Believe it or not I was at a talk given by Robert Fisk a couple of days ago and during the question and answer bit I asked him what he knew of the two English men in Basra dressed as arabs with a car that allegedly had explosives and timers in it.
He said he didn't know much given that he was in Beirut at the time but that it wouldn't surprise him given that the English had done the same thing in Omagh. He then went on to say the question for him was why were they dressed as Arabs and why was no one covering it. The audience spontaneously applauded at this which only happened once or twice during the whole two hours. He chose not to dwell on it further (two minutes, done deal) and picked the next question.
Anyway a few minutes later in response to a question about what happens when the media and the powers-that-be are the same people he stated that really the media has very little power. In England, he said, they can catch Blair out and he pays no attention, so what can you do? Shrug. I found this curious given that minutes earlier he'd been speculating as to why a mind-boggling story wasn't being covered and then he himself had chosen not to dwell on it. He's a smart enough cookie to know that it's one or the other. Either the media is calling these things and being ignored or it ain't calling them. I got my money on the latter.
On discussing the Iraqi 'insurgency' (he called them that throughout) he had very little sympathy for them, assured us that they were bad people. He did however speculate that there was something fishy about Margaret Hassan's murder but chose not to elaborate or hazard a guess over who might have killed her or benefitted from her death. He also stated categorically, as he has done before, that the Syrians killed Hariri. He might be right but if you apply cui bono to the situation you'd have to wonder. And in a discussion that ranged broadly over the entire Middle-East, he had very little to say about Israel. I don't recall him mentioning the CIA, MI6 or Mossad at any time. Spooks don't enter into it apparently.
So - Where is Robert Fisk's head at? Can we ever quite trust him? I'll keep reading him but he ain't no Pilger that's for sure.
From what you describe, I wouldn't trust someone like that.
Classic psyops, misdirecting/neutralizing a potential movement with compromised 'leaders'...
If the US/Israel attacks/invades/destabilized/overthrows Syria, the effect of the Hariri assasination as justification (as is being done right now) should become obvious.
Fisk stands to make a bloody fortune with his new book giving us the human UBL.
I think Fisk is ok, Journalists only ask questions. To speculate on what really happens is theorising, and if you speculate that there was a conspiracy to mislead, then you are a conspiracy theorist, regardless whether or not you are correct in your assumptions. Mainstream guys, who incidentally earn megabucks, aren't going to risk their reputation, and therefore their saleability by conspiracy theorising.
I wonder about Robert Fisk. In this Australian interview http://
www.informationclearingho...rticle10536.htm he repeats the old 9/11 chestnut about 19 Arabs. He must surely know the truth about what happened that day, or at least as much as the rest of us.
We all have a tendency to stand by our friends and presumably that is what he is doing with the UK press. The Independent, which he writes for, is the best of a poor bunch in this respect. Maybe he genuinely believes what he says about the media.
The BBC on the other hand definitely must not upset Tony as they are after in increase in the licence fee. I despair of them.
Maybe he has an odd view of the world because he has lived in Beirut for such a long time now.
For the time being I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
I have been reading a great deal recently about the history of Cyprus, ENOSIS, EOKA, etc., and the activities of the UK / US and the need to maintain their surveillance / military bases.
It is quite evident now, that agreat deal of shit was going down to stoke up the Turkish / Greek enmity , which didn't actually exist so that the UK (acting for the US who stayed in the shadows, although the 6th Fleet styed handily by) could help out their colonial cousins and keep the peace.
The partition of the island was manufactured by the US to forestall any idea od "self determination" as had happened with the rest of the British Empire India etc ., etc.,
Hence fomenting the Sunni/ Shia strife to give a plausible legitiimacy to the Coalition of the Willing to hold the peace would follow on previous military "thinking".
Methinks one should watch Lukoil (Vagit Alexperov) and the Russian oil interests agreed with Saddam. Conoco Philips own 15% and have a Director aboard as does Chevron.
The history of the Cyprus / Egypt situation right back to 1953 is rewarding in the current Iraqi context.
Re: Fisk
Few people in the trade of politics, or journalism have a scientific training. They never like to say, simply , "I don't know" which they feel reveals ignorance, a personal weakness, rather than merely a simple statement of human knowledge and it's known boundaries.
Fisk, I would treat carefully, too long an association with the Byzantine thought processes of the Levant have probably addled his thought processes too much. As a friend, a frequent visitor to Beirut remarked, to the Lebanese the sensible argument for Hariri's violent departure was to see it's authorship in the man himself, so that he could see everyone else blamed for it. The ultimate suicide bomber.
Whilst speculation continues, we still have no fixed and final view as to the location of the device, underground, in a car , in a truck. At least, that would be a start.
I think Fisk is smart enough to know that being seen to stray too far toward speculation and away from easily demonstrated fact renders you open to attack and discrediting as a conspiracy nut. Like it or not, lots of people the world over still swallow the line about wicked Muslims, they hate our freedom, Palestinians bad, Israel good etc, etc. I think Fisk keeps himself safe, and keeps to anomalies within established facts.
