…One Less Scene

   The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk, Random House Inc., 2005, 1136 pages  

Who is this guy Fisk? I remember hearing his name years ago; not because I came across one of his articles, but because he was often mentioned as one journalist that opposed invading Afghanistan after the World Trade Center was destroyed. “The only Western Journalist to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden”, “The foremost expert on post-war conflicts in the Middle East,” the “Fearless London Times Reporter”, etc. None of these descriptions do justice to this dynamo. As I read his book “The Great War for Civilization”, it becomes pretty obvious why, in spite of his 30 years of dodging bullets and counting corpses, he is no longer included in the media’s discussion of foreign policy in the Middle East; he calls the New York Times ‘gutless’ and ‘cowardly’, he mentions his admiration for Peter Jennings “but not the news organization he works for”, and with fearless clarity he writes things like:

“For ‘terrorists,’ read ‘guerillas’, or- as Ronald Reagan would call them in the years to come- ‘freedom fighters.’ Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. In the Middle East, in the entire Muslim world, this word would become a plague, a meaningless punctuation mark in all our lives, a full stop erected to finish all discussion of injustice, constructed as a wall by Russians, Americans, Israelis, British, Pakistanis, Saudis, Turks, to shut us up. Who would ever say a word in favor of terrorists? What cause could justify terror? So our enemies are always ‘terrorists.’ In the seventeenth century, governments used ‘heretic’ in much the same way, to end all dialogue, to prescribe obedience. Karmal’s policy was simple: you are either with us or against us. For decades, I have listened to this dangerous equation, uttered by capitalist and communist, presidents and prime ministers, generals and intelligence officers and, of course, newspaper editiors.” (p62-63)

Here’s a link to Robert Fisk speaking about this book.