The terrorist “mastermind” has returned and the mainstream media seem to have swallowed the bait. As Robert Fisk rightly says – in a fairly rambling way, it must be said – Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi are in many ways irrelevant to the wider struggle.
The genie is out of the bottle.
Most serious people I have spoken to agree that Fisk is either drinking while he takes his meds or he is still in shock and meltdown over the huge yawn and silence that followed the publication of his embarrassing magnus opus. Even Tony Jones thinks he is little better than light amusement. Yet, our fearless leader AL fashions himself as the Antipodean Fisker!
so, ignore tha actual point of the post and just have a go at fisk again, is that it?
oh well, never mind, i will engage with the point, what amazes me is how short our attention spans must be gauged to be, for it can only be two weeks ago that it was widely exposed that the pentagon had been using zarqawi as a propoganda tool,
are we supposed to dismiss that news and swallow this so soon
smiths
Ah, hullo!!?? Fisk is “the point” of the post. And you, rather than engage with the “real” story which is the hysterical, yet disturbing, lack-of-credibility of that “point.”
OMG. I just laughed so much I spat my VB all over the keyboard!
) You have got to read this
from Tim Blair’s site. It is a brilliant satire on Robert Fisk’s whole life! In a more serious moment I’m not sure how healthy the implosion of all these white bourgeois leftist males is for journalism as a whole.
‘I’m not sure how healthy the implosion of all these white bourgeois leftist males is for journalism as a whole.’
Lemming. Tiresome pipsqueak.
When we crash and burn after following the US down the road to ruin, you fools will still be chuntering on about leftists and journos, teachers and unionists, haw haw haw. It’ll all be our fault, won’t it Einstein?
We all have bigger fish to fry thanks to pinheads all over the West too stupid to realise they’d been had. You won’t even notice til it’s too late. Have you ever seen anything coming that stuck out like dog’s balls beforehand, like say the disaster in Iraq or of the Bush regency in general?
It won’t give us white male lefties much pleasure to say I told you so, but we will anyway.
I admire Fisk, but I must admit that wahcing that interview, Fisk looked like he was completely out of it. For a man who is normally very succinct, he was very incoherent.
Fisks point abtou Zarqawi is pretty much on the money. Teh fact that this very cheesy video appeared the same week as Bin Landen’s, and coincided with Bish’s polls ratings heading ito Nixonian territory is becommign so predictabel, I am amazed any gives these videos any regard.
Fisk is comepltely right about Zarqawi being hyped. Only last week, the Penatgo all but admitted that that they have used Zarqawi for propaghanda purposes and that they even released fake correspondence of his to the media.
An April 10th Washington Post article stated, that..
“The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890_pf.html
Even worse, the article goes on to say how the Pentagon had concocted fake Al-Zarqawi letters, boasting about suicide attacks and leaked them to Dexter Filkins of the New York Times, who splashed it on the front page the next day. Despite the fact that Filkins had severe doubts about the authenticity of the letter, the Times got down on their knees, licked boots, and published it anyway.
The same documents directly state that the false promotion of Al-Zarqawi includes marking the the “U.S. Home Audience” as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.”
A U.S. ‘Propaganda’ Program, al-Zarqawi, and ‘The New York Times’
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002314713
Finalyl, let’s not forget that Bush had more than one opportunity to take out Zarqawi’s camp prior to the Iraq invasion and chose not to because they wanetd to use his presence in Iraq (acually under the no fly zones in Kurdistan), to argue to eh UN that Iraq was a spoensor of terror.
Viva, I’m a little surprised that you are such a fan of Tim Blair. I ecpetdd you to have some intellectual accumen. The more you reveal yourself, the more obvious it becomes what a shill you really are.
The agitprop is getting sloppy. On April 10th it was widely reported that the Pentagon was going to play up the role of Zarqawi as a treat to Iraqi stability, now we have the planted video broadcast on al-Jazeera. How is it that there is never a link provided to the ‘websites’ where these videos are planted? How is it that unnamed ’sources’ always confirm that the video is ‘authentic’? It is too ridiculous for words.
Perfectly put JohD.