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05 May, 2006

Beating About The Bush? Not With Hersh
By Robert Fisk

Sy Hersh is an ornery, cussed sort of guy, not one to suffer fools gladly. As the man who broke the My Lai story and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, I reckon he has a right to be ornery from time to time – and cussed

03 April, 2006

A Lesson From The Holocaust For Us All
By Robert Fisk

At a second-hand book stall in the Rue Monsieur le Prince in Paris a few days ago, I came across the second volume of Victor Klemperer's diaries.Reading these diaries as the RER train takes me out to Charles de Gaulle airport - I wish President Ahmadinejad of Iran could travel with me

22 March, 2006

The Iraq War: Three Years On
By Robert Fisk

Even today the occupation powers tell awesome lies. Democracy is taking hold when the "Iraqi" government controls only a few acres of Baghdad greensward. The insurgency is being crushed when 40,000 armed Iraqis are ripping into the greatest army on Earth; freedom is taking hold when thousands of Iraqis are dying each month

03 March, 2006

Somebody Is Trying To Provoke A Civil War In Iraq
By Robert Fisk & Tony Jones

I'd like to know what the Americans are doing to get at the people who are trying to provoke the civil war. It seems to me not very much. We don't hear of any suicide bombers being stopped before they blow themselves up. We don't hear of anybody stopping a mosque getting blown up. We're not hearing of death squads all being arrested. Something is going very, very wrong in Baghdad. Something is going wrong with the Administration

27 February, 2006

Is The Problem Weather, Or Is It War?
By Robert Fisk

Something more serious is happening to our planet which we are not being told about

13 January, 2006

Ariel Sharon
By Robert Fisk

Extracted from The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, by Robert Fisk

15 November, 2005

Torture’s Out. Now They Call It Abuse
By Robert Fisk

American journalists now refer to "abuse laws" rather than torture laws. Yes, abuse sounds so much better, doesn’t it? No screaming, no cries of agony when you’re abused

06 June, 2005

Who Killed Samir Kassir?
By Robert Fisk

The bloody hand has reached out to Lebanon once more, striking down one of its most prominent journalists and one of the most vociferous and bravest critics of the Syrian regime

09 April, 2005

Time To Commemorate The End Of
Lebanese Civil War

By Robert Fisk

That Lebanon's war did not restart with Hariri's murder is a sign of the people's maturity and of their wisdom, especially the vast sea of young Lebanese who were educated abroad during the conflict and who do not - and, I suspect, will not - tolerate another civil war

04 April, 2005

Prisoners In Their Own Fortresses
By Robert Fisk

Sitting behind that loophole in the castle at Tripoli, I could even see new meaning in Osama bin Laden's constant reference to the Americans as "the Crusader armies"

28 March, 2005

When Weeping For Religious Martyrs Leads
To The Crucifixion Of Innocents

By Robert Fisk

Passion and redemption were part of our parents’ religious experience. It would be wiser to reflect on the sins of our human gods,those evangelicals who also claim we are fighting for "good" against "evil"

22 March, 2005

Iraqi Invasion Reverberates Across The Middle East
By Robert Fisk

The idea that "regime change" would bring new-found stability to the countries of the Gulf - another of President George Bush’s excuses for the 2003 invasion - now appears to be a myth

15 March, 2005

The People Make A Stand Over
The Lies Of Lebanon

By Robert Fisk

Never before have we seen anything like it in Lebanon. Never before have we seen anything like it in the Arab world.Almost a third of the population of Lebanon was there; they walked many miles through the city to Martyrs’ Square, they arrived by bus from the far north and from Sidon in the south, most of them young, many of them children

14 March, 2005

What The Lebanese Fear Most
By Robert Fisk

Assad’s troops are pulling back, but who will replace them in Lebanon?

13 March, 2005

Middle East And Afterlife
By Robert Fisk

In a part of the world where a person’s religion is part of their life, the end of life does not appear so terrible or so final

11 March, 2005

Syrian Ally Returns As Lebanese Prime Minister
By Robert Fisk

The most pro-Syrian prime minister of Lebanon - his cabinet was dubbed "made in Syria" by the US administration - was reappointed by one of the country’s most pro-Syrian presidents

10 March, 2005

Half A Million Gather For Pro-Syrian Rally
To Defy Vision Of US

By Robert Fisk in Beirut

This was an inventive piece of history. Israel certainly killed many thousands of Lebanese - more than the Syrians, although their soldiers took the lives of many hundreds - but the half million roared their approval

