The secret government marches on...

[James A. Donald]

    --
"James A. Donald":
> > Here is Fisk's article http://tinyurl.com/995f
> >
> > Here is the mainstream article http://tinyurl.com/9966
> >
> > They contradict each other.  Therefore one or both is  
> > lying. Since we now have good cause to believe the  
> > mainstream article true, it follows that Robert Fisk is  
> > lying.

 On 11 Apr 2003 at 13:12, Ken Brown wrote:
> They really don't contradict each other.

One says the Iraqi minister of information told the truth at  
his conference on the third of April, and the US lying in its 
press release of thursday the third of April, the other says 
the US telling the truth, and the Iraqi information minister 
lying on the third of April

> Fisk's article implies that the journalists set off at 1400  
> Iraqi time - that is 2300 New Zealand. The article is dated  
> April 4th, so he is presumably talking about the events of  
> April 3rd - which is confirmed on the copy of the same  
> article at http://robert-fisk.com/articles210.htm    He  
> mentions dusk, so its a fair bet he turned up in the late  
> afternoon and left at nightfall (a sensible thing to do in a 
> place that gets regularly bombed)

The US claimed on the third of April that US forces were on the 
outskirts of the airport.  The minister of information  
responded on the third of April claiming that US forces were  
nowhere near the airport.

So you interpret the article as Fisk truthfully saying he was  
unable to check the claims of the Iraqi information minister?  
But that interpretation contradicts not only the overall tone  
and impression of Fisk's article, but also the plain words of  
the article, which proclaimed the minister of information to be 
telling the truth, and the Americans to be lying.

> The BBC reports on April 4th said the US took the airport   
> "overnight"

The question at issue is not when US forces took the airport,  
but when US forces reached "the outskirts" of the airport.

Fisk lied.

The US reached "the outskirts" of the airport on the morning of 
thursday the third of April.  The US announced this, referring 
to "the outskirts of the airport", the minister denied it, and 
Fisk claimed to confirm the ministers denial, though in reality 
no newsmen were permitted to check the minister's claims.

> Exactly what Fisk wrote - the Ministry took the journalist to 
> the airport, there were no Americans there.

The US claim (3rd April) was that Americans were on "the  
outskirts".   The minister of information did not merely deny  
that American troops were relaxing in the airport lounge, he  
denied that US troops were anywhere near the airport. The goons 
from the ministry of information did not permit the newsmen to 
see the outskirts, a most curious restraint, a restraint that  
Fisk neglects to mention.

> Anyway Baghdad is a big city and this is NOT a war with rigid 
> front lines (one of the reasons the Iraqis managed to capture 
> logistical support staff). It is perfectly possible that  
> someone could be 20 km west from the city centre but not in  
> visual contact with US ground units only 15km from it, or  
> that a small US reconnaissance force watching over the  
> airport from one direction could be invisible to journalists 
> looking at it from another.

Yes, fog of war and all that.  But Fisk did not merely say that 
he did not know, he said he did know, and supported that  
pretended knowledge by deceptively omitting crucial facts --  
that the newsmen got a guided tour to the airport lounge and  
back to Baghdad, a tour that curiously that omitted any  
opportunity to check the facts in dispute, curiously failed to 
show what had been promised would be shown.  The fact that the 
newsmen were not taken around the outskirts shows that had they 
been taken there, they would have encountered US troops.

Obviously, if US troops had not been massing on the outskirts  
of the airport, preparatory to taking it, the guided tour would 
have included the outskirts, since on the third of April, the  
outskirts were the issue in dispute.

> Fisk is no friend of the US government - though from reading 
> his stuff I think he hates the Ba'athists and the other  
> middle-east kleptocracies even more,

Assuming he is Baghdad at all, which I very much doubt, why no 
mention of the Ministry of information minders?   If he did not 
love totalitarian terror regimes, why omit this crucial fact?  
Saudi Arabia is a kleptocracy.  Baathism is totalitarian.  The 
fact that you are unaware of this shows where Fisk's heart  
lies.  He wants a world of slavery and terror.

