234 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
234 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
My Very First Fisk
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<p>Ta-daa! In ritual obeisance to the customs of the blogosphere, I now<br />
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perform my very first fisking. Of Der Fisk himself, in his 8 Nov 2002 column<br />
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“Bush fights for another clean shot in his war”.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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“A clean shot” was The Washington Post’s revolting description of the<br />
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murder of the al-Qa’ida leaders in Yemen by a US “Predator” unmanned<br />
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aircraft. With grovelling approval, the US press used Israel’s own<br />
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mendacious description of such murders as a “targeted killing”<br />
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— and shame on the BBC for parroting the same words on Wednesday.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>One wonders which word in the phrase “targeted killing” Mr. Fisk is<br />
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having problems with. Since he avers that the phrase “targeted killing”<br />
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is “mendacious”, we can deduce that he believes either the word “killing”<br />
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or the word “targeted” to be false descriptions.</p>
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<p>We must therefore conclude that in Mr. Fisk’s universe, either (a)<br />
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members of al-Qaeda can be reduced to patch of carbonized char without<br />
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the event properly qualifying as a “killing”, or (b) the drone<br />
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operators weren’t targeting that vehicle at all — they unleashed<br />
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a Hellfire on a random patch of the Hadrahamaut that just <em>happened</em><br />
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to have a half-dozen known terrorists moseying through it at at the moment<br />
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of impact.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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How about a little journalistic freedom here? Like asking why this<br />
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important al-Qa’ida leader could not have been arrested. Or tried<br />
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before an open court. Or, at the least, taken to Guantanamo Bay for<br />
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interrogation.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>One imagines Mr. Fisk during World War II, exclaiming in horror<br />
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because the Allies neglected to capture entire divisions of the Waffen-SS<br />
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intact and subject each Aryan superman to individual criminal trials.</p>
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<p>Mr. Fisk’s difficulty with grasping the concept of “warfare” and<br />
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“enemy combatant” is truly remarkable. Or perhaps not so remarkable,<br />
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considering his apparent failure to grasp the terms “targeted” and<br />
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“killing”.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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Instead, the Americans release a clutch of Guantanamo “suspects”, one<br />
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of whom — having been held for 11 months in solitary confinement —<br />
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turns out to be around 100 years old and so senile that he can’t<br />
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string a sentence together. And this is the “war on terror”?
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Yes, Mr. Fisk, it is. It’s a war in which our soldiers gives<br />
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individual enemy combatants food, shelter, and medical care for 11<br />
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months while their terrorists continue mass-murdering innocent<br />
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civilian women and children.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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But a “clean shot” is what President Bush appears to want to take at<br />
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the United Nations. First, he wants to force it to adopt a resolution<br />
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about which the Security Council has the gravest reservations. Then he<br />
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warns that he might destroy the UN’s integrity by ignoring it<br />
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altogether. In other words, he wants to destroy the UN. Does George<br />
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Bush realise that the United States was the prime creator of this<br />
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institution, just as it was of the League of Nations under President<br />
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Woodrow Wilson?
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Interesting that Mr. Fisk should mention the League of Nations. This<br />
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would be the same League of Nations that collapsed after 1938 due to its<br />
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utter failure to prevent clear-cut aggression by Nazi Germany? One wonders<br />
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how Mr. Fisk supposes the U.N. can possibly escape the League’s fate<br />
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if it fails to sponsor effective action against a genocidal, murdering tyrant<br />
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who has stated for the record that he models himself on Hitler.</p>
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<p>I congratulate Mr. Fisk — the phrase “destroy the U.N.’s<br />
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integrity”; it is very entertaining. In other news, George Bush is<br />
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plotting to destroy Messalina’s chastity, William Jefferson Clinton’s<br />
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truthfulness, and Robert Fisk’s grasp on reality.</p>
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<p>Supposing that the U.S. was the prime creator of the U.N., and<br />
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supposing that was a mistake, is Mr. Fisk proposing that we should not<br />
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have the integrity to shoot our own dog?</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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“Targeted killing” — courtesy of the Bush administration —<br />
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is now what the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon can call<br />
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“legitimate warfare”. And Vladimir Putin, too. Now the Russians<br />
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— I kid thee not, as Captain Queeg said in the Caine Mutiny<br />
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— are talking about “targeted killing” in their renewed war on<br />
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Chechnya. After the disastrous “rescue” of the Moscow theatre hostages<br />
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by the so-called “elite” Russian Alpha Special forces (beware, oh<br />
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reader, any rescue by “elite” forces, should you be taken hostage),<br />
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Putin is supported by Bush and Tony Blair in his renewed onslaught<br />
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against the broken Muslim people of Chechnya.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>We note for the record that should Mr. Fisk be captured by<br />
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terrorists, he would prefer to be rescued by non-elite forces; perhaps<br />
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a troop of Girl Scouts waving copies of <cite>The Guardian</cite><br />
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would satisfy him. I would defer to Mr. Fisk evident belief that “non-elite”<br />
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rescuers would increase his chances of surviving the experience, were<br />
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it not that I dislike the sight of dying Girl Scouts.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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I’m a cynical critic of the US media, but last month Newsweek ran a<br />
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brave and brilliant and terrifying report on the Chechen war. In a<br />
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deeply moving account of Russian cruelty in Chechnya, it recounted a<br />
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Russian army raid on an unprotected Muslim village. Russian soldiers<br />
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broke into a civilian home and shot all inside. One of the victims was<br />
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a Chechen girl. As she lay dying of her wounds, a Russian soldier<br />
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began to rape her. “Hurry up Kolya,” his friend shouted, “while she’s<br />
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still warm.”
