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IT WAS PRESBYTERIANS ALL ALONG

Robert Fisk sets us straight:

There is no connection between Islam and “terror”.

That’ll be news to all Islamic terrorists. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for our army to be doubled and further explanation about that rubber-framed jet window.

UPDATE. Paco: “The sheer, Orwellian mendacity of the statement is bad enough; but the quotation marks around the word ‘terror’ are the inflammable rag in this molotov cocktail of untruth.” Paco Junior is currently fighting this non-war against Men of No Particular Religion. It would be nice if he were to one day meet old Bobby.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/21/2008 at 01:49 PM
  1. Hey Bobby! Come down from the Tower, because I guess the satellite news feed didn’t penetrate. You be the judge. Osama Bin Laden claims responsibility for the murders of 3,000 people. Palestinians launch missles into Israel. Masked men claiming to be terrorist behead Daniel Pearl on video. Contractors are tortured, murdered, mutilated, burned, and hung from bridge.

    Yep. There is not connection.

    Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 03 21 at 02:01 PM • permalink

  2. In other Presbytarian affairs WTF?

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 21 at 02:27 PM • permalink

  3. I read the article!

    Truly astonishing - no link between Islam and terrorism. Obviously hasn’t read the Koran or Hadith.

    But why listen to somebody who thinks global warming is a true problem.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 21 at 02:31 PM • permalink

  4. Jumpin’ Jeebus! After I suggested that Fiskie was not unique in his extraordinary willful ignorance, here he does his best to declare, “Yes I am, you c**ts!”

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 21 at 02:51 PM • permalink

  5. This guy get crazier every time Time brings him up. I shudder at the thought that his readers and fans are even more deranged than he.

    Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2008 03 21 at 03:03 PM • permalink

  6. Uh, that’s supposed to say “every time Tim brings him up.” something to do with typing on my lap while reading AutoWeek.

    Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2008 03 21 at 03:05 PM • permalink

  7. Does Fisk ever write while sober?

    Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2008 03 21 at 03:25 PM • permalink

  8. The sheer, Orwellian mendacity of the statement is bad enough; but the quotation marks around the word “terror” are the inflammable rag in this molotov cocktail of untruth.

    “Today, we are engaged in a fruitless debate.”

    Oh, I don’t know about that, Bobby. I can think of at least one cumquat who’s obviously got plenty to say.

    Posted by paco on 2008 03 21 at 03:32 PM • permalink

  9. But it is a fact that the total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is well over the number of American casualties suffered in the initial D-Day landings at Normandy (3,384 killed and missing) on 6 June, 1944, or more than three times the total British casualties at Arnhem the same year (1,200).

    He’s still comparing the casualties of five years of war to that of single battles and expecting people to see the comparison as valid.  Besides Tim, for the entertainment factor, who reads this twisted old commie queen anymore?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 21 at 04:23 PM • permalink

  10. For a while there I thought he was trying to make the case for John McCain for President.

    Posted by alien kiwi on 2008 03 21 at 04:27 PM • permalink

  11. “Today, we are engaged in a fruitless debate.”

    No doubt.  We wished to invade Iraq and destroy the Baathist regime, you sought to protect the Baathist regime.  We ignored your desire and did it anyway.

    That’s kind of the end of the debate.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 05:00 PM • permalink

  12. #11 Dave Surls,

    Twisted old commie queens really hate that kind of “disrespect”.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 21 at 05:12 PM • permalink

  13. The Australian - Saddam had Aussie killed

    -snip-

    Top-secret Iraqi documents confirm for the first time that Care Australia worker Stuart Cameron was shot in Iraq in 1993 as part of a government campaign against foreign aid workers helping Kurds in the country’s north.


    More at link above.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2008 03 21 at 05:14 PM • permalink

  14. #13 Grimmy

    From your link:

    The documents also detail correspondence from a terrorist operative in the Gaza Strip sent to Baath party officials in Baghdad, in which a plot is discussed to kill Mr Indyk, a world-renowned scholar on the Middle East who twice served as US ambassador to Israel.

    (...)

    The letter - headed “One Arab Nation, One Immortal Mission: Unity Liberty Socialism” - says Mr Indyk is an “Australian Jew” who when appointed as ambassador caused “pandemonium at the CIA, who accused him of working with the Israeli Mossad”, a reference to Israel’s secret service.

