Tim Blair

You are the undisputed Fiskmaster!

"happy enough to hear about Queasy and eBay" ... now there's something to ponder on :-)

That article is so bad, I thought it was a spoof

Yes, nothing like killing the leaders to make a resistance movement grow. Why, when we killed Hitler back in '45, who knew that we would still be fighting a guerrilla war in Bavaria against third-generation Nazis.

I love Fisk. 'The Americans used their so-called Task Force 20…' What a winner this guy is. Task Force 20 is what they're called, melonhead. If they'd tagged themselves 'Hell's lead-spitting avengers', then 'so-called' would have done the job. I wish I knew enough about the English language to be a big journalist like Robert 'so-called' Fisk, which I propose we rename him immediately.

Germany is still a quagmire. US troops haven't left yet. As is Korea. US troops still there after 50 years. (The bits about it being a quagmire is sarcasm, but as far as I can tell, US troops have been in Germany and Korea for that long).

Robert’s careful acknowledgement kept him out of Baghdad’s infamous plagiarist torture cells.

The Iraqi government watched their media very closely. Hey, are there any links with David Marr we've failed to dig up?

Mark's suggestion is excellent. I also propose the Iraqis be encouraged to celebrate the deaths of Usay and Quday by beating Fisk. It's been awhile, after all, and surely they don't want to be outdone by the Afghans, do they?

Ralph Peters's comments on the death of Saddam's heirs:

For the long-suffering people of Iraq, the deaths of Uday and Qusay matter more, on a practical level, than even Saddam's confirmed death one day will. With his sons alive, Saddam remained a threat to the future. With both of them dead - as well as his eldest grandson, perhaps - he's only a broken tyrant on the run.

Saddam remains a symbol, but a hollow one. His power to make himself feared required sons to extend his reign. And the symbolism of American soldiers scoring the kill makes it unmistakably clear who holds the upper hand and how little Saddam's campaign of assassinating our troops achieved.

He killed America's sons. And we killed his.

In the Middle East, family trumps all other worldly connections and obligations. And sons are the most important part of an Arab family. Saddam's visions of himself as a successor to the great rulers of the golden age of the Arabs are void without sons to carry on the line. He hoped to create a hereditary throne. Now the would-be caliph sits amid empty chairs.

Saddam cherished his sons so blindly that he tolerated their monstrous excesses. Uday was wildly vicious, Qusay coldly murderous. Together, they seemed to guarantee the enduring power of the House of Hussein - perhaps even beyond the American occupation.

Now the chain is broken.

Saddam feels, at last, the pain he inflicted upon countless Iraqi families.

http://www.nypost.com/cgi-bin/printfriendly.pl

Too bad Fisk wasn't in that villa doing an interview with his two "so-called heroes". Then he could have demonstrated his "so-called courage" against the "so-called Task Force 20". This "so-called journalist" is nothing more than a mewling coward, rooting on from the sidelines the attacks on coalition soldiers. He'd stain his shorts if he were ever looking down the barrel of an M-16.

I think Mark is on to something. Wasn't there this thing about Baghdad Bob and some toilet paper? So, how 'bout this new title for the King of Crap:

So-Called "25 Rolls"

... there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the American occupation authorities in Iraq and the people whose country they are occupying.

And this so-called Fisk character really understands the Iraqi people, eh?

But the guerrillas who are killing US troops every day are also being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement which never had any love for Saddam.

Tell me if I'm reading this wrong, but doesn't this sentence say that the guerrillas are being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement? That would have nothing to do with the previous "America doesn't understand the Iraqis" paragraph, and would in fact be very good news. Doesn't he mean that a growing Islamist Sunni movement is also attacking US troops?

If he's right, I wonder where he gets his info.

Fisk?

Explain to me again why anybody reads this idjit. I just don't get it.

Brilliant.

If Mr. Fisk gets around to writing his biography he could borrow the title of Buckminster Fuller's work: "I Seem to be a Verb".

Is anybody paying this ratbag for his demented scribble?

I continue to be amazed that a single word of his verbal diarrhroea makes a legitimate paper.

This is one of the funniest fiskings I've ever read. Of course, Fisk makes it easy. It's almost as if he's intentionally playing a caricature of himself. 'Fess up, Tim, is he your straight man?

Why do people still care about what Fisk has to say? This is the same man who the day before the Americans entered Baghdad made it look like the Iraqui defences were indestructible, and sure death was to befall the imperialist dogs where they to try and come into the city. Not to mention the fact that he supposedly saw "no American forces in the outskirts of the city", or something like that. He's a dictator loving asshole, pure and simple.

"But the guerrillas who are killing US troops every day are also being attacked by a growing Islamist Sunni movement which never had any love for Saddam."

How ridiculous, Saddam was a Sunni and favoured them in positions in the Baath party. They are revolting for their loss of privledges, perhaps he means the Shi'ite muslims?

Mike,

I'm planning a revival of Laugh In, with me and Robert co-hosting. The man's a riot!

Fisk writes for the lefties that want their worldview confirmed despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He's a psychosis enabler.

Dental and medical records confirm that Uday and Qusay bought it yesterday:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33497-2003Jul23.html

Nice work, Fiskie!

You know, with their death, this will be a great blow to the spam mail industry by Qusay about the billions in foreign banks that he needed to transfered out with the help of a well compensated theird party.

