…you have linked to a wikipedia article whose neutrality has been disputed, with a single allegation on it, that being Andrew Sullivan accusing Fisk pathologically relativistic and racist. He made that accusation after this paragraph from a Fisk article:
…is that your evidence that Fisk has been “discredited?”
Saddam’s crime (for which he was judged and sentenced):
Killing 140 men, women and children of his country, suspected of attempting to assasinate him.
Punishment:
Tried by court and sentenced to death. Executed today.
GWB’s crime:
Killing thoudands of men women and childeren of another country for no reason. Killing thousands of his countrymen(soldiers) for no reason.
Punishment:
???
Looks pretty conclusive to me and I’m against the Iraq war.
I must confess I rather wish that the mob had finished off that sanctimonious git.
For a start Moslems were killed in 7/7 - and also we in the UK are smart enough to realize clothes and a sun tan do not definitely denote a person’s religion.
Interestingly John Simpson (a veteran BBC reporter whose books I have been reading) emphasizes that he has seldom encountered any real animosity from ‘mobs’. Possibly having a cameraman with him helps.
I have seen that Wiki article.
It says:
"Described by the New York Times as “probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain”,[3] he has over thirty years of experience in international reporting, dating from 1970s Belfast and Portugal’s 1974 Carnation Revolution, the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War, and encompassing the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, 1991 Persian Gulf War, and 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He is the world’s most-decorated foreign correspondent,[4] having received numerous awards including the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year award seven times. Fisk speaks good vernacular Arabic, and is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden (three times between 1994 and 1997).
In the British journalistic tradition of the foreign correspondent, Fisk has developed a personal analysis of the foreign affairs that he covers and presents them in that light, often with trenchant criticism of the British government and its allies. His admirers take this as a sign of his depth of knowledge; his critics take it as confirmation of his incorrigible bias. Fisk is a consistent critic of what he perceives as hypocrisy in British government foreign policy.
Fisk’s reporting—and his bestselling books, based on his field notes and recordings— offer strong criticisms of Middle Eastern governments as well as what he perceives as hypocrisy in British and United States government foreign policy. His view of journalism is that it must “challenge authority — all authority — especially so when governments and politicians take us to war”, and he quotes with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: “There is a misconception that journalists can be objective … What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power.”[6] Fisk has received widespread praise and criticism for his condemnation of violence against civilians, what his admirers see as his courageous reporting, and his willingness to challenge the statements of governments. Speaking of the historical basis for the conflicts he has covered Fisk said, “After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father’s war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career — in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad — watching the people within those borders burn.”
Fisk’s articles on the Independent’s website attract enough readership to merit their own subscription.
Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He received the British Press Awards’ International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its “Reporter of the Year” award.[14]. Awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.[15]
He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006.
END QUOTE
Admittedly his pro-Palestine stance has infuriated the Israeli Lobby in the US and elsewhere and they repeatedly criticise him. I admit his views on israel are less acceptable in the US than here, but his reporting about the arabic middle ease is highly repsected worldwide.
So you and some pro-Israel commentators don’t like him. That does not ‘discredit him.’
Nothing cruel about it. Rope around the neck, drop, pop, he’s gone. Certainly a far more humane death than he deserved. I personally would not have objected if they had staked him out in the desert next to an anthill.
Translation
Saddam = Tito II did a few bad things, but Western Leaders are worse, rinse and repeat.
Btw, Saddam encouraged himself to invade Iran, he didn’t need any help from us there.
Any Arabs who despair at Saddams death have questionable morals. It’s also morally questionable for someone to assume that we created Saddam, ignoring the fact that the political situation on the ground at that time didn’t need any help from us to get him into power, no he did that all by himself.
Oh, there was a reason, all right. More than one, actually; but not the reasons stated at the time.
I heard on the radio this morning that 46 people died in Baghdad car bombings. Based on that, I think we’ll see the same thing we’ve been seeing for the last 3 1/2 years.
Walking to an fro across the blogosphere, this tidbit…
That the execution of Saddam was a deliberate slap at Sunni Iraqi. As most of you no doubt know, Saddam’s execution was timed so as not to impinge on a religious holiday that forbids executions, rather like the average American would be uneasy about scheduling an execution for Easter or Christmas.
Like Christianity, there is variation within Islam as to timing of holidays. For instance, Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Xmas a full twelve days at variance with Catholic and Protestant Christians.
(excerpted by Washington Monthly from Salon, which requires a click-through for access…)
Trivial? Perhaps. People jump real funny when you mess with their God-stuff.
Also in the WaPo:
Posted by Banquet Bear:
…you have linked to a wikipedia article whose neutrality has been disputed, with a single allegation on it, that being Andrew Sullivan accusing Fisk pathologically relativistic and racist. He made that accusation after this paragraph from a Fisk article:
…is that your evidence that Fisk has been “discredited?”
Posted by Dominic Mulligan:
Looks pretty conclusive to me and I’m against the Iraq war.
Moderator’s Warning: Dominic Mulligan, do not change the text of what another poster has posted while using the Quote tags, as you did in the above post.
That says nothing about Saddam. It does about you though.