    Knowing what we now know of the CIA’s fractious cliques, that was probably quite true.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 21 at 05:23 PM • permalink

  15. The CIA died in the ‘70s. What’s left is just a walking corps, twitching around on randomly firing nerve impulses.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2008 03 21 at 05:37 PM • permalink

  16. Fisk and Flannery,
    They’re both the same,
    Open their mouths,
    And drivel’s the name
    of the rubbish that spouts forth
    Into the world.

    Accuracy is nothing for either two,
    Whatever it takes, that will do.
    A headline here to further their fame,
    That’s all it’s about in this game.

    Lies and deceit, on and on they go
    And remember they have more there, you know
    For out of these minds who hate the West
    They’ll continue with their lies, they’ll never rest.

    Posted by Wand on 2008 03 21 at 05:54 PM • permalink

  17. fisk in his “filthy room, unable to sleep for the thunder of explosions, and root through the books I’d brought to fill the dark, dangerous hours. Tolstoy’s War and Peace.” This reveals everything we need to know bout left-wing wankers like fisk; firstly, they all wish they were pilger and vice-versa; secondly, they are stark-raving mad; who in their right mind goes into a combat zone with fucking War and Peace; I’d have four tanks, 3 bottles of scotch, 2 ladies of questionable morals and a fucking partridge in a pear tree.

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 21 at 05:59 PM • permalink

  18. Fisk must have talked to the guy who wrote the amazing academic[!] book which claims that martyr bombers are not motivated by their Islamic religion at all, but only by their political oppression.
    He was right on one point only, that modern martyr bombings were first started by ‘secular’ Marxists in places like Sri Lanka and Lebanon.
    The Lebanese ones were not Christians, though. Funny that.

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 21 at 06:03 PM • permalink

  19. This unmitigated bastard says; “Not a single Western leader has any first-hand experience of conflict.” Wrong; McCain.

    He also says Cheney has never fired a shot in anger; wrong

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 21 at 06:04 PM • permalink

  20. Fisk states: ‘But it is a fact that the total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is well over the number of American casualties suffered in the initial D-Day landings at Normandy (3,384 killed and missing) on 6 June, 1944, or more than three times the total British casualties at Arnhem the same year (1,200)’.

    It took me a nanosecond to check my copy of ‘A Bridge Too Far’ to find this quote on British casualties at Arnhem: ‘In the nine days of Market-Garden combined losses – airborne and ground forces – in killed, wounded and missing amounted to more than 17,000. British casualties were the highest: 13,226. Urquhart’s division was almost completely destroyed. In the 10,005 Arnhem force, which includes the Poles and glider pilots, casualties totalled 7,578’.

    A quick check of wikipedia shows British and Canadian dead at Arnhem at 6000.

    Poor Fisky, research is such a bore.

    Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2008 03 21 at 06:07 PM • permalink

  21. “There is no connection between islam and terror”; Mr fisk should be given an invitation to the next private Bali commemoration by the boys playing in the Coogee Dolphins and my bet is he will change his ‘mind’, or at least get a better idea of terror. Just despicable.

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 21 at 06:09 PM • permalink

  22. “But it is a fact that the total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is…”

    ...about 1/100th of the over 400,000 U.S. dead in WWII?

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 06:14 PM • permalink

  23. Actually, Tim is wrong about Fisk here:

    Fisk: “all this is a distraction from the awful truth in Buchanan’s warning. We have dispatched our armies into the land of Islam….With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavour at which Islamic people excel is expelling imperial powers by terror or guerrilla war”.

    Fisk is unimpressed by the one endeavour at which free Western and Anglo people excel - opposing and destroying of tyrannies, Islamic being a pretty prominent type these days.

    Didn’t European Christians drive the Islamists out of Europe - from Spain and from the Balkans?  Weren’t ‘Islamic lands’ once Christian in the Middle East -say Turkey, Egypt and Judea?

    Note Fisk’s nice touch - it’s all the Jooos fault..
    We have done so with the sole encouragement of Israel, whose own false intelligence over Iraq has been discreetly forgotten by our masters…

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 21 at 06:23 PM • permalink

  24. Now 350,000 Iraqi dead is the conservative estimate, and it may be up to a million. If The Independent ever tires of Fisk, he should be able to get a job at Lancet.

