Here's Why Robert Fisk was Banned from the Country

[buzzsaw_23]

He has a new book out and will certainly be going on a promotional tour. They don't want this man telling this story to large crowds and doing interviews on radio and television. He's too credible.

Here are a few extracts from 'The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East' by Robert Fisk, published by 4th Estate on 3 October, £25. To buy the book at the special price of £22.50, including p&p, call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798897, or visit www.independent booksdirect.co.uk

How the world was duped: the race to invade Iraq. Exclusive extract from Robert Fisk's new book (short version)

When Colin Powell made his notorious final pitch for war at the UN Security Council, Robert Fisk was there. In the latest extract from his explosive new book, he recalls a tragi-comic occasion.

The 5th of February 2003 was a snow-blasted day in New York, the steam whirling out of the road covers, the US secret servicemen - helpfully wearing jackets with "Secret Service" printed on them - hugging themselves outside the fustian, asbestos-packed UN headquarters on the East River. Exhausted though I was after travelling thousands of miles around the United States, the idea of watching Secretary of State Colin Powell - or General Powell, as he was now being reverently redubbed in some American newspapers - make his last pitch for war before the Security Council was an experience not to be missed.

In a few days, I would be in Baghdad to watch the start of this frivolous, demented conflict. Powell's appearance at the Security Council was the essential prologue to the tragedy - or tragicomedy if one could contain one's anger - the appearance of the Attendant Lord who would explain the story of the drama, the Horatio to the increasingly unstable Hamlet in the White House.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article316651.ece

Shock and awe: the night Baghdad burned. Exclusive extract from Robert Fisk's new book (short version)

In an exclusive extract from his powerful new book about the Middle East, Robert Fisk watches in the Iraqi capital as the US air offensive begins in March 2003

Published: 02 October 2005

Tubes of fire tore into the sky around the Iraqi capital, dark red at the base, golden at the top. Looking out across the Tigris from the river bank, I could see pin-pricks of fire reaching high into the sky as America's bombs and missiles exploded on to Iraq's military and communication centres and, no doubt, upon the innocent as well.

<snip>

Donald Rumsfeld was to assert that the American attack on Baghdad was " as targeted an air campaign as has ever existed". But he could not have told that to five-year-old Doha Suheil. She looks at me on the first morning of the war, drip-feed attached to her nose, a deep frown over her small face as she tries vainly to move the left side of her body. The cruise missile that exploded close to her home in the Radwaniyeh suburb of Baghdad blasted shrapnel into her legs ­ they were bound up with gauze ­ and, far more seriously, into her spine. Now she has lost all movement in her left leg. Her mother bends over the bed and straightens her right leg, which the little girl thrashes around outside the blanket. Somehow, Doha's mother thinks that if her child's two legs lie straight beside each other, her daughter will recover from her paralysis. She was the first of the patients brought to the Mustansariya College Hospital after America's blitz on the city began.

So let's forget, for a moment, the cheap propaganda of the regime and the cocky moralising of Messrs Rumsfeld and Bush, and take a trip ­ this bright morning in March 2003 ­ around the Mustansariya College Hospital. For the reality of war is ultimately not about military victory and defeat, or the lies about "coalition forces" which our "embedded" journalists were already telling about an invasion involving only the Americans, the British and a handful of Australians. War, even when it has international legitimacy ­ which this war does not ­ is primarily about suffering and death.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article316530....

To read the entirety of these excerpts and read additional excerpts go to the links provided above.

[Just Me]

1. I'll have to add to my reading list.

Although, at this point, I seriously doubt he would tell me something I haven't already discovered for myself.

[htuttle]

2. "The Horatio to the increasingly unstable Hamlet in the White House"

Sure you probably know all of it, but have you read it put THAT way?

I've always liked Fisk's writing, and this one sounds like it's particularly good.

[buzzsaw_23]

3. I think one of the issues

is that now the majority of Americans are against the war and would be open to actually hearing Fisk's essays. The first hand accounts of how it was/is on the ground has a greater way of moving folks who might otherwise be unaffected. He is really an artist at bringing this horror into the everyday and eliciting compassion.

[hiley]

5. he wasn't banned

look at the link below.

[hiley]

4. Robert Fisk Has Not Been Banned From U.S.:

Robert Fisk Has Not Been Banned From U.S.:

In this interview, Robert Fisk talks about Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the
idea of democracy in the Middle East
Audio of interview at link.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10455.htm

September 28, 2005
UPDATE ON ROBERT FISK
My friend Frank Smyth -- a fine journalist who has reported from Iraq, Central America, and Africa, and who is now the Washington representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists -- tells me that he spoke with Robert Fisk's editor at The Independent, Leonard Doyle, about why Fisk was barred from entering the U.S. to make a speech in Denver, Colorado. Smyth reports that Doyle "said that Fisk (left) was not banned. He had a visa but he did not have a biometric passport, which is required of all citizens from nations like the UK on the visa waiver program. CPJ covered this at the time and noted that it would be an inconvenience for journalists from these nations, although we also noted that it applied to all citizens from these nations. So Fisk's problem shows more about how much harder it is for Europeans in general to now enter the US."

snip--
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/09/update_on_rober.html

[buzzsaw_23]

6. Thanks for the update

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

We'll see if he is put on the list which disallows certain security risks from entering.

[hiley]

8. he probably will

be..

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Which doesn't sound quite right

Because the "biometric passport" requirement only applies after Oct 26th, 2005, to passports issued after Oct 26th, 2005 - and that is for the Visa Waiver Program (as a journalist, I think Fisk would have to have a journalist visa).

I have recently read about additional passport requirements which will come into effect on October 26, 2005.

The additional passport requirements will affect only those VWP travelers whose passports are issued on or after October 26, 2005. If your passport is issued before this date, you need only be concerned that it is machine-readable.

What are these additional requirements?

Passports issued on or after October 26, 2005, must include a biometric identifier based on applicable standards estalished by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The Department of Homeland Security has announced that from October 26, 2005, a digital photograph of the passport holder's face printed on the data page of the passport will be the acceptable standard. Passports issued on or after October 26, 2006, must also include an integrated circuit chip capable of storing the biographic information from the data page, a digitized photograph and other biometric information.

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_new/visa/niv/mrp_bio.html

(UK passports have been machine readable for well over 10 years. I cannot believe Fisk still has a non-readable one - UK passports only last for 10 years).

More relevant sounds this bit from the CPJ via Doug Ireland:

In addition, the department now requires all foreign visitors, including journalists, to leave the country and provide digital fingerprints to renew their visas...."

I suspect it was an old American visa without digital fingerprints that was his problem, not the passport.

Of course, the 'digital photograph' rule screws anyone whose passport runs out between Oct 26th and "early 2006", which is the latest estimate the UK government has given for when it will introduce passports with the digitised photograph. They'll have to get a visa (in person) at the US Embassy in London, just to visit Disneyworld, let alone be a journalist.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

7. and it's HUUUUUUUUUGE

rolling in at over 1300 pages! And I thought his book on Lebanon was large.

(btw -- for Brits, he's speaking in Glasgow next week)