August 27, 2002
ROBERT FISK HAS BEEN INVITED TO SPEAK at George Mason University. A reader wants some links shedding light on Fisk’s journalistic and moral failings, as demonstrated over the past year. I could provide the usual, but I thought this ought to be a group project. Comments are enabled. Working links are appreciated.
Carey Gage says:
Can I be first?
How’s this:
The US deserved what it got on 9/11. From a telephone interview by Digital Freedom Network. The entire interview is online at http://www.dfn.org/voices/afghanistan/fisk-dfninterview.htm.
DFN: You have suggested in your article “The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People” that America bears some responsibility for the tragedy of September 11. Do you think America’s involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the primary reason for bin Laden’s anger toward the West or do you think it has more to do with America’s support of Saudi Arabia?
Fisk: If bin Laden is indeed involved then it is the second point, but you can’t divorce the first point. The Arab-Israeli dispute and America’s hopelessly biased attempts to solve it are part of foundation of anger and humilation in the Middle East region. You simply can’t view incidents however horrific or criminal in isolation from history and the tragedy which is going on in the Middle East. I assume we’re both in agreement that the September 11 atrocities was the work of a Middle East group.
First, not a word about intentionally causing the maximum number of civilian casualties possible, and second, if American policy is an acceptable excuse/reason for an attack on American civilians, why wasn’t Taliban policy a similarly acceptable reason for the retaliatory attack on Afghanistan? Why wouldn’t the Palestinian policy of suicide attacks on US citizens who happened to be in Israel be an acceptable reason for taking out Arafat and the Palestinian Authority?
Finally, does he still seriously believe that bin Laden did not mount the 9/11 attacks?
August 27, 2002, 12:01 pmDiana says:
My alltime favorite is when HD Miller pointed out in an article whining about hate mail, Fisk criticized Judea Pearl by name, but did not identify Professor Pearl as Daniel Pearl’s father. This was doubly horrifying because it came only a couple of months after Fisk had written a fulsome appeal to Pearl’s kidnappers to let him go. In this appeal Fisk called himself a “friend” of Pearl. Did he not realize that Judea Pearl was his “friend’s” father? But what was most horrible about printing Judea Pearl’s name in this article was the implication that Pearl’s father was some sort of hate-mail stalker-maniac. There is no way in the world that Fisk did NOT know Judea Pearl was Danny Pearl’s father. The name is not that common, and around the time the article was written, Professor Pearl paid a visit to London to accept an award, which was covered in the British papers.
August 27, 2002, 12:09 pmDavid says:
Is he still falling for the ol’ “millions of
Iraqi children are dying under sanctions” routine
even though it has been debunked?
http://www.progressive.org/0901/intv1201.html
August 27, 2002, 12:13 pmWill Vehrs says:
I don’t know what the objective is of discrediting someone before he speaks. I would doubt that very many GMU students know who Fisk is and what he stands for. I would hope this isn’t an effort to silence him or to generate protests that might block or drown out his speech.
Let the man speak. However vile his previous statements have been and however distasteful his opinions, he is entitled to make his case. Those who disagree with him should be there in force to ask questions if he takes them, write letters to the editor of the school paper and other publications commenting on his remarks, and seeking GMU’s booking of a speaker presenting the other side.
I don’t mean to be snide, but it’s a little disconcerting to see someone, presumably a student, ask Instapundit to do his leg work for him. What’s next, the Blogosphere Homework Hotline?
August 27, 2002, 12:16 pmCarey Gage says:
Will, I don’t see anything wrong with asking someone to help you get some material for a good series of pointed questions, nor is anyone here making the slightest attempt to silence the man.
The old story is the conundrum faced by an idiot: To remain silent and risk being thought a fool, or to speak and remove all doubt.
Fisk has chosen the latter route and there is no reason to refrain from pointing out his idiocies.
August 27, 2002, 12:27 pmN.Z. Bear says:
Wow… this could provide the opportunity for the first-ever LIVE, REAL-TIME FISKING. Very cool.
I’m picturing a net audio/video stream… an open access chatroom… a crack team of anti-idiotarians… prizes for the fastest/most devastating live fisking….
Is he being carried by any TV stations? Maybe the blogosphere could work a deal where we provide realtime closed captions providing the appropriate Fisking….
