| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Newo |
Posted - 09/24/2005 : 07:03:03
Though not keen on the paper he writes for, I love Robert Fisk, a journalist who actually investigates instead of those who just sit around and wait for the governent source to chatter out of the fax (the majority, in the trade they're called rip n'readers).
September 22, 2005
U.S. BARS ROBERT FISK FROM ENTERING COUNTRY
The internationally renowned correspondent for The Independent, Robert Fisk, has been banned from entering the United States. Fisk has been covering war zones for decades, but is above all known for his incisive reporting from the Middle East for more than 20 years. His critical coverage of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, and the continuing occupation that has followed it, has repeatedly exposed U.S. and British government disinformation campaigns. He also has exposed how the bulk of the press reports from Iraq have been "hotel journalism" -- a phrase Fisk coined --
The daily New Mexican reports that "U.S. immigration officials refused Tuesday to allow Robert Fisk, longtime Middle East correspondent for the London newspaper, The Independent, to board a plane from Toronto to Denver. Fisk was on his way to Santa Fe for a sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation ’s readings-and-conversations series Wednesday night. According to Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan program officer, Fisk was told that his papers were not in order. Davis made last-minute arrangements Wednesday for Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s daily news show, Democracy Now!, to interview Fisk via satellite from a television station in Toronto..." A recording of this satellite interview will soon be available on the Lannan Foundation's website. If Fisk has been barred from entry, it's very hard not to believe it has something to do with dispaches of his like this one from September 15:
The Independent
Why is it that we and America wish civil war on Iraq?
Thursday, 15th September 2005, by Robert Fisk
There will not be a civil war in Iraq. There never has been a civil war in Iraq. In 1920, Lloyd George warned of civil war in Iraq if the British Army left. Just as the Americans now threaten the Iraqis with civil war if they leave. As early as 2003, American spokesmen warned that there would be civil war if US forces left.
What the imperial, colonial powers will not learn - let us use their real names - and cannot learn, is that Iraq is not a sectarian state but a tribal nation. Iraqi men and women marry by religion rather than by affiliation.
A year ago, I sat by a doctor whose brother had just been killed by gunmen, killers who, I had no doubt, were Shias enraged that the brother had objected to the building of a Shia mosque at the end of his road. I turned to the brother at the funeral lunch and asked if there would be a civil war in Iraq.
"Why do you and the Americans want us to have a civil war?" he asked. "I am a Sunni married to a Shia woman. "Do you want me to kill my wife?"
There are plenty of journalists and writers and White House spokesmen who would like to threaten Iraq with civil war. But why? Two years ago, the official US spokesman made just such a threat. "Al-Qa’ida’," he said - he meant Sunnis, of course - wanted a civil war. But the Shias declined to provide the Americans with their civil war and Iraq remained unhappily quiescent. Why? Why on earth did they decide not to have a civil war? Because the Imam Ali once told his people that "when you see another man, he is either your brother in religion or he is your brother in humanity".
In Lebanon, it’s easy to symbolise civil war. The Sunnis and Shias fought against the Christian Maronites - the conflict was Maronites versus the rest - and the Americans, Israelis, Syrians and others came in on whichever side they wished. Even now, the US government warns of the dangers of civil war again - as if the Lebanese need it. Alas, the Lebanese have endured a civil war at a cost of 150,000 dead. The Iraqis do not need that terrible conflict. Why do we wish it upon them?
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/09/us_bans_robert_.html
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| ivandivel |
Posted - 09/30/2005 : 18:09:42
i deleted the original reply - i´m not interested in following it up. War sucks man, no person that has not been in the army, navy, whatever (or been exposed to it in action) should be allowed to wage war - and their say should amount to zero when arguing for war (for the record, i´ve been in the army). Let´s take a pragmatic approach to human rights and take away these people´s human rights. Yeah. In times as these, the rights of hysteric americans should be the first to go. It seems everytime they get of their big, greasy butts and use their right to vote, people die somewhere else - and for what? Coke? McDonalds? Haliburton? Porn? Amens and hallelujah? No thanks. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 09/30/2005 : 14:44:31
Yes, the goal in WWII was much more noble than most of what the United States has gotten involved in since that time, but that doesn't mean there weren't a lot of dirty tactics, unnecessary sacrifices, and good old-fashioned mammonism involved. Like I said, possibly the lesser of two evils, but an evil nonetheless.