Re Hariri,
By way of details it's definitely murky. So I resort to cui bono. Who benefits from the collapse of Lebanon into the chaos of old? It strikes me that Israel would be top of the list. And sure enough Mossad is way capable of blowing somebody's shit up. They wouldn't bat an eyelid. But perhaps there are others who would benefit from disorder. Me, I got the Syrians at the bottom of the list. How does whacking Hariri benefit them? Might they have imagined that killing Hariri would result in something other than them getting kicked out? Like what? They certainly didn't muck around when it came time to go. Very little foot-dragging. Curious stuff.
Perhaps there's another faction within Lebanon that wanted him out of the way. I'm vaguely familiar with the factions but I don't know who was doing well or badly under Hariri. Who out there is ofay with this?
And I was under the impression that the tunnel theory was exploded, ahem, so to speak. Or was there a tunnel?
And Hariri blew himself up? Out of bloodymindedness? I'm having a bit of trouble with that one...
So your assessment is that attacks against foreign occupying forces are the work of the real insurgency. Attacks against civilians are the work of the occupying forces.
This poses the question of who's responsible for the most common attacks targetting recruitment lines for Iraqi police and military recruits ?
These are civilians cooperating with the occupying force. I see these as legitimate targets for any guerrilla campaign. You somehow think though that insurgents would have no reason to target them.
Quite an odd concept for a guerrilla campaign in an occupied nation where the occupying forces have already installed a government. Not target civilians cooperating in supporting the occupation. Quite odd indeed.
In fact if you actually do believe what you've stated (rather than just needing to suggest it in order to accommodate theories about fake terrorist attacks) you should have already decided there is no legitimate insurgency whatsoever. It would certainly be the first one I am aware of to ignore the national forces who cooperate with occupying forces (even on raids) which would make them either so implausible or ineffective as an insurgency that you would have to be an idiot to suggest they were real.
So which is it ? The bombing of a police recruitment line which kills civilians is the work of a legitimate insugency ?
Or the suicide bombings which more frequently than not turn up the DNA of yet another vacationing Wahhabi jihadist who has coincidently disappeared from his mosque were coincidences ?
Until you answer this you will be participating in a much larger coverup of the apparent abduction and execution by explosives of hundreds of radical Islamic extremists from neighbouring countries.
After all you can speculate about how they died... but not about the fact they died in terrorist attacks in Iraq. It really would be too much of a stretch to suggest that intelligence agencies were responsible for the suicide bombings AND for tricking the families and friends of radical Islamic devotees into praising them as martyrs.
Or even if 2 SAS guys did set off 1 explosion in Iraq it really wouldn't count for shit stacked alonside all the real suicide attacks. Kind of like the CIA importing cocaine into Columbia. Even if they did who the hell should care.
What we have in Iraq is planned chaos. After the initial invasion there was a quiet period, but then the attacks on coaliton troops began in earnest.
Of course these attacks didn`t quite make sense. Large bombs going off in built up areas like Baghdad, these were followed by media reports of large craters being formed. This is inconsistant with car bombs!
I suspect that these attacks were being carried out by three distinct groups. CIA funded/supplied Iraqi war lords, elite US/UK/Mossad special forces and a good sized chunk of Dick Cheney`s private army (retired elite forces). This is bourn out by the US assassination of Italian spy Nicola Calilpari who made the US/insurgent link. Then we have the two SAS chaps caught in Basra. The Brits had no problem getting them back, but would they be made to talk?
Then we have the complete failure of the US to protect large groups of people, usually police recruits. If one looks at the number of attacks, cars used and explosives we must conclude that there are some big bomb making factories in Iraq, yet not one has been found!
Remember the RAF transporter aircraft shot down North West of Baghdad? Well Blair claimed (in tears) that 10 UK military lost their lives. Well this was a lie! 70 died! Minus 10 leaves 60, thats 60 SAS forces dead! Now I don`t know if the SAS was increased from its usual strength of 200, there were plans to raise this to 500, but anyway it was about a quarter of the total SAS force wiped out.
The big question is who shot them down? The flight was a short hop of about 46 miles. The plane was hit mid-flight. There was no report of US loses which is most strange. you would expect a joint mission in this US controlled region. I suspect this plane was shot down by US fire, the SAS soldiers on board had seen/involved with something they didn`t like, or had directly refused to work with US forces. So on thier next mission were sent off on their own, only to be shot down, future problems removed!
Again, if we look at the kidnappings and beheadings of Berg, Hussan and Bigley. Berg was a Bush hating Jew and was in US custody hours before his death, his execution also looked fake. Hussan had lived through the Kuwait war, the US/UK imposed sanctions, civilian bombings and the invasion of Iraq. She was a star witness in waiting for anyone willing to charge the US/UK with war crimes, so she had to go! Then we have poor Ken Bigley, he escaped and was then caught by his captors with US forces looking on. One of the captors had his face bare and was identified (must have been very close!LOL). The captor beheaded Bigley there and then, US forces did not open fire! All very strange. My opinion is that Bigley had witnessed something and opened his mouth too many times!
