Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk: Bomb kills deputy and threatens to topple Lebanese government
Published: 20 September 2007
Antoine Ghanem was an easy target. Few bodyguards, no one would think that a member of parliament who represented the Armenians of Lebanon was a target. The little street in which he lived – tall tower blocks, boutiques, flower shops, was not a place where you would try to kill an enemy of Syria – if he was an enemy of Syria – but Antoine was blasted to pieces in his car as he left his home yesterday evening.
It is the death of history
Published: 17 September 2007
A special investigation by Robert Fisk: the near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.
Robert Fisk: In the Colosseum, thoughts turn to death
Published: 15 September 2007
At midnight on Thursday, I lay on my back in the Colosseum and looked at a pageant of stars above Rome. Where the lions tore into gladiators, and only a few metres from the cross marking the place of Saint Paul's crucifixion – "martyrdom", of course, has become an uneasy word in this age of the suicide bomber – I could only reflect on how a centre of cruelty could become one of the greatest tourist attractions of our time. An Italian television station had asked me to talk about capital punishment in the Middle East for a series on American executions and death row prisoners. Two generators had melted down in an attempt to flood the ancient arena with light. Hence, the moment of reflection.
Robert Fisk: An urge to smash history into tiny pieces
Published: 08 September 2007
What is it about graven images? Why are we humanoids so prone to destroy our own faces, smash our own human history, erase the memory of language? I've covered the rape of Bosnian and Serb and Croatian culture in ex-Yugoslavia – the deliberate demolition of churches, libraries, graveyards, even the wonderful Ottoman Mostar Bridge – and I've heard the excuses. "There's no place for these old things," the Croat gunner reportedly said as he fired his artillery battery towards that graceful Ottoman arch over the Neretva. The videotape of its collapse was itself an image of cultural genocide – until the Taliban exploded the giant Buddhas of Bamian.
Robert Fisk: Lebanon cries victory, but is it too soon?
Published: 06 September 2007
The victory of the Lebanese army at the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp – the killing of up to 100 al-Qa'ida-type insurgents at the cost of 163 Lebanese soldiers and 42 civilians – is being greeted in the country with "trumpetings" and "hootings" worthy of the country's greatest poet, Khalil Gibran.
Robert Fisk: Strange goings-on here in Lebanon ...
Published: 01 September 2007
Stories that just don't seem to make it into print.
Robert Fisk: The forgotten holocaust
Published: 28 August 2007
Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11
Published: 25 August 2007
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
Robert Fisk: The Iraqis don't deserve us. So we betray them...
Published: 23 August 2007
Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The French backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN victory forced them to swallow their own French military medals before dispatching them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the Americans demanded democracy and, one by one - after praising the Vietnamese for voting under fire in so many cities, towns and villages - they destroyed the elected prime ministers because they were not abiding by American orders.
Robert Fisk: We admire those who went before us
Published: 18 August 2007
Robert Fisk: Looking back at Lebanon
Published: 18 August 2007
Lebanese militants vow to take battle outside camp
Published: 14 August 2007
It was a familiar routine. Just as the Lebanese army boasted of another "victory" amid the wreckage of the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian camp - its al-Qa'ida-style rebels still holding out against the state authority - one of the Islamists' spokesmen announced in an audiotape that some of the gunmen had escaped and were planning a "black day" for the government.
Robert Fisk: Lebanese strike a blow at US-backed government
Published: 07 August 2007
They've done it again. The Arabs have, once more, followed democracy and voted for the wrong man.
Robert Fisk: Mistrust fuels cycle of violence in Lebanon
Published: 06 August 2007
When, oh when, will the Lebanese Christians stop destroying each other? General Michel Aoun's Free Democratic Party (colour them bright orange) stood yesterday, along with their pro-Syrian allies, against the Phalangist candidate Amin Gemayel, former president and father of the assassinated incumbent MP, Pierre, murdered - by Syrians? By rival Christians? You name it - last year.
Robert Fisk: Bravery, tears and broken dreams
Published: 04 August 2007
Robert Fisk: Why my landlord is expecting the worst
Published: 28 July 2007
Robert Fisk on Zahir Shah: The last king of Afghanistan
Published: 24 July 2007
Robert Fisk: No wonder the bloggers are winning
Published: 21 July 2007
Robert Fisk: TE Lawrence had it right about Iraq
Published: 14 July 2007
Robert Fisk: The forgotten art of handwriting
Published: 07 July 2007
Robert Fisk: 'Abu Henry' and the mysterious silence
Published: 30 June 2007
Robert Fisk: Who will be next to die in Lebanon?
Published: 26 June 2007
Which United Nations contingent in southern Lebanon will be next? It is a ghoulish, terrible question after the car bomb attack that killed six Spanish soldiers of the 13,000-strong international army on Sunday evening, but one which the officers of the UN Interim Force - Unifil - are asking at their intelligence meetings. For the UN army from 30 countries under the command of four Nato generals - the Spanish contributed 1,100 soldiers - is clearly going to be attacked again. The usual expressions of determination of Western leaders who are not going to "cut and run" - so reminiscent of the Iraq war - are not going to change that.
Robert Fisk: Murder of peacekeepers raises stakes in Lebanon
Published: 25 June 2007
At last it happened. Every one predicted - not least the United Nations officers on the team - that the international UN peacekeeping army in southern Lebanon would be attacked by a Sunni Muslim group attached to al-Qa'ida, and yesterday afternoon three Spanish and three Colombian soldiers paid with their lives for the fulfilment of this prediction.
Robert Fisk: How can Blair possibly be given this job?
Published: 23 June 2007
Robert Fisk: A cry for justice from a good man who expected us to protect his son
Published: 17 June 2007
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