When Fisk came to town

Attended the Robert Fisk Lecture today. I was very impressed----Robert Fisk has extensive knowledge of the Middle East and hence he had a lot of intereseting things to say. ( I have summarised my notes below...Mr. Fisk said a lot so its hard to make this post coherent cause I have limted time--however I hope it is still of some benefit to those who read it..)

He began by talking about his Book The Great War for civilization - The Conquest of the Middle East.He said he had started writing it a couple of years ago and said the whole book writing experience was depressing since he had to go into the history of a lot of conflicts he had covered and he never knew this history at the time he was covering the conflicts. The reason he had named the book after the Great War ( World War 1) was because he saw a lot of the Middle East Conflicts had their root in the Period following the War.

He gave a summary of all the conflicts he had covered in the last 30 years. He told the audience that he was surprised given the fact what Muslims have gone through that they have been so restrained. ( He mentioned that this comment was not too well received in the US). From the installation and support of dictators to supporting sham democracy. He stated that he found the question " Can Arafat ( and now Mahmood Abbas) control his own people?" undemocratic---

He defined the role of Journalist by quoting Amira Hass who defines it as a challenging and questioning of the people in power.

Moving on to a documentary ( Beirut to Bosnia: Why have so many Muslims come to hate the West? ) he had help make he said that while making the documentary he ended up in a burning mosque in Bosnia and he remembered saying in his audio coverage of the event that Muslims will retaliate " Watch Out". Ironically he said the date that day was September 11, 1993. After the documentary was shown on Discovery Channel in the US he was described by US media as paranoid and the was told " Muslims don't hate us". He had made similar comments ( " an explosion is coming") when there were peaceful signs in the Middle East around 1999.

Whenever September 11 ( By the way he said that he believes that the bombers were the 19 people named--since he had even visited one the bomber's families in Lebanon--however he thinks there are question marks over 9-11 and about what Bush Admin. knew about it) is mentioned in the media the questions that are asked are Who did it? What they did and how they did it but the question "Why" has rarely been discussed in detail. When a policeman visits a crime scene he tries to discover the motive of the criminal..... 9/11 was also a crime? and hence the question "Why" is as important!

He went on to describe the history of the Iraq conflict. He drew amazing parallels with 1920 when the British had invaded Iraq ( A siege of Najaf, bombing of Faluja were also done by the British). The British had also come with the rhetoric of bringing Freedom to the Iraqis (just like Napoleon had come to Cairo). Also at that time the biggest threat to the occupiers was the same as now : insurgents from the borders of Syria and Iran. He wondered if the Iraq would have been invaded if their main export was carrots???

He talked about how shocked he was at Ahmad Chalabi's welcoming to Washingnton around 2003 while he was being investigated by the FBI at the same time! Of corse he also talked about the fact that US and other Western Powers supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War cause of course....Saddam was the good guy back then?

He criticized the US media, and some British /Canadian Media. He read out an article from a leading American newspaper ( dated Nov 16) where the main source of the article was " US officials" . He actually counted the number of times the article had quoted US officials. ( more than 20!!!) He was shocked by the " Hotel Journalism" coverage in Iraq right now. The media is totally hiding behind bullet proof walls in Baghdad and only a few attempts are made to venture out independently (independent : without troop protection). And it is getting increasingly dangerous for journalists to go out independently since the Americans have very little control of Iraq right now.

1100 Iraqi people died in July and he finds it weird that even though its half the number of American soldiers killed in the entire war there is no alarm over these deaths . He recalled a day he had spent at the morgue in Iraq and about 26 bodies had come in for the time he was there ( autopsies were not allowed by the Americans!). He said the issue of Prisoner Abuse was no surprise to the Iraqis and journalists like himself..they ahd heard of it since 2003!

CHanging topics, he said that US media ( and some British Media) is increasingly using biased language to cover Middle East Events. Occupied territories in Palestine are now called Disputed Territories Settlements are called Jewish Neighborhood, walls are called Fences..and etc..etc,

An interesting Q and A session followed. Robert thinks that the " Americans must, will and cant leave" Iraq. He thought that the solution to Iraq had to be though talks with the insurgents, the government, the ulema, etc. He said that just like the Americans had to talk to the North Vietanmese and the Brits with the IRA the occupying forces will have to talk to the insurgents. As for the Civil War " fear" that the Brits and the Americans think will happen if they leave right now. He said their talking about Civil War would only increase the chances of Civil War. While there is Sunni Shia conflict and Power Struggle..the American Presence will only make it worse.