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| Newo |
Posted - 09/30/2005 : 13:29:59
The popular view of WW2 is to hold it up as a good war, but it had more in common with modern wars in that it was less about attacking military targets than pulverising civilians. Things left standing in Germany thanks to the Strategic Bombing Survey: Berlin's Cocacola and Ford plants, plus the munitions warehouses which, if destroyed could have ended Germany's war effort but they were the property of the international banking houses who funded both sides of the war.
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| Oil Boy |
Posted - 09/30/2005 : 13:12:10
quote:
Originally posted by Erebus
Do you mean to rule out the possiblity that war can be necessary and even virtuous? Do you mean that war cannot be well-conducted? Do you mean that in recent years there have been no well-conducted wars?
At a minimum I meant that sometimes proper conduct of war includes repression of certain types of news. For example, to avoid hurting morale, during WWII Churchill withheld news of how initially succeessful the German U-Boat campaign was against north Atlantic Allied shipping. I consider that proper conduct.
The people I've spoken too who are still in support of the Iraq War always bring up other wars in defense of this one. Doesn't make much sense but hey, it's easier to read history books about World War II or even the Civil War than talk about the disaster going on over in Iraq.
The words "necessary" & "virtuous" have no place in describing the war in Iraq. Sure, we can talk about the concept of war in vague generalities or we can talk about this war... no WMDs, no connection to 9/11, Halliburton, the "virtuous" torture of Iraqi prisoners, Karl Rove's outing of C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame, our overextended, underpaid, injured & DEAD troops and of course, the Downing Street Minutes which prove that Bush & Blair lied about the reasons we went there in the first place.
Regarding the role of the media in the war, I'm assuming you're one that declares the mainstream media as "liberal." But you know, it turns out that the media is Al-Qaeda's greatest ally... Matt Lauer's on vacation next week & Osama Bin Laden is going to be filling in as the guest co-host on the Today Show.
|
| Newo |
Posted - 09/30/2005 : 01:36:37
http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Securitizing the Global Norm of Identity: Biometric Technologies
in Domestic and Foreign Policy
September 29, 2005
In a recent dispatch
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000279.php#more> I
mentioned a report from journalist Doug Ireland which stated British
journalist Robert Fisk was denied entry into the US. Upon further
investigation, it appears that he was not turned away due to the content
of his reporting; thus I would like to make that correction here.
The following is from an email sent from Jeff Blankfort, who is a radio
program producer with KPOO in San Francisco, KZYX in Mendocino and
KPFT/Pacifica in Houston:
"Robert Fisk was not barred from entering the US because he is who he
is but because he did not have the latest British biometric passport
which evaluates eye-scans and that is now required of all British
subjects entering the US."
"Unfortunately, the incident was mentioned at a speech he gave over TV
in Arizona, according to Fisk with whom I spoke yesterday, and was
misinterpreted. The story appeared in the New Mexican and thanks to the
internet it has achieved a life of its own. Fisk says it is not a story
and shouldn't be made out to be one."
That cleared up, this leads me to biometics, which is an extremely
important topic, not just in the US and UK, but in Iraq. Below is an
excerpt from a paper written by two academics concerning the topic.
There is a link to the full text at the end of this excerpt, where you
can read it in full (which I strongly recommend) and comment in the
'Forum' section on my website.
-DJ
"In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton
murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the
Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable moment of
brutality and overkill is Falluja..."
Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail, 'This is our Guernica'
The Guardian, 27 April 2005
"They'll be fingerprinted, given a retina scan and then an ID card,
which will allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid
centers, which are now being built. The Marines will be authorized to
use deadly force against those breaking the rules."
Richard Engel, NBC reporter, 8 December 2004
21st Century Guernica: (Dis)Ordering Places
In November 2004 the world watched - periodically, depending on the
focus of the media gaze - as the US Marine Corps engaged so-called
'insurgents' in a brutal battle in Fallujah, Iraq. For all their
high-tech weaponry, precision munitions, and exceptional training, in
their search-and-destroy mission occupation forces all but obliterated
Fallujah. During the month-long siege of Fallujah by American forces
more than 200,000 residents fled the city. Out of these ruins,
occupation forces argued they were erecting a 'model city', replete with
a high-tech security infrastructure centered on biometric identification
strategies to manage returning citizens. Returnees are fingerprinted,
retina scanned, and issued a mandatory identity badge displaying the
individual's home address and collected biometric data. In this context,
the gratuitous destruction of Fallujah appeared, as Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld often retorts when pushed on current events in Iraq, to
be precisely 'according to plan'.
It is trite to say that we live in interesting times; not so trite,
however, are the meditations of many contemporary thinkers and writers
surrounding the way modern liberal politics embody what is increasingly
known as 'the state of exception'. In the context of contemporary
international norms, and even constitutionalism, one might consider the
extent to which 'exceptionalism' is itself becoming a norm of/in world
politics. In some sense, the gratuitous destruction of ones enemy is a
thinly veiled norm of modernity, not to mention the subsequent
reordering and repopulation of these ruined spaces/places. Jonathan
Steele and Dahr Jamail's invocation of the wanton destruction of
Guernica and Grozny, brings to mind Pablo Picasso's poignant painting
'Guernica'. Unlike any other, this painting commissioned for the 1937
World's Fair in Paris depicts the horrors of area bombing; wrenched
buildings, contorted animals, and maimed people, brutally and hopelessly
intertwined in a shambles that betrays the order of the cubist form. Out
of such bewilderment how does one (re)introduce order?
By: John Measor (Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, University of
Exeter) and Benjamin J. Muller (Department of Political Science,
University of Victoria.)
To continue reading, click here
<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/covering_iraq/archives//000277.php#more>.
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 09/29/2005 : 19:37:46
There are times when war can, perhaps, be the lesser of two or more evils. That doesn't mean it's not an evil. I am somewhat disappointed that the world is led by people who can't think of a better way to resolve disagreements than "Duh, let's beat them other guys up!" I don't think it's possible to totally abolish warfare; it's too ingrained in the minds of humanity at large. But I think that politicians, especially, are often of the mindset that it's the ONLY way to ever get anything done, which is quite disturbing.
As far as well-conducted wars and withholding of information go, I think the idea that people should give up their freedom for what some would consider the greater good is kind of ridiculous, especially when there are people insisting that soldiers are dying in wars to defend freedom. So you're giving up freedom to defend freedom? Isn't that rather paradoxical?
I think an argument could be made that, if Al Qaeda has "no greater ally," it's actually the people who think that violence is the best solution to any perceived difficulty. That, combined with the idea that attacks should be carried out against someone sort of tangentially related to the people you actually have a problem with, which is pretty much the whole basis of terrorism and traditional warfare. It's the whole "if you hate the leader, kill their subjects, and if your own subjects die in the process, so much the better" mentality at work.
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| The King Of Karaoke |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 12:58:38
 I am not a number. I am a free man! |
| Erebus |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 12:29:31
quote:
Originally posted by VoVat
quote:
During every well-conducted war bad news and even sound criticism are suppressed.
Wait, there are well-conducted wars now? Why didn't anybody tell me?
Vo - I assume you realize that's ridiculous. Humorous perhaps, but ridiculous. Do you mean to rule out the possiblity that war can be necessary and even virtuous? Do you mean that war cannot be well-conducted? Do you mean that in recent years there have been no well-conducted wars?