08 March, 2005

Is Lebanon Walking Into Another Nightmare?
By Robert Fisk

As the Syrian army begins its withdrawal from Lebanon, after mounting pressure from President George Bush - whose anger at the Syrians has been provoked by the insurgency against American troops in Iraq - there are growing signs that the Syrian retreat is reopening the sectarian divisions of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war

30 January, 2005

The Shia Will Inherit Iraq
By Robert Fisk

Shias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election that will bring them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators of the Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under threat

18 January, 2005

Hotel Journalism Gives American Troops A Free Hand
By Robert Fisk

"Hotel journalism" is the only way to describe it. More and more, Western reporters in Baghdad are reporting from their hotels rather than the streets of Iraq's towns and cities

17 January, 2005

My Return To Baghdad
By Robert Fisk

The brush fires are already being lit but fear not, Bush and Blair will tell us they knew things would get violent on polling day

14 January, 2005

We Won't Go Home And We Won't Vote
By Robert Fisk

They live beneath old fly-blown tents in the car-park of the Mustafa mosque and their canvas-roofed kitchen stands next to a pool of raw sewage, but the refugees from Fallujah will not return home.And they are very definitely not going to vote in the January 30 elections

13 January, 2005

Fear Stalks Baghdad
By Robert Fisk

Baghdad is a city of fear. Fearful Iraqis, fearful militiamen, fearful American soldiers, fearful journalists

10 January, 2005

The Politics Of Lebanon
By Robert Fisk

How Can Syria Keep Lebanon While Condemning Israel?

18 November, 2004

Who Killed Margaret Hassan?
By Robert Fisk

If Margaret Hassan can be kidnapped and murdered, how much further can we fall into the Iraqi pit? There are no barriers, no frontiers of immorality left

02 November, 2004

Bin Laden's Vote Is For Bush
By Robert Fisk & Amy Goodman

"I'm sure he realizes that further threats are more likely to help Bush than Kerry and what Osama Bin Laden wants now, of course, is a president to be elected who will further mire the country into the Middle East swamp, and cause, of course more American casualties, which Bush will surely do. So, I think that this is probably Osama Bin Laden's vote for George W. Bush"

12 October, 2004

The Legacy Of Iraq
By Robert Fisk

Future generations will struggle to escape the legacy of the disaster in Iraq

29 September, 2004

Anyone Remember Abu Ghraib?
By Robert Fisk

Kidnappers demand the release of women held prisoner by the Americans. Abu Ghraib is what they are talking about. Abu Ghraib? Anyone remember Abu Ghraib? Remember those dirty little snapshots?

06 August, 2004

The Tale Of Saddam's Cameraman
By Robert Fisk

Mouffak Daoud's story is extraordinary. For eight years, he was the Iraqi army's top wartime cameraman in the Somme-like conflict against Iran. He was even filming when the Americans stormed into Baghdad in April 2003. He still films for the Iraqi Ministry of Interior

03 August, 2004

Iraq Is About To Explode
By Robert Fisk

Watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realize that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn’t Bush realize this? The American-appointed "government” controls only parts of Baghdad — and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated

29 July, 2004

Baghdad Reeks Of The Stench Of The Dead
By Robert Fisk

The smell of the dead pours into the street through the air-conditioning ducts. Hot, sweet, overwhelming. Inside the Baghdad morgue, there are so many corpses that the fridges are overflowing. The dead are on the floor. Dozens of them

27 July, 2004

Terror By Video
By Robert Fisk

As the heads of Iraq's kidnap victims are sawn off, Koranic recitations--usually by a well-known Saudi imam--are played on the soundtrack. Terror by video is now a well-established part of the Iraq war

20 July, 2004

Crisis Of Information In Baghdad
By Robert Fisk

Here is the central crisis of information in Iraq just now. With journalists confined to Baghdad--several have not left their hotels for more than two weeks - a bomb-free day in the capital becomes a bomb-free day in Iraq

09 July, 2004

Imported Democracy Of Iraq
By Robert Fisk

Iraq has introduced legislation allowing the Iraqi authorities to impose martial law; curfews; a ban on demonstrations; the restriction of movement; phone-tapping; the opening of mail; and the freezing of bank accounts

05 July, 2004

The New Iraq
By Robert Fisk

One leftist group in Baghdad now claims that several women, allegedly raped by Iraqi policemen at the jail while Americans watched, have been murdered by their families for their "dishonour"

Pentagon Tried To Censor Saddam's Hearing
By Robert Fisk

A team of US military officers acted as censors over all coverage of the hearings of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen , destroying videotape of Saddam in chains and deleting the entire recorded legal submissions of 11 senior members of his former regime

