Fisk: An illegal and immoral war, betrayed by images that reveal our racism

Robert-Fisk.com ^ | 5.7.04 | Robert Fisk

[mhking]

First, our enemies created the suicide bomber. Now, we have our own digital suicide bomber, the camera. Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.

The Muslim suicide bomber cries Allahu Akbar, God is great. And what does Lynndie England's partner-in-crime do? Why, his home garden is plastered with a legend from the Book of Hosea, about sowing and righteousness and ploughing.

Could ever Islam have come so intimately into contact with the sexuality of the Old Testament? Could neo-conservative Christianity - Lynndie is also a churchgoer - have collided so violently, so revoltingly, so obscenely with Islam?

And who were the innocent in these vile photographs? The American torturers and humiliators? Or the Iraqi victims?

President Bush is fearful of Arab reaction to these pictures. Why? For a year now, Iraqis have been trying to tell journalists of the brutal treatment they are receiving at the hands of their occupiers. They don't need these incriminating photographs to prove to them what they already know to be true.

But, in the history of the Middle East, these pictures already have the status of those most damaging snapshots of the Vietnam war: the police chief in Saigon executing his Vietcong prisoner, the naked girl burned by napalm, the pile of bodies at My Lai. For Arabs, read Deir Yassin and the corpses piled in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Chatila in 1982.

Not long after the occupation of Baghdad by US troops in April of last year, we got our hands on videotape of the brutal whipping of Iraqi prisoners by Saddam's security police.

I'm not sure which circle of hell the victims were enduring in the 45 minutes of sadism which I still have on one tape. They are whipped, sticks are broken on their throats, they are kicked into sewers and they cower like dogs. And why were these war crimes filmed?

I thought at first that it was intended for the enjoyment of Saddam or his disgusting son Uday. But now I realise the videos were taken so that the prisoners could be humiliated. Their suffering, their pathetic pleas for mercy, their animal-like behaviour was to be recorded - to add the final layer of degradation to their fate.

And now I realise, too, that the pictures of the Iraqis so cruelly treated - so tortured -- by the Americans, were taken for precisely the same reason.

Someone decided that the photos would be the final straw, the breaking point, the moment of capitulation for these young men. Make them simulate oral sex. Make them look at the penis of their best friend. Get a girl to admire their attempted erection. This was truly Saddamite in its perversity.

So let's, as the Americans say, get real. Who taught Lynndie and her boyfriend and the other American sadists of Abu Ghraib prison to do this?

I used to ask who taught the Syrian and Iraqi secret police to do this. The answer to the latter question was simple: the East German secret police. But the answer to the first question? Well, we have been told that there were "contracted" interrogators at Abu Ghraib.

I have reason to believe General Janis Karpinski, the luckless prison commander who is going to be dumped out of the army for interrogations over which she had no control, knew "outsiders" were questioning her inmates. She was never allowed into the interrogation room. And I can see why. So, no doubt, can she.

So who were these mysterious "interrogators"? If they were not CIA or FBI staff, who were they? Several names are already doing the rounds - so far, journalists claim they have no final proof of them - and a number, I understand, hold more than one passport. Why were they brought in to Abu Ghraib? Who brought them in? How much are they paid? And who trained them?

Who taught them it was a good idea to get a girl to point at an Arab who was being forced to masturbate, to humiliate an Iraqi by hooding him with a girl's lingerie?

We are not just talking "sick" here. We're talking professionals. President Bush at last apologised yesterday to the Arab world for this filth - only, no doubt, because of the latest picture on the front of the Washington Post - but the constant, insistent refrain from US officers that these were a tiny group of unrepresentative Americans makes me very suspicious.

Lynndie and her boyfriend were not part of a "rogue" unit. They were told to do these despicable things. They were encouraged. This was an order from someone. Who? When can we see their pictures, their identity, their passports, their orders?

Yes, it's part of a culture, a long tradition that goes back to the Crusades; that the Muslim is dirty, lascivious, un-Christian, unworthy of humanity - which is pretty much what Osama bin Laden (now forgotten by Mr Bush, I notice) believes about us Westerners.

And our illegal, immoral, meretricious war has now brought forth the images that betray our racism.

The hooded man with the wires attached to his hands has now become an iconic portrait, every bit as memorable as the picture of the second aircraft flying into the World Trade Centre. No, of course, we haven't killed 3,000 Iraqis. We've killed many more. And the same goes for Afghanistan.

