Robert Fisk: A gripping diary of one week in the life and death of Beirut
Robert Fisk | 23.07.2006 14:03 | Lebanon War 2006 | Anti-militarism | Repression | World
The local Beirut papers are filled with photographs that would never be seen in the pages of a British paper: of decapitated babies and women with no legs or arms or of old men in bits. Israel's air raids are promiscuous and - when you see the results as we now do with our own eyes - obscene.
Robert Fisk: A gripping diary of one week in the life and death of Beirut
Robert Fisk
Published: 23 July 2006
Sunday 16 July
It is the first time I have actually seen a missile in this war. They fly too fast - or you are too busy trying to run away to look for them - but this morning, Abed and I actually see one pierce the smoke above us. "Habibi (my friend)!" he cries, and I start screaming "Turn the car round, turn it round" and we drive away for our lives from the southern suburbs. As we turn the corner there is a shattering explosion and a mountain of grey smoke blossoming from the road we have just left. What happened to the men and women we saw running for their lives from that Israeli rocket? We do not know. In air raids, all you see is the few square yards around you. You get out and you survive and that is enough.
I go home to my apartment on the Corniche and find that the electricity is cut. Soon, no doubt, the water will be cut. But I sit on my balcony and reflect that I am not crammed into a filthy hotel in Kandahar or Basra but living in my own home and waking each morning in my own bed. Power cuts and fear and the lack of petrol now that Israel is bombing gas stations mean that the canyon of traffic which honks and roars outside my home until two in the morning has gone. When I wake in the night, I hear the birds and the wash of the Mediterranean and the gentle brushing of palm leaves.
I went to buy groceries this evening. There is no more milk but plenty of water and bread and cheese and fish. When Abed pulls up to let me out of the car, the man in the 4x4 behind us puts his hand permanently on the horn, and when I get out of Abed's car, he mouths the words "Kess uchtak" at me. "Fuck your sister." It is the first time I have been cursed in this war. The Lebanese do not normally swear at foreigners. They are a polite people. I hold my hand out, palm down and twist it palm upwards in the Lebanese manner, meaning "what's the problem?". But he drives away. Anyway, I don't have a sister.
Monday 17 July
Continued:
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/10487652.html
From The Lebanese People To The So Called "Civilized" West: "Thank You" - Updated
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/10487652.html
Patrick Cockburn: The city of Baghdad is "breaking up"
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/10487301.html
Group: U.S. military urged abuse in Iraq
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/10485639.html
Juan Cole: War on Lebanon Planned for at least a Year: The Bush Administration's Grand Strategy
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/10484006.html
Today's Newswire
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/2006/07/23/
MARC PARENT
CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/
http://www.myleftwing.com/userDiary.do?personId=3693 NEW
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/14409
http://www.dailykos.com/user/ccnwon
Robert Fisk
Published: 23 July 2006
Sunday 16 July
It is the first time I have actually seen a missile in this war. They fly too fast - or you are too busy trying to run away to look for them - but this morning, Abed and I actually see one pierce the smoke above us. "Habibi (my friend)!" he cries, and I start screaming "Turn the car round, turn it round" and we drive away for our lives from the southern suburbs. As we turn the corner there is a shattering explosion and a mountain of grey smoke blossoming from the road we have just left. What happened to the men and women we saw running for their lives from that Israeli rocket? We do not know. In air raids, all you see is the few square yards around you. You get out and you survive and that is enough.
I go home to my apartment on the Corniche and find that the electricity is cut. Soon, no doubt, the water will be cut. But I sit on my balcony and reflect that I am not crammed into a filthy hotel in Kandahar or Basra but living in my own home and waking each morning in my own bed. Power cuts and fear and the lack of petrol now that Israel is bombing gas stations mean that the canyon of traffic which honks and roars outside my home until two in the morning has gone. When I wake in the night, I hear the birds and the wash of the Mediterranean and the gentle brushing of palm leaves.
I went to buy groceries this evening. There is no more milk but plenty of water and bread and cheese and fish. When Abed pulls up to let me out of the car, the man in the 4x4 behind us puts his hand permanently on the horn, and when I get out of Abed's car, he mouths the words "Kess uchtak" at me. "Fuck your sister." It is the first time I have been cursed in this war. The Lebanese do not normally swear at foreigners. They are a polite people. I hold my hand out, palm down and twist it palm upwards in the Lebanese manner, meaning "what's the problem?". But he drives away. Anyway, I don't have a sister.
