Bahrain: An Escalation of Bloodshed by Finian Cunningham + Bahraini protesters fired upon

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted from Irish Times
February 20, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Manama, February 19, 2011. Bahrain’s capital, Manama, descended into scenes of bloody chaos last night after the kingdom’s army opened fire on thousands of anti-government protesters near one of the city’s main hospitals.

Medics at Al Salmaniya Hospital said they were overwhelmed with the number of casualties, with over 100 people being admitted suffering gunshot wounds to the head and upper body. As doctors struggled to tend to victims, the entrance of the hospital was thronged with angry protesters denouncing King Hamad Al Khalifa and his regime.

The Egyptian Revolution: A Democracy Now! Special on Mubarak’s Resignation

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Democracy Now!
Feb. 11, 2011

Robert Fisk: The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand

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Democracy Now!
Feb. 9, 2011

“The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand”: Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising

Robert Fisk: Obama Admin Has Been Gutless and Cowardly + Eyewitnesses to a Massacre

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Democracy Now!
Feb. 3, 2011

Robert Fisk: Obama Administration Has Been Gutless and Cowardly in Dealing with the Mubarak Regime

The renowned Middle East journalist speaks from Cairo on the historic uprising and how President Obama has lost an opportunity to back a democratic movement in the Middle East. “One of the blights of history will now involve a U.S. president who held out his hand to the Islamic world and then clenched his fist when it fought a dictatorship and demanded democracy,” Fisk said. [includes rush transcript]

Robert Fisk: Independent Journalism, interviewed by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
September 27, 2010

Updated: June 26, 2011; added Transcript

Transcript: You Wanna Know What’s What in the Middle East?

Image by Marjorie Lipan via Flickr

September 26, 2010 (SOAPBOX #74)

Cindy holds a very in-depth interview with British journalist, Robert Fisk, who has been living in the Middle East and reporting from there for decades.  He is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent and has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years.  He has published a number of books and has reported from the United States’s attack on Afghanistan and the same country’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Fisk holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.  

Robert Fisk and Yossi Melman on the murder in Dubai

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AlJazeeraEnglish
February 23, 2010

When Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his Dubai hotel room last month, the death was chalked up to natural causes. But evidence revealed in the past few days indicates that the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, may have been behind the murder – and the details have sent shockwaves around the world. No one believes it will be the last Mossad assassination in the Arab world, but will the incident be swept under the carpet this time? Riz Khan speaks with Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for the UK daily The Independent, and Yossi Melman, the intelligence and military affairs correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz, who co-authored ‘Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel’s Intelligence Community’.

Genocide Forgotten: Armenians horrified by treaty with Turkey By Robert Fisk

Dandelion Salad

By Robert Fisk
ICH
October 08, 2009 “The Independent”

A new trade deal is set to gloss over the murder of 1.5 million people

In the autumn of 1915, an Austrian engineer called Litzmayer, who was helping build the Constantinople-Baghdad railway, saw what he thought was a large Turkish army heading for Mesopotamia. But as the crowd came closer, he realised it was a huge caravan of women, moving forward under the supervision of soldiers.

Robert Fisk reveals truth behind ‘dollar demise’ report

Dandelion Salad

RussiaToday
October 08, 2009

Famous British journalist Robert Fisk spoke to RT on his bombshell report, which caused the dollar to plummet. He says that the thunder of denials that the greenback is to be dropped in oil deals was expected, but the information he published was correct.

A Financial Revolution with Profound Political Implications By Robert Fisk

Dandelion Salad

By Robert Fisk
ICH
The Independent
October 07, 2009

Such large financial movements will have major political effects in the Middle East

The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects – Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them – reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America’s decades-long political as well as economic world dominance.

Nowhere has this more symbolic importance than in the Middle East, where the United Arab Emirates alone holds $900bn (£566bn) of dollar reserves and where Saudi Arabia has been quietly co-ordinating its defence, armaments and oil policies with the Russians since 2007.

Dollar Hysteria By Mike Whitney

Submitted on Buzzflash

Dandelion Salad

By Mike Whitney
Information Clearing House
October 06, 2009

Robert Fisk lit the fuse with his hyperventilating narrative which appeared in Tuesday’s UK Independent titled, “The Demise of the Dollar”.  The article went viral overnight spreading to every musty corner of the Internet and sending gold skyrocketing to $1,026 per oz.  Now every doomsday website in cyber-world has headlined Fisk’s “shocker” and the blogs are clogged with the frenzied commentary of bunker-dwelling survivalists and goldbugs who’re certain that the world as we know it is about to end.