-NZB
August 27, 2002, 12:30 pmSteven Chapman says:
I have the jackpot for you:
http://www.robert-fisk.com
- the great man’s complete works, lovingly archived by someone-or-another. You can pore over this little lot and make your own mind up, and maybe astound him with questions like: “In your 1995 article on the food shortages in north Beirut you mentioned a brand of hand-lotion imported from Cyprus that works in harmony with your personal ethics. Do you recall the exact pH level of said lotion, Mr Fisk?” Get him on the back foot.
August 27, 2002, 12:31 pmMario F. says:
One word: Jenin.
As far as I understand, he hasn’t retracted a word on the bogus “massacre”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=284647
Fisk: “Why doesn’t Colin Powell go to Jenin? What has happened to the world’s moral compass … when America’s most famous ex-general, the Secretary of State of the most powerful country on earth … fails to grasp what is taking place in front of his nose? The stench of decaying corpses is wafting out of the Palestinian city. The Israeli army is still keeping the Red Cross and journalists from seeing the evidence of the mass killings that have taken place there. “Hundreds” – on Israel’s own admission – have died, including civilians. Why, for God’s sake, can’t Mr Powell do the decent thing and demand an explanation for the extraordinary, sinister events that have taken place in Jenin?”
August 27, 2002, 12:47 pmDamian Penny says:
On February 4, he called upon Osama bin Laden (“I know him and he knows me”) to demand Daniel Pearl’s release.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=117985
August 27, 2002, 1:00 pmE. E. says:
Why does the invitation to gather INFORMATION to hold someone accountable equated with possible silencing?
Free speech does not mean never being criticized.
August 27, 2002, 1:15 pmJohn Hawkins says:
A fisking of what I think is Fisk’s greatest piece of idiocy (and that’s saying something)
If I Was an Afghan I Too Might Have Attacked Robert Fisk
http://www.rightwingnews.com/crackpots/fisk.php
August 27, 2002, 1:32 pmJohn B. says:
This is the article where Fisk quotes Judea Pearl: http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=294787
August 27, 2002, 1:41 pmJosh says:
I’d like to know if non-students can attend Fisk’s speech. I don’t go to Mason, but I do go to school around here. Is it open, or a lecture in a class?
August 27, 2002, 1:42 pmDean says:
Mr. Vehrs:
I remember when I was a student attending talks by various folks. You’d ask a question, sometimes being the first, sometimes as a follow-up. Only later might you come across items that would make you slap your forehead and say, “Wait-a-minute! That’s not what he said here!”
I would think that the request noted here was more asking for pointers for more information than it is an attempt to silence Mr. Fisk (something that, really, could only be done w/ the university’s connivance).
Note, too, that Fisk, for all his notoriety in the blogosphere, is hardly a commonplace commentator, unlike say Chomsky or even Richard Falk. If you’re not a regular reader of the blogosphere, or commondreams.org, it’s quite possible you’d never heard of him at all OTHER than on a university flyer, no doubt characterizing him as “renowned Middle East journalist and analyst Robert Fisk.”
August 27, 2002, 1:53 pmDan Dickinson says:
Thoughtful input from Will Vehrs. I think the students might want to know what to expect but be prepared to challenge Fisk first only as to what he might say upon that instant occasion.
August 27, 2002, 1:53 pmErik says:
The interview that David posted (www.progressive.org/0901/intv1201.html) actually contains a really sensible Fisk quote (which, from a collector’s standpoint, is much rarer than a nutty, reprehensible Fisk statement). Here it is:
The Muslim world has not begun to ask about the bin Ladens, and the Mullah Omars, and the Mohamed Attas. There hasn’t been a single sociological inquiry, not one serious discourse about how these people came to be what they are. When are Muslims in the Middle East and in the subcontinent going to ask these questions? How could believers, people who regard themselves as true Muslims, get on those planes, quoting the words of God delivered through the Prophet to themselves, knowing they were going to kill innocent people? They saw the other passengers on the plane. They could see the woman with her little daughter. They saw people making phone calls to their wives or their husbands. They knew who they were killing. These guys got on airplanes with kids and women and innocent people on board, knowing that they were going to vaporize them. And they came on board allegedly rereading quotations from the Koran. There is a problem here. And I don’t think that problem has got anywhere near being addressed in the Muslim world. 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. And I haven’t seen anyone address that issue out here. And they should.
August 27, 2002, 1:58 pmDean Peters says:
So who is going to ‘blog live’ this event. I’d go, but driving across the Potomac scares me (and takes alot of time!-)
August 27, 2002, 2:08 pmBill Herbert says:
My favorite would be this one:
“The Lesson Of History: Afghanistan Always Beats Its Invaders.”