03 July, 2004

The Defiant Dicatator
By Robert Fisk

Watching that face, one had to ask how much Saddam had reflected on the very real crimes with which he was charged: Halabja; Kuwait; the suppression of the Shi'ite Muslim and Kurdish uprisings in 1991; the tortures and the mass killings

02 July, 2004

Another Circus In Bagdad
By Robert Fisk

No mention of power cuts and violence at trial of the century

30 June, 2004

Alice In An Iraqi Wonderland
By Robert Fisk

What is supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed--like a birthday party--because it might rain on Wednesday

Savages Of The 21st Century
By Robert Fisk

The American torturers in Iraq are creatures of our century. For if you are taught to despise your enemy as inhuman, you will - if you get the chance - cease to be a human yourself

The Immoral war
By Robert Fisk

The Abu Ghraib pictures have the status of those most damaging snapshots of the Vietnam war: the police chief in Saigon executing his Vietcong prisoner, the naked girl burnt by napalm, the pile of bodies at My Lai. For Arabs, read Deir Yassin and the corpses piled in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Chatila in 1982

Pictures Of Wounded Men
Being Shot Censored By TV

By Robert Fisk

As a wounded Iraqi crawls from beneath a burning truck, an American helicopter pilot tells his commander that one of three men has survived his night air attack. He received the reply: "Hit him, hit the truck and him." As the helicopter's gun camera captures the scene on video, the pilot fires a 30mm gun at the wounded man, vaporising him in a second

George Bush Has Legitimised Terrorism
By Robert Fisk

What better recruiting sergeant could Bin Laden have than the President of the United States?

Najaf Bloodbath A Bad Omen For Coalition Forces
By Robert Fisk

That the latest bloodbath should have occurred in Najaf - one of the holiest shrines in Islam - was as dangerous as it was painfully symbolic

Atrocity In Fallujah
By Robert Fisk

These were the horrors of Iraq, pictures which would have reminded the world of the American debacle in Somalia had they been shown outside the Middle East

Occupiers Spend Millions On Private
Army Of Security Men

By Robert Fisk and Severin Carrell

An army of thousands of mercenaries has appeared in Iraq's major cities, many of them former British and American soldiers hired by the occupying Anglo-American authorities and by dozens of companies who fear for the lives of their employees

Mordechai Vanunu- The Man
Who Knew Too Much

By Robert Fisk

He was drugged, kidnapped and locked up for 18 years after revealing Israel's nuclear secrets to the world. Next month Mordechai Vanunu is finally set to be released, but just how much freedom will he be allowed?

The Chilling Implications Of
The Killing Of Sheikh Yassin

By Robert Fisk

Yet another Arab - another leader, however vengeful and ruthless - had been assassinated. It's getting to be a habit

New Iraq? Hooded Protest
And Masked Statistics

By Robert Fisk

The US military searches of Iraqi Sunni villages, the Israeli-style battering down of doors and houses, the constant American killing of innocents is embittering a new generation of Iraqis. And soon we will have "democracy" in Iraq

Spanish Soldiers Pepare To Return Home
By Robert Fisk

"We used to think of 'us' here and 'them' - our Spanish people - 'there'," Colonel Benito says. "Now we think much more that 'here' is also Spain."

Iraq: A Year Of War
By Robert Fisk

The invasion of Iraq would, we were told, rid the world of mortal danger. One year on, the only people who feel safer are those who prefer not to think for themselves

The West Was Warned. Now It Is Paying
The Price Of The 'War On Terror'

By Robert Fisk

The Madrid bombings are not only a terrible revenge for Spain's participation in "part two" of the "war on terror" - the illegal invasion of Iraq - but a cruel and incrementally more painful attack on civilians by al-Qa'ida

Happy First Birthday, War On Iraq
By Robert Fisk

It was almost year ago, on March 20, when the first bombs struck 30km from Baghdad. And what followed are better not said

The Unexplained Death Of Mohamed Aboul Abbas
By Robert Fisk

Perhaps Aboul Abbas will always be on the margins of Palestinian history. But he will be the first Palestinian leader to die in US custody, and thus is assured his place in "Palestine's" history

More Interested In Electricity Than Constitutions
By Robert Fisk

Veiled ladies and tribal sheikhs, some good men and true but also a convicted fraudster, Ahmed Chalabi, scribbled their signatures on the new Iraq constitution in front of the US proconsul Paul Bremer on Monday

'It's the same old Iraq"
By Robert Fisk

Each time I return to Iraq, it's the same, like finding a razor blade in a bar of chocolate. The moment you start to believe that "New Iraq" might work - just - you get the proof that it's the same old Iraq, just a little tiny bit worse than it was last month

Shia vs Sunni Civil War?
No, I Dont Believe It

By Robert Fisk

There never has been a civil war in Iraq.Never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. But, now the Americans warn us of a civil war. And then the deadly explosions. Are they all just coincidences?

