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Topic: Robert Fisk: Hypocrisy, hatred and the war on terror

topic by D 11/8/2001 (5:23)

reply top Robert Fisk: Hypocrisy, hatred and the war on terror 'If the US attacks were an assault on 'civilisation', why shouldn't Muslims regard the Afganistan attack as a war on Islam?' 08 November 2001 'Air campaign'? 'Coalition forces'? 'War on terror'? How much longer must we go on enduring these lies? There is no 'campaign' – merely an air bombardment of the poorest and most broken country in the world by the world's richest and most sophisticated nation. No MiGs have taken to the skies to do battle with the American B-52s or F-18s. The only ammunition soaring into the air over Kabul comes from Russian anti-aircraft guns manufactured around 1943. Coalition? Hands up who's seen the Luftwaffe in the skies over Kandahar, or the Italian air force or the French air force over Herat. Or even the Pakistani air force. The Americans are bombing Afghanistan with a few British missiles thrown in. 'Coalition' indeed. Then there's the 'war on terror'. When are we moving on to bomb the Jaffna peninsula? Or Chechnya – which we have already left in Vladimir Putin's bloody hands? I even seem to recall a massive terrorist car bomb that exploded in Beirut in 1985 – targeting Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the spiritual inspiration to the Hezbollah, who now appears to be back on Washington's hit list – and which missed Nasrallah but slaughtered 85 innocent Lebanese civilians. Years later, Carl Bernstein revealed in his book, Veil, that the CIA was behind the bomb after the Saudis agreed to fund the operation. So will the US President George Bush be hunting down the CIA murderers involved? The hell he will. So why on earth are all my chums on CNN and Sky and the BBC rabbiting on about the 'air campaign', 'coalition forces' and the 'war on terror'? Do they think their viewers believe this twaddle? Certainly Muslims don't. In fact, you don't have to spend long in Pakistan to realise that the Pakistani press gives an infinitely more truthful and balanced account of the 'war' – publishing work by local intellectuals, historians and opposition writers along with Taliban comments and pro-government statements as well as syndicated Western analyses – than The New York Times; and all this, remember, in a military dictatorship. You only have to spend a few weeks in the Middle East and the subcontinent to realise why Tony Blair's interviews on al-Jazeera and Larry King Live don't amount to a hill of beans. The Beirut daily As-Safir ran a widely-praised editorial asking why an Arab who wanted to express the anger and humiliation of millions of other Arabs was forced to do so from a cave in a non-Arab country. The implication, of course, was that this – rather than the crimes against humanity on 11 September – was the reason for America's determination to liquidate Osama bin Laden. Far more persuasive has been a series of articles in the Pakistani press on the outrageous treatment of Muslims arrested in the United States in the aftermath of the September atrocities. One such article should suffice. Headlined 'Hate crime victim's diary', in The News of Lahore, it outlined the suffering of Hasnain Javed, who was arrested in Alabama on 19 September with an expired visa. In prison in Mississippi, he was beaten up by a prisoner who also broke his tooth. Then, long after he had sounded the warden's alarm bell, more men beat him against a wall with the words: 'Hey bin Laden, this is the first round. There are going to be 10 rounds like this.' There are dozens of other such stories in the Pakistani press and most of them appear to be true. Again, Muslims have been outraged by the hypocrisy of the West's supposed 'respect' for Islam. We are not, so we have informed the world, going to suspend military operations in Afghanistan during the holy fasting month of Ramadan. After all, the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq conflict continued during Ramadan. So have Arab-Israeli conflicts. True enough. But why, then, did we make such a show of suspending bombing on the first Friday of the bombardment last month out of our 'respect' for Islam? Because we were more respectful then than now? Or because – the Taliban remaining unbroken – we've decided to forget about all that 'respect'? 'I can see why you want to separate bin Laden from our religion,' a Peshawar journalist said to me a few days ago. 'Of course you want to tell us that this isn't a religious war, but Mr Robert, please, please stop telling us how much you respect Islam.' There is another disturbing argument I hear in Pakistan. If, as Mr Bush claims, the attacks on New York and Washington were an assault on 'civilisation', why shouldn't Muslims regard an attack on Afghanistan as a war on Islam? The Pakistanis swiftly spotted the hypocrisy of the Australians. While itching to get into the fight against Mr bin Laden, the Australians have sent armed troops to force destitute Afghan refugees out of their territorial waters. The Aussies want to bomb Afghanistan – but they don't want to save the Afghans. Pakistan, it should be added, hosts 2.5 million Afghan refugees. Needless to say, this discrepancy doesn't get much of an airing on our satellite channels. Indeed, I have never heard so much fury directed at journalists as I have in Pakistan these past few weeks. Nor am I surprised. What, after all, are we supposed to make of the so-called 'liberal' American television journalist Geraldo Rivera who is just moving to Fox TV, a Murdoch channel? 'I'm feeling more patriotic than at any time in my life, itching for justice, or maybe just revenge,' he announced this week. 'And this catharsis I've gone through has caused me to reassess what I do for a living.' This is truly chilling stuff. Here is an American journalist actually revealing that he's possibly 'itching for revenge'. Infinitely more shameful – and unethical – were the disgraceful words of Walter Isaacson, the chairman of CNN, to his staff. Showing the misery of Afghanistan ran the risk of promoting enemy propaganda, he said. 'It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan ... we must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harboured the terrorists responsible for killing close up to 5,000 innocent people.' Mr Isaacson was an unimaginative boss of Time magazine but these latest words will do more to damage the supposed impartiality of CNN than anything on the air in recent years. Perverse? Why perverse? Why are Afghan casualties so far down Mr Isaacson's compassion? Or is Mr Isaacson just following the lead set down for him a few days earlier by the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who portentously announced to the Washington press corps that in times like these 'people have to watch what they say and watch what they do'. Needless to say, CNN has caved in to the US government's demand not to broadcast Mr bin Laden's words in toto lest they contain 'coded messages'. But the coded messages go out on television every hour. They are 'air campaign', 'coalition forces' and 'war on terror'.

