Fisk - The Great War For Civilisation (2005) - Synopsis

Digging Deeper XIII: January16-February 20, 2006 Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). Acknowledgements. About 150 individuals, listed alphabetically; editors, papers, and magazines Fisk has worked for; "many" unnamed sources (ix-xii). List of Maps. 10 maps. Preface. Father a WWI veteran; title of book comes from a WWI campaign medal (xvii). Searing memories of experiences as a war correspondent (xvii-xviii). Hitchcock's 1940 "Foreign Correspondent" determines vocation (xviii-xix). "Offered the Middle East" in April 1976 by the Times of London (xix). As a war correspondent, an "ever more infuriated bystander," but feels no trauma (xix-xx). Unlike previous book on Lebanon (Pity the Nation), this book "the story of [my father's] generation. And of mine" (xx-xxii). Ch. 1. "One of Our Brothers Had a Dream . . ." Going to visit Osama bin Laden in March 1997 in Afghanistan (35). December 1993 visit to bin Laden in Sudan (6-9). Hassan Abdullah Turabi's "Popular Arab and Islamic Conference" in Khartoum (9-12). Trip to see bin Laden in summer of 1996 (12-19). Interview with bin Laden: "war . . . against the American regime" (19-25). The Taliban in Afghanistan (25-28). 1997 interview with bin Laden: "I pray to God that he will permit us to turn the United States into a shadow of itself" (28-34). Ch. 2. "They Shoot Russians." Tom Graham, V.C., A Tale of the Afghan War (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1900), Jan. 1914 present from the author's grandmother to his father, a "tale of colour prejudice, xenophobia, and outright anti-Muslim hatred during the Second Afghan War" (35-38). Supremacism of official 19th-c. accounts

(38-40). Jan.1980: covering the Russian invasion of Afghanistan (40-50). Fisk's 'pigeon' (50-51). Trip to Ghazni (51-53). Po-le-Charkhi prison break (54-55). Karmal's press conference (55-57). Escapes accusation of spying (57-58). Winter in Kabul (58-63). "What cause could justify terror? So our enemies are always 'terrorists.' In the seventeenth century, governments used 'heretic' in much the same way, to end all dialogue, to prescribe obedience" (63). In an ambushed Russian convoy (63-68). To Peshawar (69-70). Ch. 3. The Choirs of Kandahar. Old British cemetery in Peshawar (71-72). Fisk bribes his way back into Afghanistan (72-74). Jalalabad (74-78). "The government was losing" (78). Religion and politics in Afghanistan (79-80). Adventure in Sorkh Rud; "I am an English satin bag" in Pushtu; "Death is cheap" (80-82). Glimpses mujahedin before leaving Afghanistan (82-85). Summer 1980 visit (85-86). Feb. 1980 visit to Kandahar: Chanting of Allahu akbar ('God is great') "an irresistible assertion of religious faith . . . an unstoppable force" (87-89). Afghan war summed up; "Never could I have imagined what we had given birth to in Afghanistan" (90-91). Ch. 4. The Carpet-Weavers. [Chapter title an allusion to those who reassembled shredded documents from seized U.S. embassy (127).] Operation Boot/Ajax overthrows Mossadeq (93-99). The Shah's regime (99-102). The Islamic Revolution in Iran (102-06). Postrevolutionary trial in Qom (106-08). The Shah's fate (109-10). The "bourgeois" phase of the revolution (110-13). CIA influence revealed by U.S. embassy seizure (113-14). Tehran after the revolution (115-18). Political evolution of

