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The definitive collection of essays by best-selling author and internationally acclaimed foreign correspondent, Robert Fisk.
More Reviews and RecommendationsRobert Fisk is the Middle East Bureau Chief for The Independent (UK) and has reported from Belfast, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq. He is the world’s most-decorated foreign correspondent, having won the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year award seven times. The author of two previous books, Pity the Nation and The Great War for Civilisation, Fisk lives in Beirut and Ireland.
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May 09, 2008: This book is a selection from Robert Fisk?s Saturday columns in the Independent from 1998 to 2007. These writings cover films and novels, the World Wars, the first British war of occupation of Iraq, the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan, the Turkish genocide of Armenians, and many other themes. He sums up this period as the age of the warrior, describing how Bush changed the US Army?s official `Soldier?s Creed? to ?I am a warrior? whose sole mission is `to destroy the enemies of the United States of America?. An American veteran wrote that the new creed ?allows no end to any conflict except total destruction of the `enemy?. It ... does not allow one ever to stop fighting 'lending itself to the idea of `the long war?'. It says nothing about following orders, it says nothing about obeying laws or showing restraint. It says nothing about dishonourable actions ?? Change the word American in the creed to Muslim and it could be bin Laden?s creed. The American veteran wrote that this new creed encouraged the committing of atrocities. For example, the CIA had videos of prisoners being waterboarded, recently admitting that it had destroyed them. Americans in authority believe, wrongly, that `Torture works?, as one Special Forces major put it. Fisk notes how politicians impose policies against our national interest and against all morality, and how they use power to terrorise us. But our consent is not unthinking or automatic the thought is that `authority is trustworthy?, despite the evidence. He noted that some of his fellow journalists refuse to see cruelty and use the notion of `balance? to avoid the truth. He also notes the growing efforts to censor criticism, whether of Israel or of Islam. Bush tells us that `we? are fighting `evil?, so his wars are nothing to do with the occupation of Palestinian land, Afghanistan and Iraq. He tells us that `we? must blame `them? for the violence that threatens us all. But if we keep the same Middle East policies, there will be more bombings, followed by harsher laws. As Fisk wrote of the Middle East, ?the Americans must leave if peace was to be restored and the sooner they left the better.?