OK, Sunny is a mate. Yet I have to confess: I find this exchange with Andrew Anthony utterly delicious.
Anthony has written a piece on the Undercover Mosque libel settlement:
Back in August 2007 I wrote a defence of the Undercover Mosque programme and, among many reasonable responses, I came in for the now obligatory charges of Islamophobia, neocon activism and, of course, racism. This kind of thing is standard these days if you state your opposition to the idea that hitting 10-year-old girls is reasonable, that women are lesser beings then men, that killing homosexuals is wrong, that killing apostates is unacceptable, and that all Muslims supposedly hate the kuffar. All of those views were propagated by the preachers who were recorded in Undercover Mosque, a diligent documentary made in difficult circumstances.
Anthony goes on to quote the deranged hooting that eminated from the Islamo-Stalinist sector of the blogosphere when the West Midlands Police first referred the matter to OFCOM before concluding:
The police and CPS now “accept, without reservation, the findings of Ofcom”. It would be nice to think the other loud critics, like Abdul Bari and those brave posters I quoted, might do the same.
Sunny Hundal can’t help himself:
“This kind of thing is standard these days if you state your opposition to the idea that hitting 10-year-old girls is reasonable, that women are lesser beings then men…”
Way to go with the straw-men!
Have you said sorry for supporting the war in Iraq yet Andrew? How about that?
But Anthony hits back with the killer blow:
Hello Sunny, you do seem to spend a lot of your time chasing round making false accusations about me, when, that is, you’re not calling for more reasoned debate on the internet. The examples I cited are not straw men (as your readers will know, that’s your speciality) but in the original thread of responses. Unless, that is, you’re saying that CiF posters are not real people but simply rhetorical manifestations. (Oh, by the way, I’ve had similarly ignorant things said to me by people in the flesh in various public debates I’ve had out there in the real world).
Re my alleged support for the Iraq war. Well, I know you don’t like to read, but you’re going to have to find that statement. Good luck. You will find statements saying that I was on balance AGAINST the Iraq war, but you won’t find one saying I was for it. Of course, I doubt that will stop you repeating the lie because I it seems that you’re not particularly concerned about the facts of the matter. But, for the record (again), once the war started, and the Iraqi infrastructure was destroyed, and sectarian bombers were killing civilians, I didn’t think it was a straightforward question of withdrawing the troops and letting the militias go about their business. In my book (which you’ve not read) I did say, however, that I was willing to accept that even this argument had moral legitimacy. My one overriding standpoint was that I didn’t think troops should be withdrawn because bombs were let off in London. Now those are the facts. Are you going to keep lying. Or will you now apologise.
Ooof!