After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career — in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad — watching the people within those borders burn.
Robert FiskOsama bin Laden is very shrewd. But he struck me, even in 1997, as being remarkably out of touch. I remember thinking this does not look like the type of guy who walks to the top of a mountain with a mobile phone and says, "Operation B, attack."Now he is America's number one enemy. He's always wanted to be that.
Robert FiskI 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 FiskThe dead cannot speak. But hitherto unknown information has emerged from the confidential archives of the Syrian presidency and foreign ministry, published in a new book by Bouthaina Shaaban, who spent ten years as Hafez's interpreter and is still an adviser to his son Bashar.
Robert FiskHow could believers, people who regard themselves as true Muslims, get on those planes, quoting the words of God delivered through the Prophet to themselves, knowing they were going to kill innocent people? They saw the other passengers on the plane. They could see the woman with her little daughter. They saw people making phone calls to their wives or their husbands. They knew who they were killing.
Robert FiskI've lived in the Middle East for twenty-five years. I know exactly how these issues come up. Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, "But bin Laden says what we think." These people believe that Osama 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 FiskObama, who is becoming more and more preacher-like, wants to be the Punisher-in-Chi ef of the Western World, the Avenger-in-Chie f. There is something oddly Roman about him. ... The lesser races must be civilized and they must be punished... Everyone outside the Roman Empire was called a barbarian. Everyone outside Obama’s empire is called a terrorist.
Robert Fisk