At a minimum I meant that sometimes proper conduct of war includes repression of certain types of news. For example, to avoid hurting morale, during WWII Churchill withheld news of how initially succeessful the German U-Boat campaign was against north Atlantic Allied shipping. I consider that proper conduct. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 10:52:56
quote:
During every well-conducted war bad news and even sound criticism are suppressed.
Wait, there are well-conducted wars now? Why didn't anybody tell me?
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| Newo |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 00:48:46
that's right, I feel like once you can put a name to what you believe it's barbwire for the mind. As for Al Qaeda having no greater ally than the mainstream American and European press, scan a few articles of a mainstream daily and count the number of times it says 'official sources state' or better yet, visit the office of one. Mass media is a bureaucracy and needs a bureaucracy to keep up a flow of information which is why most modern journalists merely collect info they treat as facts from White House, Pentagon and State Department.
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| Erebus |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 08:23:15
I admit to wearing contradictory hats. Regarding the snakes, if I am to be consistent I'd have to say I can't blame the snake for being a snake but that doesn't mean that at times I wouldn't like taking a shovel to it. But to the extent that I'd do it with relish, you're right. I'm guilty of contradicting my own professed determinism. Then again, if I am to be held to my principles, I am to be expected to believe that all aspects are equally determined: the snake and its nature, my assessment of the implications of that nature, and the zeal of my reaction to it. Taken to extremes, just about any human principle is soon rendered absurd. I believe you have commented on the folly of "isms". |
| Newo |
Posted - 09/27/2005 : 05:20:09
quote:
Or maybe those like Fisk and George Galloway ARE the enemy?
For a guy who doesn't resonate with the language of responsibility you got your blaming shoes on mighty quick.
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| Erebus |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 13:16:39
Irresponsibly criticizing music usually does little more than prove oneself a fool, but irresponsibly criticizing war policy can discourage the populace, aid the enemy, and put soldiers in unnecessary danger. Or maybe those like Fisk and George Galloway ARE the enemy?
During every well-conducted war bad news and even sound criticism are suppressed. Yes, freedoms, of speech and most else, are the goals and means of the democratic state, but absolute adherence to any principle, including that of liberty, will doom the population that advocates it. Al Qaeda has no greater ally than the mainstream American and European press.
In saying this, I do not know why Fisk has been denied entry, but I suspect the facts will turn out to be something other than what some here would like to believe. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 10:32:40
Besides, since when are journalists supposed to come up with solutions to international conflicts? There are so many people who seem to think that professionals shouldn't be held to higher standards than anyone else. Saying that questioning and/or criticizing world governments is a bad idea unless you can come up with better solutions than theirs is like saying you shouldn't criticize a musician unless you can make music better than theirs. People say these sorts of things all the time, and they're totally ridiculous.
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| Newo |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 05:41:32
quote:
Kirk
= Cult of Ray =
USA
453 Posts
Posted - 09/25/2005 : 12:55:22 Show Profile Email Poster Visit Kirk's Homepage Reply with Quote
lots of questions from the author.
no solutions from the author.
Sometimes you solve things when enough people start asking questions.
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| Scarla O |
Posted - 09/26/2005 : 01:55:47
quote:
Originally posted by Kirk
lots of questions from the author.
no solutions from the author.
There are plenty of journalists and writers and White House spokesmen who would like to threaten Iraq with civil war. But why? Two years ago, the official US spokesman made just such a threat. "Al-Qa’ida’," he said - he meant Sunnis, of course - wanted a civil war. But the Shias declined to provide the Americans with their civil war and Iraq remained unhappily quiescent. Why? Why on earth did they decide not to have a civil war? Because the Imam Ali once told his people that "when you see another man, he is either your brother in religion or he is your brother in humanity".
---------------------------------------
the tips turn down oh my vicious thumbs... |
| Kirk |
Posted - 09/25/2005 : 12:55:22
lots of questions from the author.
no solutions from the author. |
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