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Digging Deeper XIII: January16-February 20, 2006
Robert Fisk,
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East 
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).Acknowledgements.
About 150individuals, listed alphabetically; editors,papers, and magazines Fisk has workedfor; "many" unnamed sources (ix-xii).
List of Maps.
10 maps.
Preface.
Father a WWI veteran; title of book comes from a WWI campaign medal(xvii). Searing memories of experiencesas a war correspondent (xvii-xviii).Hitchcock's 1940 "ForeignCorrespondent" determines vocation(xviii-xix). "Offered the Middle East" inApril 1976 by the
Times
of London (xix).As a war correspondent, an "ever moreinfuriated bystander," but feels notrauma (xix-xx). Unlike previous book onLebanon (
Pity the Nation
), this book "thestory of [my father's] generation. And of mine" (xx-xxii).
Ch. 1. "One of Our Brothers Had aDream . . ."
Going to visit Osama binLaden in March 1997 in Afghanistan (3-5). December 1993 visit to bin Laden inSudan (6-9). Hassan Abdullah Turabi's"Popular Arab and Islamic Conference" inKhartoum (9-12). Trip to see bin Laden insummer of 1996 (12-19). Interview withbin Laden: "war . . . against theAmerican regime" (19-25). The Taliban inAfghanistan (25-28). 1997 interview withbin Laden: "I pray to God that he willpermit us to turn the United States into ashadow of itself" (28-34).
Ch. 2. "They Shoot Russians."
 
TomGraham, V.C., A Tale of the Afghan War 
(London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1900), Jan. 1914 present from the author'sgrandmother to his father, a "tale of colour prejudice, xenophobia, andoutright anti-Muslim hatred during theSecond Afghan War" (35-38).Supremacism of official 19th-c. accounts(38-40). Jan.1980: covering the Russianinvasion of Afghanistan (40-50). Fisk's'pigeon' (50-51). Trip to Ghazni (51-53).Po-le-Charkhi prison break (54-55).Karmal's press conference (55-57).Escapes accusation of spying (57-58).Winter in Kabul (58-63). "What causecould justify terror? So our enemies arealways 'terrorists.' In the seventeenthcentury, governments used 'heretic' inmuch the same way, to end all dialogue,to prescribe obedience" (63). In anambushed Russian convoy (63-68). ToPeshawar (69-70).
Ch. 3. The Choirs of Kandahar.
OldBritish cemetery in Peshawar (71-72).Fisk bribes his way back into Afghanistan(72-74). Jalalabad (74-78). "Thegovernment was losing" (78). Religionand politics in Afghanistan (79-80).Adventure in Sorkh Rud; "I am an Englishsatin bag" in Pushtu; "Death is cheap"(80-82). Glimpses mujahedin beforeleaving Afghanistan (82-85). Summer1980 visit (85-86). Feb. 1980 visit toKandahar: Chanting of 
 Allahu akbar 
('Godis great') "an irresistible assertion of religious faith . . . an unstoppable force"(87-89). Afghan war summed up; "Nevercould I have imagined what we had givenbirth to in Afghanistan" (90-91).
Ch. 4. The Carpet-Weavers.
[Chaptertitle an allusion to those whoreassembled shredded documents fromseized U.S. embassy (127).] OperationBoot/Ajax overthrows Mossadeq (93-99). The Shah's regime (99-102). The IslamicRevolution in Iran (102-06). Post-revolutionary trial in Qom (106-08). TheShah's fate (109-10). The "bourgeois"phase of the revolution (110-13). CIAinfluence revealed by U.S. embassyseizure (113-14). Tehran after therevolution (115-18). Political evolution of 
 
the revolution (118-22). Nov. 1979interview with Khomeini (122-26). The2,300 embassy documents, published in85 vols. (126-30). Sadeq Khalkhali,hanging judge (130-36). Visit to villageof Kahak (136-38).
Ch. 5. The Path to War.
Britishoccupation of Mesopotamia, 1917-22(139-47). Iraqi monarchy (148). Rise of Saddam (149-50) Hunt for "spies" (151-64). Dr. Hussein Shahristani, torturevictim (154-58). Saddam as potential"new Shah" (158-60). Shia resistance(161-65). "[T]ens of thousands of Iraqiswho would be murdered during Saddam'snearly twenty-four-year rule. Kurds andcommunists and Shia Muslims would feelthe harshest . . . punishments . . .permanent state of mass killing" (165-66). Did not impede Western cultivationof regime (166-70). Shapour Bakhtiar(171-72). Executions in Iran (173-75).Soviet abuses in Afghanistan (175). Run-up to Iran-Iraq war (176-78).
Ch. 6. "The Whirlwind War."
Openingweeks of Iran-Iraq war, revealing strongIranian resistance (179-97). Iranian andIraqi fight against internal enemies ―Mujahedin-e-Khalq, Dawa(198-99).Human-wave attacks (200-04). In 1982,Khomeini reverses promise not to invadeother countries; new Iranian self-confidence (204-06). U.S. helps Iraq(207). "Devastatingly cruel" tactics(208). Iraqi use of chemical weaponswith American help (209-17).
Ch. 7. "War against War" and theFast Train to Paradise.
USS
Stark 
attacked, May 17, 1987 (218-21). U.S.warships in Gulf support Iraq (222-26).Arab attitudes toward the Iran-Iraq war(226-28). Evolution of the Iranian regimeand the war (228-33). Visit to Fao with"G.G." Labelle (234-42). Iran-Contraarms-for hostages deal (242-45). Gulf shipping protection leads to U.S. attackson Iran (246-51). Battle of Fish Lake(252-56). Soldiers' faith and belief inmartyrdom; cemeteries of Iran's wardead (256-58).
Ch. 8. Drinking the PoisonedChalice.
Downing of Iran Air IR655 byU.S., killing 290, Jul. 3, 1988 (259-67).
Times
of London censorship of storyleads Fisk to move to London
Independent 
(268-71). Journalistic credo(270-71). Lockerbie (272). Massexecutions in Iran of MEK prisoners,summer 1988 (273-75). Iraq's "martyr'swall" with name of those who died inIran-Iraq war (276-78). Iran-Iraq War ascompletion of Islamic Revolution inIranian imagination (279-90). War as acurse to the Iraqis (290-93).
Ch. 9. "Sentenced to Suffer Death."
Authoritarian father, Bill Fisk (294-96).His war memories (296-300). Warservice file (300-02). Visit to Douai (302-05). "[H]istory's fingers never relax theirgrip" (304). Post-WWI settlements: "mycareer as a journalist . . . has beenentirely spent in reporting the burning of these frontiers, the collapse of thestatelets that my father's war allowed usto create, and the killing of their peoples"(306-07). Ypres (307-08). Louvencourt(309-10). Refusal to execute a deserter(310-14). Mother's death; scar; lastletter from father (314-15).
Ch. 10. The First Holocaust.
Margada(316-18). Turks' systematic andgenocidal.attempt to exterminateArmenians in 1915-19, "the world's first,forgotten, Holocaust" (318-26). Publicity(326-28). Influence on Germans (329-30). Turkish cover-up (331). Treaty-granted republic destroyed by Turks &Bolsheviks (332-33). French surrenderAlexandretta province (334-35).Massacre of Iraqi Assyrians (336). Denialand diminishment (336-51). Margara andthe Aghajanian family (352-55).
Ch. 11. Fifty Thousands Miles fromPalestine.
Amin al-Husayni, Grand Muftiof Jerusalem ('Haj Amin') (1897-1974)
 