That's okay, fisk away on dear old Fiskie.

If he treats you as well as he treats Afghan mobs, he'll probably concede in his next column that it was well deserved.

No, he's not dumb, nor is he corrupt.

He's just possessed of an insatiable desire to be humiliated that you ordinarily don't see in anyone other than a Tory M.P.

The Independent expects people to pay to read this drivel. Yet you can read it for free online from a New Zealand paper.

The people who run the Independent are not very smart, are they?

Fisk, as usual, has it back-asswards. The deaths of these two rats is a huge win for the coalition - Iraqis will be more inclined to turn in Saddam if they know his sons cannot seek revenge on them. And that hereditary tribal culture will see that the dynasty is over. Saddam is finished, Fisk is in mourning.

Trouble is, Fisk is impervious to proof that his writings are the delusions of a true believer. When he claimed to have been standing behind the man who started chopping at the Saddam statue in Baghdad on liberation day, I sent his editors at the Independent photographs from AP taken head-on to the bloke. No Fisk in view in any of the photos from any of the news agencies. Silence from the Independent; silence from Fisky-Baby.

He lives in an impenetrable world of delusion. Remember when he shilled for a Saudi "Peace Plan" that would have guaranteed the so-called (Aaargh! it's contagious!) "Right of Return" for Palestinians? He wanted to Chair a Peace Conference----The Guardian (that other fair and balanced newspaper, which has its own home-grown 'Fisk-er' in Polly Toynbee), fresh from its meddling on behalf of the terrorists of the IRA, backed the idea and offered to convene the conference at the same place as their Irish love-fest. When that didn't come to anything, Fisk whined about "dark forces" thwarting his noble aims.

The Independent once was a real newspaper---now, for integrity and trust-worthiness it compares unfavourably with the Socialist Workers Party house organ, "The Militant".

Fisk is obviously banking on the success of the Big Bad Sunni Guerilla Movement so that he can take over the job of Information Minister in the new regime.

Like that Olive Garden fellow, the so-called Robert Fisk is a cricket reporter at heart. He's perpetually distressed that the Americans use overwhelming force and seem to care about nothing but winning. It's just not sporting to never let the little fellow have a chance. It's not cricket.

As a color commentator, the so-called Fisk feels obliged to come up with angles -- however unlikely -- that make the match look competitive. Now that the Shiite Fanatics and Iraqi Nationalists have fizzled and the Baathist Deadenders are mostly dead, he's touting a new team of unknowns, the Sunni Guerrillas. Can they stand up to the unbeaten Occupiers? Well, no, but he's got to stir up interest somehow or he'll be out of sports reporting.

I prefer to say, "Farewell, Queesy and OD. We'll always have Paris."

Am I the only one that thinks that Sadaam is dead?

Joanne Jacobs: excellent! I reckon you're onto something there.

Although I think the "Olive Garden Fellow" has some genuine bile that he laces his sports commentary with.

Why is "so called" used so frequently by so many so called journalists? I think they should be accompanied by a large tattooed thug at all times, and zapped on the bollocks (or the beef curtains for that matter) with a cattle prod everytime they utter or type "so called".
Aversion therapy is the only answer.

I just read (as much of) the Fisk article (as I could stomach), and the feeling that swept over me was: Robert seems devastated that Saddam's sons have been killed! But then he is always devastated by events that the Iraqi people clearly desire.

What the US must immediately do:

1) release pictures of the 2 dead bodies - failure to do this is positive proof that the fascist, unelected US military dictatorship is actually carrying out a sinister sneaky public relations plot as it always does

2) respect the privacy of the family of the deceased, who as human beings, are subject to UN conventions regarding military casualties - to release pictures of the dead bodies would be a gross violation of human rights and proof of the immoral double standards of the US which complains when one of their own soldiers is shown on Iraqi TV.

This is Fisky's finest piece. How did he manage it? The only amazing thing is that the Indy continues to run his stuff after the complete horlicks of his "war" coverage, when he was actually not only spectacularly wrong about significant stories, but was caught out inventing a trip to a "cluster-bombed" town, when he and other reporters were on the same non-stop bus to Baghdad. IE, no such trip could have taken place.

Stephen Glover, former Indy on Sunday editor and a longtime Fisk admirer -- v antiwar -- was moved to comment in his Evening Standard column that Robert had had a "bad war", and allowed his emotions to get the better of him. Well, I knew that, we knew that, but when one of his greatest admirers says it ...

The Indy presents Robert's stuff as "Argument" or something like that. Trouble is that lots of papers run it as "news".

Give Fisk a break...he may be a bit mad and he's a few wrong outcomes in his predictions lately, but he's got integrity and he's a honest journo. The allegation about him making up the trip to the cluster-bombed town first appeared in Private Eye - and was contradicted in the very next issue. Fisk *had* been driven past the town, as had the other journos who were no doubt asleep at the time. Sadly for Fisk, only the first allegation has been given wide publicity, not the answer to it.
Knock Fisk for being pro-Arab if you want (not that there's anything wrong with a by-lined reporter having an opinion - it's a time-honoured tradition in the trade, despite what readers might think). Knock him for being boring sometimes. Knock him for being spectacularly wrong on occasion in the Mystic Meg-stakes. But don't accuse him of making up stories when he didn't.