Robert Fisk Quotes

Quotes about:

• U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.

  Robert Fisk

  Thinking, Government, Courageous

  The Progressive Interview with Matthew Rothschild, July 1, 1998.

  47 Copy quote

• It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.

  Robert Fisk

  Jobs, Imperfect World, Worry

  "Robert Fisk, Injured in Line of Duty" by Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. December 10, 2001.

  36 Copy quote

• War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.

  Robert Fisk

  War, Victory, Spirit

  "The Great War for Civilization". Book by Robert Fisk, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• The violence stems from injustice, because people feel they have been treated unfairly in the Middle East, whether that means military occupation, starvation under U.N. sanctions, whether it means that they have a dictatorship imposed on them, propped up by the West. This is why people turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.

  Robert Fisk

  Military, Mean, People

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• And I think, in the end, that is the best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.

  Robert Fisk

  War, Thinking, Government

  "The Great War for Civilization". Book by Robert Fisk, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw the unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian, or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity.

  Robert Fisk

  Coffee, Italian, Iran

  Robert Fisk (2001). “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War”, p.163, Oxford University Press, USA

  16 Copy quote

• I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'

  Robert Fisk

  Trying, Firsts, Reason

  "The Great War for Civilization". Book by Robert Fisk, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

• After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career — in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad — watching the people within those borders burn.

  Robert Fisk

  Father, War, Land

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  13 Copy quote

• In Palestine, the Israelis claim they found a land without people,' a Syrian officer explained to us. 'Now they will take southern Lebanon and claim they have found another land without people if these refugees do not return.

  Robert Fisk

  Land, People, Southern

  Robert Fisk (2001). “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War”, p.130, Oxford University Press, USA

  4 Copy quote

• I was very struck by the fact that Colin Powell said he would produce evidence and then never produced it. Then Tony Blair produced a document of seventy paragraphs, but only the last nine referred to the World Trade Center, and they were not convincing. So we have a little problem here: If they're guilty, where is the evidence? And if we can't hear the evidence, why are we going to war?

  Robert Fisk

  War, World, Littles

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. December 1, 2001.

  9 Copy quote

• At the end of the day, bin Laden's interest is not Washington and New York, it's the Middle East. He wants Saudi Arabia. He wants to get rid of the House of Saud.

  Robert Fisk

  New York, House, The End Of The Day

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• Wasn't Saddam destroyed? Wasn't Gaddafi liquidated? Didn't Milosevic go to the Hague? All true. But Stalin survived. Kim Jong-un isn't doing too badly, either - though that's probably because he actually has nuclear weapons, as opposed to Iran which might or might not be trying to acquire them and thus remains on the Israeli-American target list.

  Robert Fisk

  Iran, Trying, Nuclear

  8 Copy quote

• Refuse to accept the narrative of history laid down by presidents, prime ministers, generals and journalists.

  Robert Fisk

  President, Narrative, Accepting

  8 Copy quote

• Fundamentalism is not bred in poverty. There are plenty of poor countries in the world that don't have violence because amid the poverty there is a kind of justice and in some countries a democracy.

  Robert Fisk

  Country, Justice, Democracy

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• Everyone outside the Roman Empire was called a barbarian. Everyone outside Obama’s empire is called a terrorist.

  Robert Fisk

  Empires, Barbarians, Punisher

  8 Copy quote

• We live in a society in the West, where, when men do violent things, they do them under orders. They are soldiers carrying out orders or mafia men carrying out killings for bosses. But the way things happen in the Middle East is not the same as in the West.

  Robert Fisk

  Men, Order, Boss

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• Whatever the political injustices are that created an environment that brought this about, it was not Americans who flew those planes into those buildings. And we should remember that. The crimes against humanity were perpetrated by people who were Arab Muslims.

  Robert Fisk

  People, Political, Humanity

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

  8 Copy quote

• Individuals in various countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia listen to the tapes of bin Laden. They gather in groups of four or five. They feel they want to do something to express their support for what they've heard. The idea that they were taking orders is a particularly Western idea.

  Robert Fisk

  Country, Egypt, Order

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. December 1, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• Some of the guys in the Northern Alliance are war criminals. One of the Northern Alliance commanders ran a slave girl network in Kabul in 1994. Remember that there was a period when every woman on the streets was at risk of being raped. This was the Northern Alliance period of glory.

  Robert Fisk

  Girl, War, Guy

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

  7 Copy quote

• In just one year in Bosnia, thirty of my colleagues died. There is a little Somme waiting for all innocent journalists.

  Robert Fisk

  Years, Waiting, Bosnia

  "The Great War for Civilization". Book by Robert Fisk, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• Tanks come in two forms: the dangerous, deadly kind and the "liberating" kind.

  Robert Fisk

  Two, Tanks, Kind

  32 Copy quote

• How could believers, people who regard themselves as true Muslims, get on those planes, quoting the words of God delivered through the Prophet to themselves, knowing they were going to kill innocent people? They saw the other passengers on the plane. They could see the woman with her little daughter. They saw people making phone calls to their wives or their husbands. They knew who they were killing.

  Robert Fisk

  Daughter, Husband, Wife

  Source: progressive.org

  6 Copy quote

• The bin Laden I met each time was in a simple Saudi white robe, with a simple, cheap kafiya and very cheap plastic sandals. But a videotape released before September 11, which I saw on Lebanese television, had him in a gold embroidered robe. When I saw this, I thought, whoa, has this guy changed? I wouldn't have imagined him ever appearing in such golden robes when I met him.

  Robert Fisk

  Simple, White, Guy

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

  6 Copy quote

• Osama bin Laden is very shrewd. But he struck me, even in 1997, as being remarkably out of touch. I remember thinking this does not look like the type of guy who walks to the top of a mountain with a mobile phone and says, "Operation B, attack."Now he is America's number one enemy. He's always wanted to be that.

  Robert Fisk

  Thinking, Guy, Enemy

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• And it's true, you hear things in Damascus and, after a few hours, the human double-take stops operating.

  Robert Fisk

  Hours, True You, Double Take

  7 Copy quote

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