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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (94284)	4/17/2003 6:25:34 PM
From: paul_philp	Respond to of 281500

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To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (94284)	4/17/2003 6:43:04 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Fisk is getting more and more grotesque. Last week he was claiming that the defenses of Baghdad seemed impregnable, now he is claiming - does he even pretend to have any evidence? - that the Americans are not seeking out the Ba'athis torturers and all the Iraqis hate them already. And don't lets forget last year's "massacre" in Jenin. Only a total amnesiac would believe a word that Fisk says.

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (94284)	4/17/2003 6:44:06 PM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 281500

Thanks for the article. This US occupation won't be easy for sure.

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (94284)	4/17/2003 8:44:32 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Fisk is not one of my favourite reporters. He allows his prejudice against the West to colour everything he writes. When he wrote about the Jenin "massacre" I went on the internet and found photographs and even documents which proved there was no massacre. However, he is also very intelligent and energetic and gets around. If he hasn't made this up it's worth following up on: The looters come first. The arsonists turn up later, often in blue-and-white buses. I followed one after its passengers had set the Ministry of Trade on fire and it sped out of town. The official US line on all this is that the looting is revenge ? an explanation that is growing very thin ? and that the fires are started by "remnants of Saddam's regime", the same "criminal elements", no doubt, who feature in the marines' curfew orders. But people in Baghdad don't believe Saddam's former supporters are starting these fires. And neither do I. The looters make money from their rampages but the arsonists have to be paid. The passengers in those buses are clearly being directed to their targets. If Saddam had pre-paid them, they wouldn't start the fires. The moment he disappeared, they would have pocketed the money and forgotten the whole project. So who are they, this army of arsonists? I recognised one the other day, a middle-aged, unshaven man in a red T-shirt, and the second time he saw me he pointed a Kalashnikov at me. What was he frightened of? Who was he working for? In whose interest is it to destroy the entire physical infrastructure of the state, with its cultural heritage? He follows this with Why didn't the Americans stop this? This is a good question which should be followed up on general principle but I'm a lot more interested in the previous paragraphs. Who are these people who come in expeditions to set the fires? The caveat remains: Fisk may have made it up. Personally, I suspect both former Saddam supporters and folk who hate the old regime are setting the fires for their own different reasons.