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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents
    #3035924 - 08/22/04 10:30 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. So describe, further, what you are seeing on the ground in Iraq.

ROBERT FISK: Well, when you are in Baghdad, you realize that parts of the city are probably still under government control when you leave Baghdad, however, which few journalists unfortunately do for the obvious and real dangers that face them, if you do as I did and drive down to Najaf you'll find that for the first 70 miles of the journey the police have abandoned all the checkpoints.

The road is littered with smashed police vehicles, burned-out American trucks. If you drive close to Fallujah, you'll see in Ramadi that there is no government presence left in those cities. In Najaf, itself, when I got there, the police were at the holy city of Kufa but they couldn't go into the city of Najaf because of the cease-fire agreement between Muqtar al-Sadr and the Americans.

In fact, Muqtar al-Sadr actually has an air-conditioned office in the Imam Ali shrine, the great, gold leaf-domed shrine commemorating the death of the Imam Ali, in which the tomb is. When I went to see his right-hand man inside his office in the shrine I said, what are the terms of the agreement? He said, well, we have a map and the Americans are only allowed to use two roads. He actually produced a U.S. military map with two red crayon marks on it. I said what are those? He said they are the roads I allow them to go on. I drew the crayon and they accepted it.

It appears that the six items of the cease-fire agreement was still under negotiation, and that was the lifting of all charges against Muqtar al-Sadr, who was charged last year for the murder of another Shiite prelate in Najaf. The problem is that that charge, which was issued by the same judge who later did the investigative opening trial of Saddam Hussein has largely been ineffective because the Americans can't go into Najaf nor can the police attempt to arrest Muqtar al-Sadr.

The fact of the matter is that nothing much that Ayad Allawi says has any effect. I mean he is now talking today about using martial law in the fight against terror. He can't use martial law. He hasn't got any soldiers and, those he has got he can't use to reinvade Iraq and recapture all the cities he's lost. He can parade some soldiers up and down the center of Baghdad probably, but the country has already gone except for the Kurds, who will later be betrayed because that seems to be their historical role. There is very little of Basra, which is really left under British or government control. Vast areas of the desert simply have no presence of the government at all. And as I say, the major cities one by one are effectively going to the insurgents. That doesn't mean they?re actually ruled as people's republics, though they might be soon, but they are no longer under government control.

And Allawi and al-Yawer, the so-called president, all of whom are American created, American appointed, will not be able to crush this. They will have to try and do deals. They tried a deal a month ago over an amnesty, which the Americans rejected. But the Americans can't crush the insurgency. They don't want to because they're already losing too many men and actually more than ever now. It is a very, very grave crisis, principally of course not for the Americans or the Allawi government but a grave crisis for the Iraqi people. I've been -- the government -- neither the American or Iraqi forces will issue statistics for ordinary Iraqis who are killed. I think this is a disgrace. It's obliged to the U.S. and British forces under their mandate as it is to the government to care and look after the Iraqi people. While I?ve been going every few days to the mortuary in Baghdad and counting the number of people brought in dead through violence in just July. In the first 10 days of July, they received 250 corpses, men, women and children, violently killed. In the second 10 days, they brought in the corpses of 291, and the figure stood at more than 700 for Baghdad alone, by the end of July. Then you just quoted me, like turning on the television and watching CNN or the BBC in Baghdad, and I hear Tony Blair looking up with his schoolboy grin after his school debating society competition in the House of Commons saying Iraq is safer. It is simply not true.

http://www.robert-fisk.com/


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Don't worry, B. Caapi

Edited by Alex123 (08/22/04 10:37 AM)

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InvisibleRandalFlagg
Stranger
Registered: 06/15/02
Posts: 15,608
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Xlea321]
    #3036060 - 08/22/04 11:32 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

As I read this, I actually thought that maybe this was truly the
way it is in Iraq. But when I went to this guy's web site and I
saw "Victims of Anglo-American aggression", "link to Noam Chomsky's
site", and "latest headlines on anti-war websites" I immediately
suspected that this might not be the truth. His bias is obvious.
This makes me question his accuracy and objectivity.

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OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: RandalFlagg]
    #3036436 - 08/22/04 02:00 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

The man's name is Robert Fisk.

He is of the same ilk as Noam Chomnsky and Jonathan Pilger. He's the one people are implicitly referring to when they use the term "Fisking". A lot of the discussion in this forum is in essence "Fisking" -- to deconstruct sentence by sentence (and often phrase by phrase) the inaccuracies, logical fallacies, context-dropping, etc. used by a debater. Robert Fisk's rants are so densely packed with examples of the above that the only way to address them all is through the process of "Fisking" them.

