Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk
Robert Fiskis an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. He has been Middle East correspondent intermittently since 1976 for various media; since 1989 he is correspondent for The Independent, primarily based in Beirut. Fisk holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent and has been voted British International Journalist of the Year seven times. He has published a number of books and reported on several wars and armed conflicts...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth12 July 1946
Bin Laden always wanted to get rid of Mubarek and Ben Ali and Gaddafi and so on, claiming that they were all infidels working for America, and in fact, it was millions of ordinary people who peacefully, more or less - certainly in the case of Tunisia and Egypt - got rid of them.
One of the reasons why I think people have gone from reading mainstream newspapers to the Internet is because they realize they're being lied to.
Whatever the political injustices are that created an environment that brought this about, it was not Americans who flew those planes into those buildings. And we should remember that. The crimes against humanity were perpetrated by people who were Arab Muslims.
People turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.
In Palestine, the Israelis claim they found a land without people,' a Syrian officer explained to us. 'Now they will take southern Lebanon and claim they have found another land without people if these refugees do not return.
President Bush cruelly manipulated the grief of the American people - and the sympathy of the rest of the world - to introduce a 'world order' dreamed up by a clutch of fantasists advising the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld.
Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, "But bin Laden says what we think." These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington; they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth.
I've never seen a single demonstration in Pakistan, in the streets of Gaza, in the West Bank, in which the people have come out with signs saying, "Please give us better roads. Please give us new prenatal clinics. Please give us a new sewage system." I'm sure they'd like those things, but it's not what they demand in the demonstrations. In the demonstrations, they talk about justice, they talk about an end to Israeli occupation.
Epitaph on a Tyrant" is about Stalin, but is perfect for Saddam Hussein.
William Dalrymple called me a war junkie in his silly book. No, I don't have a desire for it. I'm appalled and infuriated by it.
The Americans must leave, the Americans will leave and the terrible tragedy is the Americans can't leave because that is the equation that will turn sand into blood.
To look for bin Laden now is as useful as detaining nuclear scientists after the creation of the atomic bomb.
The Second World War is and was constantly being drudged up by Blair and Bush to rationalize the invasion of Iraq.
American power in the Middle East is collapsing. It doesn't need much more than a shove, and it will - and that's not going to be a good thing.