the revolution (118-22). Nov. 1979 interview with Khomeini (122-26). The 2,300 embassy documents, published in 85 vols. (126-30). Sadeq Khalkhali, hanging judge (130-36). Visit to village of Kahak (136-38). Ch. 5. The Path to War. British occupation of Mesopotamia, 1917-22 (139-47). Iraqi monarchy (148). Rise of Saddam (149-50) Hunt for "spies" (15164). Dr. Hussein Shahristani, torture victim (154-58). Saddam as potential "new Shah" (158-60). Shia resistance (161-65). "[T]ens of thousands of Iraqis who would be murdered during Saddam's nearly twenty-four-year rule. Kurds and communists and Shia Muslims would feel the harshest . . . punishments . . . permanent state of mass killing" (16566). Did not impede Western cultivation of regime (166-70). Shapour Bakhtiar (171-72). Executions in Iran (173-75). Soviet abuses in Afghanistan (175). Runup to Iran-Iraq war (176-78). Ch. 6. "The Whirlwind War." Opening weeks of Iran-Iraq war, revealing strong Iranian resistance (179-97). Iranian and Iraqi fight against internal enemies ― Mujahedin-e-Khalq, Dawa(198-99). Human-wave attacks (200-04). In 1982, Khomeini reverses promise not to invade other countries; new Iranian selfconfidence (204-06). U.S. helps Iraq (207). "Devastatingly cruel" tactics (208). Iraqi use of chemical weapons with American help (209-17). Ch. 7. "War against War" and the Fast Train to Paradise. USS Stark attacked, May 17, 1987 (218-21). U.S. warships in Gulf support Iraq (222-26). Arab attitudes toward the Iran-Iraq war (226-28). Evolution of the Iranian regime and the war (228-33). Visit to Fao with "G.G." Labelle (234-42). Iran-Contra arms-for hostages deal (242-45). Gulf shipping protection leads to U.S. attacks on Iran (246-51). Battle of Fish Lake (252-56). Soldiers' faith and belief in

martyrdom; cemeteries of Iran's war dead (256-58). Ch. 8. Drinking the Poisoned Chalice. Downing of Iran Air IR655 by U.S., killing 290, Jul. 3, 1988 (259-67). Times of London censorship of story leads Fisk to move to London Independent (268-71). Journalistic credo (270-71). Lockerbie (272). Mass executions in Iran of MEK prisoners, summer 1988 (273-75). Iraq's "martyr's wall" with name of those who died in Iran-Iraq war (276-78). Iran-Iraq War as completion of Islamic Revolution in Iranian imagination (279-90). War as a curse to the Iraqis (290-93). Ch. 9. "Sentenced to Suffer Death." Authoritarian father, Bill Fisk (294-96). His war memories (296-300). War service file (300-02). Visit to Douai (30205). "[H]istory's fingers never relax their grip" (304). Post-WWI settlements: "my career as a journalist . . . has been entirely spent in reporting the burning of these frontiers, the collapse of the statelets that my father's war allowed us to create, and the killing of their peoples" (306-07). Ypres (307-08). Louvencourt (309-10). Refusal to execute a deserter (310-14). Mother's death; scar; last letter from father (314-15). Ch. 10. The First Holocaust. Margada (316-18). Turks' systematic and genocidal.attempt to exterminate Armenians in 1915-19, "the world's first, forgotten, Holocaust" (318-26). Publicity (326-28). Influence on Germans (32930). Turkish cover-up (331). Treatygranted republic destroyed by Turks & Bolsheviks (332-33). French surrender Alexandretta province (334-35). Massacre of Iraqi Assyrians (336). Denial and diminishment (336-51). Margara and the Aghajanian family (352-55). Ch. 11. Fifty Thousands Miles from Palestine. Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ('Haj Amin') (1897-1974)