Having said that, even if it is Robert Fisk who wrote the article, this does not mean that the entire article is automatically inaccurate. Even a blind pig stumbles across an acorn from time to time. For example, I have no doubt there are many burned-out vehicles to be seen in Iraq.

pinky


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OfflineDivided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings

Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Xlea321]
    #3036442 - 08/22/04 02:02 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

AT first I thought it was Peter Arnette!

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OfflineJesusChrist
Son Of God
Registered: 02/19/04
Posts: 1,459
Last seen: 11 years, 6 months
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #3036608 - 08/22/04 03:04 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

That Baby Milk factory was an Arnette classic. It still makes me giggle.


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Tastes just like chicken

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InvisibleVvellum
Stranger

Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 10,920
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Phred]
    #3037751 - 08/22/04 08:59 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Having said that, even if it is Robert Fisk who wrote the article, this does not mean that the entire article is automatically inaccurate. Even a blind pig stumbles across an acorn from time to time. For example, I have no doubt there are many burned-out vehicles to be seen in Iraq.




I can tell you didnt even read the interview - it was not "Robert Fisk who wrote the article," it's an interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Now, what is it called when one attacks an individual personally rather than criticizing what he or she is actually saying? I dont seem to recall...help me out with this one.

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Invisibleretread
-=HasH=-
Registered: 07/14/04
Posts: 851
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Xlea321]
    #3037882 - 08/22/04 09:30 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Alex123 said:
The fact of the matter is that nothing much that Ayad Allawi says has any effect. I mean he is now talking today about using martial law in the fight against terror. He can't use martial law. He hasn't got any soldiers and, those he has got he can't use to reinvade Iraq and recapture all the cities he's lost. He can parade some soldiers up and down the center of Baghdad probably, but the country has already gone




He hasn't got any, and those he has...? Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

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Invisibleretread
-=HasH=-
Registered: 07/14/04
Posts: 851
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Vvellum]
    #3037889 - 08/22/04 09:33 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

bi0 said:
Quote:

Having said that, even if it is Robert Fisk who wrote the article, this does not mean that the entire article is automatically inaccurate. Even a blind pig stumbles across an acorn from time to time. For example, I have no doubt there are many burned-out vehicles to be seen in Iraq.




I can tell you didnt even read the interview - it was not "Robert Fisk who wrote the article," it's an interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Now, what is it called when one attacks an individual personally rather than criticizing what he or she is actually saying? I dont seem to recall...help me out with this one.




Didn't he state "even if..." Does it appear to you that the majority of the article is comprised of words from Fisks mouth?

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InvisibleVvellum
Stranger

Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 10,920
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: retread]
    #3038205 - 08/22/04 11:44 PM (19 years, 7 months ago)

I stand corrected.

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OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Vvellum]
    #3038442 - 08/23/04 01:40 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Sorry, but I did read the article. And yes, even though it was Amy Goodman who conducted the interview, it is in essence nothing more than a transcript of Fisk's words. Apart from Goodman's question "So describe, further, what you are seeing on the ground in Iraq," every word is Fisk's.

Now, what is it called when one attacks an individual personally rather than criticizing what he or she is actually saying?

Attacking the messenger rather than the message. You will note that I did say that just because the majority of what Fisk has said in the past is bullshit, that doesn't necessarily mean that everything he says in this interview is bullshit --
Quote:

Having said that, even if it is Robert Fisk who wrote the article, this does not mean that the entire article is automatically inaccurate.




pinky


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OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 25 days
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Phred]
    #3039127 - 08/23/04 10:29 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

He is of the same ilk as Noam Chomnsky and Jonathan Pilger.




He is also highly intelligent and compassionate is he? Sounds like a good guy then.

Quote:

Attacking the messenger rather than the message. You will note that I did say that just because the majority of what Fisk has said in the past is bullshit, that doesn't necessarily mean that everything he says in this interview is bullshit --





Perhaps you'd care to prove one word of what he is saying in this article is bullshit? Note im not saying one word of the article is true or false because I dont actually know.

Edited by GazzBut (08/23/04 10:51 AM)

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InvisibleXlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: GazzBut]
    #3043591 - 08/24/04 09:52 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

He is also highly intelligent and compassionate is he? Sounds like a good guy then.

Great season of John Pilger documentaries on the ITV news channel. Some incredible stuff of him on the frontline in Vietnam - certainly an enormous contrast to the "embedded" journalists we see today.

Perhaps you'd care to prove one word of what he is saying in this article is bullshit?

Don't hold your breath. If you disagree with pinky you are talking "bullshit", if you agree with him you are "right". It's a very simple belief system.


--------------------
Don't worry, B. Caapi

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OfflineDexter_Sinister
Madvillain

Registered: 08/04/04
Posts: 66
Loc: Mannheim, Germany
Last seen: 19 years, 4 months
Re: Iraq cities falling one by one to the insurgents [Re: Vvellum]
    #3043774 - 08/24/04 10:51 AM (19 years, 7 months ago)

argumentum ad hominem

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