    Posted by Dminor on 2008 03 21 at 06:23 PM • permalink

  25. “They count for just over a third of the total fatalities (11,014) of the entire British Expeditionary Force from the German invasion of Belgium to the final evacuation at Dunkirk in June 1940.”—Fiskoid

    So…you’re saying that it’s better to lose 11,000 guys, plus virtually all of your tanks, artillery and vehicles in six weeks of fighting in France, than to lose 4,000 guys in five years of fighting in Iraq?

    He’s an odd bird, this Fiskie.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 06:24 PM • permalink

  26. ‘Twisted old commie queens really hate that kind of “disrespect”.’

    Fuck ‘em, if they can’t take a joke.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 06:33 PM • permalink

  27. From the Arab News..

    “The Middle East’s Leading English Language Daily”


    Thursday 9 September 2004 (24 Rajab 1425)


    A Wake-up Call : Almost all terrorists are Muslims..
    Abdel Rahman al-Rashed* —


    It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.

    The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims.

    Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims.

    Osama bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim.

    What a pathetic record. What an abominable “achievement.” Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture?

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2008 03 21 at 06:42 PM • permalink

  28. IT WAS PRESBYTERIANS ALL ALONG
    And Non-Subscribing ones at that.
    True terror is being a Catholic at a N/S wedding, in Ulster, when the bloke up the front says:
      “Lock the doors.”
    As to Booby’s wacky ‘Let’s trawl war statistics to find matching numbers to prove how doomed to failure OIF is.’  I’m surprised he didn’t reveal that the incidence of venereal disease per 1000 in the ETO 1944-45 is exactly the same as the monthly rate of chocolate chip ice cream consumption in Iraq by B Coy 1/237 Airfield Maintenance Detachment.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2008 03 21 at 06:56 PM • permalink

  29. The great thing about Fisk is that, in looking for things worthy of contempt, one encounters an embarrassment of riches. Encyclopedic historical ignorance, towering stupidity, political perversity, moral blindness - the whole mélange delivered in a bombastic prose style that seeks to marry antiquated Burkean oratory with melodramatic Dantonesque revolutionary fervor. When it comes to sheer imbecility, he is a giant among men.

    Posted by paco on 2008 03 21 at 07:55 PM • permalink

  30. OK you had your fun guys.Robert is really a deep cover CIA agent-how else can you get so close to terrorists and remain capitus intactus.
    I should not be posting this as it may put a brave and fearless mole into great danger.
    Paco may have more information, I only gleaned mine as shared a G&T one sultry night in ‘Harry’s Bar’ Bobby was feeling rather maudlin and down hearted, having chosen to destroy h,was pondering whether it was worth all the pain and derision.
    Sorry Bob to have blown your cover, but I cannot bear to see you sufer any more.

    Posted by Hillyminx on 2008 03 21 at 07:57 PM • permalink

  31. “Five years on, and still we have not learnt.”—Fisktard

    Heck, it’s not our fault that Muslim terrorists, despots and state sponsors of terrorism are slow learners.

    Though you haven’t seen any Baathist despots invading Kuwait lately, looks like there is still some Muslim state sponsored terrorism going on.

    Guess we’ll just have to keep beating their asses, until they figure it out.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 07:58 PM • permalink

  32. Sorry about the spelling-too emotional and too many Gs & Ts

    Posted by Hillyminx on 2008 03 21 at 08:00 PM • permalink

  33. Meanwhile comrade Tracee Hutchison

    There is also no doubt that China’s history of human rights abuse does not appear to have been curtailed by the granting of the 2008 Olympics, as many inside and outside the Olympic movement had hoped.

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 21 at 08:15 PM • permalink

  34. So what he’s saying is…..

    1. McCain should be the next president because he has “war experience” (Unlike thunder thighs and that cocaine sniffing frat-boy from Havard)

    2. The Iraqis are still basically
    head-severing savages who don’t deserve the chance a democracy that America has given them.

    Is that what you really think Mr Fisk -hmmmm interesting.