(356-65). "Arab-Jewish struggle" a poisonous "epic tragedy" that has produced a vast unreliable body of literature (365). Balfour Declaration (365-67). Unconscionably, Arab Palestinians bear burden of Nazi Holocaust (367-68). Josef Kleinman, survivor of Dachau and Auschwitz, lives in Givat Shaul, once Deir Yassin, site of massacre of Palestinians in 1948 (36971). Nimr Aoun's transfer from FrenchMandate Lebanon to British Mandate Palestine in "grubby land deal" (371-73). Moral relativism in the struggle (373-75). 1948 (375-77). Fighting in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982 "further crushed the Palestinians" (377-78). The word "terrorism" has become "a plague on our vocabulary" (378-79). Yassir Arafat (37982). 1991 Madrid conference (382-88). Background to Oslo agreement (388-90). Headless corpse of Zakaria Sharbaji in Gaza, April 1993 (390-93). Oslo Agreement (393-95). Fisk's pessimism (395-97). Arafat, a single-minded dreamer who secretly yielded Palestinian rights (397-99). Shakr Yasin, 1948 refugee (400-01). Ch. 12. The Last Colonial War. "Colonial mentality" of settlers [on 'settlement' (for 'colony') (425)] (402-04). Anti-settler Israelis (404-06). Osama Hamid, suicide bomber (406-07). Opposition to the "Arafat peace" (40710). Baruch Goldstein massacre and Western double standards and "skewed semantics" (410-14; see also 448-49). Arafat's 1994 homecoming and rule as despot (414-20). Failure of Oslo (42040). First intifada (440-50). Hanan Ashrawi (451-52). Ch. 13. The Girl and the Child and Love. Amira Hass, Israeli reporter in Gaza (453-56). Eva Stern calls attention to the 1996 Qana massacre in Lebanon (456-59). Nezar Hindawi, who gave a bomb to his girl friend to carry onto a plane (459-62). House destruction policy (462-66). Assassination policy (464-70).

Suicide bombers (470-80). In 2001 Colin Powell instructs embassies to say "disputed," not "occupied" territories (480-81). "Today, the Arabs are no longer afraid"; sense of impending catastrophe (481-82). Gaza as miniature Beirut" (482-84). Experiences as reporter (484-88). Israeli and Palestinian rage and blood lust (488-95). Israeli acts in territories in 2002 (497-503). Abdul Aziz Rantissi, Hamas leader in Gaza (50306). Sharon's thinking (506-12). Ch. 14. "Anything to Wipe Out a Devil . . ." January 1992 visit to French cemetery in Algiers (513-16). Algeria in French imagination (516-17). Mission: first, "liberation," then "civilization" (517). Fifty years suppressing resistance (517-19). War of independence, 1954-62 (519-22). Moustafa Boulyali (19401987), fought both in FLN and, after refusing to accept Boumedienne's 1965 coup d'état, as Islamist against the FLN government (522-26). Front Islamique du Salut, founded in 1989, led guerilla war (526-28). Election cancelled, martial law imposed, Boudiaf summoned from Morocco to rule in 1992; Islam in Algeria (528-33). Algiers and middle-class resistance to Islamic revolution (534-37). Uprising; Boudiaf assassinated; possible role of "mafia" (the elite class) (537-44). Fearful period of violence (544-49). Murder of Sheikh Mihammed Bouslimani of Blida (549-51). Severity of government response, including instigation of violence that is then blamed on Islamists (551-55). Account of torture victim (555-56). Government attitudes; French government help (55758). Spiral of violence (558-59). Traveling with garde mobile, ambush (559-63). GIA perspectives (563-66). Catholic clergy (566-67). Interviews an Islamist leader (567-69). Raïs and Bentalha, liquidated villages, hundreds killed: unprecedented savagery (569-72). Publishes report of government torture in fall of 1997 (572-79). Shameful lack of

government and international response (579-85). Ch. 15. Planet Damnation. August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq (586-89). Foreboding about consequences of Saudi invitation to U.S. army, but Americans unaware of any problem (590-92). Covering the coalition and its internal strains (590-616). Bombardment of Iraq (616-21). The role of journalism (62130). Iraqi “reign of terror” in Kuwait (630-36). Western-Arab relations; Prince Khaled (636-40). The “highway of death” (640-44). “[D]epressed and angry at my own profession” (644-45). Ch. 16. Betrayal. West-sponsored radio calls on Iraqis to revolt; later denials of responsibility (646-48). Casualties (649). “Some less heroic truths” (650). Kuwaiti retaliation against Palestinians (650-53). Refugees coming from Iraq; Staff Sgt. Nolde refuses to turn them back (654-57). Iraqi atrocities against southern Shia (657-60). Mar. 1991 conference of 23 Iraqi opposition groups in Beirut (660-63). U.S. complicity (663-64). Massacre of Kurds (664-86; helicoptered in by CIA, run-in with Turks [668-80]). Marsh Arabs (68687). Ch. 17. The Land of Graves. Iraqi dead in Gulf war; mass grave on Mutla Ridge (688-95). Kuwaiti Bedouins in Abdali, refused readmission to Kuwait (695-97). Oil fires (697-700). Kuwait’s 850 missing persons (700-02). Sanctions for almost 13 years (702-10). January 1993 air strikes (710-14). June 1993 cruise missile attack in retaliation for assassination plot against George H.W. Bush, which killed Leila Attar, a painter (714-15). Ch. 18. The Plague. October 1994 “crisis” (716-18). Regular attacks on Iraq (718-19). Inspections (719-21). Operation Desert Fox: 200 cruise missiles attack Iraq, November 1998

