‘When Is a Military Coup Not a Military Coup?’
Jul 5, 2013 "For the first time in the history of the world, a coup is not a coup," Robert Fisk writes in The Independent. "The army take over, depose and imprison the democratically elected president, suspend the constitution, arrest the usual suspects, close down television stations and mass their armour in the streets of the capital." But the American president does not name it as so.
Chemical Weapons: ‘A Retold Drama Riddled With Plot Holes’
May 1, 2013 "In any normal society," writes a skeptical Robert Fisk of the media and government blowup over the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, "the red lights would now be flashing."
In Fallujah, a Hospital of Horrors
Apr 27, 2012 All at once, Nadhem Shokr al-Hadidi's administration office becomes a little chamber of horrors. A baby with a hugely deformed mouth. A child with a defect of the spinal cord, material from the spine outside the body. A baby with a terrible, vast Cyclopean eye. Another baby with only half a head, stillborn like the rest.
Prosecuting War Crimes? Be Sure to Read the Fine Print
Aug 29, 2011 It all depends, I think, on whether criminals are our friends (Stalin at the time) or our enemies (Hitler and his fellow Nazis), whether they have their future uses (the Japanese emperor) or whether we'll get their wealth more easily if they are out of the way (Saddam and Gadhafi).It all depends on whether criminals are our friends or our enemies, or whether we'll get their wealth more easily if they are out of the way.Syria Has Seen Similar Bloodshed Before
Jul 6, 2011 History comes full circle in Syria. In February 1982, President Hafez al-Assad's army stormed into the ancient cities to end an Islamist uprising.German Captains, U-Boats and Other Lies About Ireland
Jun 19, 2010 By chance, I arrived in Dublin this week on the day that the Saville report on Bloody Sunday was published.
Getting a Read on the Middle East
Mar 13, 2010 The greatest problem of writing historically about the Middle East is that the story has not ended. The war goes on. And both "sides" -- actually, there are rather a lot of sides -- produce conflicting narratives. The greatest problem of writing historically about the Middle East is that the story has not ended. The Middle East is about injustice. So who tells the story best?
Mubarak’s Challenger Can’t Rely on a Fair Race
Mar 6, 2010 What keeps old men in power in Egypt? And what keeps middle-aged men wanting power in a country whose crippled society, increasing sectarianism, brutal police force and endemic corruption are only compounded by an electoral system widely regarded as a fraud? Most Egyptians don't think that President Hosni Mubarak is immortal, even though he still reigns supreme at the age of 81. Even the pharaohs believed they would live on only in the next world.
Walls Never Work — in the Middle East or in Ireland
Jan 4, 2010 The story of the Protestant "settlements" in Ireland provides a ghostly narrative of those modern-day "settlements" in the West Bank, where the Israelis insist on fighting the world's last colonial war with the assistance of that great anti-colonial nation known as the United States.The story of the Protestant "settlements" in Ireland provides a ghostly narrative of those modern-day "settlements" in the West Bank.
The Silent Cleric Who Holds the Key to Iran’s Future
Dec 30, 2009 We like to believe -- and newspapers and television like us to believe -- that the battle for Iran is being fought on the streets of Tehran, of Isfahan, of Najafabad Untrue The future of the nation is being decided in Qom, among the clerical leaders of Iranian Shia Islam; and one of the most influential of them -- perhaps the closest of all the ayatollahs to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- is silent.
