Here is the link:
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary110804.asp
I have no opinion on this (yet); I just think it is interesting - worthy of the Pit.
Can you get AIDS from poison? 
From the linked column:
It’s hard to take seriously a guy who can’t avoid completely contradicting himself over the course of a couple of paragraphs.
The AIDS speculation is distasteful gossip, no better than the claims of poisoning by Israelis, Arafat’s inner circle, the Illuminati or whatever scapegoat one wants to accuse.
Yeah he got it because he’s gay.
:rolleyes:
Why is this in the pit again? You might wish to re-post it in the proper forum…GD maybe?
Sam
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Galloway and the Mail. Pretty much the definition of ‘unreliable source’.
I thought ‘poison’, with a Murder on the Orient Express list of suspects.
Cowardly tactic #1:
[Dubious or inflammatory citation](holocaust denial or something).
I find this interesting.
(Translation: I have not the courage to come right out and advance such an argument but wish to see who reacts to this, and how.)
Everyone has AIDS!
My grandma and my dog old blue
AIDS AIDS AIDS!
Yasser Arafat has AIDS and so do you!
Can’t remember the name, but there was a Soviet defector who claimed (back in the 70s?) that Arafat was gay.
No real evidence of it, and I have no idea if the course of Arafat’s disease suggests HIV or anything like it. Nor any reason to believe it makes any difference to anything. I imagine it would be quite a shock to the Palestinians if Arafat turned out to be playing for the home team. So I imagine those who want to make a hero out of him would keep a pretty tight lid on any information about his condition.
Regards,
Shodan
As for the OP, this seems uncontroverted. The same cannot be said for the words of David Frum.
In the article, Frum cites Ion Pacepa, specifically Pacepa’s “KGB memoir,” Red Horizons. I find this especially troubling for two reasons. It is no secret that the Bush Administration’s treatment of Mr Arafat is in stark contrast to the frequent, glowing overtures made throughout the Clinton years. Secondly, this administration has offered only anemic support to the Roadmap for Peace, a plan roundly derided as a conciliatory gesture of little more than pencil on onionskin.
In this climate, it’s a sly allusion – a lurid nod to Arafat’s rumored bisexuality – that leads the reader to the understanding that Frum, a chief architect of Mr Bush’s strongest memes, subscribes to Pacepa’s other, more damning allegations.
In Red Horizons, Pacepa, Ceausescu’s former liaison to the KGB, writes that Arafat was little more than a puppet, an Egyptian of low birth bolstered by the Kremlin in order to undermine the efforts of Palestinian unification and simultaneously “bleed” the US through exhausting and embarrassing setbacks. Also in the book, Pacepa claims that the KGB masterminded the very first skyjacking, and that Arafat, allegedly the Father of the Suicide Bomber, conceptualized turning the commercial airline into a powerful weapon. Both are bombastic, but never as incendiary as the claims about Arafat’s sexual preferences, including an outlandish assertion that the PLO leader’s principal chauffeur was actually a Mossad plant who would pimp young boys for Arafat’s pleasure.
Unless it is stanched by President Bush himself, this flow of rhetoric will have a terrible, chilling effect on an already belligerent and fractious Palestinian Authority. And as Hamas, al-Aqsa Martyrs and Fatah jockey noisily for control, they have forgotten to notice the grim balustrades that demarcate their island Palestine.
The Gaza Pullout looms, and what is clear is the risk of a horrible human rights crisis. Less obvious, however, is the true intention of the Bush Administration. As it now stands, if we are to accept the words of David Frum, President Bush seems content to do worse than nothing: to abandon them like wicked children, shunned and bickering over a corpse.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay of course, (Standard disclaimer when mentioning anything about gays, so that angry, PC people and other highly strung people will not come with any kneejerk, retarded responses), but it would be hilarious if Arafat did indeed have AIDS. The old buzzard is going to die soon anyhow (if he isn’t already braindead), but if he were gay, I would take great delight in how the tolerant, gay friendly Muslim world would look upon Arafat the “martyr”.
The reality is, he is a simple human being, a disgusting terrorist and it is time for him to enter paradise, even though he’ll most likely need to bring along some Viagra™, inorder to get it on with the 72 young virgins who anxiously await his arrival.
:rolleyes:
Actually, “virgins” is now popularly thought to be a mistranslation. The word Hur is now understood to mean “white raisins”. I know there’s a Sunmaid joke in there somewhere…
Popular among who ? I have to disagree with your theory that these lunatics would be blowing themselves up for a pack of raisins. They themselves do not believe in your “mistranslation”.
**[Excerpt from AP report starts here]
"Abdo said he wanted to reach paradise, which he was taught in school was the reward for suicide bombers.
“‘A river of honey, a river of wine and 72 virgins. Since I have been studying Koran I know about the sweet life that waits there (in Paradise),’” the newspaper quoted the boy as saying.**
All that article provides is more proof that David Frum is an idiot. :rolleyes:
Just an attempted smear job, IMO. The linked article smacks of agitprop, the author clearly has an axe to grind, has no particular facts to back up his assumption and thus the claim has no credibility.
From the article:
This is just stupid. The media have been clamoring incessantly for information about the nature of the condition that appears to be killing Arafat. The only problem is, that information, if known at all, is known only by his doctors and family, and they can withhold it from the media if they wish. Mr. Frum wants the press to report fact, not speculation, does he not?
Arafat is 75 and it seems there are plenty of conditions that could present the symptoms so far known to the public. Who knows, maybe it is AIDS, but speculation on this is worthless unless or until more information is released by the medical team attending him.
Just as a data point, you understand, it might interest you to know that Arafat is in fact a member of the famously gay-friendly Christian religion. But don’t let me stop you taking joy from the possibility of someone’s horrible disease, or anything. Perish the very thought.
Ha ha. AIDS. Man, that’s going to be cracking me up all night.
No, there isn’t. And don’t you dare look for it!
And who can forget the amazing Mr. Ion P, much beloved of National Revue Online. 'Twas he who broke the earthshattering news that John Kerry was a KGB operative. Which was covered up by the liberalmedia, of course. His credibility can hardly be questioned, the direct dependance of the KGB on their Rumanian counterparts is beyond question, why, Andropov wouldn’t make a move without asking “What does Ceaucescu think?”
Indeed, as I recall, only one Doper was alert and informed enough to bring the news of Kerry’s treasonous duplicity and connivance with the KGB. Can’t recall the name, something like Sully? Silly? Something like that…
AIDS is preferrable to getting one’s body blown up in 376 scattered pieces while riding a bus. Arafat should be so lucky as to have AIDS, and not meet the fate as those he is responsible for killing.