(721-27). Effects of depleted uranium (727-41). Iraq devastated and impoverished (741-47). Ch. 19. Now Thrive the Armourers . . . Arms exhibition in Abu Dhabi, 1993 (748-55). Hellfire missiles (755). Lockheed VP John Hurst’s philosophy: “I never associate [death] with what I’m doing” (755-56). Arab Gulf oil states’ military expenditures (756-58). Mikhail Kalashnikov (758-61). Lockheed Hellfire missile used Beit Jalla, Lebanon, in Feb. 2001 (761-62). Arms trade and the Iran-Iraq war (762-73). Hellfire missile fired by an Israeli helicopter pilot at a Lebanese ambulance on Apr. 13, 1996 (773-78). Material evidence (77980). Visit to Boeing in Duluth, Georgia (20 m. NW of Atlanta) (780-83). European missile technician identifies missile as from U.S. Marine Corps stock (783-85). Al Kamhi, Lockheed’s director of communications (786-88). Ch. 20. Even to Kings, He Comes . . . Reflections on life in Beirut, and on mortality (789-92). Death of mother (792-94). Sept. 11 (794-96). King Hussein of Jordan (796-97). Israel-Jordan treaty, 1994 (797-99). Dismissal of Crown Prince Hassan (799-800). The Hashemites (800-01). Hussein’s personal life (801-02). Hussein’s embrace of Saddam Hussein in 1990 (802-03). Death of Hussein, Feb. 1999 (803-07). “Violence is portrayed so differently when its progenitors are outside palace walls” (806). Hafez Assad of Syria (80709). Shrine of dead son, Basil (809-11). Assad Library in Damascus (811-12). Memorial to the Unknown Soldier; the 1920 battle of Maysaloun (812-14). Syrian crushing of “the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ uprising of 1982” (814-16). Golan Heights; Syria’s contraction (81618). Death of Assad (818-22). Execution of Syrian patriots by Turks in Beirut in 1915 and 1916, betrayed by Picot’s negligence, “probably the final catalyst of the Arab Revolt” (823-26).

Ch. 21. Why? Fisk’s report on the Sabra and Chatila massacres in September 1982 (827-32). Publication delayed: September 11 (832-34). The question of blame (834-42). “[September 11, 2001,] proved to me that history’s power is inescapable” (836). The hijackers (842-47). Saudi involvement; Wahhabisim; the Taliban (847-52). Ziad Jarrah (852-54). U.S. attack on Afghanistan (854-65); “The problem, it seemed, was that without any sense of history, we failed to understand injustice” (859). Attempt to reach Kandahar (866-71). Fisk beaten in Kila Abdulla (871-76). Daniel Pearl (876). Journalists as part of story; “the rot started in Vietnam” (876-80). Death of Raafat al-Ghossain in U.S. 1986 bombing of Tripoli, Libya (880-87). Ch. 22. The Die Is Cast. Bush’s Sept. 12, 2002, address to the U.N. General Assembly, a “virtual declaration of war on Iraq” (888-91). Destruction of Hajibirgit, an Afghan village, May 22, 2002 (891-95). The war in Afghanistan (895-99). The debate over inspections (900-06). Bin Laden’s 2002 warning (906-09). War propaganda: Saddam’s crimes, militant Islam (909-10). Special Forces informant (910-12). Cemetery of al-Qaeda dead attracts miracle-seekers in Kandahar (912-13). The 1956 Suez Crisis (Egyptians call it “the Tripartite Aggression”) (913-21). The pro-war propaganda campaign; misuse of WWII in argument (921-26). With Afghanistan as “‘successful’ role model for America’s forthcoming imperial adventure,” problems there become unmentionable (927-28). Powell’s U.N. speech on Feb. 5, 2003 (929-31). “The men driving Bush to war” — Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Bolton, & Rumsfeld; pro-Israeli influence (931-32). Journalists & “war-by-media” (933). Odd “detachment” among people in Baghdad on the eve of war (934-36).

