I don't know what Fisk's 'initial point' was, if it was the Paki's turned Bin Laden in I would say what I said on Destor's blog in more detail,  You have got to be kidding if you believe after 10 years in Afghanistan the US military and the Obama administration 'trust' either Afghans or Paki's with the lives and the mission of US special forces operating cross border. It's nuts. The US knows some Paki would immediately get the word to the target, who would scoot and avoid capture.

And if Fisk thinks the Arab revolts are going to bring some Washingtonian democracy where Muslims and Christians sing kumbaya, I believe he is too early in his predictions. There already have been conflicts between Coptics and radical Muslims in Egypt, which has a 10% Christian population. The Muslim protesters demonstrated last month, saying no Muslim should be ruled by a Christian, due to a Coptic being appointed administrator of a province in southern Egypt. Until one Arab country in the Middle East transforms their post-dictator state into a viable, equal justice, secular democracy the outcome in countries like Egypt is anything but clear, even to an expert like Fisk.

Well, I dunno if neat is the word I would use. The professor is definitely a very angry, sarcastic and cynical far lefty, vehemently anti-Zionist with a nearly equal dislike of most Arab governments and of most U.S. foreign policy. But he's real good at it.

Actually, I find his nihilistic sarcasm quite useful in combination with his fluency in Arabic. From reading him, I learned that others like Juan Cole hedge what they say about what they read in Arabic media. Asa'd just blurts out what he actually thinks, no matter how nasty; read in combination with the others, it gives you a better idea of wassup. (Plus, amazingly, in the past, I've found he often ended up coincidentally confirming the picture MEMRI was trying to draw, some of those strange cases where far left and far right meet, where the spectrum makes a circle.)