If a Moslem were tyo utter the same words as did a cleric in New York, he will be punished with life imprisonment. But Pat Roberson is the toast of the Establishment. Is he too not a mad mullah so deried by the West

robertson isn't in new york, but i guess that's neither here nor there (here = los angeles...there=wherever you are). since i first realized what he was about i've loathed robertson. there have been times when i've been concerned about the amount of political power he seemed to be garnering. in his case, any political power is too much.

still i think you may have misread this specific situation. here's the difference between muslim imams who call for the assassination of national leaders and pat robertson's idiotic proclamation: the imams may very well be taken at least somewhat seriously...while pretty much the whole country is laffin its ass off over pat making such a buffon of himself with his stupid fatwa.

hopefully there'll come a day in the not too distant future when we can go back to laffing at terminally asinine mullahs as well.

still i think you may have misread this specific situation. here's the difference between muslim imams who call for the assassination of national leaders and pat robertson's idiotic proclamation

There is the danger that by making the whole episode a sort of macabre joke the fact that Robertson advocate Killing of leader will get diluted. The cleric I had in mind was one who preached in Boorklyn Mosque whre he said highly complementary things about Jihad. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Now Blair is drafting laws that will make any criticism of his Iraq war a punishible offence.

Well, you'd better stfu then, right?

drmiler couldnt have said it with more finesse. i'm impressed.

mmm, stark contrast to places like Iran, who put out death orders on authors.

If it was just "mad" mullahs, or marginalized idiots like Robertson I could see your point. "Shock and Awe, Kill and Destroy, Bomb and Scoot, Drop Cluster Bombs and let loose Mayhem" have been standard operating procedure in the Middle East for as long as I have been alive, and not just from terrorists. How many died in the war between Iran and Iraq, where actual WMDs were used, and civilian populations were direct targets?

Oddly enough, I don't see you writing long, heartfelt articles about such horror. You like to dwell on the Great Satan and wink at Arabs doing as bad or worse. Go find the totalls for mass killings in the world, the ones where tens of thousands of people were killed, and see how many the US was involved in. It might put your own obsession in perspective.

Oddly enough, I don't see you writing long, heartfelt articles about such horror. You like to dwell on the Great Satan and wink at Arabs doing as bad or worse. Go find the totalls for mass killings in the world, the ones where tens of thousands of people were killed, and see how many the US was involved in. It might

Just total up all the deaths in the I st Gulf War and the IInd Gulf War and then the "collateral damage"done to thwe civillian population the figure could well cross the wrong end of 6 digits.

As opposed to Saudi Arabia that offers respected retirement opportunities for people like Edi Amin? As opposed to Arab nations that spend millions to "fight" for Palestinians while nations like Somalia suffer injustice even more? As opposed to ships loaded with $100,000,000 in military equipment bound for Palestine where we are told daily people are living in abject poverty? Where is your article about Arafat's wife living on millions in Paris?

Your activism is uncercut by your bias. I find it hard to take you seriously, simply because you aren't interested in horror or evil, you are only interested in the West's involvment in such.

I can't BELIEVE you would even try to bring up the first Gulf War, given that Hussein himself did far, far worse things to Kuwaitis. How dare you try and slip that past and not even mention such? What did the Taliban do to Afghanis? How do Arab nations deal with "undesirables"?

Can you not even see how blatently one-sided and hateful your supposed sympathy is? You only have sympathy for the "victims" of Western involvement. At least that is all you bother to express.

Back to the original article ...

The difference between what happens between Bin Laden and his ilk and Pat Robertson is ... wait for it ... The other members of Pat Robertson's religion have spoken out against what he's espousing. I very strongly disagree with what Mr. Robertson has ranted about. I have not seen anything (print, web, or video) where other Muslims (lay or clergy) have spoken publicly against what Bin Laden and others like him have been spouting.

If you can show me where they have spoken out, publicly, then I'll be more than willing to change my mind on that subject.

Again, Pat Robertson is a marginalized crackpot that even members of his own sect of the Christian faith don't take very seriously.

Again, Pat Robertson is a marginalized crackpot that even members of his own sect of the Christian faith don't take very seriously.

If they do, then they don't take their faith very seriously (spoken as an evangelical Christian).