I think the title speaks for itself.
But I also think that his wretchedness is all the more evident when you look at his work in its totality, as I’ve said numerous times.
He’s actually depicted Afghanistan as a “deathtrap” filled with people itching to kill Westerners, and also as the Switzerland of South Asia, in which the possibility that there might be terrorists shouldn’t even be considered, all within the space of a week.
August 27, 2002, 2:15 pmWill Collier says:
I don’t have anything to add to the Fisk-A-Thon, but since this is the highest-up activated comments box at the moment, I’ll take this opportunity to say…
“Happy Birthday, IP!”
August 27, 2002, 2:29 pmHenry Hanks says:
“Let Fisk make his case…” like conservatives appearing on college campuses have ever been allowed.
August 27, 2002, 2:36 pmPejman Yousefzadeh says:
I think that there is a great deal of material with which to tag Fisk. But the article in which he celebrated his beating pretty much has to take the cake.
Specifically, it would be interesting to ask him questions about the injuries he received. A single individual facing the kind of mob that Fisk depicted in his article would have been beaten within an inch of his life, if not outright killed. And yet, from examining the photos, Fisk’s “injuries” looked relatively mild considering the circumstances. I wonder if anyone else’s suspicions were raised as well. I know that Fisk had precisely one person to assist him in getting away from the mob, but that one person could not have been much help, and probably would have been killed as well.
Finally, let me add my voice to the Happy Birthday chorus for Instapundit. As we Iranian Jews wish to one another, Glenn, may you have 120 years of life.
August 27, 2002, 2:51 pmCarey Gage says:
And happy birthday, too.
August 27, 2002, 2:55 pmWill Vehrs says:
I don’t know this person’s motives or plans. I was merely offering a cautionary note, hoping he was not going to be part of anything that would be an affront to free speech. I certainly applaud anyone who researches an upcoming speaker so as to be prepared for the issues addressed. Perhaps he/she exhausted Google before contacting Glenn.
As for the fact that conservatives have been denied free speech on campuses, responding in kind seems to me to be the absolute worst reaction. Conservatives ought to set an example and live by their principles, not compete with the radical fringe.
Happy birthday to the Godfather of Blogging, the hardest working man in blog business ….
August 27, 2002, 3:00 pmAl Robinson says:
There is always the latest headline:
Fisk:It is not my job to provide the evidence for a war crimes tribunal
All he has been doing over the past year is providing his own evidence for atrocities committed by the Israelis and the US. His own vision is so clouded that if he dared make statements in a court such as he makes in his column, he’d be held on perjury charges.
August 27, 2002, 3:02 pmPorphyrogenitus says:
Dittoes to what Will Vehrs just said.
Addendum, of course, is that there’s nothing against countering speech with speech, so if their’s a Q & A period, whoever goes should ask some probing questions.
I do also ask: let them be questions, and not a speech.
August 27, 2002, 3:06 pmBarry Molefsky says:
This is what the GMU website says about Fisk’s appearence:
SEPTEMBER 11
Ask Who Did It, but Don’t Ask Why
Guest lecturer Robert Fisk
Author and award winning Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper, the Independent.
Flying in from Beirut, where he’s been based for the past 25 years, Fisk will present his provocative perspective. Fisk’s contention is that U.S. media have failed to tell the public the whole story about what is really going on in the Middle East.
Sponsored by George Mason’s Office of the Provost, the presentation will also include an excerpt from the documentary Beirut to Bosnia: Muslims and the West, a Personal Journey. In the film, Fisk reports on Muslim unrest and conflict with the West, as evidenced in Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and Bosnia.
George Mason University
Please join us :
Date: September 10, 2002
(Tuesday)
Time: 7 p.m.
Place: Dewberry Hall
This free lecture is open to the community. To reserve a seat, RSVP by September 9 to
703-993-8620.
August 27, 2002, 3:32 pmmicah holmquist says:
Erik,
Why are you suprised by this? Fisk has long been critical of the governments in Arab countries.
August 27, 2002, 4:16 pmJames Wink says:
Well,
Since I graduated GMU with a degree in International relations, I would love to go. However, I am now in Norfolk serving my country so I will have to skp it. However, unless Mason has changed radically in the last few years, Fisk should have an interesting time. GMU is the most conservative of all Virginia’s public universities but it does have a large Arab-American population.
Should be some very interesting fireworks at the lecture.
