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I'm NOT Sorry, HaHaHaHa!

| August 29, 2003

Having secured his seat on the board of the US Institute of Peace, Daniel Pipes is now free to respond to the many detractors who tried to "bork" him over the past few months. His defense of a widely circulated 1991 comment—that Europeans "are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene"—was taken out of context, says Pipes; he was actually parodying stereotypical views of Europeans. This sounds a bit like the Ionesco character who wants you to know that he's obsessed with race because he's an anti-racist, not a racist. (I've also seen the "different standards of hygiene" cited elsewhere as "less than German standards of hygiene." Dunno whether this was other people rewriting Pipes or Pipes rewriting himself.) Still, it's good to hear him finally present his case:

[T]he accusations remain painful to me. I've spent two-thirds of my life studying the Middle East, learned the Arabic language, traveled the Muslim world, lived three years in Cairo, taught courses on the region at Harvard and specialized on it at the State and Defense departments.

In short, my career has been exactly devoted to "bridging differences and bringing peace."

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Jean Bart|8.29.03 @ 8:01AM|

I thought he mostly studied Turkey.

|8.29.03 @ 11:47AM|

That's Bernard Lewis.
Are you sure you are not Croesus ? He makes the same mistake.

|8.30.03 @ 1:00AM|

Have you noticed that every offence he's alleged to have committed involves criticizing people who have managed to justify the strapping of explosives to children to enable them to kill other children? How dare he!
Th

|8.30.03 @ 5:46AM|

Israel good child. Palestinian bad terrorist. Me feel good now.

Lefty|8.30.03 @ 8:27AM|

Here's an unflattering article on Pipes' supposed expertise:

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/opinion/6632902.htm

What are Pipes' qualifications? His resume reads:

� Launched Campus Watch, a Web site that included "dossiers" on professors and academic institutions thought to be too critical of Israel or too sympathetic to Islam and Muslims.

� Advocated the unrestricted profiling of Muslims and Arabs.

� Declared that 10 to 15 percent of all Muslims are "potential killers."

� Recommended the "vigilant application of social and political pressure to ensure that Islam is not accorded special status of any kind in this country."

Righty|8.30.03 @ 11:58AM|

Wow, Lefty, that's *all* his resume says? Golly, I guess he really is unqualified for the job.

Thanks for clearing that up!

Empath|8.31.03 @ 11:49AM|

Lefty,
"If Pipes is of the frame of mind she claims " etc
Quite true. But i don't think that Pipes is of that frame of mind at all. Ms/Mrs Wazwaz simply asserts things without backing them up with proof or argumentation, though it could be that she did not have enough room in the article to do do. Seems to me that she lacks an "emphathetic understanding" of Pipes' work, something she accuses Pipes of doing when he has the temerity to call a spade.

I dont know what the IOP does and maybe Pipes doesn't belong there but this article does not strike any telling blows against his bid.

Lefty|8.31.03 @ 11:57AM|

Prez: I don't know. This guy has said some stupid things about Muslims.

Cheney: Fuck'em. They don't vote.

Prez: OK.

|8.31.03 @ 12:12PM|

Lefty,

The guy who wrote that profile is a slightly less than objective observer.

Mark A.|8.31.03 @ 12:31PM|

Anon@August 29, 2003 11:47 PM,

You know, I was wondering the same thing about JB and Croesus from a separate observation set:

A) Croesus too referred to life in France; and
B) Croesus' postings stopped at about the same time JB's started to appear.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Mark A.|8.31.03 @ 12:33PM|

re: A) in the above post

That is to say, Croesus also made self-referential statements about daily life in France

Lefty|8.31.03 @ 12:52PM|

Actually, he is a she and is just a little put out that over a billion people of the Muslim faith are getting painted with the "terrorist" brush.

If Pipes is of the frame of mind she claims I'm not sure his proper place is in the Institute of Peace. But this is the same outfit that put John Poindexter in charge of DARPA so, what the hell.

Lefty|8.31.03 @ 12:55PM|

While we're talking about milk jug missing people, what ever happened to Laz?

Ikram Saeed|9.2.03 @ 10:27AM|

Pipes attempts to remake himself into a reasonable human being are humourous. Who exactly is he trying to convince? Most any American Muslim that follows politics knows him as bigot#1. It's like Karl Rove trying to become non-partisan. Get real.

More seriously, I think Pipes has been a net-negative in the fight agaisnt extremism. Having him on your side is like having Christopher Hitchens on your side -- if your viewpoint attracts this type of loser, you wonder if _your_ views are the wrong ones. (Am I calling Pipes objectively pro-terrorist? Yep.)

Here's an article by Irfan Khawaja on how Pipes plays loose with the facts.

http://hnn.us/articles/1458.html

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