    Posted by FredAGunter on 2008 03 21 at 08:18 PM • permalink

  35. Nearly all Muslims are not terrorists.
    Nearly all terrorists are Muslims.

    Posted by Steven C. Den Beste on 2008 03 21 at 08:18 PM • permalink

  36. Greg Sheridan puts down two sacred cows of the left in one article - which may make it too long for the attention span of moonbat readers. One: that Israel is at the centre of ME concerns and therefore arab unrest. Two: that Saddam had no connection with terrorism.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2008 03 21 at 08:20 PM • permalink

  37. Not one Christian Palestinian has ever blown himself up.

    Not one.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2008 03 21 at 08:36 PM • permalink

  38. “How did the people – the senatus populusque Romanus of our modern world…—Robert “I know nothing of History” Fisk

    The expression “senatus populusque Romanus” means the senate and people of Rome, twit.  It is not the modern equivalent of “the people”.

    And, that’s all the Fisk correcting and mocking I can take for one day.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 09:12 PM • permalink

  39. #35; very good steven; the moderate and terrorist moslem divide; now, pick one of the following; Warraq’s “Why I Am Not a Muslim”, Spencer’s “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam”, Phares’ “The War of Ideas”, Harris’s “The End of Faith” and staple it to your pointy little head so osmosis will convince you of the error of your ways.

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 21 at 09:22 PM • permalink

  40. This blokes either an Izlamo-Nazi or suffering from an acute form of global dhimming syndrome! One can just imagine him reciting, “Alla-hu ak-bar”...think that’s how it goes…

    Posted by American Interests on 2008 03 21 at 11:00 PM • permalink

  41. As Jack Clement wrote and Johnny Cash sang:

    The One On The Right Is On The Left
    And the guy in the rear was a Methodist
    Well, the one on the right was on the bottom
    And the one in the middle was on the top
    And the one on the left got a broken arm
    And the guy in the rear, said, “Oh dear”

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 21 at 11:08 PM • permalink

  42. “Nearly all Muslims are not terrorists.
    Nearly all terrorists are Muslims.”

    Makes sense to me.  I’m not even sure nearly all terrorists are Muslims, I’m pretty sure most of the ones that are attacking America and America’s allies are though…and they’re the only terrorists I care about it.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 11:36 PM • permalink

  43. There’s been a rather consistent string of polls that show a very substantial chunk of any muslim pop in whatever country checked are fully in favor of the present jihadi terrorists.

    There’s also a current counter trend that’s growing. More and more muslims are leaving the religion for good.

    If that keeps up, then the terrorist to muslim ratio gets much less dilute.

    As a game, anyone want to try to find a muslim dominated population that isn’t involved in predatory aggression against its nearest non muslim dominated population?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2008 03 21 at 11:59 PM • permalink

  44. #8

    The sheer, Orwellian mendacity of the statement is bad enough; but the quotation marks around the word “terror” are the inflammable rag in this molotov cocktail of untruth.

    Perfectly Apt Cutting Oratory.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 22 at 12:30 AM • permalink

  45. Readers who believe Robert Fisk drinks while he writes should take a deeper look at the article. Go beyond a superficial reading and you will find much more than drink, my friends. Using the The Psycho Analytical Cognitive Onanist (PACO) Meter - patent pending - Fisk’s true vice is revealed.

    steps crumble .. stones cracked .. sand finer .. catastrophe .. I .. drifted away .. swamped in blood .. remorse ..  inadequacy .. sin. Fruitless .. populusque .. rebellion .. honestly .. absolutely .. completely .. illegal .. vast .. debacle .. infinitely .. terrible .. storming .. hissing .. I .. filthy .. Palestine .. thunder .. explosions .. root .. Tolstoy’s .. conflict .. sensitivity .. grace .. horror .. rant .. I feel .. power .. prescience .. absolute .. apogee. .. recedes ..

    Compare the slow almost leisurely start with the frenzied Onanism towards the end, followed by the dreamlike and tranquil trance after his Tolstoyic explosion.

    Conclusion: In my professional opinion, the man is a wanker.

    Posted by Hanyu on 2008 03 22 at 12:31 AM • permalink

  46. #32 “too emotional”.... G&Ts; do that .

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 22 at 12:48 AM • permalink

  47. Polling data on attitudes about terrorism (and other stuff)...for what it’s worth.

    Pew polling data

    I suspect that that poll is probably fairly accurate and that Stephen’s observation that there aren’t that many terrorists is also pretty accurate.

