Clash of titans: Hitchens versus Islamic Rage Boy
posted at 4:15 pm on June 25, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Does he dare impugn the sincerity of Rage Boy’s incandescent rage?
I have actually seen some of these demonstrations, most recently in Islamabad, and all I would do if I were a news editor is ask my camera team to take several steps back from the shot. We could then see a few dozen gesticulating men (very few women for some reason), their mustaches writhing as they scatter lighter fluid on a book or a flag or a hastily made effigy. Around them, a two-deep encirclement of camera crews. When the lights are turned off, the little gang disperses. And you may have noticed that the camera is always steady and in close-up on the flames, which it wouldn’t be if there was a big, surging mob involved.
Which is not to say that it’s a laughing matter:
We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world’s Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?
Follow the link and you’ll find not one but two links to Snapped Shot embedded in the piece. Exit question: Is Hitchens reading blogs?
Update: He wasn’t reading blogs as of two years ago. Whether he is now is a separate question.
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I think Hitchens raises some very good points, that in any other era or world, would be worth considering.
As it is, I’m sure that the left will dismiss him with a mighty Yiddish “FEH,” a wave of their collective hand, and a few mutterings about what a crazy rube they think he is.
gryphon202 on June 25, 2007 at 4:22 PM
Congratulations AP, you finally got it right.
Hitchens and Islamic Rage Boy do indeed BELONG in the same thread. (They are worthy of each other.)
CyberCipher on June 25, 2007 at 4:23 PM
I’ve told you this before. He talked about Columbia’s president and his bizarre reaction to the Virginia Tech shootings. Hot Air was the only blog that had covered it by the time he ran his Slate piece.
Doesn’t prove anything, but now n=2.
see-dubya on June 25, 2007 at 4:26 PM
PS: IRB=Jamil Hussein 2.0
see-dubya on June 25, 2007 at 4:27 PM
Over at The Nose On Your Face they have quite a bit about Islamic Rage Boy. In fact, they have Islamic Rage Boy gear for sale. Who doesn’t need an Islamic Rage Boy wall clock?
The missing product in their catalog is a life-sized Islamic Rage Boy dummy suitable for mockery by posing in situations which I leave to your imagination or perhaps to be carried by counter-protestors at anti-war rallies.
Tantor on June 25, 2007 at 4:36 PM
Does anyone ever take a look at the comments attached to articles like this? If anything, it indicates the intelligence, or lack thereof, of those on the Web. And probably the general population. I come here to find reasonable, sensible comments on these issues. It amazes me how people just simply don’t get it.
wherestherum on June 25, 2007 at 4:42 PM
I think we are looking at the Muslim version of Forrest Gump.
swami on June 25, 2007 at 4:43 PM
The real question is who exactly is Islamic Rage Boy astroturfing for? My bet is on the same guy who employs Green Helmet. Iran? Saudi Arabia? Soros? Harry Reid? All of the above?
mojojojo on June 25, 2007 at 4:47 PM
Hitchens wonders:
The word is MOAB. (Massive Ordnance Air Blast.)
profitsbeard on June 25, 2007 at 4:54 PM
Courage, dear Mr. Hitchens. Indeed, you possess plenty.
As Ayaan Hirsi Ali, link from the HA Headlines, also so eloquently states, along with Mr. Hitchens, these types need to be mocked and ridiculed, not excused, ignored, or encouraged.
Entelechy on June 25, 2007 at 5:08 PM
Just read it… gotta say: he’s right on.
MoleOnABull on June 25, 2007 at 5:11 PM
Mr. Hichens is a interesting character. He’s got Islam pegged: there’s no way to make Rage Boy and those like him happy unless you’re ready to be a dhimmi, or die refusing to submit. But I heard him arguing that all religions are evil on the Hugh Hewitt show, and that only atheism makes sense. (To him.)
It’s interesting that this is on Slate.com, a leftist site. His expose of the camera crews focussing in on the flames to avoid showing the tiny size of the furious mob is quite revealing. But will any minds be changed? Not if you read the comments from Slate readers regarding his article. It’s all Bush’s fault, or some variation thereof.
Laddie Buck on June 25, 2007 at 5:29 PM
Our “friend” Rage Boy is yet another example of that category of people P.J. O’Rourke refers to as the Perennially Indignant. He has numerous counterparts in our own “progressive” elements. (Think; Rosie O’Donnell.)
The bottom line with the Perennially Indignant is that, no matter how much you give them, they always demand more. There is always one more slight, one more injustice, or one more example of your “cruelty” or “unfairness” or “selfishness” which must be rectified at all costs. With you paying the freight.
Dealing with the likes of Rage Boy (and his counterparts) is rather like dealing with a schoolyard bully. In spite of decades of theorizing, the problem is not that the “bully types” suffer from feelings of inferiority; most in fact have oversized egos and feelings of grandiosity that border on megalomania. And when you give in to them, it just confirms their inflated opinion of themselves.
Hitchens talks of the “rings of news crews”. A better idea would be to send one(pool) crew, period. If you even have to send that.
And when Rage Boy (or O’Donnell, FTM) asks where everyone else is, tell them,
“Covering real news stories. After all, we’ve already seen your act a dozen times over.
