Quote

At the end of the day, Osama bin Laden's interest is not Washington and New York, it's the Middle East. He wants Saudi Arabia. He wants to get rid of the House of Saud. There's a great deal of resentment, even inside the royal family, at the continued military presence of the United States there.

Robert Fisk

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert Fisk
Age: 74 †
Born: 1946
Born: July 12
Died: 2020
Died: October 30
Historian
Journalist
War Correspondent
Writer
States
Military
Continued
Great
Inside
Royal
Even
Wants
Resentment
Middle
Washington
Interest
Presence
United
East
Saudi
Family
York
Laden
House
Deal
Arabia

More quotes by Robert Fisk

Image
When I saw the pictures of New York without the World Trade Center, New York looked like a shadow of itself.
Robert Fisk
Image
And history`s fingers never relax their grip, never leave us unmolested, can touch us even when we would never imagine their presence.
Robert Fisk
Image
The Americans may think they have 'liberated' Baghdad but the tens of thousands of thieves - they came in families and cruised the city in trucks and cars searching for booty - seem to have a different idea what liberation means.
Robert Fisk
Image
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.
Robert Fisk
Image
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.
Robert Fisk
Image
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.'
Robert Fisk
Image
Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.
Robert Fisk
Image
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
Image
It's very easy to start a war but the muftah, as the Arabs say, the key to switch off a war, is very difficult to find.
Robert Fisk
Image
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.
Robert Fisk
Image
Everyone outside the Roman Empire was called a barbarian. Everyone outside Obama’s empire is called a terrorist.
Robert Fisk
Image
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.
Robert Fisk
Image
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
Image
People turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.
Robert Fisk
Image
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
Image
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.
Robert Fisk
Image
At the end of the day, bin Laden's interest is not Washington and New York, it's the Middle East. He wants Saudi Arabia. He wants to get rid of the House of Saud.
Robert Fisk
Image
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.
Robert Fisk
Image
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
Image
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.
Robert Fisk