[mhking]

The lunatic fringe heard from...

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[T'wit]

This dude is jealous! He wishes he were the one naked and on a leash.

[Reactionary]

Ah. It's "filth" when prison guards make fun of terrorists, but it's perfectly understandable when Palestinians blow up Jewish school children.

So say the Leftist filth.

[Freedom of Speech Wins]

These people, the liberals, don't understand war.

In war the enemy is supposed to be killed, or the enemy will kill you.

This isn't a very hard concept, but they just don't get it.

[mylife]

Yeah its all about race..

right.

Rolling eyes

[get'emall]

I have real questions about the content, timing and volume of all these photos and videos. Do we have any idea WHO shot them? What do we know for sure about OUR people in the photos?

Am I grasping when I wonder if any of theses soldiers (including the photographer) are muslims (or libs) doing a highly-effective political hatchet jop?

[tet68]

Fisk is beyond the lunatic fringe,
he's the lunatic pom-pom boy.
This is certainly well crafted propaganda, I doubt he
is capable of this on his own.

Seems fisk had video of Saddams torture, why it's news to us! Funny we never heard about it from him before.
One notes he mentions it and then somehow America is guilty
of the same "torture". Hardly Robert.

"And now I realise, too, that the pictures of the Iraqis so cruelly treated - so tortured -- by the Americans, were taken for precisely the same reason."


Baaaah he needs a good Fisking!

[nothingnew]

Still crazy after all these years.

FMCDH

[Theresawithanh]

Interesting that Fisk brings up the number of people murdered on 9-11 and states we've killed many more. Heard this from a lib acquaintance of mine just last night. Must be one of the new Dem talking points.

Ah, Mr. Fisk, a man with no sense writing a senseless article.

[ShorelineMike]

Robert Fisk proves, yet again, why his MBA (Mandatory Barf Alert) was earned with highest honors.

This should be included by reference on all Robert Fisk threads …

[Dec31,1999]

Infiltrators set up and shot the pics for a specific purpose.

Smile for the camera!

The purpose is dual: to discredit our proud armed forces, and to have a little B&D fun at the same time.

Some smart dudes/dudettes are behind this, because they wondered about and then executed a plan that would piss off the Dems, but at the same time demoralize the Repubs.

[Bobber58]

In another era....

Robert Byrd undergoes
racial sensitivity training...

[Adam36]

Fisk is a well known U.S and Israel hater.
Isn't it funny how Fisk has said nothing about the Syrian massacres of the Kurds. I guess it dont fit his Arabist agenda. Read this article, which shows Fisk for the fraud he is.

http://www.kurdishmedia.com/reports.asp?id=1889

From massacre in Madrid to carnage in Qamishli: Fact and fiction

15 March 2004
KurdishMedia.com - By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli
In today’s Independent (15/03/2004) there is nothing about Qamishli carnage where Syrian Arab Baathists are indulged in killing Kurds.

Reliable Kurdish sources indicate that 94 people have been killed so far in Syrian government’s violent measures to quell the Kurdish uprising in Qamishly and other Syrian-occupied western Kurdistan.

The great Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk must not have heard of it. And even if he has, it seems he doesn’t think there is any thing worth reporting or commenting about. There is no injustice done. It is all the usual Arab justice practised against non-Arabs.

To report Arabs’ or Arab regimes’ crimes against colonised, enslaved non-Arab nationalities in Arab racist states is an area which is a taboo for Western media. Otherwise, why are Western media and even human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch so criminally silent about Syrian regimes’ carnage of the Kurdish people in Qamishly, Aleppo, Damascus and other parts of Kurdistan?

Justifying Madrid Massacre

But there is of course a lot of covering of Madrid massacre and for obvious reasons. The Independent’s biased non-independent interpretive reporting and analysis of Spanish elections give the definite impression that:

1. Perpetrators of Madrid massacre did this to punish Spain for its role in war against Iraq. If not, the massacre would not have happened.

2. With cool analysis of this reality without any condemnation of the terrorists and the criminal barbaric method they have used and its horrid results, the Independent gives impression that these people were right to resort to these barbaric methods.

3. It even goes further: actually massacre of the innocent pays off. The terrorists have achieved their aim. The Spanish public have punished the Popular party. They are gone and the Socialists will withdraw the Spanish forces in Iraq.