(356-65). "Arab-Jewish struggle" apoisonous "epic tragedy" that hasproduced a vast unreliable body of literature (365). Balfour Declaration(365-67). Unconscionably, ArabPalestinians bear burden of NaziHolocaust (367-68). Josef Kleinman,survivor of Dachau and Auschwitz, livesin Givat Shaul, once Deir Yassin, site of massacre of Palestinians in 1948 (369-71). Nimr Aoun's transfer from French-Mandate Lebanon to British MandatePalestine in "grubby land deal" (371-73).Moral relativism in the struggle (373-75).1948 (375-77). Fighting in 1956, 1967,1973, and 1982 "further crushed thePalestinians" (377-78). The word"terrorism" has become "a plague on ourvocabulary" (378-79). Yassir Arafat (379-82). 1991 Madrid conference (382-88).Background to Oslo agreement (388-90).Headless corpse of Zakaria Sharbaji inGaza, April 1993 (390-93). OsloAgreement (393-95). Fisk's pessimism(395-97). Arafat, a single-mindeddreamer who secretly yielded Palestinianrights (397-99). Shakr Yasin, 1948refugee (400-01).
Ch. 12. The Last Colonial War.
"Colonial mentality" of settlers [on'settlement' (for 'colony') (425)] (402-04).Anti-settler Israelis (404-06). OsamaHamid, suicide bomber (406-07).Opposition to the "Arafat peace" (407-10). Baruch Goldstein massacre andWestern double standards and "skewedsemantics" (410-14; see also 448-49).Arafat's 1994 homecoming and rule asdespot (414-20). Failure of Oslo (420-40). First intifada (440-50). HananAshrawi (451-52).
Ch. 13. The Girl and the Child andLove.
Amira Hass, Israeli reporter inGaza (453-56). Eva Stern calls attentionto the 1996 Qana massacre in Lebanon(456-59). Nezar Hindawi, who gave abomb to his girl friend to carry onto aplane (459-62). House destruction policy(462-66). Assassination policy (464-70).Suicide bombers (470-80). In 2001 ColinPowell instructs embassies to say"disputed," not "occupied" territories(480-81). "Today, the Arabs are nolonger afraid"; sense of impendingcatastrophe (481-82). Gaza as miniatureBeirut" (482-84). Experiences asreporter (484-88). Israeli and Palestinianrage and blood lust (488-95). Israeli actsin territories in 2002 (497-503). AbdulAziz Rantissi, Hamas leader in Gaza (503-06). Sharon's thinking (506-12).
Ch. 14. "Anything to Wipe Out aDevil . . ."
January 1992 visit to Frenchcemetery in Algiers (513-16). Algeria inFrench imagination (516-17). Mission:first, "liberation," then "civilization"(517). Fifty years suppressing resistance(517-19). War of independence, 1954-62(519-22). Moustafa Boulyali (1940-1987), fought both in FLN and, afterrefusing to accept Boumedienne's 1965coup d'état, as Islamist against the FLNgovernment (522-26). Front Islamique duSalut, founded in 1989, led guerilla war(526-28). Election cancelled, martial lawimposed, Boudiaf summoned fromMorocco to rule in 1992; Islam in Algeria(528-33). Algiers and middle-classresistance to Islamic revolution (534-37).Uprising; Boudiaf assassinated; possiblerole of "mafia" (the elite class) (537-44).Fearful period of violence (544-49).Murder of Sheikh Mihammed Bouslimaniof Blida (549-51). Severity of government response, includinginstigation of violence that is thenblamed on Islamists (551-55). Account of torture victim (555-56). Governmentattitudes; French government help (557-58). Spiral of violence (558-59). Traveling with
garde mobile,
ambush(559-63). GIA perspectives (563-66).Catholic clergy (566-67). Interviews anIslamist leader (567-69). Raïs andBentalha, liquidated villages, hundredskilled: unprecedented savagery (569-72).Publishes report of government torture infall of 1997 (572-79). Shameful lack of 
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