Conspiracy Minded Mental Illnesses Take 2

Just as I thought the Mail & Guardian couldn't get any lower, they prove me wrong again.

Last week's edition gave Ian Fraser a platform to further develop his hatred fuelled conspiracy theories about the terror in London. Just after the London bombings Fraser spelled out the ever predictable theory on his blog that only the Mossad or the CIA could have been behind the barbaric attacks in London. (His entry was titled "CIA Mossad Front Group Attacks London", which he links to in his latest M&G column.)

I though the M&G would have been embarressed by Fraser's fevered imagination, but alas, they have allowed Fraser to use a Mail & Guardian column to further spew his unorganised collection of hallucinogenic ramblings: London Calling.

You need to be a subscriber to read the column, but at you can read the text and see how far the rabbit's hole goes - it's available in the comments section of this post at the ever brilliant Commentary.co.za.

The M&G are supposedly the vanguard of liberal reporting in South Africa. With that label comes much responsibility. Running with creepy, illogical conspiracy minded columns expunges credibility from the newspaper - i.e. they are letting the liberals down. Man, we talking about a columnist who uses words like 'sheeple'! It's outrageous that a reputable media outlet can openly endorse Fraser's nutty world.

It's difficult to provide a summary of the rationale for Fraser's argument; it's a disconnected collection of vague and irrelevant sources. The argument basically reads...it was the Mossad...and the CIA...and Blair. And who benefits from the bombs? Not Al-Qaida...no, it's those horrible ghastly people in Britain, USA, and Israel who seek increased powers and control over...everyone.

I leave you with one quote that perfectly illustrates Fraser's thesis:

I must say that I'm generally very wary of this next website. However... (blah blah blah - Ed)

Forget Fraser's Razor, the M&G need a big fat Erasor.

Comments

[Andy Mo]

No mention of the King David Hotel attack anniversary on the website??

Since I only vaguely knew about it I did some more reading on Wikipedia:

What I found unbelievable was that 2 major perpetrators 'Both Ben Gurion and Begin would later become Israeli Prime Ministers.'

Have these men been denounced for their actions in the Israeli press and society? Surely by not doing so one is employing double standards?

More on it from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
On July 22, 1946, members of the Jewish underground military organization Irgun Tsvai-Leumi in the British Mandate of Palestine exploded a bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). 91 people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured.

[Andy Mo]

Note my post does not concern the post regarding the crazy M&G blogger.

[Steve]

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/King_David.html

The Jews in the British Palestine Mandate and Britain were fighting a war.

The hotel was the site of the British military command.

The Irgun chose it as a target after British troops invaded the Jewish Agency June 29, 1946, and confiscated large quantities of documents. At about the same time, more than 2,500 Jews from all over Palestine were placed under arrest. The information about Jewish Agency operations, including intelligence activities in Arab countries, was taken to the King David Hotel.

Irgun leader Menachem Begin stressed his desire to avoid civilian casualties and said three telephone calls were placed, one to the hotel, another to the French Consulate, and a third to the Palestine Post, warning that explosives in the King David Hotel would soon be detonated.

On July 22, 1946, the calls were made. The call into the hotel was apparently received and ignored. Begin quotes one British official who supposedly refused to evacuate the building, saying: "We don't take orders from the Jews."1 As a result, when the bombs exploded, the casualty toll was high: a total of 91 killed and 45 injured. Among the casualties were 15 Jews. Few people in the hotel proper were injured by the blast.2

The Jewish National Council denounced the bombing of the King David.

For decades the British denied they had been warned. In 1979, however, a member of the British Parliament introduced evidence that the Irgun had indeed issued the warning. He offered the testimony of a British officer who heard other officers in the King David Hotel bar joking about a Zionist threat to the headquarters. The officer who overheard the conversation immediately left the hotel and survived.

Begin would later sign the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state. Th treaty was signed with Sadat, who in 1973 launched a massive offensive war against Israel.

[Steve]

"No mention of the King David Hotel attack anniversary on the website??"

Why should there be a mention? What are you alluding to?

I have been blogging about potential solutions, looking at potential an end of conflict solutions, and highlighting unfair pieces of journalism. Note my recent posts of (and support for) disengagement.

Why is is necessary for me to bring up this event? Show me where I have blogged about the anniversary of equivalent events perpetrated by Arabs or the British against Israel?

If I dont bring those issues up on their anniversaries (i dont know when the anniversaries are) then why should I mention KD hotel on its anniversary?

Sounds like you are just using this a a pretext to cry hypocrisy. I dont know what your point is, and im not sure you know what your point is either.

[Victor]

To think that Ian Frazer has spent so much valuable time on this idiotic analysis is mind boggling. Even worse is the knowledge that M&G, a newspaper of some authority has chosen to publish such unadulterated garbage which speaks volumes for the standard of its editorship.

Nonetheless, I ask the brilliant Mr. Frazer to explain one thing only. How is it that the four men captured on the video tape entering Kings Cross station as a group, each with a rucksack on his back after which they split up, have since been positively identified and each positively placed at one of the explosion sites ? If this is sheer coincidence I ask Mr. Frazer to calculate the chances of this happening. Unless of course, as suggested by Frazer, they were double agents working for Mossad and eager to sacrifice their lives for the Israeli cause.

Now why didn't I think of that ?