To substantiate the above conclusions, let me now quote from today’s (15 March) Independent:

1) In the very first paragraph there is this emphatic statement (so much for objective reporting) that: "in a vote that confounded the polls and inflicted a huge punishment on the Popular Party government for supporting the war in Iraq." (Front page)

2) Robert Fisk’s analysis (p. 6) goes much further. Even the titles tells what cynical message he wants to convey. The West was warned. Now it is paying the price of the ’war on terror’.

He justifies the massacre in this way, "Madrid bombings are not only a terrible revenge for Spain’s participation in "part two" of the "war on terror" - the illegal invasion of Iraq - but a cruel and incrementally more painful attack on civilians by al-Qa’ida. Then Robert Fisk accuses Blair of lying for going to war and not addresssing) the causes of injustice in the Islamic world"!

3. Then there is a report by Peter Popham and Tim Gaynor in Madrid. The conclusion attracts attention as they suggest that terrorism can be an effective means of victory. They write, "But, from the Islamist view point the war has not been one-sided: it has seen the American pull-out from Saudi Arabia, the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, and Ariel Sharons stated aim of leaving Gaza. It seems that the result of the Spanish bombs will again see the Islamists claiming victory. "(p4)
So what is wrong with this intelligent, objective and independent reporting of the great Independent newspaper?

Innocent ignorance or deliberate distortion?

The above reporting and analysis by the Independent is a violent cynical distortion of truths, facts and realities.

1. It was widely known that the Popular Party was expected to win before the massacre when the public already knew about Spain’s role in Iraq. So no one can honestly assume that the Spanish public inflicted a huge punishment on the Popular Party government for supporting the war in Iraq.

2. It is true that the massacre had a great role in switching the voters. But any objective analysis concludes that if the Spanish punished the ruling Popular Party it was because of its dishonesty in trying hard to paint ETA as responsible. This attitude was wrong and even racist. It was also dishonest.

3. The criminal bloodthirsty and fascist nature of the Islamic terrorists is evident from the fact that they did not punish the Spanish government or Popular party for taking Spain to war in Iraq. If they did so, one could say this was an act of blind revenge rather than outright barbarism. The murderers punished and massacred Spanish ordinary people including many Muslims given opportunities of life and liberty in Spain. They killed the 90% of the Spanish people who were against the war in the first place.

4. Again Robert Fisk is totally dishonest in describing this act as revenge for war against Iraq. He foolhardily tries to deceive and mislead Independent readers. He forgets that 11 September happened before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which thankfully led to the destruction of two greatest evil regimes in today’s world with whom Robert Fisk and Independent, it seems, were quite happy to live and deal!

5. Again, we cannot say that Spain’s role in Iraq is what has pushed the Islamic murderers to commit their barbaric crime. The Independent itself reports in the same issue that Madrid bomb suspects are linked to attacks on twin towers. This means that they were murderers and terrorists a long time before war against Iraq. In fact it is not the firm line the Popular Party took against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq which has encouraged and encourages these terrorist to act, but the freedom and tolerance shown to them by Western democracies where they are free to organize, collect money, train on terrorist techniques, use endless number of Mosques and so-called Islamic cultural centres to indoctrinate young Muslim fanatics. What Robert Fisk and Independent suggest is to surrender to terrorism and paint it as liberation ideology and movement.

6. How criminally dishonest for the Arabist and supposedly knowledgeable Orientalist Robber Fisk to link the case of terrorism to injustices done to the Islamic world!! Was it an act of injustice to topple Saddam? Hasn’t Robert Fisk been in Iraq and seen for himself over 300 mass graves containing over 300,000 bodies of old and young men and women and children, shot or buried-alive? Was the Taliban an example of just Islamic law and government and did the US and Britain do injustice by destroying the regime? And what just cause do the terrorists have apart from being bloodthirsty fanatics obsessed with Jihad and imposing sharia on everyone and every society if they can and by so doing imposing the law of jungle and system of darkness on humanity? Didn’t they show us their example in Afghanistan?