reply by Mujeeb 11/8/2001 (12:11)

reply top Bravo!! Robert fisk.. It is the journalist like you who makes us to respect journalism!! CNN, Fox, ABC all of them are worst than prostitutes. Prostitutes sell their body, honor for food. But These are the journalist who will sell their moms for their petty gain.! Kep it up.

reply by Barb 11/8/2001 (13:21)

reply top Robert Fisk's article is pure ignorance. The US is not 'bombing the poorest country.' The US is DOING THE AFGHANS A FAVOR by trying to rid their country of the abusive regime the Taliban. And it's not over. I am sure that the U.S. govt. will try to ensure that a peaceful govt. will take over and we will help them financially and otherwise to get that down. Why does everyone on this board think the US govt. is so evil? That's trash.

reply by the Pond 11/8/2001 (22:22)

reply top Actually Barb, that is what the US said to the Afghans last time when they sought to rid them of the soviets. In terms of ignorance, I think Fisk, who has covered the mid-east for over 20 years is far more reliable than Geraldo Rivera (Gerry Rivers). Maybe Geraldo should go back to doing his talk show like Oprah. What i can't understand is how anyone can take CNN (Completely No News) seriously; their 'reporting' of the news is, in a word, insipid.

reply by Someone 11/9/2001 (10:07)

reply top Lets see! So our bombing is actually a blessing for Afghans. But who are we to decide which type of regime is abusive? It should be decided, if by anyone, by UN. This is the same logic used by terrorist who instead of argueing their case more on mutually agreed facts, base them on 'I know it better then you.' Also, on the same line USSR could have bombed us when we were practicing slavery in this country to help African American get 'rid of an abusive regime.' Boy! they sure miss their chance. We all need to respect other people's right and privacy. We do not want to hear what world is saying about our abuse of environment but we want to kill people because we think the regime is abuse. For god sake, this is the regime breast fed by CIA: For baby Osama CIA was the mama Peace.