> The two articles you quote are really about different things 
> - the US paper is doing a roundup of the events of the day,  
> with a gung-ho spin on it; the main thrust of Fisk's piece is 
> in fact about how the Iraqi propaganda is widely disbelieved 
> by Iraqis - using the absurd monuments to the so-called  
> victory against Iran as an image of the bombastic rubbish the 
> Ba'athist government spouted - and comparing it with two  
> pieces of US propaganda that he thinks were untrue.

The old moral equivalence deal.  Stalin supposedly equals  
McCarthy.  But they were not morally equivalent, and he did not 
merely say he thought they were untrue, he claimed to have seen 
with his own eyes that one of those "pieces of US propaganda"  
was untrue, when we now know it was true.  US troops *were* on 
the outskirts, and were massing preparatory to an attack which 
took place shortly after the journalists visit.

> The Americans are saying "we will inevitably win a glorious  
> victory".
>
> Fisk is saying "all governments are liars in wartime".

No, the Americans were saying "we have reached the outskirts of 
Baghdad airport", and Fisk was saying "Americans have not  
reached the outskirts of Baghdad airport."  But now we know  
they had reached the outskirts of Baghdad airport.

> NB the Independent publishes most of Fisk's columns in their 
> "Argument" section, i.e. as opinion, not reportage.

But Fisk adds authority to his opinions by claiming to report  
from Baghdad.

> > Probably Fisk did not know where the American forces were, 
> > but he assured the reader, with great confidence, that he  
> > did know.

> No he didn't, he assured his readers that he knew where they 
> *weren't* - that is right in front of him.

He assured his readers that US troops were not on the outskirts 
of Baghdad airport, but they were on the outskirts of Baghdad  
airport.  By omitting to mention the journalists were taken on 
a guided tour by Ministry of information minders, a tour that  
conspicuously failed to show them the outskirts, he gave his  
readers an entirely false impression of what was in front of  
those journalists.  As to what was in front of him, I suspect  
his desk in England.

> Your rhetorical tricks are transparent. Such as contrasting  
> the phrase "Fisk's article" with "mainstream article"  -  
> implying that Fisk and his paper are not "mainstream", are  
> somehow marginal. Fisk mainly works for the London paper  
> called the Independent. I don't read it much but it is  
> certainly "mainstream".

Full of commies.  Lunatic fringe totalitarians, adherents of a 
dying religion, sticking to the edicts of a dead party.  They  
are starting to blend in with flying saucerists and neo Nazis. 
A decade or two down the line we will may well hear that  
Trotsky did not die, but was taken in a flying saucer to a  
distant planet, from which he will return to lead us to utopia.

> It is boring, somewhat staid, establishment-oriented   
> broadsheet newspaper - politically probably in around the  
> same small-l-liberal-but-not-radical place as the New York  
> Times.

Recollect the New York times on the Ukraine famine.  While  
Stalin was torturing peasants to extort their seed corn, the  
New York Times denied everything, and was naturaly awarded the 
Pulitzer prize for their courageous denial of the story.  Since 
then the former Soviet Union has come to its senses, but the  
New York Times remains married to blood and death, insulated  
from reality by their own little Berlin wall

> It's mainly read by middle-aged middle-class Londoners

Upper crust, more likely, like the New York times -- the kind  
of people who could imagine themselves as the planners in a  
totalitarian terror state.  The people who tend to imagine  
themselves as the planned, rather than the planners, working  
class people, are not so keen on terror and slavery.

> And he *is* a good writer - even if you disagree with him you 
> have to admit that his latest piece is worth reading:   
> http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?stor 
> y=395707 The bit about Corporal Breeze from Michigan is a  
> gem. Brings tears to your eyes. If Fisk ever gives up  
> watching Arabs getting shot at maybe he could get a  
> scriptwriting job for Steven Spielberg.

He certainly has lots of experience writing fiction, but  
selective ommission is more his style.  When he tells of the  
Olympic sports offices, run by Uday Hussein being looted, you  
get the impression of these wicked looters wrecking this  
innocent happy sports facility, neglecting to mention that Uday 
would get his kicks torturing sportsmen and sports women to  
death.  

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         James A. Donald
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