Thought of the Day
I came back to London from two weeks of very hard work, travelling between Saudi Arabia (twice) and New York to discover that the downmarket Washington Times published on Sept. 27 a sick article by the miserable Nir Boms of the extremist Center for Freedom in the Middle East on the wretched Farid Ghadry, a former Syrian and a current Israeli apologist.
I won't spit on the above if they were on fire but I quote from the article that I "raised the possibility that Syria will begin liquidating dissident, adopting a similar strategy to that of Libyan leader Moammer Gadhfi..." This is a lie. I never said such a thing. The people who lied about Iraq and are now lying about Iran will lie about a sigle journalist. All I ever said about Ghadry was that he was "low life," an opinion that I continue to hold.
I have never ever defended Syria or any other Arab country, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I only attack and expose the other side, the warmongers and their agents, or the "low life."
I won't spit on the above if they were on fire but I quote from the article that I "raised the possibility that Syria will begin liquidating dissident, adopting a similar strategy to that of Libyan leader Moammer Gadhfi..." This is a lie. I never said such a thing. The people who lied about Iraq and are now lying about Iran will lie about a sigle journalist. All I ever said about Ghadry was that he was "low life," an opinion that I continue to hold.
I have never ever defended Syria or any other Arab country, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I only attack and expose the other side, the warmongers and their agents, or the "low life."
posted by Khazen at 6:30 AM
3 Comments:
Dear Jihad,
Many thanks for this recent post that was brought to my attention. I certainly would not like to be called a lier, a miserable an extrimist or a "loe form" for no reason. Here is your own quote from 5/06/2007" I do not call on any Arab oppositionist to return to his country to face the regime, but I invite some opponents to be cautious while they are abroad, as we know that the Libyan regime kidnapped opponents from neighboring countries and liquidated them, and is suppressing the opposition in the country." Perhaps I missed something but it seems that I quoted you correctly. There is more in that piece that appears to support my own interpretation of your thoughts (I did like most of the piece, BTW). If not, I am happy to retract!
Best,
Nir
Nir Boms took revenge on me, albeit unintentionally. He referred to my column of 5/06/07 and and I took that to mean June 5. That column had nothing to do with the contested subject and it took me a day to realize that he was referring to a column on May 6, in keeping with the American system starting with the month then the day. That column attacked Islamist in the Arab world, accusing them of being worse than the governments. The very fist words in the column were: All Arab governments are lacking (in achievement) and I repeated this accusation in the column saying that "all Arab goverments are lacking. I don't defend them but hold them all responsible for the absence of democracy; there is no rule of law, no accountability, transparency, or women's rights (or men and children). So I attacked as strongly as I could both the Arab governments and the Islamist opposition.
Now to the contested paragraph. I said "I don't invite any Arab opposition member to return to his country and face the regime there. I even call the oppostioin to be careful abroad as we have seen the Libyans kidnap opposition members in neighboring countries and liquidate them, and terrorize the opposition at home." My only reference was to Libya because it kidnapped my friend, the former Libyan foreign minister Mansour Al Kikhia from Egypt in 1993. Nothing has been heard about him since and he is presumed dead. I wrote several articles about him at the time, using information from his widow, a great lady. Nir Bom says that I "raised the possibility that Syria will begin liquidating dissidents adopting a similar strategy to that of the Libyan leader..." I did not say that. The column attacked the Islamist opposition in the Arab countries and Arab governments themselves. It warned of Ghadry doing in Syria Chalabi's role in Iraq.
I have nothing against Nir Boms. I despise Ghadry and his ilk. A member of the Knesset, Dr. Ahmed Tibi, called me to complain about his treacherous attitude. Ghadry is vermin.
Thanks for pointing out the difference between an apologist and someone who merely believes that truth in media is essential to the progress and civilization.
I recently had a similar expereince confronting a US grassoots "security" organization (UAC) who believe US security demands ALL Arabs require close, even paranoid level of scrutiny. One even seriously posed the idea of outlawing the religion!
In any case, their newsletter contains the most ridiculous claims about Arab history and culture; things so outrageous the author surely knows they are bald-faced lies, yet because they are being told about "the Enemy" this somehow makes lies acceptable. My attempts to correct their revisions were met with the query "Are you saying because we're wrong about x, y and z, OBL was right?".
This black and white thinking is unfortunately the same that Bush employed with his "You're either with us or against us" statement -- a trait that I am now quite certain is as a good as a hallmark for IDing an extremist, regardless of national or religious motivation. Unfortunately in the US, these extremists have moved much closer to the mainstream, a status quo that poses far more danger to US democracatic values than a thousand terrorists groups could ever hope to achieve.
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