August 27, 2002, 4:55 pmtony says:
happy birthday Glenn! Long may you kick booty.
August 27, 2002, 5:02 pmct says:
Who cares about this dumb creep or what he has to say about anything. The Western equivalent of a retarded Umah.
August 27, 2002, 5:07 pmMcClain says:
Happy Birthday, InstaPundit! :-)
August 27, 2002, 5:33 pmbugs bunny says:
since Mr. Fisk approves of his person being violated in mob violence based on his existence as a person, and he is obviously not racist or ethnocentrist, he’ll obviously not mind if some understandably upset individuals beat him about the head repeatedy???
sorry will but he’s an idiot, and the high road is usually what ashamed libs demand of conservatives.. you don’t want your side silenced bassed on its behaviour, but generally don’t complain very mcuh… your petard hoist much???
just to scare him should bring ina busload from annapolis… just stand there in full parade dress (with accessories maybe???) see him mouth off to a crowd that can competently administer force
August 27, 2002, 6:05 pmRR Ryan says:
I’d be interested to hear what he has to say. I suspect he tailors his written comments for his audience, which is the readership of the Independent. In the context of remarks to Americans, familiarity with his previous work would therefore be useful. Who knows, perhaps he himself made the request to Glenn to better organize confutative material. I doubt that he’s up to the ruse, but given the strangely convenient circumstances surrounding his mob attack, one has to wonder.
August 27, 2002, 6:18 pmDamian Penny says:
Isn’t it ironic that Fiskie thrashes Israel for occupying another ‘country’, but he lives in a Syrian puppet state?
PS: Happy birthday!
August 27, 2002, 7:17 pmTokyo Taro says:
I do not advocate going lightly on the man. Expose his contradictions and fallacies. However, I think that, despite all the hype (his name makes a great verb, an essential part of the blog lexicon), this man is not on par with, say, John Pilger or Ted Rrrrallph, in the disrespectable journalists/commentator spectrum. As Erik noted, he occassionally makes sense and has criticized Arab and Muslim leaders as well, and has written pieces that have condemned Palestinian barbarity (I’m not claiming he’s balanced or consistent). The one other thing to be said in his defense is that he does have access (because of his bias) to various off limits parts of the Muslim world. This insider status can be of value, if we filter out his ideological slant. He’s like a poor (idiotarian) man’s Thomas Friedman. Tell him that at the lecture and see how he reacts.
August 27, 2002, 7:27 pmct says:
Tokyo Taro – Half-assed in getting things right a percentage of the time is not something to compliment. These people are only 10% right because that is the part of their brains and hearts and souls that is telling them that to carry on their evil they have to make motions of being on the side of light 10% of the time. This also gives them ammunition when they’re inevitably defending all the 90% shit they’ve left anywhere they could.
There’s a difference between stupid people not making any noise and stupid people who are actively spreading the worse kinds of lies and misrepresentations in the service of what can only be labeled the forces of darkness.
Here’s my direct experience with the Fisks of the world. Confront them, and they start to cry. Eventually you see they are hollow and very, very ignorant and weak. They are being used by any evil that’s passing in the air that needs to speak or act through them. You simply have to show them no mercy. Ever been around drug addicts? I mean in private, for more than a passing moment? In private where the evil in them does most of the damage it can do.
We’ve got an epidemic of severely, wretchedly, uninformed, ignorant people who have been hand-held through the institutions of higher learning and then been handed jobs in media and academia… This one’s been invited to a University to give a lecture…
August 27, 2002, 7:52 pmJeremy says:
What would be funny, is if many people showed up wearing John Malkovich masks. Malkovich being one of Robert Fisk’s biggest fans…
August 27, 2002, 8:23 pmCracker Barrel Philosopher says:
There’s quite a number of useful references at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/740206/posts prompted by this Fisking of Fisk from NZ
August 27, 2002, 9:02 pmGlen Wishard says:
Fisk was nominated for the 2001 Dishonest Reporting “Award” by Middle East Media Watch (www.honestreporting.com). Our boy did his best, but could not overcome the awesome group effort made by the BBC, which took the award.
The nomination cited most of Fisk’s notable Fisks: The famous “Thank you Sir, may I have another” article, his denunciation of “cowardly” journalists who don’t bash Israel, and his claim that it was “immoral” to pretend that the US didn’t have it coming on 9/11:
“…This is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia paid and uniformed by America’s Israeli ally hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps.”
