Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Mark Latham's jihad party
This is just fantastic:
In Molloy's defence, back in 1983 he might not have exactly been an Islamofascist groupie - what the report identifies as the "Moro Liberation Front" was at that time in the middle of a protracted process of splitting up into two groups: the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a more traditional, albeit still Islamic, "national liberation movement" of the type that always made Western left-wing intellectuals swoon, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a more explicitly jihadi group, which is still around and still in the news, having in the late 1990s become an al Qaeda affiliate in East Asia. Thus, Molloy can claim that he has always sided with the oppressed Third World groups in general, and not necessarily Islamic extremists.
But why defend Molloy. The man might not be a MILF stooge, but he's certainly a camp follower of every anti-American crusade around. As the "Courier Mail" story goes on to say:
Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd is quite clear: "We offer no quarter, we offer no compromise and we offer no negotiation [with terrorists]... Murderers, mass murderers... must be destroyed... and we will destroy them." But Labor's candidate in Fairfax doesn't even think that these people should be "stereotyped" as "terrorists".
This farce has to end.
Update: Even the "Australian" today is harsh: "Ivan Molloy is no terrorist, just a bit of a dill." And he's still the candidate.
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"Labor candidate [for the seat of Fairfax in Queensland] Ivan Molloy posed with a machine gun supplied by Muslim extremists and has said Australia should be turning its military on both itself and the US.You can also check out the story for a nice photo of a younger Dr Molloy and his very own "band of brothers" (or brother, since there is only one other guy with a machine gun in the photo).
"Dr Molloy has also claimed Muslim guerilla groups should not be labelled terrorists.
"The group he posed with in the Philippines in 1983 has recently been linked by Washington to Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network."
In Molloy's defence, back in 1983 he might not have exactly been an Islamofascist groupie - what the report identifies as the "Moro Liberation Front" was at that time in the middle of a protracted process of splitting up into two groups: the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a more traditional, albeit still Islamic, "national liberation movement" of the type that always made Western left-wing intellectuals swoon, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a more explicitly jihadi group, which is still around and still in the news, having in the late 1990s become an al Qaeda affiliate in East Asia. Thus, Molloy can claim that he has always sided with the oppressed Third World groups in general, and not necessarily Islamic extremists.
But why defend Molloy. The man might not be a MILF stooge, but he's certainly a camp follower of every anti-American crusade around. As the "Courier Mail" story goes on to say:
" 'I don't want to get caught in the trap of saying I am sympathetic but I would say I understand their causes,' Dr Molloy said yesterday. But Dr Molloy said groups which resorted to violence should not be stereotyped as 'terrorists' by people who did not understand their side of the argument. 'It is no good to call them all terrorists. You have to look at the side they came from,' he said.The man is a disgrace, and Mark Latham should have the balls to disendorse him as his party's candidate - otherwise he will be seen as supporting the sort of shrill blame-and-hate-America-first rhetoric he has tried to disassociate himself from of late.
"In December 2002, Dr Molloy blamed Australia and the US for terrorism. 'If the West in general and the US in particular are really serious about stamping out terrorism and state promoters of this activity, we would be turning our guns not only on the Russians, Chinese, Irish, Spanish, French, virtually all our allies and even back on ourselves, but most importantly also on the US itself,' he said in a public speech...
"The Coalition [Government] last week demanded the Labor Party disendorse Dr Molloy as its candidate for the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax after he backed his wife, state [Member of Legislative Assembly] Cate Molloy, in blaming the US for the Bali bombings.
"Dr Molloy, an academic at the University of the Sunshine Coast, posted on an Internet chat room in April 2002: 'I have spent much time in Asia and Central America researching and supporting many popular struggles against oppression.'
"Last week, Labor was forced into damage control after Dr Molloy publicly backed comments by his wife that [Government Members of Parliament] were responsible for the deaths of Australians and Balinese in the Bali bombings."
Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd is quite clear: "We offer no quarter, we offer no compromise and we offer no negotiation [with terrorists]... Murderers, mass murderers... must be destroyed... and we will destroy them." But Labor's candidate in Fairfax doesn't even think that these people should be "stereotyped" as "terrorists".
This farce has to end.
Update: Even the "Australian" today is harsh: "Ivan Molloy is no terrorist, just a bit of a dill." And he's still the candidate.
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