My Very First Fisk
<p>Ta-daa!  In ritual obeisance to the customs of the blogosphere, I now<br />
perform my very first fisking.  Of Der Fisk himself, in his 8 Nov 2002 column<br />
&#8220;Bush fights for another clean shot in his war&#8221;.</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;A clean shot&#8221; was The Washington Post&#8217;s revolting description of the<br />
murder of the al-Qa&#8217;ida leaders in Yemen by a US &#8220;Predator&#8221; unmanned<br />
aircraft. With grovelling approval, the US press used Israel&#8217;s own<br />
mendacious description of such murders as a &#8220;targeted killing&#8221;<br />
&mdash; and shame on the BBC for parroting the same words on Wednesday.
</p></blockquote>
<p>One wonders which word in the phrase &#8220;targeted killing&#8221; Mr. Fisk is<br />
having problems with.  Since he avers that the phrase &#8220;targeted killing&#8221;<br />
is &#8220;mendacious&#8221;, we can deduce that he believes either the word &#8220;killing&#8221;<br />
or the word &#8220;targeted&#8221; to be false descriptions.</p>
<p>We must therefore conclude that in Mr. Fisk&#8217;s universe, either (a)<br />
members of al-Qaeda can be reduced to patch of carbonized char without<br />
the event properly qualifying as a &#8220;killing&#8221;, or (b) the drone<br />
operators weren&#8217;t targeting that vehicle at all &mdash; they unleashed<br />
a Hellfire on a random patch of the Hadrahamaut that just <em>happened</em><br />
to have a half-dozen known terrorists moseying through it at at the moment<br />
of impact.</p>
<blockquote><p>
How about a little journalistic freedom here? Like asking why this<br />
important al-Qa&#8217;ida leader could not have been arrested. Or tried<br />
before an open court. Or, at the least, taken to Guantanamo Bay for<br />
interrogation.
</p></blockquote>
<p>One imagines Mr. Fisk during World War II, exclaiming in horror<br />
because the Allies neglected to capture entire divisions of the Waffen-SS<br />
intact and subject each Aryan superman to individual criminal trials.</p>
<p>Mr. Fisk&#8217;s difficulty with grasping the concept of &#8220;warfare&#8221; and<br />
&#8220;enemy combatant&#8221; is truly remarkable.  Or perhaps not so remarkable,<br />
considering his apparent failure to grasp the terms &#8220;targeted&#8221; and<br />
&#8220;killing&#8221;.</p>
<blockquote><p>
Instead, the Americans release a clutch of Guantanamo &#8220;suspects&#8221;, one<br />
of whom &mdash; having been held for 11 months in solitary confinement &mdash;<br />
turns out to be around 100 years old and so senile that he can&#8217;t<br />
string a sentence together. And this is the &#8220;war on terror&#8221;?
</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes, Mr. Fisk, it is.  It&#8217;s a war in which our soldiers gives<br />
individual enemy combatants food, shelter, and medical care for 11<br />
months while their terrorists continue mass-murdering innocent<br />
civilian women and children.</p>
<blockquote><p>
But a &#8220;clean shot&#8221; is what President Bush appears to want to take at<br />
the United Nations. First, he wants to force it to adopt a resolution<br />
about which the Security Council has the gravest reservations. Then he<br />
warns that he might destroy the UN&#8217;s integrity by ignoring it<br />
altogether. In other words, he wants to destroy the UN. Does George<br />
Bush realise that the United States was the prime creator of this<br />
institution, just as it was of the League of Nations under President<br />
Woodrow Wilson?
</p></blockquote>
<p>Interesting that Mr. Fisk should mention the League of Nations.  This<br />
would be the same League of Nations that collapsed after 1938 due to its<br />
utter failure to prevent clear-cut aggression by Nazi Germany?  One wonders<br />
how Mr. Fisk supposes the U.N. can possibly escape the League&#8217;s fate<br />
if it fails to sponsor effective action against a genocidal, murdering tyrant<br />
who has stated for the record that he models himself on Hitler.</p>
<p>I congratulate Mr. Fisk &mdash; the phrase &#8220;destroy the U.N.&#8217;s<br />
integrity&#8221;; it is very entertaining.  In other news, George Bush is<br />
plotting to destroy Messalina&#8217;s chastity, William Jefferson Clinton&#8217;s<br />
truthfulness, and Robert Fisk&#8217;s grasp on reality.</p>
<p>Supposing that the U.S. was the prime creator of the U.N., and<br />
supposing that was a mistake, is Mr. Fisk proposing that we should not<br />
have the integrity to shoot our own dog?</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8220;Targeted killing&#8221; &mdash; courtesy of the Bush administration &mdash;<br />
is now what the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon can call<br />
&#8220;legitimate warfare&#8221;. And Vladimir Putin, too. Now the Russians<br />
&mdash; I kid thee not, as Captain Queeg said in the Caine Mutiny<br />
&mdash; are talking about &#8220;targeted killing&#8221; in their renewed war on<br />
Chechnya. After the disastrous &#8220;rescue&#8221; of the Moscow theatre hostages<br />
by the so-called &#8220;elite&#8221; Russian Alpha Special forces (beware, oh<br />
reader, any rescue by &#8220;elite&#8221; forces, should you be taken hostage),<br />
Putin is supported by Bush and Tony Blair in his renewed onslaught<br />
against the broken Muslim people of Chechnya.
