Monday, July 18, 2005

Webdiary's unsurprising slant on London

As Tim Blair noted (somewhere, I've lost it now), Webdiary was mysteriously silent for a long time on the London bombings. Possibly the technical problems afftecting the site recently?

In any event, this article (subtitled "commentary by Margo Kingston", but containing simply her very brief introduction to an article by John Richardson) is an entirely predictable rant that blames all of Islamic terrorism on, you guessed it, the West. America in particular. London only gets brief mention, but the blame the victim message is clear.

One "new" thing I noted in it was this:

"Then this week, the much quieter voice of an Iraqi humanitarian organization reported that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US invasion began in March 2003 (Civilian Casualties In Iraq)."

The link is to a website here, the "World Peace Herald", which apparently is owned by the Moonies and seems to run a suspiciously sympathetic line on Islamofacsism (see story here, headed " 'To stop terrorism, accept pious Muslims on equal terms' ".)

Anyway, there is next to no detail on the Iraqi source of this new casualty figure, and a quick Google search adds nothing. No one should take it seriously without some proper detail. But that's no problem for Richardson (or Margo, if its "her" commentary piece).

Admittedly, Webdiary follows with a piece by Darlene Taylor which briefly attacks this sort of crap, but is mostly devoted to a review of David Williamson's latest play.

I knew Webdairy would eventually come to the party.



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