Foner and Gilmore's reply

Submitted by Ken Shillito (Australia), Dec 29, 2002 at 16:20

I read carefully Foner and Gimore's reply. They misrepresent Pipes as saying that they hate America simply for opposing pre-emptive strikes against Iraq.

Foner and Gilmore do not deny that they hate America, nor do they anywhere say that they value the American way of life, except that they do say that they are glad they work for an institution that is financially independent from government influence, which sort of arrangement is not possible in all countries, so I suppose they concede that at least this one aspect of America's way of life is valuable to them. The simplest way for Foner and Gilmore to refute Pipes, was for them to say something nice about America. But (of course!) they didn't do that.

Pipes accuses them of presenting one-sided propaganda for their point of view to students, and holding themselves out as experts in areas other then their specialty. They don't bother to deny this. How could they?

They use clever wording "just because a regime is deemed repressive..." but they stop short of themselves deeming Hussein's regime as oppresive.

They then go on to compare Pipes with McCarthy - surprise, surprise - for daring to criticise them, rather than either showing that his accusations were untrue, or defending their actions. It's called an "ad hominem" argument.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".