7. Again the Independent and great Robert Fisk dishonestly portray the action of Arab murderers everywhere as the cause of Islam and Muslims. Again Robert Fisk should know better: Were the 102 Kurds who were massacred in Arbil on 1 February, a holy Muslim day of sacrifice, not Muslims? Were 180 Shiite worshippers celebrating the holy Ashura day not Muslims? They were also massacred by the same murderers whom Robert Fisk associates with war of civilizations? What civilization a people have who are so coward, criminal, barbaric that they find their glory and future paradise in killing innocent children, women and men in the most inhumane and cowardly way? It is despicable that the Independent and Robert Fisk think that these people even have a cause and fight for a purpose other than sheer evil interest in blood.

8. The murderers of Madrid and the murderers of Qamishly are the same. They belong to the same culture of barbarism, despotism and hatred of freedom, diversity, equality and tolerance. It is a great shame that the Western democracies and their information and justice institutions are so hypocritical in their approach to human tragedies and causes of justice and freedom. There is no difference whatever between the previous Saddamite Baathists and today’s Syrian Ba’thist thugs who are at this moment killing and oppressing 2.5 million Kurds in Syria. By accepting this you encourage fascism, totalitarianism and state terrorism. If Robert Fisk is so concerned about justice in Islamic countries why doesn’t he do an honorable thing, for a change, and find out and report the injustices the Kurdistani people have been suffering at the hands of Ba’thist fascists of the Arab racist state of Syria since 1961?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

I have reason to believe General Janis Karpinski, the luckless prison commander who is going to be dumped out of the army for interrogations over which she had no control, knew "outsiders" were questioning her inmates.

On the contrary, Miss Fisk. The report details the gross incompetence of Karpinski. And there's another investigation going on right now in MI and more heads are going to roll. And BTW take those panties off your head Miss Fisk. You're an embarassment.

[dighton]

And our illegal, immoral, meretricious war has now brought forth the images that betray our racism.

“This one calls himself al-Fisq. So smooth and pale, just my type.”

[Jaded]

I've wondered much the same. It just all seems so contrived.

[Colosis]

You should have seen Fisk blow his top on TV here in Ireland last week when questioned about war predictions. It was a sight to behold, he completely lost it!

[humblegunner]

An illegal and immoral war, betrayed by images that reveal our racism

Uh, OK Robert.. specifically what race are these folks we be hatin'?

Last time I looked, Iraqis looked pretty much like me.

[Merdoug]

So who is right? Are we, the Americans the "good guys"? How can you say that we hold the moral high ground after what has happened by us? Do the Muslims have the "good" religion? A religion that creates people who burn people alive and hang them from bridges? The truth is that NO ONE is right. I have come to this conclusion after spending the last month in Nashville watching people grow more and more wild; more and more vicious. I can't explain why they are getting worse, the rising gas prices, the illegals flooding in, the TV they watch, the movies they rent. But they DO seem to be getting worse. Why do people do bad things? Why do they hate and kill? BECAUSE WE ARE ANIMALS!! WE are animals and it's time to stop trying to HIDE the truth. All of your three-piece suits, and Wall steet journals and Starbucks can't hide the fact that we are still SAVAGES on the inside. We can control our selfish self-preservation urges, but they HAVE NOT gone away! It is up to US to control these murderous emotions. Tt remains to be SEEN which government, which religion has done a better job! That's ALL they are for, when you get right down to us: it prevent us from reverting to our savage core and killing each other!

[Lily4Jesus]

You took those words out of my mouth. Call it woman's intuition or spiritual discernment but there more behind all this. I'm praying for the TRUTH to come out.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

It takes a pretty pathetic person to lose him nickname to a better liar than he is. In case anyone forgot, Fisk was the first Baghdad Bob, then lost the title to the Iraqi Information Minister.

[Dallas59]

Let's put him in an Islamic court for crimes against Islam...his freedom of speech rights goes against every fiber of Islamic law....

[hchutch]

Fisk was an automatic label of LUNATIC FRINGE.

[ibbryn]

Why is this dweeb so hot to defend General Janis Karpinski?

[atomic conspiracy]

What an absolutely brazen hypocrite Punching Bob is.
His earlier columns were filled with praise for Saddamites and Paleo suicide bombers and justifications for the WTC atrocities. Now, he condemns them only when the comparison supports the one theme from which he never deviates, the demonization of Americans.
Make no mistake, this man is an agent of those who would kill us for who we are. Europe's Jews had Goebbels and Streicher, Americans have Fisk, Pilger and a galaxy of others.

[CWOJackson]

"Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image."

Then you probably should never watch "Animal House"; it would scare you forever.