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>In other words, Russian soldiers behaved like al-Qaeda terrorists, and<br />
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this is a bad thing. Excellent, Mr. Fisk; you appear to be showing some sign<br />
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of an actual moral sense here.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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Now, I have a question. If you or I was that girl’s husband or lover<br />
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or brother or father, would we not be prepared to take hostages in a<br />
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Moscow theatre — Even if this meant — as it did —<br />
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that, asphyxiated by Russian gas, we would be executed with a bullet<br />
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in the head, as the Chechen women hostage-takers were — But no<br />
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matter. The “war on terror” means that Kolya and the boys will be back<br />
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in action soon, courtesy of Messrs Putin, Bush and Blair.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Ahh. So, Mr. Fisk is taking the position that the Russians’ atrocious<br />
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behavior in Chechnya justifies hostage-taking and the cold-blooded murder of<br />
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hostages in a Moscow theater. Very interesting.</p>
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<p>Let’s follow the logic of just retribution here. If the rape of a dying<br />
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girl in Chechnya by Russian soldiers justifies terrorizing and murdering<br />
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hostages in a Moscow theater, then what sort of behavior might the murder of<br />
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3000 innocent civilians in Manhattan justify?</p>
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<p>We gather that Mr. Fisk thinks it does not justify whacking half a<br />
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dozen known terrorists, including the organizer of the U.S.S. Cole<br />
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bombing, in the Yemeni desert. We conclude that Mr. Fisk concedes the<br />
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righteousness of retribution, all right, but values the life of each<br />
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al-Qaeda terrorist more than those of five hundred unsuspecting<br />
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victims of al-Qaeda terrorism.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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Let me quote that very brave Israeli, Mordechai Vanunu, the man who<br />
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tried to warn the West of Israel’s massive nuclear war technology,<br />
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imprisoned for 12 years of solitary confinement — and betrayed,<br />
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so it appears, by one Robert Maxwell. In a poem he wrote in<br />
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confinement, Vanunu said: “I am the clerk, the technician, the<br />
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mechanic, the driver. They said, Do this, do that, don’t look left or<br />
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right, don’t read the text. Don’t look at the whole machine. You are<br />
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only responsible for this one bolt, this one rubber stamp.”
