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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.

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
Donald
Clutch
Grief
Introduce
Rest
Defence
American
Introducing
President
Dreamed
Fantasists
Order
Secretary
Advising
World
Sympathy
Cruelly
People
Bush
Manipulated

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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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The Syrian army is tired of corruption. It is tired of party nepotism. It is becoming very angry with those it blames for the war.
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War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.
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Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.
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I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'
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Bin Laden was constantly revolving in his mind the fact that he had got rid of the Russians therefore, the Americans can be got rid of, too. And where better than in the country where he knows how to fight?
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Some of the guys in the Northern Alliance are war criminals. One of the Northern Alliance commanders ran a slave girl network in Kabul in 1994. Remember that there was a period when every woman on the streets was at risk of being raped. This was the Northern Alliance period of glory.
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When I saw the pictures of New York without the World Trade Center, New York looked like a shadow of itself.
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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.
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I still wonder if the United States realizes how much planning went into this. When we talk about mindless terrorists, we are lying to ourselves.
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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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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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Bin Laden is not well read and he's not sophisticated, but he will have worked out very coldly what America would do.
Robert Fisk
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A businessman admits that he 'let go' an employee because he was a Sunni Muslim. You simply have to look after yourself, he explains. I am shocked, like a good Westerner should be.
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I don't know what happens if they get bin Laden. I'm much more interested in what happens if they don't get bin Laden.
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Bin Laden was very keen to point out to me that his forces had fought the Americans in Somalia. He also wanted to talk about how many mullahs in Pakistan were putting up posters saying, We follow bin Laden. He even produced a sort of Kodak set of snapshots of graffiti supporting him.
Robert Fisk
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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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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.
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Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, But bin Laden says what we think. These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth.
Robert Fisk
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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.
Robert Fisk