</p></blockquote>
<p>We note for the record that should Mr. Fisk be captured by<br />
terrorists, he would prefer to be rescued by non-elite forces; perhaps<br />
a troop of Girl Scouts waving copies of <cite>The Guardian</cite><br />
would satisfy him.  I would defer to Mr. Fisk evident belief that &#8220;non-elite&#8221;<br />
rescuers would increase his chances of surviving the experience, were<br />
it not that I dislike the sight of dying Girl Scouts.</p>
<blockquote><p>
I&#8217;m a cynical critic of the US media, but last month Newsweek ran a<br />
brave and brilliant and terrifying report on the Chechen war. In a<br />
deeply moving account of Russian cruelty in Chechnya, it recounted a<br />
Russian army raid on an unprotected Muslim village. Russian soldiers<br />
broke into a civilian home and shot all inside. One of the victims was<br />
a Chechen girl. As she lay dying of her wounds, a Russian soldier<br />
began to rape her. &#8220;Hurry up Kolya,&#8221; his friend shouted, &#8220;while she&#8217;s<br />
still warm.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>In other words, Russian soldiers behaved like al-Qaeda terrorists, and<br />
this is a bad thing.  Excellent, Mr. Fisk; you appear to be showing some sign<br />
of an actual moral sense here.</p>
<blockquote><p>
Now, I have a question. If you or I was that girl&#8217;s husband or lover<br />
or brother or father, would we not be prepared to take hostages in a<br />
Moscow theatre &mdash; Even if this meant &mdash; as it did &mdash;<br />
that, asphyxiated by Russian gas, we would be executed with a bullet<br />
in the head, as the Chechen women hostage-takers were &mdash; But no<br />
matter. The &#8220;war on terror&#8221; means that Kolya and the boys will be back<br />
in action soon, courtesy of Messrs Putin, Bush and Blair.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Ahh.  So, Mr. Fisk is taking the position that the Russians&#8217; atrocious<br />
behavior in Chechnya justifies hostage-taking and the cold-blooded murder of<br />
hostages in a Moscow theater.  Very interesting.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s follow the logic of just retribution here.  If the rape of a dying<br />
girl in Chechnya by Russian soldiers justifies terrorizing and murdering<br />
hostages in a Moscow theater, then what sort of behavior might the murder of<br />
3000 innocent civilians in Manhattan justify?</p>
<p>We gather that Mr. Fisk thinks it does not justify whacking half a<br />
dozen known terrorists, including the organizer of the U.S.S. Cole<br />
bombing, in the Yemeni desert.  We conclude that Mr. Fisk concedes the<br />
righteousness of retribution, all right, but values the life of each<br />
al-Qaeda terrorist more than those of five hundred unsuspecting<br />
victims of al-Qaeda terrorism.</p>
<blockquote><p>
Let me quote that very brave Israeli, Mordechai Vanunu, the man who<br />
tried to warn the West of Israel&#8217;s massive nuclear war technology,<br />
imprisoned for 12 years of solitary confinement &mdash; and betrayed,<br />
so it appears, by one Robert Maxwell. In a poem he wrote in<br />
confinement, Vanunu said: &#8220;I am the clerk, the technician, the<br />
mechanic, the driver. They said, Do this, do that, don&#8217;t look left or<br />
right, don&#8217;t read the text. Don&#8217;t look at the whole machine. You are<br />
only responsible for this one bolt, this one rubber stamp.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>Mr. Fisk apparently believes that Mr. Vanunu had no responsibility<br />
to betray his country&#8217;s defensive capabilities in the presence of<br />
enemies bent on its utter destruction.  Or did I somehow miss the<br />
incident in which Israel aggressively atom-bombed a neighbor?</p>
<blockquote><p>
Kolya would have understood that. So would the US Air Force officer<br />
&#8220;flying&#8221; the drone which murdered the al-Qa&#8217;ida men in Yemen. So would<br />
the Israeli pilot who bombed an apartment block in Gaza, killing nine<br />
small children as well as well as his Hamas target, an &#8220;operation&#8221;<br />
&mdash; that was the description, for God&#8217;s sake &mdash; which Ariel<br />
Sharon described as &#8220;a great success&#8221;.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Mr. Fisk, whose love for legalism and international due process<br />
commends giving al-Qaeda terrorists individual criminal trials, seems<br />
curiously unaware of that portion of the Geneva Convention relating to<br />
the use of non-combatants as human shields.</p>
<p>One wonders if he would be persuaded by the Geneva Convention<br />
language assigning responsibility for these deaths not to Israel, but<br />
to Hamas.</p>
<p>One suspects not.  In Mr. Fisk&#8217;s universe, it&#8217;s clear that there is<br />
one set of rules for Israelis and another for terrorists.  Hamas<br />
terrorists committing atrocities are justified by Israeli actions,<br />
while Israelis committing what Mr. Fisk prefers to consider atrocities<br />
are evil and the behavior of Hamas completely irrelevant.</p>
<p>But we know, from Mr. Fisk&#8217;s famous report of his beating in Afghanistan,<br />
what his actual rule is: hating Americans justifies anything.</p>
<blockquote><p>
These days, we all believe in &#8220;clean shots&#8221;. I wish that George Bush<br />
could read history. Not just Britain&#8217;s colonial history, in which we<br />
contrived to use gas against the recalcitrant Kurds of Iraq in the<br />
1930s. Not just his own country&#8217;s support for Saddam Hussein<br />
throughout his war with Iran.