Give it a break. Yes, the treatment these prisoners received was improper, but is pretty much on the same par as a college fraternity pledge, a military initiation, or boot camp in the 60's and 70's.

So the poor putz was "humiliated". Saddam used to rape women in front of their fathers and put live people through industrial shredders...slowly. Oh, but I guess he never humiliated them.

They're really having to reach with this...

[proud American in Canada]

Re #11: thanks for the reality check.

I'm serious, btw.

This article is very well written, and I think it brings up a point that perhaps can't be discussed--perhaps someone/some organization got these 20 year olds to humiliate the Iraqis like that.

The question is: who? Who would have such a deep interest in destroying everything most American soldiers have worked for--and died for--in the past fourteen months or so? I mean, any American commander with any brains would have realized this was a disaster. And to allow (thousands??) of digital photos to be taken?

What happened, exactly?

Sorry, but I think this particular article raises some interesting questions.

Freepers might have different answers than the writer, however. :)

[Ukiapah Heep]

"Whip me!" said the masochist.

"No!" said the sadist.

[Bernard]

First, our enemies created the suicide bomber. Now, we have our own digital suicide bomber, the camera. Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.

An amazing moral equivalence here. 3,000 dead people against one perversion. And it's just about sex. Where have I heard that before?

[Ramius]

Fisk is such a sad excuse for a human being.

Look closely... he's actually rooting for the other side.

[T'wit]

"But I'm ill," I said. "I have schizophrenia."

"No I don't," I replied.

[CWOJackson]

Fisk is probably just outraged because he has to pay to get naked and put on the leash.

[T'wit]

>> Look closely... he's actually rooting for the other side.

Is 1,000 miles close enough?

[FITZ]

Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face.

So how closely and how often was Mr. Fisk looking at these pictures?

[T'wit]

>> So how closely and how often was Mr. Fisk looking at these pictures?

Neighbors heard strange moans and animal sounds, and thought he was having sex with a goat. The way I hear it, though, he was all alone, poring over the photos.

[ladyinred]

e. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.

I swear by all that is holy, I cannot believe I actually am reading this statement!!!!!!

[FITZ]

are muslims (or libs) doing a highly-effective political hatchet jop?

I wouldn't be too sure of that --- it might look that way on the surface but sometimes things aren't what they seem. Or else they tried to do that but it might backfire. Wait till cash reparations are offered --- you might see Arabs rushing to claim they were humiliated --- and what would be more degrading than if they do just that --- for money?

[T'wit]

Imagine if they'd murdered, burned, mutilated and strung up Rather, Jennings, Brokaw and Pinch Sulzberger.

[hosepipe]

[ This dude is jealous! He wishes he were the one naked and on a leash.]

Looool

[Adam36]

I just saw this article. Fisk is 100 percent against a Kurdish state, but ofcourse wants a Palestinian state. You got to read this article.

Leslie Gelb said Iraq should be 3 states. A Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite state. This is ofcourse is the right thing to do. Fisk says in response to Gelb's plan, this would weaken the Arabs. Fisk also says this is humiliation for the Arabs. This guy is such an Arabist.

Let me put sentences of What Fisk said. Then I responded.
I put the full article below after I respond to Fisk's comments.

Fisk says, True, the chopping up of Iraq might be "a messy and dangerous enterprise" - tens of thousands of Iraqis, after all, would be thrown out of their homes and pushed across new frontiers - but Washington should, if necessary, impose partition by force. This is the essence of the Gelb plan.

Bosnia comes to mind. Or Kosovo. But if it gets us out of Iraq, who's going to complain when we - the famous "coalition of the willing" - push those recalcitrant, ungrateful Iraqis into the same kind of "divide and rule" colonial world for which the Americans always used to excoriate the British.

My comments. What the hell is Fisk talking about. The Kurds dont want to live under the Arabs that gassed them. The Arabs have 21 states, including 3 out of the 4 largest countries in Africa. (Sudan, Algeria, Libya) Why does Fisk want a Palestinian state, which would
make the 22nd Arab state, but no Kurdish state. The Kurds are an ancient people. They've lived on this land for thousands of years. Saladin was a Kurd.
Did Fisk forget the Arabs removed all the Kurds from Kirkuk and Mosul and replaced them with Arabs.
Somehow thats not humiliation for the Kurds.

