Robert Fisk: They're all grovelling and you can guess the reason

[IndianaGreen]

Nasr was fired after posting a tweet about ayatollah Fadallah's death. Heck, even the BBC reported the story in the same tone as Nasr. CNN fired Nasr accusing her of having lost her credibility, this from the network that has Wolfe Blitzer as a main correspondent.

Fisk, who lives in Lebanon, provides his unique perspective as he usually does. He doesn't pull his punches!

Robert Fisk: They're all grovelling and you can guess the reason

Freedom and democracy

Saturday, 17 July 2010

It is the season of grovelling.

Only a week after CNN's Octavia Nasr and the British ambassador to Beirut, Frances Guy, dared to suggest that Sayyed Hassan Fadlallah of Lebanon was a nice old chap rather than the super-terrorist the Americans have always claimed him to be, the grovelling began. First Ms Nasr, already fired by the grovelling CNN for her effrontery in calling Fadlallah a "giant", grovelled herself. Rather than tell the world what a cowardly outfit she had been working for, she announced that hers was "a simplistic comment and I'm sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah's life's work. That's not the case at all".

What is this garbage? Nasr never gave the impression that she supported "Fadlallah's life's work". She merely expressed her regret that the old boy was dead, adding – inaccurately – that he had been part of Hizbollah. I don't know what her pompous (and, of course, equally grovelling) "senior vice president" said to her when she was given her marching orders. But like victims of the Spanish Inquisition, Nasr actually ended up apologising for sins she had never even been accused of. Then within hours, British ambassador Guy began her own self-flagellation, expressing her regrets that she may have offended anyone (and we all know what that means) by her "personal attempt to offer some reflections of a figure who, while controversial, was also highly influential in Lebanon's history and who offered spiritual guidance to many Muslims in need".

I loved the "controversial" bit – the usual "fuck you" word for anyone you want to praise without incurring the wrath of, well, you know who. The Foreign Office itself took down poor Ms Guy's blogapop on old Fadlallah, thus proving – as Arab journalists leapt to point out this week – that while Britain proclaims the virtues of democracy and the free press to the grovelling newspaper owners and grotty emirs of the Middle East, it is the first to grovel when anything might offend you know who.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-theyre-all-grovelling-and-you-can-guess-the-reason-2028720.html

[Ken Burch]

1. Why is it impermissable to say that somebody in Hezbollah isn't TOTALLY evil?

At some point, a resolution of the Lebanese political crisis will have to include Hezbollah, so isn't it in the interest of resolving that to acknowledge that some people in that group weren't monsters?

It's not as if it's ever going to be possible to wipe Hezbollah out as a political force.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Hizbollah is also a legal political party in Lebanon

What is happening here is that the terrorist and rogue state known as Israel doesn't want to allow for the humanization of her increasing legions of enemies.

Just as all Israelis are not asshole supporters of the settlements, Palestinians are not all asshole supporters of terrorism, but often they are the victims themselves.