Robert Fisk

[Bradford DeLong]

>My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this
>filthy war
>Report by Robert Fisk in Kila Abdullah after Afghan border ordeal
>10 December 2001
>
>They started by shaking hands. We said "Salaam aleikum" - peace be
>upon you - then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small boy tried
>to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in the back.
>Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face
>and head. I couldn't see for the blood pouring down my forehead and
>swamping my eyes. And even then, I understood. I couldn't blame them
>for what they were doing. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of
>Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done
>just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find.

The more I think about it, the weirder this is.

Is Fisk saying that if he had lost a spouse in the WTC terror 
bombing, that he would be roaming the streets of New York shooting 
Pakistani and Lebanese cab drivers in the head? Is he saying that the 
people of South Asia are too Simple to distinguish between those who 
commit acts and those who just look like them--but that we 
sophisticated and civilized "Westerners" need to respect and cherish 
that Simplicity? And what to make of the crack later on that the man 
who protected them--"...who, with a single rifle, kept the crowds 
away from the car..."--was a "true ghost of the British Empire"? Does 
he really think that a desire to maintain civil order--to keep 
unarmed foreigners from being massacred in the street--was imported 
into South Asia by Warren Hastings and the Marquess of Wellesley?

Brad DeLong