{"id":1311,"date":"2005-11-09T09:38:45","date_gmt":"2005-11-09T17:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/11\/mr_jones_meet_mr_fisk\/"},"modified":"2005-11-09T09:38:45","modified_gmt":"2005-11-09T17:38:45","slug":"mr_jones_meet_mr_fisk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/11\/mr_jones_meet_mr_fisk.html","title":{"rendered":"MR. JONES, MEET MR. FISK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you want to know what&#8217;s happening, Mr. Jones? Do you <i>really<\/i> want to know? Then tune in to Robert Fisk this morning. &#8220;You know?&#8221; he quotes a CIA officer, &#8220;Torture works.&#8221; In an interview on Democracy Now!, Fisk, who may be the most intrepid, most illuminating reporter working in Iraq and the Middle East, notes: &#8220;We are becoming  the  criminals. We <i>are<\/i> the criminals now. &#8230; We have no further moral cause to fight for.&#8221; He shouldn&#8217;t be missed, nor his new book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/1400041511\/qid=1131548064\/sr=2-1\/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1\/104-8856614-8772715?v=glance&#038;s=books\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>&#8220;The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a><br \/>\n<A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/1400041511\/qid=1131548064\/sr=2-1\/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1\/104-8856614-8772715?v=glance&#038;s=books\" class=inline target=new\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East\" by Robert Fisk\" src=\"http:\/\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/1400041511.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg\" width=180 align=left border=0 \/><\/a><br \/>\nFisk&#8217;s skill at connecting past and present is unbeatable. Note his remarks about the French authorities who are dealing with the crisis of the French uprising. He reminds us of their old Vichy connection and the fact that many of them are the same ones who sent tens of thousands of Jews to their fate in the Nazi death camps. Note, too, Democracy Now!&#8217;s perfect pairing of a scene excerpted from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0058946\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>&#8220;The Battle of Algiers&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a> &#8212; it&#8217;s a news conference in which a military officer defends the use of torture &#8212; with a scene from a  White House press conference starring spokesman Scott McClellan on the same subject. As soon as DN! posts the interview, the first of a two-parter, we&#8217;ll provide the link.<br \/>\n<i>&#8212; Tireless Staff of Thousands<\/i><br \/>\n<strong>Postscript:<\/strong> Well, it looks like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>Democracy Now!<\/strong><\/font><\/a> won&#8217;t be posting a link to download a video of Fisk&#8217;s interview, at least not at the moment. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/article.pl?sid=05\/11\/09\/1538226\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>what&#8217;s posted<\/strong><\/font><\/a>. Maybe they&#8217;re still working on it.<br \/>\n<strong>PPS:<\/strong> Ahh, here we go: the <a href=\"http:\/\/play.rbn.com\/?url=demnow\/demnow\/demand\/2005\/nov\/video\/dnB20051109a.rm&#038;proto=rtsp&#038;start=41:46\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>excerpt from &#8220;The Battle of Algiers&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/play.rbn.com\/?url=demnow\/demnow\/demand\/2005\/nov\/video\/dnB20051109a.rm&#038;proto=rtsp&#038;start=48:39\" class=inline  target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>video of Fisk<\/font><\/strong><\/a>, beginning with the White House press conference.<br \/>\nHmm &#8230; To appreciate the full impact of Fisk&#8217;s remarks &#8212; about the uprising, the French leadership,  the relevance of the Algerian war, excerpts from the film, what is now likely to happen in France,  the routine use of torture by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the purpose of journalism &#8212; it&#8217;s best to have what he said in sequence. For that, watch this <a href=\"http:\/\/play.rbn.com\/?url=demnow\/demnow\/demand\/2005\/nov\/video\/dnB20051109a.rm&#038;proto=rtsp&#038;start=26:06\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>33-minute segment<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, which has now been posted. It includes an interview with the Iranian-born author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/055380393X\/qid=1131559392\/sr=1-1\/ref=sr_1_1\/104-8856614-8772715?v=glance&#038;s=books\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>Behzad Yaghmaian<\/strong><\/font><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you want to know what&#8217;s happening, Mr. Jones? Do you really want to know? Then tune in to Robert Fisk this morning. &#8220;You know?&#8221; he quotes a CIA officer, &#8220;Torture works.&#8221; In an interview on Democracy Now!, Fisk, who may be the most intrepid, most illuminating reporter working in Iraq and the Middle East, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-l9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}