IP: Two on Robert Fisk's commentary

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Robert M. McClure" <rmm () unidot com>
> Subject: Re: IP: The last article filed in the Independent of the
>   journalist who got beaten up in Parkistan
> X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by linc.cis.upenn.edu 
> id fB9IWHx22405
>
> At 07:11 AM 12/9/01 -0500, you wrote:
> > [ I suspect many will be furious that I sent this out. Again understand 
> > what our allies are reading in their papers and exercise your right to 
> > decide what you think. djf]
>
> No, I am not furious that you sent it out.  I am furious that Fisk wrote 
> it.  As I see it, this is just another
> diatribe from a journalist who sees himself as above the fray.  In 
> addition to which, he doesn't seem
> to be able to distinguish between massive evils and minor ones.  The 
> world, after all, is made up of
> shades of gray, and never black or white.  Comment interspersed.
>
> > Robert Fisk: We are the war criminals now
> >
> > 'Everything we have believed in since the Second World War goes by the 
> > board as we pursue our own exclusive war'
> > 29 November 2001
>
> Fisk is clearly using hyperbole to say that *everything* we have believed 
> in has gone by the boards.
> How does this qualify for responsible journalism.  He could have said, the 
> west has had to give up
> some of its cherished notions.
>
> > We are becoming war criminals in Afghanistan. The US Air Force bombs 
> > Mazar-i-Sharif for the Northern Alliance, and our heroic Afghan allies ­ 
> > who slaughtered 50,000 people in Kabul between 1992 and 1996 ­ move into 
> > the city and execute up to 300 Taliban fighters. The report is a footnote 
> > on the television satellite channels, a "nib" in journalistic parlance. 
> > Perfectly normal, it seems. The Afghans have a "tradition" of revenge. 
> > So, with the strategic assistance of the USAF, a war crime is committed.
>
> I think it is traditional to bomb cities in which the enemy is 
> esconced.  How does this qualify for being
> a "war crime".
>
> > Now we have the Mazar-i-Sharif prison "revolt", in which Taliban inmates 
> > opened fire on their Alliance jailers. US Special Forces ­ and, it has 
> > emerged, British troops ­ helped the Alliance to overcome the uprising 
> > and, sure enough, CNN tells us some prisoners were "executed" trying to 
> > escape. It is an atrocity. British troops are now stained with war 
> > crimes. Within days, The Independent's Justin Huggler has found more 
> > executed Taliban members in Kunduz.
>
> He seems to be suggesting that when the Taliban inmates opened fire on 
> their jailers, that we should
> have turned the other cheek.  This is unrealistic and Fisk must surely 
> know it.
>
> > The Americans have even less excuse for this massacre. For the US 
> > Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, stated quite specifically during 
> > the siege of the city that US air raids on the Taliban defenders would 
> > stop "if the Northern Alliance requested it". Leaving aside the 
> > revelation that the thugs and murderers of the Northern Alliance were now 
> > acting as air controllers to the USAF in its battle with the thugs and 
> > murderers of the Taliban, Mr Rumsfeld's incriminating remark places 
> > Washington in the witness box of any war-crimes trial over Kunduz. The US 
> > were acting in full military co-operation with the Northern Alliance militia.
>
> We either have to work with indigenous Afghanis or take over the war on 
> our own.  Mr. Fisk doesn't
> seem to know which it should be.  He is just a knee jerk journalist who 
> deplores what is being done
> but is unwilling to put forward any positive ideas about what should be done.
>
> > Most television journalists, to their shame, have shown little or no 
> > interest in these disgraceful crimes. Cosying up to the Northern 
> > Alliance, chatting to the American troops, most have done little more 
> > than mention the war crimes against prisoners in the midst of their 
> > reports. What on earth has gone wrong with our moral compass since 11 
> > September?
>
> I have a much longer list of events not covered by TV journalists, and 
> print journalists, too, for that
> matter.  What has gone wrong with *our* moral compass (meaning, I hope, 
> the moral compass of
> journalists, and not just us bystanders) is that they never had 
> one.  Journalism has been driven by
> ratings since time immemorial.  I wonder if Mr. Fisk proposes to change that.