The Fantasy Of Democracy In An Arab State
By Robert Fisk

The West never wanted the Arab states to have democracy. Now they break into Iraq, promising democracy. But after so many deaths, where is it?

British Soldiers 'Kicked Iraqi Prisoner To Death'
By Robert Fisk

Eight young Iraqis arrested in Basra were kicked and assaulted by British soldiers, one of them so badly that he died in British custody

Mr Bush Has One Priority For 2004
By Robert Fisk

Get America out of Iraq. Fast Iraq is breaking up into rebels and collaborators, with a vast heap of innocent bodies turning up each day at the morgues

UK Charity Seeks Compensation Over
"Lost" Cancer Drugs For Iraqi Children

By Robert Fisk

A British charity for Iraqi children is demanding that the Government repay almost £100,000 to its donors after nearly half its shipment of medicines ­ including vital cancer drugs ­ was lost by the British Army after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq

From Joy To Despair: Iraqis Pay For Saddam's Capture
By Robert Fisk

"Saddam brought us to this tragedy and the Americans used it," he said. "You want to know who is to blame? I say this: Fuck Saddam and fuck the USA."

Iraq Through The American Looking Glass
By Robert Fisk

Terror is being let loose in Iraq in order to elicit information about the guerrillas who are killing American troops

Capturing Saddam Won't End The War
By Robert Fisk

Saddam was neither the spiritual nor the political guide to the insurgency that is now claiming so many lives in Iraq. However happy Messrs Bush and Blair may be at the capture of Saddam, the war goes on

Shifting Truths
By Robert Fisk

How genocides become "alleged genocides"

Attacked For Telling Some Home Truths
By Robert Fisk

The bitter truth that is unfolding in Iraq is a taboo in America. And those who prefer to speak out should watch out

Press Freedom Falls Short In Iraq
By Robert Fisk

Freedom of the press is beginning to smell a little rotten in the new Iraq

The Palestine Regiment
By Robert Fisk

How an Arab and a Jew fought Hitler, then each other, and died as friends

Frightening Winds Swirl Around
The House Of Saud

By Robert Fisk

Sunday's attack in Riyadh is part of a growing insurrection against Bin Laden's enemies in the House of Saud

When Did "Arab" Become A Dirty Word?
By Robert Fisk

Is "Palestinian" now just a dirty word? Or is "Arab" the dirty word?

“This is a Resistance Movement,
Whether We Like It or Not”

By Robert Fisk

Robert Talks to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

Iraq's Guerrillas Learn The American Lesson
By Robert Fisk

The Iraqi guerilla's have learnt a lesson from America's "war on terror". Kill the leadership.

Living On Lies
By Robert Fisk

All American soldiers are supposed to believe that Osama bin Laden's "al-Qa'ida" guerrillas, pouring over Iraq's borders from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia are assaulting United States forces as part of the "war on terror"

A Lethal Step Towards War
By Robert Fisk

US gave Israel greenlight for attack on Syria

Oil, War And A Growing Sense Of Panic In The US
By Robert Fisk

The USA occupied Iraq but it can't make the oil flow. The cost of making it flow could produce an economic crisis in the US. And it is this - rather than the daily killing of young American soldiers - that lies behind the Bush administration's growing panic

Edward Said: An Icon And an Iconoclast
By Robert Fisk

Edward Said railed against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath

Iraq's Occupiers Lose Touch With Reality
By Robert Fisk

A culture of secrecy has descended upon the Anglo-American occupation authorities in Iraq. They will give no tally of the Iraqi civilian lives lost each day

SABRA AND SHATILA
By Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk was one of the first journalists to be present at the scene of the horrific murders in Lebanon, September 17th, 1982. He has published a number of different books and currently writes columns for The Independent newspaper. The following is extracted from his book, "Pity the Nation."