Ch. 23. Atomic Dog, Annihilator, Arsonist, Anthrax, Anguish and Agamemnon [names of U.S. Abrams tanks in the 3rd Infantry Division (986)]. Baghdad in early days of the war (93749). Iraqis are “both dead and alive. War had become not just part of their lives, but the very fabric of their existence” (939); “There is something anarchic about all human beings, about their reaction to violence” (943). American missile attacks in Baghdad, Mar. 27-28, 2003 (949-53). First Iraqi suicide attack by Sgt. Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Nomani, end of March 2003, “[i]n retrospect . . . one of the most important moments in this war” (95355). Illusions and uncertainties in Baghdad in early April (956-61). Wounded in Hilla hospital, 50 miles south of Baghdad (961-63). Propaganda in Baghdad on eve of its fall (963-65). Fisk sights U.S. Army on the far banks of the Tigris: “extraordinary . . . a Western army on a moral crusade had broken through to the heart of an Arab city for the first time since Maude marched into this same city of Baghdad in 1917 and Allenby into Jerusalem in 1918” (965-66). “Adnan Khairallah Martyr Hospital in the last hours of Saddam’s regime” (967-69). U.S. troops kill journalists (969-72). Civilian casualties in hospitals (972-74). Apr. 9: “Liberation” (975-78). Apr. 10: looting (978-80). Civilians killed in battle in Doura, suburb of Baghdad (980-82). Reflections on war crimes; journalists’ complicity (982-84). Visit to Saddam’s Presidential Palace (984-86). Looting and burning (986-91). Burning of Koranic library (991-93). Apr. 17, 2003, column on liberators turned occupiers (993-98). Ch. 24. Into the Wilderness. Highway 8: “Now we live in the American empire” (999). Deteriorating conditions in Iraq (1000-04). Capture of Saddam Hussein (1004-05). Saddam’s hideout (1005-06). Americans fire on unarmed Saddam supporters in Samara (1006-07). “Greater armed resistance”

(1007-11). U.S. torture (1011-12; note on U.S. torture, 1021n.). U.S. occupation and Iraq’s politics (1012-13). “The insane notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was part of this monstrous battle. It was the planet’s last war of colonisation” (1013-14). Pentagon screens “The Battle of Algiers” (1014-15). Visit to Abu Ghraib in Sept. 2003 (101517). Marsh Arabs by Saddam (1017-22). Mercenaries (1022). Prisoners; Abul Abbas (1022-24). Assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, head of Hamas (1024-26). Arafat’s death (1026-27). Bremer’s departure (1027-28). Kidnappings and killings (1028-31). Bin Laden’s “almost obsessive interest in history” (1031-34). Hariri’s assassination (1034-36). Response to “these constant tragedies of life and death” (1036). “We might be able to escape history. . . . We think we can recommend the same to the peoples of the Middle East. But we can’t” (1037). “I think that in the end we have to accept that our tragedy lies always in our past, that we have to live with our ancestors’ folly and suffer for it, just as they, in their turn, suffered, and as we, through our vanity and arrogance, ensure the pain and suffering of our own children. How to correct history, that’s the thing” (1038). Notes. 21 pp. [Many passages of the text derive from Independent articles not noted.] Select Bibliography. 7 pp. Categories: General (21 books); Middle East History (23); Afghanistan (12); Algeria (7); Armenia (5); Egypt (9); The Gulf (3); Iran (13); Iraq (20); Lebanon and Syria (8); Israel and Palestine (22); Journalism (6); 1914-1918 War (4); Select Documents (27). Chronology. [By Dr. Victoria Fontan (xii).] 3 pp. Index. 35 pp.