>
> > Perhaps I can suggest an answer. After both the First and Second World 
> > Wars, we ­ the "West" ­ grew a forest of legislation to prevent further 
> > war crimes. The very first Anglo-French-Russian attempt to formulate such 
> > laws was provoked by the Armenian Holocaust at the hands of the Turks in 
> > 1915; The Entente said it would hold personally responsible "all members 
> > of the (Turkish) Ottoman government and those of their agents who are 
> > implicated in such massacres". After the Jewish Holocaust and the 
> > collapse of Germany in 1945, article 6 (C) of the Nuremberg Charter and 
> > the Preamble of the UN Convention on genocide referred to "crimes against 
> > humanity". Each new post-1945 war produced a raft of legislation and the 
> > creation of evermore human rights groups to lobby the world on liberal, 
> > humanistic Western values.
>
> And strangely enough, I don't think we have done too badly considering the 
> frailties of mankind.
>
> > Over the past 50 years, we sat on our moral pedestal and lectured the 
> > Chinese and the Soviets, the Arabs and the Africans, about human rights. 
> > We pronounced on the human-rights crimes of Bosnians and Croatians and 
> > Serbs. We put many of them in the dock, just as we did the Nazis at 
> > Nuremberg. Thousands of dossiers were produced, describing ­ in nauseous 
> > detail ­ the secret courts and death squads and torture and extra 
> > judicial executions carried out by rogue states and pathological 
> > dictators. Quite right too.
> >
> > Yet suddenly, after 11 September, we went mad. We bombed Afghan villages 
> > into rubble, along with their inhabitants ­ blaming the insane Taliban 
> > and Osama bin Laden for our slaughter ­ and now we have allowed our 
> > gruesome militia allies to execute their prisoners. President George Bush 
> > has signed into law a set of secret military courts to try and then 
> > liquidate anyone believed to be a "terrorist murderer" in the eyes of 
> > America's awesomely inefficient intelligence services. And make no 
> > mistake about it, we are talking here about legally sanctioned American 
> > government death squads. They have been created, of course, so that Osama 
> > bin Laden and his men should they be caught rather than killed, will have 
> > no public defence; just a pseudo trial and a firing squad.
>
> I have yet to see any objective observer (note carefully: objective) 
> provide any real information about
> how many Afghan civilians have been killed or maimed, by either the 
> Northern Alliance or by western
> bombing.  As to our "allowing" our gruesome militia allies to do anything, 
> I am not sure how we are
> supposed to stop them except by direct intervention, which is something 
> Mr. Fisk clearly does not
> want.  His phrase "legally sanctioned American government death squads" is 
> yellow journalism at
> its worst, clearly inflammatory, and contributes nothing to well reasoned 
> argument about what the
> west *should* do.  It is not even correct historically.
>
> > It's quite clear what has happened. When people with yellow or black or 
> > brownish skin, with Communist or Islamic or Nationalist credentials, 
> > murder their prisoners or carpet bomb villages to kill their enemies or 
> > set up death squad courts, they must be condemned by the United States, 
> > the European Union, the United Nations and the "civilised" world. We are 
> > the masters of human rights, the Liberals, the great and good who can 
> > preach to the impoverished masses. But when our people are murdered ­ 
> > when our glittering buildings are destroyed ­ then we tear up every piece 
> > of human rights legislation, send off the B-52s in the direction of the 
> > impoverished masses and set out to murder our enemies.
>
> Our condemnation of evil acts does *not* seem to be limited to those 
> perpetrated by those of darker
> skin.  I think it is Mr. Fisk who sees a racist behind every tree.
>
> > Winston Churchill took the Bush view of his enemies. In 1945, he 
> > preferred the straightforward execution of the Nazi leadership. Yet 
> > despite the fact that Hitler's monsters were responsible for at least 50 
> > million deaths ­ 10,000 times greater than the victims of 11 September ­ 
> > the Nazi murderers were given a trial at Nuremberg because US President 
> > Truman made a remarkable decision. "Undiscriminating executions or 
> > punishments," he said, "without definite findings of guilt fairly arrived 
> > at, would not fit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by 
> > our children with pride."
>
> I am fascinated by Mr. Fisk's selective recall.  He seems to have 
> forgotten that the Nuremberg trials were
> essentially military tribunals.  He seems also to have forgotten that Mr. 
> Truman had also made the
> decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.  I have heard Mr. Bush say 
> nothing that would suggest
> that he wants his military tribunals to execute persons "without definite 
> findings of guilt fairly arrived
> at."
