Robert ‘I don’t blame them for hitting me’ Fisk makes a rare intelligent point in the UK daily newspaper, The Independent. He points out that the U.S. government’s proposal to finger-print certain Arabs and Muslims from a set of Middle East countries will not apply to people travelling from Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that the men who attacked the U.S. on September 11th were mostly Saudis.
He is right to point out the absurdity of this. While I detest much of Fisk’s reflexive anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric, on this point he is right. Saudi Arabia is the country which has contributed the lion’s share of terrorists waging their war against the West. The sooner that Western policy-makers recognize that fact and reduce our reliance on their oil, the better. (This is already starting to happen due to growing ties with oil-rich Russia). Of course, whether fingerprinting will make an iota of difference to catching would-be terrorists is another point entirely. Predictably, Fisk does not object to the U.S. government fingerprinting persons on a matter of principle, but mainly to use it as a stick to hit Bush.
