100th and final Post (for now, at least)

1987 to 2001 in the United Arab Emirates, the Middle East, Israel, the US and Lebanon

Chapter 19 concerns Fisk’s interest in the truth behind the 30 years of murder and mayhem he has witnessed in the Muslim world perpetrated against, and often by, Muslims – the economics of the international arms trade directed at the Islamic world, especially for the West. Fisk finally focuses on his investigation into the provenance of and responsibility for the use of the seven year old Boeing or Lockheed “Hellfire” anti-armour Air-to-Ground missile first deployed for use by US Marines in the 1991 Gulf War fired from an Israeli helicopter in 1996 into an ambulance full of civilians that killed two women and four children in southern Lebanon.

1975 to 2005 in the Middle East especially around his base of Beirut so Syria, Palestine and Jordan

Chapter 20 is a reflection on changes of the guard that have occurred in his thirty years of reporting in Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and the Middle East. His parents died, king Hussein of Jordan died, president Hafez Assad died and he and his friends grew older and wiser and some died (but the oppressions of the Middle East, he argues, continue as if in a time warp).

1918 to 2001 in the Middle East, Libya, the USA and Afghanistan

Chapter 21 (Why?) is concerned, at bottom, with the ‘reasons’ for the 9/11 atrocity. It also asks why the US reacted as it did by repeating many of the mistakes already made so many times in the past century by ‘Western Powers’, especially the US and the UK.

2002 to 2003 in Afghanistan, the UN and Iraq

Chapter 22 is concerned with the “War on Terror” as it continued to affect Afghanistan in 2002 and began to affect Iraq beginning with Bush’s 12 September 2002 address to the UN General Assembly. Fisk intertwines the story of the “Tripartite Aggression” (or Suez Crisis) of 1956 as another example of the British will to war, deception and propaganda.

2003 in Iraq

Chapter 23 tells the story of the first 2003 bombardments and invasion of Iraq by the ‘Allies’.

2003 to 2006 in Iraq

Chapter 24 concludes the story of post-Saddam Iraq up until the Northern Summer of 2006. Fisk also notes the circumstances surrounding the death of his friends, including Rafiq al-Hariri virtually before his eyes on the Beirut Corniche, and of others. He also discusses the situation in Algeria, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East further before concluding that we may all inevitably be victims of the ‘history’ of our forefathers as our descendents will be victims of our ‘history’.

All in all, Fisk presents a slew of unpleasant facts that don’t exactly redound to the credit of Western ‘Allies’. He occasionally writes obtusely but also occasionally makes salient points about Middle Eastern history and current affairs. Most importantly, his contribution is of those facts that we must not ignore.