a “comment” but rather part of a major foreign policy speech analyzing the roots of terrorism in the country, and how to combat it.
When the voting was over, US media had to report the obvious: that Corbyn and Labour, though failing to best May and the Conservatives, had actually come out ahead in the election, defying pundit predictions to gain 32 seats and knocking the Conservatives out of a majority in Parliament. As the Times story’s headline read (6/9/17): “Jeremy Corbyn Lost UK Election, but Is Still Its Biggest Winner.”
But like most of the US media coverage in that and succeeding days, Times journalists Castle and Katrin Bennhold attributed Corbyn’s success to his being a better, more people-friendly campaigner than the “wooden, robotic” May, to his “Sanders-like” appeal to young voters, and to his party’s socialist manifesto, which called for better funding for the National Health Service, re-nationalization of public transit and free college tuition, among other measures. (Of course, before the election, the Times‘ pages were describing this same manifesto as a “proto-Marxist program” that would doom Labour to the political wilderness—New York Times, 6/3/17; FAIR.org, 6/8/17.)
No doubt Corbyn’s personality and domestic policies were factors in his strong electoral performance, but there’s also no doubt that his contrarian stand on terrorism, laying much of the blame on Britain’s militarist foreign policy and intervention in Middle East conflicts, was critical. Yet this got no mention at all.
Writing for the news site Nation of Change (6/25/17), Canadian journalist Derek Royden ventured to say what no journalist in corporate US media has:
Unlike most of the leaders of major Western political parties, Jeremy Corbyn chose to be honest rather than treating citizens like children, and to the surprise of many he gained support. In the end, his party picked up 32 seats and a larger “government in waiting” role in a hung parliament. It also turned out that the Labor leader was correct in pointing to the war in Libya as a more important factor than the concerns articulated by May [about excessive internet freedom and too much concern for human rights].
In Spain, the public responded to a terror attack by rejecting the policies that promote terrorism. (cc photo: kippelboy/Wikimedia)
This isn’t the first time voters have defied the conventional wisdom about how they are supposed to respond to crises. After the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando in June 2016, NPR “counterterrorism correspondent” Dina Temple-Raston speculated that the attack might affect the US elections, since, she said, after a major bombing in Madrid just before the 2004 elections, “the more conservative candidate ended up winning.”
The problem with this analysis? The conservative People’s Party actually lost that election to the Socialists, who had campaigned on a platform of withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq (FAIR.org, 6/15/16).
FAIR is the antidote to neoliberal gas lighting.
That is why I donate to them.
While US/UK-led foreign policy in the Middle East is indeed deserving of much criticism, this notion that said foreign policy is directly and solely responsible for radical islamic terrorism is just not accurate. After all, the biggest victims of jihadi violence BY FAR are not westerners but OTHER MUSLIMS in the region. This white guilt narrative totally denies the reality of their suffering.
Your comment is ideological and inaccurate. You write “this notion that said [US/UK] foreign policy is directly and solely responsible for radical islamic terrorism is just not accurate
First, “radical islamic [sic] terrorism” was created by the CIA in order to draw the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan. Zbgnew Brzezinski, the architect of that policy under Carter, admitted this publically. It is supported by the Gulf dictatorships, all US allies. Islamic terrorism was intensified dramatically by the US invasions of Iraq and later Libya. Without those invasions “radical islamic [sic] terrorism” would be a shdow of what it is now for two reasons: 1. Saddam and Kaddafi were bulwarks against “radical islamic [sic] terrorism” and 2. The invasions multiplied hatred of the US in the Islamic world a hundred fold.
I don’t see the relevance of your statement that “the biggest victims of jihadi violence BY FAR are not westerners but OTHER MUSLIMS in the region.” in any case, the US has stoked religious civil war in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, accusing the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
That you fall back on a “white guilt ” narrative exposes you as a right wing bigot.
So although the Us is not
Unfortunately, I fail to see how anything you wrote helps to prove that my point is ideological (?) or inaccurate. I’ll certainly grant that western foreign policy in the Middle East has done much to destabilize the region (although I’d argue that late-19th/early-20th century imperialism was much more consequential to this end than was late-20th/early-21st century neoconservatism). I’ll also grant that Reagan-era foreign policy played a significant role in activating both animosity toward infidels in general and violent jihadism in particular.
But none of this actually supports the platitudinous and lazy claim that western foreign policy in the Middle East is “solely” responsible for Islamic terrorism.
The reason it’s relevant to point out that the most frequent victims of Islamic terrorism (by far) are other muslims is because it completely disproves the leftist notion that hatred of the west is what’s motivating Islamic terrorism. We know exactly what motivates them — they tell us why ad nauseam — and the reasons are, by and large, religious. A belief in the metaphysics of martyrdom and a desire to get into paradise are clearly the salient motivations for the vast majority of jihadis.
And liberals seem determined to avoid dealing with this reality altogether. They will slander perfectly reasonable people as bigots — just as you’ve so pathetically done above — rather than engage in productive, good-faith dialogue.
You need to take a look at your faith. Have you noticed any preoccupation by Christians with “going to Heaven”?
Not sure I understand your point here.
Dan, I’m a dissident (read: liberal, in the closet for safety and comfort) Muslim who is sick of seeing my Muslim brothers and sisters dying for not being the “right” kind of Muslim, and I’m sick of white, privileged Westerners erasing Muslim deaths just so that they can perpetuate a white, Western-centered narrative of global history.