Secret Slaughter By Night, Lies And Blind Eyes By Day
By Robert Fisk

Almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative figure

Manipulating Grief Of 9/11
By Robert Fisk

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

How 'liberation' has brought anarchy to Kabul,
and now history is repeated in Baghdad

By Robert Fisk

For Fallujah, read Kandahar. For Baghdad, read Kabul

How The British Troops Became A Soft Target
By Robert Fisk

Whether or not Tony Blair realises it, the British are playing once more the game of colonial occupiers - and now it is time to pay the price

So He Thinks It’s All Over...
By Robert Fisk

When Iraqi civilians look into the faces of American troops, President Bush famously told the world on Thursday, “they see strength and kindness and goodwill”. Untrue, Mr Bush. They see occupation

 

Final Chapter: Burning Books
By Robert Fisk

Library Books, Letters and Priceless Documents are Set Ablaze in Final Chapter of the Sacking of Baghdad

Why Syria Is in America’s Gunsights
By Robert Fisk

Syria, Israel’s second most powerful enemy is now in America’s gunsights

Americans Knew What to Defend
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

If the Americans looked on as looters plundered and vandalized Baghdad musuem, tanks and armoured personnel carriers were positioned to defend the Ministry of Interior, and the Ministry of Oil

Vandalization of Iraq's History
By Robert Fisk, In Baghdad

In Baghdad's most important museum, something truly terrible has taken place, while the occupation looked on

So What Was The War For?
By Robert Fisk

More than 50 dead in a week. Thanks for the Iraq war.

An Anti-Colonial War Against
The Americans May Have Already Begun

By Robert Fisk and Amy Goodman

An Interview With Robert Fisk On Democracy Now

In Baghdad, Blood And Bandages For The Innocent
By Robert Fisk in the Baghdad suburb of Shu'ale

At least 62 civilians had died by yesterday afternoon by a missile attack in the Baghdad suburb of shu'ale. While the Americans and the British are trying to put the blame on Iraq, the coding on the piece of metal retrieved from the site contains the identity of the culprit.

Bombing of phone system, another little degradation
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

As the relentless bombing campaign in Bagdad continues, the telecommunications system is shattered

Raw, Painful, Devastating War
By Robert Fisk

The unedited al-Jazeera videotape -- filmed over the past 36 hours and newly arrived here -- is raw, painful, devastating.It is also proof that Basra is indeed under the control of Saddam's forces.

'It Was An Outrage, An Obscenity'
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

At Abu Taleb Street more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces by two missiles from an American jet , before they could be 'liberated' by the nation that destroyed their lives.

 

Iraq Liberated? The Real Story Begins Now
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

Winning a war is one thing. Succeeding in the ideological and economic project that lies behind this whole war is quite another. The "real" story for America's mastery over the Arab world starts now.

Does The US Military Want To Kill Journalists
By Robert Fisk

Was it possible to believe this was an accident? Or was it possible that the right word for these killings was murder?

Reporters or Snipers? Journalists Murdered in Baghdad
By Robert Fisk

As the American invaders are on a killing spree in Baghdad, even the journalists reporting the war are being targeted. Three journalists lose their life on day 20.

Amid Allied jubilation, a Child Lies in Agony,
Clothes Soaked in Blood

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

The innocent are bleeding and screaming with pain to bring us our exciting television pictures

American Thrust Into Baghdad Had Neither
Humility nor Honour

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

It seemed as if Baghdad would fall within hours. But the day was characterised by crazed normality, high farce and death

The Allied Grip Tightens on Baghdad
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

On the streets, grim evidence of a bloody battle

TheTwisted Language of War
That is Used to Justify the Unjustifiable

By Robert Fisk

Why do we aid and abet the lies and propaganda of this filthy war?

The Battle of Baghdad
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

'Ever so slowly, the suburbs were turned into battlefields'

Live From Iraq, an Un-Embedded Journalist
By Robert Fisk, Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill

Robert Fisk on Washington’s ‘Quagmire’ in Iraq, Civilian Deaths and the Fallacy of Bush’s ‘War of Liberation’

Wailing Children, the Wounded, the Dead: Victims of the Day Cluster Combs Rained on Babylon
By Robert Fisk, in Baghdad

They fell like "small grapefruit". But they exploded and took many lives with it. The day that Cluster bombs rain down on Babylon.

Saddam Starts To Sound More Like His Hero, Uncle Joe
By Robert Fisk In Baghdad

President Saddam Hussain in his address on Iraqi TV sounded like his hero, Joseph Stalin.

The Monster of Baghdad is Now the Hero of Arabia
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

This is now a nationalist war against the most obvious kind of imperial power

Sergeant's Suicidal Act of War Has Struck
Fear Into Allied Hearts

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Noman's suicide attack on American soldiers throws up new challenges for the Anglo-American forces

Baghdad Under The Shadow Of War
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

"If the people of Baghdad could pretend, a few days ago, that the war did not exist, yesterday they were living in its shadow."

Minute After Minute the Missiles Came,
With Devastating Shrieks

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

Robert Fisk on the devastating shrieks of shock and awe

Baghdad Sleepwalking Into History
By Robert Fisk

On the eve of the imminent war, life in Baghdad goes on as usual, like a sleep walk into history

 

 

 

 

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