Osama bin Fisked

“ by Robert Fisk; the man; the legacy [...] Fisk conducted three interviews with Osama bin Laden, all published by The Independent. These took place on December 6, 1993; July 10, 1996; and March 22, 1997. During one of those interviews, bin Laden, who had taken a liking to Fisk, said: “Mr. Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim.” In a 2004 videotape, bin Laden praised Fisk as a "neutral" reporter who understood Islamist grievances. Fisk also interviewed such notables as Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Sadeq Khalkhali (the hanging judge of the Iranian revolution). Fisk consistently denounces Israel and the United States as oppressive exploiters that provoke the enmity of other nations around the world. While he condemned the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a “hideous crime against humanity,” he immediately called for an “honest discussion” about the motives behind those attacks -- a discussion which he said was lacking in the Western press. For his part, Fisk ascribed the attacks chiefly to legitimate Arab anger over U.S. policies in the Middle East, particularly America’s support for Israel. In August 2007 Fisk expressed, for the first time, his personal doubts about what really had occurred on 9/11. He stopped short of actually blaming the U.S. government, reasoning that “the Bush administration has screwed up everything -- militarily, politically, diplomatically -- it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?” He did write, however, that he was “increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11.” He elaborated: “It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field?... I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers -- whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C -- would snap through at the same time?... What about the third tower … which collapsed … when no aircraft had hit it?” Fisk has described Israel as a racist state, akin to Apartheid South Africa, guilty of "bestializing" the Palestinian people. He also has portrayed as cowards those reporters who "abe[t] terrible deeds in the Middle East" by "refus[ing] to tell the [ugly] truth about Israel" because they fear "being slandered as 'anti-Semites.'" [Discover the Networks] I stumbled across this photo.  My eyes went from bin Laden to Fisk. 'Nuff said. ”