“And we’re not impressed anymore.”
cheers
eon
eon on June 25, 2007 at 5:31 PM
Hitchens and Islamic Rage Boy do indeed BELONG in the same thread. (They are worthy of each other.)
CyberCipher
Hitchens exposes the theatre of the absurd that is “islamic rage” to a wider audience and this is the best you can do?
Rage Boy isn’t worthy of one frame of film. He’s a creation of the media. If Hitchens never wrote another book, he would be remembered as one of the philosphical greats of this century. Worthy of each other, indeed.
Krydor on June 25, 2007 at 6:21 PM
Yea, that’s the thing about him… we would never agree on Christianity… or religion in general, but he’s right on when it comes to accurately describing Islam and the threat it poses to civilization.
MoleOnABull on June 25, 2007 at 6:23 PM
mojojojo on June 25, 2007 at 4:47 PM
Satan?
sonnyspats1 on June 25, 2007 at 6:40 PM
Hitchens believes that Christianity is equally oppressive as Islam. The man lives in a bubble just as the other Slater’s do except he has a big problem with the Islamic cult.
warpmine on June 25, 2007 at 6:52 PM
srhoades on June 25, 2007 at 6:54 PM
The fact is even by pinning the comical moniker of Islamic Rage Boy on one of their perceived boogeymen we are diminishing any possible effect our enemies are trying to induce. The only one who apparently is finding relevance in these mock bursts of outrage is the MSM. We need more episodes of the Sands of Time.
sonnyspats1 on June 25, 2007 at 6:54 PM
I think Islamic Rage Boy is worth every frame of film we can give him. I want a freakin’ reality show built around this guy’s life.
He’s the best propaganda the West ever had.
see-dubya on June 25, 2007 at 6:56 PM
Hitchens’ conclusion is the key here: That the collective West — and leftists in the West, in particular — have learned nothing in the 18 years since the original fatwa against Rushdie. Hitchens reminds us of U.S. bookstores removing ‘The Satanic Verses” from the shelves in order to placate the Rage Boys of 1989. Ibn Warraq, in “Why I Am Not a Muslim,” wondered how long before the works of Gibbon (”[The Koran is an] endless incoherent rapsody of fable”), or Hume (who referred to Muhammad as the “pretended prophet” who bestowed “praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge and bigotry as are utterly incompatible with civilized society”), or Dante (who consigned Muhammad to Hell), were removed from the shelves, as well. (I suppose we’re fortunate that Rage Boy isn’t interested in reading anything outside the limited texts dictated to him in his Peshawar madrassa; and probably wouldn’t understand Gibbon, Hume, or Dante even if he did venture upon their writing.)
But Hitchens’ (and Warraq’s) point remains: That by making every conceivable dishonest excuse for Rage Boy’s barbaric behavior, and even (in some circles) attempting to legitimize it, the West continues to shift moral responsibility from Rage Boy onto the West, with increasingly destructive results.
abulafia on June 25, 2007 at 7:01 PM
Rage Boy’s problem is he can’t get a girl…….or a goat.
.
GT on June 25, 2007 at 7:17 PM
For a Mohammedan-Free Denmark
Connie on June 25, 2007 at 7:49 PM
What part of insanity do you not understand. These wack jobs don’t get any more sane, they just get crazy and more crazy.
NEMETI IN SYRACUSE on June 25, 2007 at 8:23 PM
No matter what ya might think of him, Hitchens can turn a phrase like very few out there, and he can make ya think!
PS, thanks for opening the registration.
Jim708 on June 25, 2007 at 9:00 PM
I would agree, but for Hitchens’ comment about the Pope, who did NOT make a “crass remark,” but instead brilliantly issued a challenge to Muslims.
Connie on June 25, 2007 at 9:08 PM
The real question is did get in on the current registration?
- The Cat
MirCat on June 25, 2007 at 10:17 PM
So he’s what, Kashmiri, Pakistani? All this time I thought he was Indian! (I just love thinking about how totally triple-howling, eye-popping mad that comment would make him.) As Glenn Beck would say, there wouldn’t be enough duct tape in the world to keep his head from exploding.
smellthecoffee on June 26, 2007 at 12:45 AM
Seconded. I wouldn’t want to run across his brain in a dark alley.
saint kansas on June 26, 2007 at 4:14 AM
Could someone explain to me the relevancy of the near daily Hitchens articles at this website? This is nearing Rosie levels of ridiculosity. Of course one can simply ignore these articles, as I do. But I just don’t understand the reasoning for their appearance here at all.
Vaporman87 on June 26, 2007 at 8:34 AM
“writhing mustaches” ?!?!!??
Claire on June 26, 2007 at 9:18 AM
Deliver all the kudos and accolades that you want to Hitchens. I would not contest your recognition of his intellectual prowess or academic standing. But, alas, I fear that you have completely missed my point.
Even though Islamic rage boy may be a figment of the media’s over-active imagination, the media itself is real, just like Hitchens. And the message from both (the media and Hitchens) is essentially the same. It is a message of H-A-T-E. It doesn’t matter to me whether THAT message comes from the media, or from an accomplished intellectual. I have the same reaction — no matter where is comes from. I have no time, and no use for people that HATE.
CyberCipher on June 26, 2007 at 1:35 PM