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At Baalbek Nuts I bought pistachios from the Lebanese owners, who answered my request for their thoughts on the war with the typically Lebanese response of no problem. It's a lie, as we all knew.

Robert Fisk

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Robert Fisk
Age: 74 †
Born: 1946
Born: July 12
Died: 2020
Died: October 30
Historian
Journalist
War Correspondent
Writer
War
Answered
Problem
Nuts
Owners
Bought
Response
Pistachios
Thoughts
Lebanese
Knew
Typically
Lying
Request

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The word 'democracy' and the name of Assad do not blend very well in much of Syria.
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And history`s fingers never relax their grip, never leave us unmolested, can touch us even when we would never imagine their presence.
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Bin Laden is not well read and he's not sophisticated, but he will have worked out very coldly what America would do.
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It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.
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When you have a crime against humanity that is so awesome in scale and death, it is more than permissible to look around and say, who recently has been declaring war on the United States? Of course, the compass points straight to bin Laden.
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I do not make stories up, full stop.
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Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.
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People turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.
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In Palestine, the Israelis claim they found a land without people,' a Syrian officer explained to us. 'Now they will take southern Lebanon and claim they have found another land without people if these refugees do not return.
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Osama Bin Laden is not well read and he's not sophisticated, but he will have worked out very coldly what America would do in response to this attack 9/11. I'm sure he wanted America to attack Afghanistan. Once you do what your enemy wants, you are walking into a trap, whether you think it's the right thing to do or not.
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Fundamentalism is not bred in poverty. There are plenty of poor countries in the world that don't have violence because amid the poverty there is a kind of justice and in some countries a democracy.
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U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.
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In just one year in Bosnia, thirty of my colleagues died. There is a little Somme waiting for all innocent journalists.
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