    And, that’s a good thing.  If a majority of the Iraqi population were engaging in terror activities, our troops would be in a world of trouble.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 22 at 12:58 AM • permalink

  48. #42 Dave Surls, there are only two others I can think of, ETA in Spain and Tamils in Sri Lanka.


    These are the only other two I can think of that explicitly employ terror tactics today. Not FARQ in Columbia nor the IRA in Britain. Given the number of terrorist problem regions in the world, these two stand out starkly as NOT BEING MUSLIM as all the numerous others are.

    Fisk is a disgrace.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 22 at 01:00 AM • permalink

  49. #39 - cohenite, if I’m not mistaken, that is the Steven Den Beste, and he’s most certainly no apologist. What he says is true. Only a tiny percentage of the world’s billion Muslims are terrorists, or we would have lost long ago. But almost all of the terrorists are Muslim, meaning there’s something fucked about Islam.

    And I am so stealing your “I’d have four tanks, 3 bottles of scotch, 2 ladies of questionable morals and a fucking partridge in a pear tree.” Golden.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 03 22 at 01:12 AM • permalink

  50. I can see it now: the day that Fisk will be sitting in a chair, all tied up while Islamic terrorists surround him, reciting verses from the Koran. Then one of the Islamic terrorists pulls out his machete in anticipation of chopping Fisk’s head off. And just as the sword comes in from 3 o’clock to do its Islamic terrorist’s duty, Fisk will think “gee, I guess I was wrong after all”.

    Posted by The Best Infidel on 2008 03 22 at 01:24 AM • permalink

  51. Fisk will think “gee, I guess I was wrong after all”.

    No, he won’t.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2008 03 22 at 01:30 AM • permalink

  52. Robert Fisk for Dummies:
    Blame Ourselves, Not Them

    It’s time to correct
    One monstrous error:
    Innocent Islam
    Does not cause Terror.

    The lie has become
    Deeply pervasive;
    Even true muslims
    Find it persuasive.

    But it’s not their fault
    That peaceful Islam
    Identifies with
    The sword and the bomb.

    They cannot resist,
    In their sinless state,
    The powerful urge
    To decapitate.

    We make them do it,
    It’s us we should blame
    Each time a killer
    Kills in Allah’s name.

    Posted by lyle on 2008 03 22 at 01:31 AM • permalink

  53. #49; Dave; take it, use it as intended. “The” Steven Den Beste, eh? OK, I stand corrected. But I’m weary of this “only a small number of moslems are terrorists” argument; it seems only a step away from the idea that the terrorists aren’t real muslims, so islam should have no blame for them. A culture should be judged by not only its worst, but how or if it deals with that worst; I don’t see any self-improvement programs within islam. And I’m very weary of lefties like fisk who are quite ready to accuse every supporter of a Bush or Howard of walking on their knuckles while they are quislings for islam. Now, excuse me, I’m going to have a banana and some mutual grooming with my lady.

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 22 at 01:44 AM • permalink

  54. #52 Thank you Lyle; my point exactly.

    Posted by cohenite on 2008 03 22 at 01:47 AM • permalink

  55. #53 cohenite

    It’s a matter of scale. Only a tiny minority of Muslims - say, 5% - need be actual terrorists for them to be a serious threat to Western Civilization. 5% of a 900 million (at the low end) is 4.5 million potential suicide bombers.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 22 at 02:20 AM • permalink

  56. #47, Dave Surls:

    And, that’s a good thing.  If a majority of the Iraqi population were engaging in terror activities, our troops would be in a world of trouble.

    Actually, I suggest the opposite to be true. IF the majority were playing jihad games then the situation would be all over but the burying by now.

    We can easily out kill the entire global muslim pop if we put our mind to it. Just because we’ve been nice, don’t mean we have to stay nice.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2008 03 22 at 02:48 AM • permalink

  57. There is no connection between Islam and “terror”.


    Bukhari:V4B52N220 “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror.’”

    Posted by Mike_W on 2008 03 22 at 03:02 AM • permalink

  58. Robert Fisk Explains
    How to Make Muslims
    and the World Happy:

    Here’s how we will get
    Muslims to behave:
    Each one gets to send
    Ten Jews to the grave.