You may well ask why the US/UK require all this Chaos. Well we have 1,000,000 Iraqi`s murdered by sanctions. A few years earlier we had Mrs T. state that she could not condone sanctions on SA, yet here we are a few ye
"If one looks at the number of attacks, cars used and explosives we must conclude that there are some big bomb making factories in Iraq, yet not one has been found!"
So your theories about what is going on in Iraq are reliant on your ignorance of what is going on in Iraq. Fantastic.
Bomb making factories are found regularly. One facility was over half a million square feet in size.
Perhaps we will soon see a theory that there is no Iraqi insurgency because there are no Iraqis in Iraq. That would only require you to ignore half a dozen or so more articles this year than you are already so why not ? Make it a clean sweep.
Robert Fisk is the Twin brother of Noam Chompsky.
As time goes by the maggots eventually eat there way out of a corpse and you eventually realize you have been sleeping with the enemy.
If he was so pally with the good people he would obviously be an un-employed journalist.
All the media outlets are controlled by the same FREAKS !
yep that sure is a possibility, the role of the government is to serve the ruling elite and corporate power, and the role of the media is to control the stupid and ignorant masses.
problem is Ian, we are the minority.
Mind you, in Fisk's defence, he was refused entry into the US a little while ago. Somebody somewhere hates him, so he can't be all bad. In a world of Judith Millers he's still a force for good. And I'll also stick up for Chomsky on this basis too. Chomsky only becomes worthless whenever he talks about Israel. Did anyone read the stoush between him and Nick Cohen on znet? Chomsky lost that one and badly. But then again Cohen was made to look like an idiot when it came to the oil-for-food sanctions in Iraq. It seems every hero of dissent will have a facet to them that glints darkly. I wouldn't be stringing them up on that basis.
I got John Pilger pegged as the exception. I'd only fault him for not having decked John Bolton that time he interviewed him. But that's just me being flip.
Tank: Oh yes they say they find bomb factories...don`t they?
Strange how they are always empty, strange that after such claims there is no lull in attacks?
With all the comings and goings its rather strange that coalition forces can`t rumbble one of these (as you say) huge bomb factories in full flow!
What I would expect to see in the media reports are huge gun battles, air strikes resulting in huge explosions, piles of bodies and weapons with head lines saying "Insurgents kicked into Touch".....but oh no, we get..."Marines walked into empty building and called it a bomb factory!!!
I mean if the found just one factory which was up and running and watched it for a few days, they should have enough info to smash a huge chunk of the Insurgents operation, but this never happens...no doubt tipped off by the CIA!LOL
So "Tank" you just keep watching the news, stay happy!
"Bomb making factories are found regularly. One facility was over half a million square feet in size."
I'm guessing that that was the one hiding all of the WMD"s? The one festooned with Iranian flags and staffed by thousands of elite Syrian commandos? The one US troops left in place because they were ordered to protect the oil ministry instead?
I've always admired the concept of 'dual-use'. Under 'dual-use' everything from the garden shed to mum's washing-up gloves were proof that WMDs were being manufactured. They hate us for our freedom! Kill them all!
Whoever came up with that 'dual-use' chestnut - I salute you. You are simultaneously one of the greatest marketing geniuses of our time and the most worthless fucker ever.
"I'm guessing that that was the one hiding all of the WMD"s? The one festooned with Iranian flags and staffed by thousands of elite Syrian commandos? The one US troops left in place because they were ordered to protect the oil ministry instead?
bigislandboy | 10.09.05 - 6:01 pm"
Like I said... if your theories weren't reliant on you ignorance of everything that occurs in Iraq you wouldn't have to make guesses. You would have known exactly what I was talking about.
The funniest part is you people don't know how stupid you look. If I told you there were people in the 60s denying there was such a thing as the VC how long would you laugh for ? An hour ?
You remember how that war turned out right ? You think that humiliating defeat burned into the American psyche has served the US and it's military well since then ?
Because I can't wait to hear the devious scheme which explains why they've opted for the same trick again. Actually don't spoil it for me. Save it for when the green zone falls.
@ Carl Jones | 10.09.05 - 5:25 am
"Tank: Oh yes they say they find bomb factories...don`t they?"
Do they Carl ? I thought you just got through telling us you'd never heard of such a thing ever occurring.
"Strange how they are always empty, strange that after such claims there is no lull in attacks?
I mean if the found just one factory which was up and running and watched it for a few days, they should have enough info to smash a huge chunk of the Insurgents operation, but this never happens...no doubt tipped off by the CIA!LOL"
If they take down one bomb factory it would put a dent in an insurgency estimated at almost 200000 comprising dozens of different and independantly operating factions ?
WTF are you commenting on stuff like this for if you have ABSOLUTELY no understanding of it ?
Forget guerrilla warfare... try finding a kid who is retarded enough to think that if 1 pidgeon in the park dies there will be none tomorrow. That's a real challenge too. Try finding a mentally handicapped child you doesn't surpass your level of intelligence. My god.
""So "Tank" you just keep watching the news, stay happy!"
And you keep reading fantasy fiction. Just stop mistaking it for reality.
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