Part 4

c. 2000 to late 2002 in Israel/Palestine (Part III)

Chapter Thirteen continues the Palestinian story. The author professes to not be able to understand the mentality of either various Israeli Jews or various Palestinian Arabs. He also notes he can understand the general struggle but only as a vicious circle but that there are voices of reason among at least two Jewish women writing about and living in Gaza and Lebanon. As usual, he professes to regard Israeli settlements as illegal with the implication that they must end in order for peace to be possible. He notes the feeling he had soon before 9/11 that an Arab ‘explosion’ was imminent and concludes with the Sharon story including his use of that event as an excuse for his brutal reoccupation of the West bank in 2002. His comparison of Sharon's struggle with that of the French in Algeria leads to the author’s next chapter on Algeria.

1827 to 2004 in Algeria

Chapter Fourteen contains a map of northern Algeria. Fisk outlines the French pretext for occupation from 1830, the initial resistance, the story of the 1956 to 1962 war of independence and that of the ten year ‘holy’ war by FIS against the FLN government and the military that began in 1992 linking all the pieces together. The clearly brutal and genocidal (at a magnitude of 200,000 souls) Sunni-on-Sunni killing spree engaged in between the many Islamist and other elements including the various government factions for those ten years has apparently been appallingly followed, he notes, by recent cooperation between US Special Forces and the Government of Algeria.

1990 to 1991 in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

Chapter 15 concerns the lead up to, and events of, the 1991 US invasion of Iraq in the first Gulf War to secure the sovereignty of Kuwait. As usual, he reports the atrocities that occurred (up to Saddam’s surrender).

1991 in Iraq and surrounds following the events of Chapter 15

Chapter 16 tells the story of the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War especially among the Kurds but also among the Shi’a and Marsh Arabs, Chaldeans, Armenians and Assyrians and their “Betrayal” by the Western and Arab ‘Allies’.

1991 to 1998 in Iraq

Chapter 17 analyses the ‘sanction years’ in Iraq especially from 1990 to around 1998.

1993 to c. 2000 in Iraq

Chapter 18 continues the analysis including of the effects of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions used by the ‘Allies’ during both Gulf Wars (and between the wars especially in the mainly British and US imposed ‘no-fly zones’ in the north and south of Iraq from 1991 to 2003).