Fisk says, It's important not to regard all this as the meandering of Washington think-tanks. Pipes and Gelb and their friends helped to build the foundations of this war, and their ideas are intended to further weaken Iraq as a nation - and thus the Arab world as a whole - while
maintaining American military power. Already, the sectarian nature of "New Iraq" has been established by Washington's proconsul in Baghad, Paul Bremer.

Fisk also says, So there you have it. More Israeli settlement building on Arab land and,
I've no doubt, more Palestinian suicide bombings. More desperate attempts by the Americans to escape from Iraq and more talk of turning "New Iraq" into ethnic statelets. More Arab humiliation. More anger. More "war on terror". Flak jackets on for 2004.

Basically what Fisk is saying, the Kurds must be under the domination of the Arabs. The Kurds have no right to have a state, while the Palestinians must have a state. A Kurdish state is humiliation to the Arabs. Thats what Fisk is saying, but ofcourse he wants a Palestinian state.

Fisk also says in the article, Between Arafat's corrupt rule and the suicide executioners of Hamas, and the expansionist and brutal Ariel Sharon, there will be no peace.

He says Arafat is corrupt but not brutal. Thats pretty interesting, considering the top Al Asqa terrorist
(Maslama Thabet) has told USA Today all terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians come from Yasser Arafat. http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/142002f.asp

Senior Fatah Leaders Describe Arafat's Link to Terrorism
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0lo90

He says the suicide executioners of Hamas. Thats a good Arabist term.
For all I know someone not familiar with Arab terrorism might think Hamas executes prisoners in a prison. Can Fisk say who they commit suicide against. Can he explain that send homicide bombers to kill innocent civilians. You notice he doesn't define what they do.

Then he calls Sharon brutal. Sharon targets terrorists, Israeli civilian deaths are the Palestinians goal.
Big difference

Suicide bombers target anybody, they target people with nothing to do with anything.
Israelis target those who fund and carry out suicide bombers.

Hamas and Arafat derive their legitimacy by killing Israeli secretaries and High Schoolers.

Here's the full article.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/fisk8.html

Robert Fisk in Baghdad
2 January 2004

Ever since Daniel Pipes - he of the failed American neo-cons - piped up last summer with his plan to install a "democratic-minded autocrat" (sic) in Iraq, I have been eyeing the Washington crystal ball for further signs of what the designers of this wretched war have in store for the Iraqis whom they "liberated" for "democracy" last year. And bingo, not long before Christmas, another of those chilling proposals for "New Iraq" popped up from the same right-wing cabal. Any predictions for Iraq this year may thus have to be based on the thoughts of Leslie Gelb, a former chairman of the United States Council on Foreign Relations, whose wretched plans for "liberated" Iraq call for something close to ethnic cleansing.

In no less an organ than The New York Times - the same paper which carried a plea last year that Americans should accept that US troops will commit "atrocities" in Iraq - appeared Mr Gelb's "Three State Solution", an astonishing combination of simplicity and ruthlessness. It goes like this. America should create three mini-states in Iraq - Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the centre and Shias in the south - the frontiers of these three entities drawn along ethnic, sectarian lines. The "general idea," says Mr Gelb, "is to strengthen the Kurds and Shias and weaken the Sunnis." Thus US forces can extricate themselves from the quagmire of the "Sunni triangle" while the "troublesome and domineering" Sunnis themselves - with no control over Iraq's northern or southern oil fields - will be in a more moderate frame of mind.

True, the chopping up of Iraq might be "a messy and dangerous enterprise" - tens of thousands of Iraqis, after all, would be thrown out of their homes and pushed across new frontiers - but Washington should, if necessary, impose partition by force. This is the essence of the Gelb plan.

Bosnia comes to mind. Or Kosovo. But if it gets us out of Iraq, who's going to complain when we - the famous "coalition of the willing" - push those recalcitrant, ungrateful Iraqis into the same kind of "divide and rule" colonial world for which the Americans always used to excoriate the British.

It's important not to regard all this as the meandering of Washington think-tanks. Pipes and Gelb and their friends helped to build the foundations of this war, and their ideas are intended to further weaken Iraq as a nation - and thus the Arab world as a whole - while maintaining American military power. Already, the sectarian nature of "New Iraq" has been established by Washington's proconsul in Baghad, Paul Bremer.

