October 29, 2002
Fisk outdoes even himself: Murder of American embassy official in Jordan was "anti-Bush"
Murder of US envoy shows anti-Bush feeling is spreading
No one was surprised. That was the terrible, incontrovertible fact about the murder of American diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman yesterday.
Gunned down – apparently with a silenced pistol – in the garden of his home, a 62-year-old in the US Agency for International Development mission, Mr Foley was not an obvious target, a genuine civilian in the sometimes sinister world of international diplomacy who was walking to his car in a middle-class suburb of the Jordanian capital when someone fired eight bullets into him from a 7mm gun.
"Why should ordinary people get killed and punished for the crimes of their leaders?" a female Jordanian neighbour said afterwards. And therein lies a clue to this murder. Jordanians – "our" Arabs, friends of the West whose Plucky Little King Mk II, King Abdullah, went to Sandhurst – now find it natural to refer to the "crimes"[I'm surprised Fisk put this in quotes!] of President Bush.
Amman is burning with anger at the United States and its threats against Iraq. More than half of Jordan's population is Palestinian and America's unconditional support for Ariel Sharon's Israeli government has embittered many of them; demonstrators have often called for the end of Jordan's 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
And there's more, of course.
Heretofore, I haven't really indulged in Fisking for 2 reasons: one, I usually don't have the stomach for it and two, there are other bloggers who do such a consummate job that I couldn't do any better.
But this latest regurgitation from Fisk caught my eye--either Fisk has his Official Cynthia McKinney/Alec Baldwin tin foil hat on way too tight or he's been taking more of the brown acid.
That's some bad stuff, Bob.
You really are in need of *another* serious beating from the Islamist fundamental thugs and we know you'll understand and "not blame them for their righteous anger."
I volunteer old Bob to be the First Human Shield for Saddam when our Allied American-British-Aussie forces attack Iraq!
