[...]
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.'"
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