Iraq War hawks intensely dislike Robert Fisk of the London Independent, one of the few Western reporters in Iraq who speaks fluent Arabic. This profile in the San Francisco Chronicle gives an overview of his reporting. One of his latest takes a much dimmer view of Bush's speech on democracy in the Arab world than most American commentators did:
<< Bush claims he's going to introduce democracy in the Middle East when his soldiers are facing more than resistance in Iraq. They are facing an insurrection. So let's take a look at the latest lies. "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," he told us on Thursday. "Because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." Well said, Sir. George Bush Jr sounds almost as convincing as, well, Tony Blair. It's all a lie. "We" - the West, Europe, America - never "excused and accommodated" lack of freedom. We endorsed lack of freedom. We created it in the Middle East and supported it.
<< When Colonel Ghaddafi took over Libya, the Foreign Office thought him a much sprightlier figure than King Idriss. We supported the Egyptian generals (aka Gamal Abdul Nasser) when they originally kicked out King Farouk. We - the Brits - created the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan. We - the Brits - put a Hashemite King on the throne of Iraq. And when the Baath party took over from the monarchy in Baghdad, the CIA obligingly handed Saddam's mates the names of all senior communist party members so they could be liquidated.
<< The Brits created all those worthy sheikhdoms in the Gulf. Kuwait was our doing; Saudi Arabia was ultimately a joint Anglo-US project, the United Arab Emirates (formerly the Trucial State) etc. But when Iran decided in the 1950s that it preferred Mohammed Mossadeq's democratic rule to the Shah's, the CIA's Kim Roosevelt, with Colonel "Monty" Woodhouse of MI6, overthrew democracy in Iran. Now President Bush demands the same "democracy" in present-day Iran and says we merely "excused and accommodated" the loathsome US-supported Shah's regime. >>
No, Fisk isn't a favorite with the "Freeper" crowd.
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