</p></blockquote>
<p>This would be the same Iran that belligerantly and unlawfully seized<br />
the U.S. Embassy in 1979, correct?  And held Americans hostage for 120<br />
days, committing an act of war under the international law Mr. Fisk<br />
claims to so scrupulously respect?</p>
<p>It would be entertaining to watch Mr. Fisk argue that Saddam Hussein<br />
was not then fit to be an ally of the U.S. against its enemies, but is now<br />
&mdash; after twenty years of atrocities aggressive warfare &mdash; such<br />
an upstanding citizen of the international community that we should<br />
stand idly by while he arms himself with nuclear weapons.</p>
<blockquote><p>
The Iranians once produced a devastating book of coloured photographs<br />
of the gas blisters sustained by their soldiers in that war. I looked<br />
at them again this week. If you were these men, you would want to<br />
die. They all did. I wish someone could remind George Bush of the<br />
words of Lawrence of Arabia, that &#8220;making war or rebellion is messy,<br />
like eating soup off a knife.&#8221;
</p></blockquote>
<p>I wonder if Mr. Fisk can point to any instance in which George Bush ever<br />
stated that he expected the war with al-Qaeda to be &#8220;clean&#8221;?  If I recall<br />
correctly. &#8220;clean shot&#8221; was the Washington Post&#8217;s phrase.</p>
<p>Can Mr. Fisk fail to be aware that the Post&#8217;s editorial board is<br />
run by ideological enemies of George Bush, persons who would, outside<br />
of wartime, hew rather closer to Mr. Fisk&#8217;s positions than George<br />
Bush&#8217;s?</p>
<p>Mr. Fisk, I don&#8217;t think any American policymaker doubts that war is hell.<br />
Nor that terrorism is even worse.</p>
<blockquote><p>
And I suppose I would like Americans to remember the arrogance of<br />
colonial power.
</p></blockquote>
<p>We have quite vivid historical memories of the arrogance of Mr. Fisk&#8217;s<br />
particular colonial power, in fact.  We recall fighting a revolution to<br />
deal with it.</p>
<p>If Mr. Fisk could point out any American colonies in Iraq, or Iran, or<br />
Palestine, or Chechnya, we would be greatly educated.</p>
<blockquote><p>
 Here, for example, is the last French executioner in Algeria during<br />
the 1956-62 war of independence, Fernand Meysonnier, boasting only<br />
last month of his prowess at the guillotine. &#8220;You must never give the<br />
guy the time to think. Because if you do he starts moving his head<br />
around and that&#8217;s when you have the mess-ups. The blade comes through<br />
his jaw, and you have to use a butcher&#8217;s knife to finish it off. It is<br />
an exorbitant power &mdash; to kill one&#8217;s fellow man.&#8221;<br />
So perished the brave Muslims of the Algerian fight for freedom.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Ah.  Did I miss the part where American were using guillotines as a method<br />
of execution, then?</p>
<blockquote><p>
No, I hope we will not commit war crimes in Iraq &mdash; there will be<br />
plenty of them for us to watch &mdash; but I would like to think that<br />
the United Nations can restrain George Bush and Vladimir Putin and, I<br />
suppose, Tony Blair. But one thing is sure. Kolya will be with them.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Mr. Fisk&#8217;s surety that American troops will while away their time<br />
in Baghdad raping dying Iraqi girls appears to come from the same<br />
eccentric brain circuitry that supposes U.S. to be a &#8220;colonial&#8221; power and to<br />
be in imminent danger of performing botched executions with guillotines<br />
and butcher knives.</p>
<p>Mr. Fisk neglects an important difference between U.S. soldiers and<br />
al-Qaeda terrorists.</p>
<p>Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, U.S. soldiers found<br />
guilty of such behavior can be &mdash; and, on the rare occasions it<br />
has occurred, frequently have been &mdash; court-martialed and shot.<br />
Not that it seems Mr. Fisk would be likely to acknowledge the<br />
existence of <em>this</em> law, or that it is ever applies.</p>
<p>To Mr. Fisk&#8217;s inability to grasp the terms &#8220;targeted&#8221; and &#8220;killing&#8221;<br />
we may therefore add an inability to grasp the terms &#8220;barbarism&#8221; and<br />
&#8220;civilization&#8221;.</p>
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