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Mr. Fisk apparently believes that Mr. Vanunu had no responsibility<br />
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to betray his country’s defensive capabilities in the presence of<br />
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enemies bent on its utter destruction. Or did I somehow miss the<br />
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incident in which Israel aggressively atom-bombed a neighbor?</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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Kolya would have understood that. So would the US Air Force officer<br />
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“flying” the drone which murdered the al-Qa’ida men in Yemen. So would<br />
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the Israeli pilot who bombed an apartment block in Gaza, killing nine<br />
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small children as well as well as his Hamas target, an “operation”<br />
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— that was the description, for God’s sake — which Ariel<br />
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Sharon described as “a great success”.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Mr. Fisk, whose love for legalism and international due process<br />
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commends giving al-Qaeda terrorists individual criminal trials, seems<br />
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curiously unaware of that portion of the Geneva Convention relating to<br />
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the use of non-combatants as human shields.</p>
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<p>One wonders if he would be persuaded by the Geneva Convention<br />
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language assigning responsibility for these deaths not to Israel, but<br />
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to Hamas.</p>
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<p>One suspects not. In Mr. Fisk’s universe, it’s clear that there is<br />
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one set of rules for Israelis and another for terrorists. Hamas<br />
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terrorists committing atrocities are justified by Israeli actions,<br />
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while Israelis committing what Mr. Fisk prefers to consider atrocities<br />
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are evil and the behavior of Hamas completely irrelevant.</p>
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<p>But we know, from Mr. Fisk’s famous report of his beating in Afghanistan,<br />
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what his actual rule is: hating Americans justifies anything.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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These days, we all believe in “clean shots”. I wish that George Bush<br />
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could read history. Not just Britain’s colonial history, in which we<br />
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contrived to use gas against the recalcitrant Kurds of Iraq in the<br />
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1930s. Not just his own country’s support for Saddam Hussein<br />
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throughout his war with Iran.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>This would be the same Iran that belligerantly and unlawfully seized<br />
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the U.S. Embassy in 1979, correct? And held Americans hostage for 120<br />
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days, committing an act of war under the international law Mr. Fisk<br />
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claims to so scrupulously respect?</p>
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<p>It would be entertaining to watch Mr. Fisk argue that Saddam Hussein<br />
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was not then fit to be an ally of the U.S. against its enemies, but is now<br />
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— after twenty years of atrocities aggressive warfare — such<br />
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an upstanding citizen of the international community that we should<br />
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stand idly by while he arms himself with nuclear weapons.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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The Iranians once produced a devastating book of coloured photographs<br />
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of the gas blisters sustained by their soldiers in that war. I looked<br />
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at them again this week. If you were these men, you would want to<br />
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die. They all did. I wish someone could remind George Bush of the<br />
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words of Lawrence of Arabia, that “making war or rebellion is messy,<br />
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like eating soup off a knife.”
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>I wonder if Mr. Fisk can point to any instance in which George Bush ever<br />
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stated that he expected the war with al-Qaeda to be “clean”? If I recall<br />
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correctly. “clean shot” was the Washington Post’s phrase.</p>
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<p>Can Mr. Fisk fail to be aware that the Post’s editorial board is<br />
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run by ideological enemies of George Bush, persons who would, outside<br />
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of wartime, hew rather closer to Mr. Fisk’s positions than George<br />
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Bush’s?</p>
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<p>Mr. Fisk, I don’t think any American policymaker doubts that war is hell.<br />
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Nor that terrorism is even worse.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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And I suppose I would like Americans to remember the arrogance of<br />
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colonial power.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>We have quite vivid historical memories of the arrogance of Mr. Fisk’s<br />
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particular colonial power, in fact. We recall fighting a revolution to<br />
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deal with it.</p>
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<p>If Mr. Fisk could point out any American colonies in Iraq, or Iran, or<br />
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Palestine, or Chechnya, we would be greatly educated.</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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Here, for example, is the last French executioner in Algeria during<br />
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the 1956-62 war of independence, Fernand Meysonnier, boasting only<br />
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last month of his prowess at the guillotine. “You must never give the<br />
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guy the time to think. Because if you do he starts moving his head<br />
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around and that’s when you have the mess-ups. The blade comes through<br />
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his jaw, and you have to use a butcher’s knife to finish it off. It is<br />
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an exorbitant power — to kill one’s fellow man.”<br />
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So perished the brave Muslims of the Algerian fight for freedom.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Ah. Did I miss the part where American were using guillotines as a method<br />
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of execution, then?</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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No, I hope we will not commit war crimes in Iraq — there will be<br />
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plenty of them for us to watch — but I would like to think that<br />
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the United Nations can restrain George Bush and Vladimir Putin and, I<br />
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suppose, Tony Blair. But one thing is sure. Kolya will be with them.
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>Mr. Fisk’s surety that American troops will while away their time<br />
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in Baghdad raping dying Iraqi girls appears to come from the same<br />
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eccentric brain circuitry that supposes U.S. to be a “colonial” power and to<br />
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be in imminent danger of performing botched executions with guillotines<br />
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and butcher knives.</p>
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<p>Mr. Fisk neglects an important difference between U.S. soldiers and<br />
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al-Qaeda terrorists.</p>
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<p>Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, U.S. soldiers found<br />
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guilty of such behavior can be — and, on the rare occasions it<br />
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has occurred, frequently have been — court-martialed and shot.<br />
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Not that it seems Mr. Fisk would be likely to acknowledge the<br />
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existence of <em>this</em> law, or that it is ever applies.</p>
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<p>To Mr. Fisk’s inability to grasp the terms “targeted” and “killing”<br />
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we may therefore add an inability to grasp the terms “barbarism” and<br />
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“civilization”.</p>
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<p><a href="http://enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=esr&commentid=84287159">Blogspot comments</a></p>
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