Monday 17 July
Continued:
![](/img/extlink.gif)
From The Lebanese People To The So Called "Civilized" West: "Thank You" - Updated
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Patrick Cockburn: The city of Baghdad is "breaking up"
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Group: U.S. military urged abuse in Iraq
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Juan Cole: War on Lebanon Planned for at least a Year: The Bush Administration's Grand Strategy
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Today's Newswire
![](/img/extlink.gif)
MARC PARENT
CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Robert Fisk
Homepage:
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Fisk
23.07.2006 15:04
Lawerence
Fisk is one of Blair's useful idiots
23.07.2006 16:37
Remember that in reality, ALL journalists are scum. A JOURNALIST IS A PERSON WHO WRITES FOR PROFIT AT THE BEHEST OF A MEDIA BARON. Under such cirmumstances, the words of EVERY journalist are tainted by definition. The purpose of their words is NEVER truth, but pleasing and serving their master. Fisk is the perfect journalist, striving to slant his every report to serve his Israel/Blair supporting masters of The Independent. Journalists like Fisk LOATHE the net, because the net provides an outlet for the opinions of those that are NOT paid to lie or spin.
Of course, Fisk is also one of Blair's most important 'useful idiots'. His handlers at MI6 (common name used for clarity) run the mock 'arabist' program, the active pretence that the Foreign Office still has a significant bias toward 'arabist' issues as a consequence of the aftermath of empire. Old braindead individuals like Fisk (60 years old this year) haven't been able to update their thinking for decades, and thus have the fossilised intellectual qualities required by Blair.
Thank god, in this age we no longer have to rely on the worthless dribble pouring from the senile lips of people like Fisk. Instead, journalists can now be totally replaced by comments from people in all kinds of non-jounalistic positions. As journalists are treated more and more commonly with the contempt they deserve, the bile they spew at the alternative commentators becomes ever more corrosive.
On a general note, it sickens me that there are those non-jounalist commentators that actively attempt to call themselves 'journalists' as if this gives them some kind of status, or superior right to be heard by the rest of us. The 'logic' they use was the same moronic logic that led some to say 'it is illegal to call yourself jedi when answering the -what religion- question on the census'. That people do not understand the concept of 'freedom of religion' leaves me open-mouthed in disbelief. 'Freedom of the press' is NOT the freedom to become an official 'journalist' but the freedom of all of us to comment on the things that concern us.
Reading Fisk recently, purely on a search for new facts, I was disgusted when this old moron told his readers that only when ***he*** told them something about Lebanon did it become a fact. What he really means is when it becomes apparent that a truth about Lebanon (like the virtual destruction of Israel's state-of-the-art warship) has become known to too many people by 'alternative' sources, Fisk will announce it so that he may 'appear' as an independent fountain of truth to naive readers, without giving anything away that could be learnt anyway. This trick defines almost the entire methodology of 'journalism' in both The Independent and The Guardian.
PS contemplate the fact that Fisk is still willing to spin on behalf of Blair and Israel even as the most depraved Israeli crimes against humanity destroy Fisk's own home, and the people that live there. Has there ever been a better definition of the word 'evil'.
twilight
TV News Coverage
23.07.2006 18:27
Constrast this with the 10 MINUTE TELEVISED COVERAGE OF A PRO-ISRAELI RALLY IN LONDON WITH PRO-ISRAELI COMMENTS FROM THE BBC INTERVIEWER compared with a LESS THAN 10 SECOND verbal mention of an anti-Israel demonstration yesterday on BBC News 24 yesterday.
Also on Fox News Journalist said Lebanese fleeing the scene in their cars were, and I quote "fair game" for the Israeli Armed Forces.
NEVER IN MY 41 YEARS ON THIS EARTH HAVE I WITNESSED SUCH ONE SIDED COMPLETELY BIASED COVERAGE ON ALL WESTERN TV CHANNELS.
All you protesters yesterday, anyone who is a victim of pro-Israeli terrorism, your voice counts for absolutely nothing anymore in the Western TV Media. They are firmly against you.
nodboss
watching fox news may make you ill
24.07.2006 07:17
Propaganda Remix
see also
Bobby
Homepage:
http://homepage.mac.com/leperous/PhotoAlbum1.html