All of that hacking and raping seems to have roused the rough beast of Fisk’s sado-masochistic fetish, which is perhaps the sad legacy of some long-ago thrashing with a headmaster’s cricket bat. Too bad it can’t be satisfied in a less public fashion.
August 27, 2002, 9:05 pmJames Croak says:
Where to start with this clown? Ask him why John Malkovich, a member of the Hollywood lefties, described Fisk as “the person he would most like to shoot” when asked for such a name during an interview.
http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk0513.html
August 27, 2002, 10:00 pmIron Fist says:
(I don’t give out my real e-mail anymore. Sorry)
Pej is on to something, guys and dolls.
I have a *lot* of experience in this area (Black Belts in two martial arts, and I was nearly beaten to death by *4* men in 1989) (I wasn’t a Black Belt then, but, as my Sensei says “The belt covers 1 3/4″ of your ass. You’d better be able to cover the rest”. It would make an interesting rematch :-).
If enough people come at you, no matter how good you are, they will get you. Ten people who attack me with the intent of killing me will succeed. Not all of them will survive that attempt, but someone will get lucky, and then it’s over. It’s just that simple.
Did Mr. Bellesiles, excuse me, I mean Fisk, stage this? Was the crowd less angry than he implied? Less violent? Were his injuries more severe? The latter seems unlikely, as it would have supported his position.
Pity I don’t live near George Mason University. It might be amusing to watch a group fisking of the unfortunate Mr. Fisk.
[Deep, cruel, vindictive laughter]
Complete aside: Happy birthday, Instantman! May there be many, many more.
August 27, 2002, 10:15 pmHenry Hanks says:
“As for the fact that conservatives have been denied free speech on campuses, responding in kind seems to me to be the absolute worst reaction.”
I totally agree. I wasn’t arguing that he should be shouted down. But he should be challenged when people in the audience are given a chance. It was more of an aside than anything else.
August 27, 2002, 10:26 pmHenry Hanks says:
And happy birthday to the proud papa of more blogs than anyone can count…
August 27, 2002, 10:35 pmJack Strocchi says:
since almost everyone believes that Fisk is a professional failure & political danger,
I will say one thing for him.
He goes in.
Most people are stuck to a desk & OC.
They stay behind.
remember bloggers & cyber addicts,
some people have to go out into the real world and get the story,
ohwever flawed
August 27, 2002, 11:22 pmEd. says:
Robert Fisk is nothing more than gonzo journalism gone mainstream in Britain. Viva Hunter S. Thompson. How unfortunate, though, that Fisk’s employer hasn’t acknowledged the source.
I particularly like the September 10th scheduled date at GMU. Will Fisk be winging home on the 11th?
August 27, 2002, 11:35 pmct says:
“some people have to go out into the real world and get the story,”
What does that statement have to do with the moron in question and his type throughout the world media?
And journalists generally don’t go into truly out-of-control, chaotic, violent areas. Journalists basically stroll into areas like tourists and lazily suck on any easy source of information offered. How many stories have you seen coming out of Liberia lately? What about all those journalists documenting up close and first hand the atocities in Rwanda in the ’90s. Remember them? Of course you don’t because at the time it was a truly dangerous place.
For the most part now every place on the planet covers itself. If it is not doing that then nothing’s going on there or it’s too violent for any outside journalists to risk their safety.
Where were the Robert Fisks of the media world when the terrorists camps and terrorist regime was growing in Afghanastan? Too dangerous to go there.
August 28, 2002, 1:30 amct says:
I apologise for my language in some parts of my posts. It’s easy to lose it with the America-haters and the blatantly, willfully, ignorant (also, those not able to discern ‘degree’ as-well-as those who have a raging desire to, as the Psalmist says, turn people’s glories into shame (paraphrased). “America is the most giving nation in the history of the world? Hey, let’s write a column saying America is the most greedy nation that is too stupid to know the rest of the world exists! Yeah, that’s something to do…” (How can you not lose it with people like that…?) Nevertheless I apologise for the crude insult-type words in parts of my posts…
August 28, 2002, 3:27 amDina says:
Sorry, I misread the name of the University. I though it was the ‘Charles Manson University’ which would seem more appropriate for someone like Fisky-boy.
August 28, 2002, 4:32 amFredAmericanHero says:
I am attending the speech, and I would be happy to keep a journal and post the important parts it soon thereafter, although I have not the means to do it live.
September 10, 2002, 2:09 pm