>
> > No one should be surprised that Mr Bush ­ a small-time Texas 
> > Governor-Executioner ­ should fail to understand the morality of a 
> > statesman in the Whitehouse. What is so shocking is that the Blairs, 
> > Schröders, Chiracs and all the television boys should have remained so 
> > gutlessly silent in the face of the Afghan executions and East 
> > European-style legislation sanctified since 11 September.
>
> Presumably Mr Fisk would find Mr. Clinton a smaller-time Arkansas 
> Governor, and Mr. Carter a smaller
> time Georgia Governor.  This is clearly character assassination and not 
> journalism.  He then complains
> that his presumptive statesmen from Europe go along with the American 
> policy, whatever, in fact,
> it may be.  To whom does Mr. Fisk look for moral guidance?
>
> > There are ghostly shadows around to remind us of the consequences of 
> > state murder. In France, a general goes on trial after admitting to 
> > torture and murder in the 1954-62 Algerian war, because he referred to 
> > his deeds as "justifiable acts of duty performed without pleasure or 
> > remorse". And in Brussels, a judge will decide if the Israeli Prime 
> > Minister, Arial Sharon, can be prosecuted for his "personal 
> > responsibility" for the 1982 massacre in Sabra and Chatila.
>
> Are these signs of western decadence?
>
> > Yes, I know the Taliban were a cruel bunch of bastards. They committed 
> > most of their massacres outside Mazar-i-Sharif in the late 1990s. They 
> > executed women in the Kabul football stadium. And yes, lets remember that 
> > 11 September was a crime against humanity.
>
> Enough said.
>
> > But I have a problem with all this. George Bush says that "you are either 
> > for us or against us" in the war for civilisation against evil. Well, I'm 
> > sure not for bin Laden. But I'm not for Bush. I'm actively against the 
> > brutal, cynical, lying "war of civilisation" that he has begun so 
> > mendaciously in our name and which has now cost as many lives as the 
> > World Trade Centre mass murder.
>
> Then presumably he is against most of the leaders of the industrialized world.
>
> > At this moment, I can't help remembering my dad. He was old enough to 
> > have fought in the First World War. In the third Battle of Arras. And as 
> > great age overwhelmed him near the end of the century, he raged against 
> > the waste and murder of the 1914-1918 war. When he died in 1992, I 
> > inherited the campaign medal of which he was once so proud, proof that he 
> > had survived a war he had come to hate and loathe and despise. On the 
> > back, it says: "The Great War for Civilisation." Maybe I should send it 
> > to George Bush.
>
> At least he should remember that in no way was America responsible for the 
> staggering loss of life in
> WWI.  In fact, most of it should fall on the shoulders of his own 
> country.  And that brings up the
> old quote, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
>
> Yes, it is important to know what the rest of the world, allies and 
> enemies alike, are reading.  But I still
> have a little faith that a lot of those readers will see right through 
> self-righteous, pompous fools
> like Mr. Fisk.
>
> Bob McClure
> old curmudgeon



and


> Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 09:23:11 -0800
> From: Rob McMillin <rlm () pricegrabber com>
>
> Prof. Farber -- Without "blaming you" for sending out the forwarded piece, 
> Fisk is first of all right that the Northern Alliance is a grisly bunch 
> themselves, being a loosely-knit coalition of local warlords. As we've 
> seen recently, many ex-Talibs have merely defected. Does anyone for a 
> moment think this change has turned them into angels? I know I don't, nor 
> do I expect the Northern Alliance to become a Jeffersonian democracy, 
> either. We can wish for a clearer moral situation, but as with World War 
> II and our alliance with the Soviet Union, the principle purpose was to 
> evict the principle threat, using whatever tools and allies were 
> available. Short of a full-scale U.S. invasion -- which would very likely 
> be used as propaganda against our cause by bin Laden and radical Islam 
> everywhere -- a perfectly clear moral picture isn't going to 
> develop.  Would Fisk prefer an imperial march by the U.S. Army to Kabul by 
> way of Karachi, Hyderabad, and Peshawar in order to achieve his clean war?
>
> War certainly is hell. Let us not forget who started it. The Taliban had 
> multiple opportunities to hand over bin Laden, and failed to do so. If 
> Afghanis are paying the price for Talib intransigence, so be it. At least 
> we aren't hiding behind civilians, as some of the Taliban have done.
>
> --
>           http://www.pricegrabber.com | Dog is my co-pilot.

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