As such, I thank you for your comments here. You are more of an ally to Muslims than even you probably estimate.
dreamjoehill’s criticisms of your comment are accurate. In fact, it’s comprised of logical fallacies:
“this notion that said foreign policy is directly and solely responsible for radical islamic terrorism” – This is a Straw Man argument. No one of any credibility has said “directly and solely responsible.”
“the biggest victims of jihadi violence BY FAR are not westerners but OTHER MUSLIMS in the region.” – This is a red herring argument, not relevant to the topic, let alone supportive of your previous straw man argument.
And “white guilt narrative?” What is that all about?
To be content to say my argument is a strawman is also to say you agree with it, no?
The “other Muslims” point obviously supports my original statement, as I explained above. You’re welcome to call it a logical fallacy, but if you actually want to convince me of this you’ll need to make an actual argument for why this is the case
To answer your first question – No, not at all.
As to the red herring, it’s irrelevant to the main topic, does not support your prior argument (no, it really doesn’t), and is an attempt to derail the discussion.
Research logical fallacies to gain a better understanding.
TeeJae, the disproportionate presence of us Muslims among the victims of self-identifying Islamic terrorists is not a red herring when the reason we’re disproportionately present is because we’re not “Muslim enough” for our killers. Not because we’re complicit with Western imperialists. We’re victims because of how we interpret Islam.
How is it a red herring to include their motivation for killing us, the majority of the terrorists’ victims, when we’re discussing why terrorists kill.
Because the main point is why jihadists target the West (i.e. blowback for its foreign policy). That Muslims are targeted for their religious beliefs (while true, yes) is not relevant to the main point, nor does it support it. It’s an attempt to take the conversation off on a tangent, which is a ‘red herring’ logical fallacy.
Corbyn in his spech didn’t, and this article didn’t, suggest that British foreign policy was “soley” responsible for terrorism in Britain. He said it was a significant contributor to that terrorism, and that failure to recognize that, and that the so-called “War” on terror has been a failure, is a huge mistake. You are creating a straw man to knock down. Pretty lame way to argue.
How is British foreign policy in 2017 a “significant contributor” to terrorism?
The UK supports all US military actions with its own troops and its planes, unquestionly: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc., and it also sells arms to countries that are promoting terrorism — Syria, Bahrain and Kuwait come to mind.
That is what Corbyn was talking about.
It’s why *white Westerners* are affected by terrorism, not why the majority of their victims are killed, tortured, traumatized, terrorized, brutalized, and raped. The majority being Muslims, who face all that for theological nonsense, not because of what white colonialists (whom I also despise) are doing in the world. I just don’t see how so many white progressives are willing to erase that fact in so much of our discourse on this subject. Please forgive my language, but as a liberal Muslim I find that needlessly marginalizing to Muslim diversity.
Thank you for considering this post, meant in all earnest sincerity and concern both for honest discourse and for my fellow Muslims all over the world.
Re: “…this notion that said foreign policy is directly and solely responsible for radical islamic terrorism is just not accurate”
Can we have a SOURCE who said this please? A source who can show that the Corbyn attributed radical Islamic terrorism SOLELY to British foreign policy?
I think we can all finally be glad that the days of “terror and security” politics are behind us. We no longer look to the establishment for protection – it’s clear they can’t protect us. Better, more people than ever can see that their dangerous policies of war abroad and spying and police militarization at home are making us all less safe instead of safer.
The only question is wether or not there is still time to reverse the disastrous course their decades of misrule have set us on.
The media job is not the truth, but the illusion.
“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth, because they don’t want their illusions destroyed” .. NIETZCHE
John Pilger comments;https://youtu.be/d_KkKAfDHeI
great piece and haha! had to laugh that NPR got is sooo wrong about what happened in Spain LOL sheesh-louise how people can tune into all these outlets is beyond me.
Corbyn is another faker, like Bernie Sanders. FAIR eh? – http://bit.ly/2scAI4B
Well, you make a baseless charge, but I’ll respond anyhow. Corbyn has been an activist against militarism and war since he was a kid. He has put himself on the line against the pointless conflict in Northern Ireland, against the Vietnam War, against Britain’s war over the Falkland Islands against Argentina, against the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and now against British military action in Syria. He has long opposed nuke weapons, including Britain’s Trident submarine with its Trident multi-warhead missiles. He has been stuck for years in the Labour backbench for opposing the rightward turn of the Labour Party. He could have gone along and gotten a ministerial post, but he chose to stick with principle. I’m not sure where in that history you find fakery. I sure don’t see any. Even his biggest opponents in the Conservative Party have conceded that with Corbyn, “what you see is what you get,” and that he’s a “man of principle” whether you like his principles or not. Not many people can have that said about them by their opponents.
You should study more before you shoot off your vacuous insults ignorantly.
This is an ignorant comment with no evidence to support it.
Actually, Corbyn is that unusual politician who is actually credited by his opponents in the Conservastive Party with at least being honest and sincere in his beliefs. As one said, “He’s someone who believes in what he says. Said another, “with Corbyn, what you see is what you get.”
Corbyn has been anti militarist and anti-war since he was a kid. he has remained until his election to party leader, a backbencher with no portfolio because he consistently opposed the rightward drift of the Labour Party. He has opposed all England’s wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria. And he opposes Britain’s nuclear weapons and its Trident nuke missile firing submarine. He’s been consistent in all this. Where you find any fakery is beyond me.