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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.

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
Wonder
Talk
Realizes
Lying
Mindless
United
Terrorists
Still
Terrorist
States
Planning
Much
Realizing
Went

More quotes by Robert Fisk

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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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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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I do not make stories up, full stop.
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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.
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Everyone outside the Roman Empire was called a barbarian. Everyone outside Obama’s empire is called a terrorist.
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Individuals in various countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia listen to the tapes of bin Laden. They gather in groups of four or five. They feel they want to do something to express their support for what they've heard. The idea that they were taking orders is a particularly Western idea.
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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.
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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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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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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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The word 'democracy' and the name of Assad do not blend very well in much of Syria.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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
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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 I saw the pictures of New York without the World Trade Center, New York looked like a shadow of itself.
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Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.
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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