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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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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
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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.
Robert Fisk
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I do not make stories up, full stop.
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.
Robert Fisk
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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.
Robert Fisk
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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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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
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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?
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.
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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Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.
Robert Fisk
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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.
Robert Fisk
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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.
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.
Robert Fisk
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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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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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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
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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.
Robert Fisk
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People turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.
Robert Fisk
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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.
Robert Fisk