reply by Barb 11/10/2001 (1:58)

reply top The U.N. and around the world unanimously DO AGREE that the Taliban must be taken out. I am glad to be corrected if so. The govt. didn't just wake up one morning and decide one day' 'hey, I think we should get rid of the Taliban, OK with you guys?' Please.

reply by DJFLux 11/10/2001 (8:52)

reply top The world's governments are so screwed that coming togeather to find better ideas would only double it. Robert Fisk, telling the truth, with or without compliments. ABC,CNN, and other corrporate run news agencies are first off: SELLOUTS! It's a damn soap opera when you switch to those stations...PURE garbage being excreted from their mouths. And I HATE the music!

reply by Sandra 11/14/2001 (9:55)

reply top >>Robert Fisk's article is pure ignorance. The US is not 'bombing the poorest country.' The US is DOING THE AFGHANS A FAVOR by trying to rid their country of the abusive regime the Taliban. And it's not over. I am sure that the U.S. govt. will try to ensure that a peaceful govt. will take over and we will help them financially and otherwise to get that down. Why does everyone on this board think the US govt. is so evil? That's trash. >> Thank you for proving my point about your ignorance. Robert Fisk is a veteran journalist who's been reporting from the Middle East since the late 70s. He's lived in Lebanon for years, he speaks the region's languages, he's interviewed the region's leaders, bin Laden, etc., etc. His book on the Lebanese civil war PITY THE NATION is considered the definitive account of that nation's tragedy in the 80s. People around the world read his despatches faithfully, that includes the US gov't. For someone like you to call Fisk ignorant says it all. As to the rest of your post, if YOU KNEW THE HISTORY OF YOUR BELOVED GOVERNMENT'S CONDUCT you too would have the same exact skepticism. The US was roundly condemned by the British gov't and by member of the US Congress when in 1991 when it abandoned Afghanistan after pouring the country with armed mujaheddin warriors fighting the Soviets. The Soviets withdrew, the US got what it wanted and just left the country, leaving a bunch of armed tribal thugs to launch a civil war that killed 50,000 people. Throughout the 80s, the US fought a brutal, vicious war in Central America against leftist guerrillas, wrecked the Nicaraguan economy, mined its harbors so no one would deliver goods to the country. The Sandinistas fell. The US got its result and *abandoned* the country to an economic mess with a devastated infrastructured, destroyed agricultural system and the slaughter of thousands. The country's never recovered from it. That's what the US does, you see, in pursuit of its imperial interests (which are totally un-American and a betrayal of the vision of the founding fathers).

reply by Sandra 11/14/2001 (18:21)

reply top >>The U.N. and around the world unanimously DO AGREE that the Taliban must be taken out. I am glad to be corrected if so. The govt. didn't just wake up one morning and decide one day' 'hey, I think we should get rid of the Taliban, OK with you guys?' Please. >> Everything that comes out of your keyboard just reinforces your pathetic understanding of this complex situation. It's really amazing. Let's take the quote above: *Before* 9/11, Barb dear, the US gov't wasn't terribly bothered by the Taliban. And in fact Bush approved of their drug eradication efforts. The US didn't recognize it, relations were hardly warm, but the US really didn't care all that much to do much of anything. The Taliban didn't declare war on the US, by the way, it never did. The Taliban is not responsible for 9/11. For the past 5 years it was trying to gain international recognition by (for example) cracking down on the drug trade. The US was perfectly fine with the Taliban's existence because they brought order to the country and the US' allies in the region (S. Arabia and Pakistan) were behind it. The US went to war against the Taliban because it was harboring bin Laden. The Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden to a neutral country, which the US refused. It was a perfectly legitimate offer and international law experts took heart from it. But the US rejected it out of hand because it would mean that a process of international criminal justice would thus begin. But Americans wanted blood, they wanted to see people killed in vengeance. It didn't matter if those people had nothing to do with 9/11. Mind you, as a diehard feminist I'm quite happy that the Taliban are gone but I'm hardly hopeful for the future of Afghan women. The situation is a mess and the US is thoroughly confused as to how to handle it. History shows that Afghanistan always draws empires into long, bloody messes that they wish they'd never gotten into. But I'm talking to someone who's an historical illiterate so I'll stop here.