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
war thinking views
I don't like the definition 'war correspondent'. It is history, not journalism, that has condemned the Middle East to war. I think 'war correspondent' smells a bit, reeks of false romanticism: it has too much of the whiff of Victorian reporters who would view battles from hilltops in the company of ladies, immune to suffering, only occasionally glancing towards the distant pop-pop of cannon fire.
believe thinking people
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.
mean thinking cities
The Americans may think they have 'liberated' Baghdad but the tens of thousands of thieves - they came in families and cruised the city in trucks and cars searching for booty - seem to have a different idea what liberation means.
war thinking government
And I think, in the end, that is the best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.
thinking government courageous
U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.
epitaph perfect saddam
Epitaph on a Tyrant" is about Stalin, but is perfect for Saddam Hussein.
ali ben bin case certainly claiming infidels less millions people rid
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.
appalled desire war william
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.
equation leave sand terrible tragedy turn
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.
atomic bin creation nuclear scientists useful
To look for bin Laden now is as useful as detaining nuclear scientists after the creation of the atomic bomb.
blair bush constantly invasion war
The Second World War is and was constantly being drudged up by Blair and Bush to rationalize the invasion of Iraq.
gone lied mainstream newspapers people reasons
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.
east good power
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.
believed book constantly cope current east fathers fought great middle produced trying war wrote
We are constantly trying to cope with what our fathers or our grandfathers did. I wrote the book 'Great War of Civilization,' and my father was a solider in the First World War which produced the current Middle East - not that he had much to do with that - but he fought in what he believed was the Great War for Civilization.