From Fisk’s article:

“In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Robert Fisk on the Gulf ‘ditching the dollar’ in oil trade + Max Keiser: Dollar to be buried way before 2018

Dandelion Salad

AlJazeeraEnglish
October 06, 2009

Gulf states have held secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the US dollar with a basket of currencies in the trade of oil, the UK’s Independent newspaper says.

The report by Robert Fisk, the newspaper’s Middle East correspondent, was published on Tuesday and cited unidentified sources in Gulf Arab states and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong.

Al Jazeera has this exclusive interview with Robert Fisk and Steven King, chief economist from the HSBC Group.

Robert Fisk lashes out at West in Middle East

RussiaToday
September 16, 2009

Our exclusive interview goes to the heart of the Middle East issue, which is constantly in focus.

RT’s Peter Lavelle spoke to Robert Fisk in Lebanon, who’s one of the most renowned journalists and authors on the subject.

Civilians Pay Price of War from Above By Robert Fisk

Dandelion Salad

By Robert Fisk
ICH
May 08, 2009 “The Independent”

Of course there will be an inquiry. And in the meantime, we shall be told that all the dead Afghan civilians were being used as “human shields” by the Taliban and we shall say that we “deeply regret” innocent lives that were lost. But we shall say that it’s all the fault of the terrorists, not our heroic pilots and the US Marine special forces who were target spotting around Bala Baluk and Ganjabad.

When the Americans destroy Iraqi homes, there is an inquiry. And oh how the Israelis love inquiries (though they rarely reveal anything). It’s the history of the modern Middle East. We are always right and when we are not, we (sometimes) apologise and then we blame it all on the “terrorists”. Yes, we know the throat-cutters and beheaders and suicide bombers are quite prepared to slaughter the innocent.

Jewish Peace News: Ashkelon, Gaza, and Being Afar

Dandelion Salad

Crossposted with permission from Jewish Peace News

Jewish Peace News
Jan. 5, 2008

1) Ashkelon, Past and Present. Article by Robert Fisk and Blog post by Benny Tzffer

2) Ali Abunimah: “Inheriting Bush’s Blinkers”

3) Safa Jouudeh, in Gaza, has published her third piece

4) Ghada Ageel: “I can’t hug my mother in Gaza”

5) Starhawk: “On Gaza”

Ashkelon, past and present:

Below are two pieces that address the Palestinian history of Ashkelon, a city in the news lately for the qassams falling there, causing the death of at least one person. One of the backstories of this historic town is that it was home to tens of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled to Gaza by Israeli forces in 1948 and the early years of Israeli statehood. 80% of Gazans come from refugee families with roots inside of Israel proper. This history does not justify the rocket attacks. The people under threat of rockets from Gaza aren’t responsible for designing or executing Israeli policy in Gaza; they are innocent civilians. What the history does give us, though, is yet another angle from which to look at this conflict and more layers of human life to sift through as we try to understand its meaning and implications for the many generations of people whose lives it effects.

How Can Anyone Believe There is ‘Progress’ in The Middle East? By Robert Fisk

Dandelion Salad

By Robert Fisk
ICH
Saturday, 27 December 2008 “The Independent”

A test of Obama’s gumption will come scarcely three months after his inauguration

If reporting is, as I suspect, a record of mankind’s folly, then the end of 2008 is proving my point.

Let’s kick off with the man who is not going to change the Middle East, Barack Obama, who last week, with infinite predictability, became Time’s “person of the year”. But buried in a long and immensely tedious interview inside the magazine, Obama devotes just one sentence to the Arab-Israeli conflict: “And seeing if we can build on some of the progress, at least in conversation, that’s been made around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a priority.”

What is this man talking about? “Building on progress?” What progress? On the verge of another civil war between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, with Benjamin Netanyahu a contender for Israeli prime minister, with Israel’s monstrous wall and its Jewish colonies still taking more Arab land, and Palestinians still firing rockets at Sderot, and Obama thinks there’s “progress” to build on?