His "Governing Council" is made up of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds in direct proportion to their share of the population. The Shias, who form 60 per cent of the country, expect to take effective power in the Iraqi national elections this year - this, after all, is the only reason why the Shia clergy have not urged their people to join the anti-American insurgency - and the Americans and British understand this all too well. Like so many of those Arab nations created by the French and British amid the wreckage of the Ottoman empire after the First World War, Iraq is to be governed along sectarian lines.

So the coming months are not difficult to comprehend. As the insurgency continues - and as President Bush's re-election drama grows nearer - the US administration will be ever more anxious to do two things: to insist that America will "stay the course" - and to get out as quickly as possible. There will be ever more policemen hired, ever more militias, ever more ex-members of Saddam's old secret service, to act as sandbags between Iraqi guerillas and the Americans. Already - with Iraqi cops taking the most casualties - this is coming about. The Iraqi world is now breaking up into rebels and collaborators, with a vast heap of innocent Iraqi bodies - of children playing beside roadside bombs, children cut down by American gunfire during house raids or protests, busloads of passengers caught in guerilla ambushes, diners blown apart in restaurants - turning up each morning at the Baghdad morgue.

Mr Bush, of course, will be looking forward to the Show Trial of the Year to help his election prospects. What, after all, could be more calculated to justify the whole miserable occupation of Iraq than the concrete evidence of Saddam's atrocities? Already, however, this highlight is beginning to look distinctly worrying for the Bush administration, because any fair trial of the old dictator must take into account the massive evidence, much of it still secret in Washington, of the United States' involvement in creating - and supporting - Saddam's regime for the cruellest years of his rule. The shark-like lawyers already vying to defend Saddam are well aware that it was Washington which enabled Saddam to obtain the chemicals for his revolting use of gas against both Kurds and Iranian soldiers.

Gwynne Dyer, the courageous journalist who did more than anyone to publicise Saddam's use of gas against the Kurds - at a time when the CIA was putting out the lie that the Halabja dead were killed by Iranian gas bombs - believes Saddam will never get a public trial because if he did, "all this would come out in gory detail." So maybe we won't see Saddam in the dock this year after all.

As for that other, cancerous war - between the Israelis and the Palestinians - we can be sure than America's cowardly bias towards Israel at the expense of occupied Palestinians will only be exacerbated by November's US presidential election. Between Arafat's corrupt rule and the suicide executioners of Hamas, and the expansionist and brutal Ariel Sharon, there will be no peace. Already - how often that word "already" now crops up in any Middle East analysis - Washington has given its blessing to the shocking "new" message delivered by Sharon last month.

This was the speech in which the Israeli Prime Minister appeared to support President Bush's "road-map" - which calls, among other things, for an end to Jewish settlement building - by stating that he was faithful to the agreement "based on President Bush's speech of June 2002".

Countless newspaper editorials went along with this piece of chicanery - without checking the date. For Bush outlined his "road-map" in a speech in 2003, not 2002. The 2002 presidential speech to which Sharon was referring stated only that Palestinians must forgo terrorism "before the peace process can begin". Which suits Sharon fine. Hence this week's revelation that during his three-year premiership, the population of illegal Jewish settlements - built for Jews and Jews only on occupied Arab land - has increased by 16 per cent.

So there you have it. More Israeli settlement building on Arab land and, I've no doubt, more Palestinian suicide bombings. More desperate attempts by the Americans to escape from Iraq and more talk of turning "New Iraq" into ethnic statelets. More Arab humiliation. More anger. More "war on terror". Flak jackets on for 2004.

[vpintheak]

I thought people had to be lobotomized to be this stupid.

[Ramius]

Whatever you are on... do you buy it by the pound or just by the ounce?

Know this: There is right and wrong in the world. Stand by to watch how it plays out. Stay tuned.

[yooper]

"The hooded man with the wires attached to his hands has now become an iconic portrait, every bit as memorable as the picture of the second aircraft flying into the World Trade Centre."

Did this guy die? This is the most illogical, obscene, vile, and hateful bit of BS I've seen from the press yet.

[Ramius]

A 3-state solution sounds good, except for people that live around there. It seems that Turkey has a huge problem with a separate Kurdish state.

[eeriegeno]

Mr Fisk, you seem to be wishing that you and your family will be among the next victims of an attack similiar to the WTC. I really feel sorry for you that your mind is so twisted......

[tet68]

You should have seen Fisk blow his top


Yes, I heard about that.
Fisk is a vile propagandist.
May his evil words come back to him someday.