    And in every round,
    Reduce it by one;
    When zero is reached,
    Our work will be done.

    There’s one little hitch:
    What if a few Jews
    Who’d rather not die
    Decide to refuse?

    That’s just how they are;
    Vain, selfish and wrong,
    So unlike muslims,
    Who would go along.

    Jews are the problem,
    So blinded by pride
    They can’t see the good
    In mass Jew-icide.

    Posted by lyle on 2008 03 22 at 07:19 AM • permalink

  59. Re #45, Hanyu, I think it more likely that Fisk drinks and wanks while he writes.  Add that to his self-induced psychosis from being a twisted old commie queen, and we have have the beginnings of an explanation of why this creature spews forth such bilious hate and idiocy.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 22 at 10:10 AM • permalink

  60. Well, one thing we can all agree on, and that’s the fact that Robert Fisk is a complete idiot, who couldn’t get his facts straight if his life depended on it, and that this statement is typical leftist hogwash…

    ‘There is no connection between Islam and “terror”.’

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 22 at 11:00 AM • permalink

  61. The war on terror is a failure? Depends on the objectives of the war. If it was stop the US from from being subjected to another 9/11 attack it has been a 100% success.

    If the aim was to protect western nations from terror attacks, it has been 95% successful.

    If it was rid the world of the sponsors of terrorism it killed Saddam, sent the Taliban into the hills, caged Gaddafi and limited bin Laden’s activities to attacking the people he professes to protect - Muslims. But Syria and Iran remain intact if more cautious, bin Laden is alive, Hamas rules in Gaza and Crazy Cat in North Korea is still walking around on his platform shoes. Success rate? 70%.

    If the objective was to make the Islamic world democratic and trustworthy, it is the failure Fisk claims. But I’m not convinced that was the objective.

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 22 at 06:32 PM • permalink

  62. 18. He wasn’t right about that.

    The Tamil Tigers were (are) Marxist inspired. But suicide bombing as a tactic was adopted by Shiites in the early 1980s. It was first used during the Iran-Iraq war, when child “martyrs” were sent to blow up tanks. At around the same time the Lebanese cleric Hossain Fadlallah developed a detailed theological justification for suicide bombing. His argument rested heavily on calls for martyrdom in defense of Islam made in the 1970s by Iranian clerics, notably Ali Shariati, the chief of Iran’s secret police, and repeated in 1983 by the Ayatollah Khomeini. These arguments found a ready audience among Shiites, whose founding story is the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (who they believe was the legitimate third successor of Mohammed).

    Yes, the Tamil Tigers did use suicide bombing and did (in 1991) perfect the suicide belt. But this theological sanctioning of a tactic that the clerics and their Islamist followers saw as indispensable gave suicide martyrdom (as they call it) the imprimatur of Islamic authority and gave it a specifically Islamist stamp.

    Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2008 03 22 at 06:59 PM • permalink

  63. #55 ‘It’s a matter of scale. Only a tiny minority of Muslims - say, 5% - need be actual terrorists for them to be a serious threat to Western Civilization. 5% of a 900 million (at the low end) is 4.5 million potential suicide bombers.’

    Scary statistic, Spiny.  Not far different from the armies of ‘Aryan’ Germans and ‘Bushido’ Japanese we fought in WWII.  Such realistic comparisons are lost on all the Fisks of this Western world.

    Hey, Fisk missed another of his so subtle points:  BUSH-I-Do = BusHitler

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 22 at 07:16 PM • permalink

  64. #62 Thanks for the addition info, Arrowhead.
    How that guy managed to convince himself that suicide bombing was a secular political act I’ll never know, let alone a publisher.

    Posted by Barrie on 2008 03 22 at 07:20 PM • permalink

  65. Tacit approval/agreement with terrorist acts carried out by Muslims tends to make me think that there’s many more supporters of terrorism which would tend to skew the numbers more than the 5%, much more.

    I won’t mention the revelling in the streets and handing out of sweets to celebrate terrorist acts.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 23 at 07:39 AM • permalink

  66. #14

    “Unity Liberty Socialism”

    Pick two.

    #45

    In my professional opinion, the man is a wanker.

    Wait, so, that makes you a professional what?

    Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 02:30 PM • permalink

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