Sobering words from Robert Fisk

Independent Argument
The message to us -- the West -- is simple and repeated three times. If we want to back George Bush, the "pharaoh of the age" -- and "pharaoh" is what Anwar Sadat's killers called the Egyptian president after his murder more than two decades ago -- we will pay a price. "What business do your governments have in allying themselves with the gang of criminals in the White House against Muslims...?" I have heard Bin Laden use that Arabic expression ifarbatu al-idjran twice before in conversation with me. "Gang of criminals". Which is what the West has called "al-Qa'ida".

So what comes next? A few weeks ago, I was asked by a member of an American university audience where I thought the next blow would come. The two words I thought of were "oil tanker". This came under the label "total speculation". But I didn't want to give anyone any ideas. So I said nothing. The following week, al-Qa'ida struck the supertanker Limburg off Yemen. Now I search my mind for worse thoughts. And I prefer to end my story.