Terror's Trivial When It's Not Muslims

[madmusic]

Madrid Airport bombing receives scant attention

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, January 4, 2007

How many people who aren't news junkies know that Madrid Airport was bombed on Saturday? Relatively few I would venture, and that's because major western governments and their media mouthpieces don't hype terror unless Muslims are behind it.

I personally only caught the story a couple of days after it happened on an obscure channel on UK digital satellite called Euro News. Operatives of the Basque separatist organization ETA packed 800kg of explosives in a car bomb that ripped apart the parking lot of Barajas Madrid Airport, killing two and injuring twenty people.

Now imagine if "Al-Qaeda" bombed Heathrow or LAX. You'd never hear the end of it, the news would be on it 24/7 and entering an airport would be akin to checking into a concentration camp. And yet Saturday's blast was greeted by little more than bylines and muted dismissals by the mainstream media.

Before 9/11 terrorism was seen through the prism of a criminal problem because fewer people lose their lives as a result of it than do those who get struck by lightening. There have been just 2,929 terror induced deaths since 9/11 according to the Bush administration's own numbers and more people every year die in swimming pool accidents - hardly the mega threat to western society that many have portrayed. Put in this context, Saturday's bombing would not have made the top of the news because like all terrorism that occurs in the west, it is extremely rare, random and, like murder, rape or theft, is impossible to ever truly prevent.

more: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/040107terrortrivial.htm

HT talkleft.com

[ThomCat]

1. The definition of who's a "Terrorist" has always been political.

And the news media almost always plays along.

x(

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Paul Joseph Watson is horribly uninformed for someone living in Britain

if he didn't hear about the bombs apart from on "Euro News", 2 days later. There were reports on it from Reuters, AP, BBC, ITV, the Financial Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the Scotsman, the Sunday Mirror, the Telegraph, and the Times, at least. Look, 171 reports in UK media alone.

Given the timing, I suspect he was out partying for the 2 days, and didn't see or hear any news at all.

[JackRiddler]

3. how do you know he lives in Britain?

Says he caught it by satellite on euronews, which could mean he's in Singapore, or Texas. (euronews is not so obscure - if you're in Europe.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. His MySpace page says he's in the UK

http://www.myspace.com/pauljosephwatson

but even if he isn't, there are 1901 news stories about the Madrid airport bomb, worldwide.

EuroNews is a very minor player in the English language market. But it's his argument, anyway, that it's 'obscure', and that he only found the story there a couple of days after it happened. I can remember hearing it on the BBC News, either on the Saturday or Sunday.

[JackRiddler]

5. Thanks for info. He exaggerates the story's obscurity...

nevertheless, his broader point is serious: Imagine the same attack, but attributed to Islamists. Would it not have received far greater coverage, especially on the American telly?

[Igel]

6. It certainly would have.

But since it was attributed to ETA, it's a local story with local causes and presumably a local solution. ETA is only (really) active in Spain, regardless of its links to other terrorist organizations, and the ever-present potential that it could spread to the Basque regions of France. (To my limited knowledge, it hasn't.)

Making it less clearly a major story--and allowing for its becoming a major story--was ETA's later denial of responsibility. So it might become a major story if it's linked to some group that acts internationally, or be classed the efforts of a lone gunman. As we saw in the El Al/Los Angeles incident, lone gunman can't be terrorists, per the FBI; it's a matter of definition, although that may have changed recently.

The concern with Islamists is that there is international cooperation among groups, and presumably an Islamist attack anywhere is part and parcel of the attacks on the US and Britain.