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The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East

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If you are like me, once you've established your basic opinion on something, you tend to skim the newspapers on the subject, often only reading headlines and maybe the first few paragraphs. So it has been with me and the Middle East conflicts over the last 30 years. However, every so often, a book like this comes out that is so deep, so excellent, and so challenging that it will wipe out all my cozy assumptions and ignite an interest that will carry me for several years at a minimum.

I read this over a period of months with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. It is in my opinion a literary masterpiece by a courageous reporter who is also a true intellectual, steeped in history as well as the stories of people that great journalists seek like air or food. There are so many levels to this book that a review cannot do it justice, but I will try.

First, there is the autobiographical side of this, where Fisk explains his obsession with war and injustice and man's inhumanity to man - it originated with his conflict with his father, a WWI veteran, which leads to his search for the truth and the need to document the lives of those who suffer. At times very moving, always vivid, this in many ways is the core of the book's theme.

Second, there are the historical analyses of conflicts starting with WWI and its aftermath - the Balfour Declaration - that saw the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of the modern Middle East. This covers a huge range of countries, from Algeria to Turkey and Iran. You can see the roots of where the conflct started with the end of Turkish authority, how it got complicated by decolonization and the establishment of Israel, and how it has evolved into an increasingly murderous direction. Because of the superficial grasp I had of the history, I learned a tremendous amount from this, including from the first systematic account of the Armenian genocide, to the civil wars in virtually all the rest of the countries covered. Not everything is covered, however, only what Fisk investigated on assignment. In a sense, he is showing how similar the recent actions - even the rhetoric - of Bush are to the first forays of European imperialists in the 1920s.

Third, there is a political analysis of the root of the current crisis that increasingly pits the US and Israel against the Moslem world. In a nutshell that badly oversimplifies, Fisk argues that the US has always taken Israel's side uncriticially and unequivocably, which Moslems have taken as unfair and inimical to their causes and civilization; the West always makes expedient promises that it never intends to keep, while allowing the Israelis free rein to be as brutal as they wish with the Palestinians. This, Fisk argues, has contributed to their hostility to the West, even to terrorism. Fisk also laments how this cannot even be questionned - he recounts how often he is often accused of anti-semitism for opinions contrary to the pro-Israeli view. Agree or disagree, this gets you to think more deeply than one is accustomed to about this conflict, if your major source is American newspapers, that is.

Fourth, this book is a critique of his profession, which now largely has been "embedded" with US soldiers in the Irak conflict. Here he sets a high standard indeed, recounting his adventures and near death experiences while doing his job - he was attacked by a mob in Afghanistan, which the Wall Street Journal said he deserved for his "self hatred", that is, his critical comments of Bush's policies! I was shocked to learn that CNN now requires its experts on the scene to submit all comments in advance for "approval" by editors in the US, though had suspected it was like that given how canned CNN has come to sound. While praising a few, Fisk also takes many to task for laxness and sleazy intrigues to their own advantage. In particular, he is very hard on American journalists, most of whom he sees as uncritical and even tendentious in their coverage.

Fifth, there are trenchant analyses of recent events that are as provocative as they are shocking. For example, Fisk believes that the Rabin-Arafat Oslo accords were so slanted in Israel's favor that it was doomed to fail, which really shocked me as it had been universally hailed in the newspapers I read as the best peace possible, etc. But there is also the Algerian revoltes of the 1990s, Beirut, of course, and the many wars of the lsat 30 years. In one section, he gives a fascinating analysis on the relation of Saudi Arabia's brand of conservative Islam, Wahabism, with the Taliban's ideology. It was all a perspective new to me and exactly what I was hoping to find. This includes an analysis of the language and rhetoric used to describe events, which Fisk argues shape not only the way we see things but policy options. For example, in labelling people "terrorists" they become totally indefensible, deserving to be killed by military means; however, as he shows over and over, this label is not consistently applied and used as a substitute for thinking and ends any possibliy of negotiation or conciliation.

Finally, there are amazing personal stories he finds, which make it into mainstream news, from interviews with Bin Laden to a fascinating inquiry to find who manufactured the missiles that killed innocent Palestinians. The book is packed with stories like these far too numerous to count. They can be tragic and cruel, meaningless deaths at the hands of those who are rarely punished.

All in all, reading this was wonderful. He covers the last 30 years in detail, roughly coinciding with the time that I became an obsessive follower of current events. So it is like a review of everything I read about - too quickly - in the Middle East over that time. Every page made me think more deeply on the area than I have in a long time, food for thought that will last me a long long time. Now I will have to read more....much more.

Warmly recommended. Fisk in my view is equally hard on everyone from an ethical point of view and is not biased as he has been accused of being. I will add his newspaper, the Independent, to my list of daily must skims!

Note: I have learned that Fisk is unpopular with his fellow journalists. Several of them who know him - and admit there is a lot of professional jealousy about him - have told me that he is known for making things up or embellishing. While I cannot prove this one way or the other, my sense is that his writing rings true.

"Always let your conscience be your guide", sang Disney's dapper little bug. Robert Fisk adopts this theme in this monumental history of the modern Middle East. Prompted by a World War I soldier father's actions and admonitions, Fisk's sense of justice outweighs that mighty rock sitting at the gate to the Mediterranean Sea. As he travelled from "the Med's" shores to Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine and other states, he watched the growing unrest and resentment as the last world empire retreated to Downing Street and a new one emerged from the shores of the Potomac. With rising anger and no little resentment of his own, he records the sufferings of ordinary people as these empires played nations and their leaders as pawns in what the British Empire deemed "The Great Game". In graphic, and sometimes disturbing prose, he portrays how fear became the catalyst to inflict pain without reason or justice.

It would have been easy for Fisk to simply stack up his notes and have them bound as a volume of essays. Instead, he approaches his task by depicting the recent history of a locale. Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine - the list is a detailed tour of a land deemed by history "The Cradle of Civilization" - hence his derived title. Each nation's recent history is reviewed. It's a sorry tale of interference from "outsiders", whether Christian West or Communist North. Centre to the tale is the imposition of the State of Israel on Palestine by the Balfour Declaration following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The continuing presence of British and French "mandated" authorities remained a festering irritant to the Muslim populations. An uprising in Iraq in 1920 against the British presaged another, much later, "insurgency" which Fisk recounts in vivid detail.

The journalist in Fisk mostly kept him away from "leaders" except when necessary. Instead, he travels among the general populace, recording their fears, hopes, and all too often, griefs. That close and direct contact nearly cost Fisk his life when a refugee Afghan child identified him as "Mr Bush". That brought rocks, fists and kicking feet. Fisk was saved by an Afghan "Good Samaritan" who took him to a police truck. His reporting of the event was typical of a man who'd spent so much time recording the impact of selfish policies and mindless actions by the Western Powers. Like his rescuer, he forgave his attackers. He knew well what the Afghans had endured during the Russian occupation, Taliban domination and now the bombardment of villages and farms to rid their nation of "terrorists".

The response to his account regrettably typified what journalism had become at the beginning of the 21st Century. Instead of applauding his escape and his willingness to risk violence for a story, Western commentators jeered and vilified Fisk. Mark Steyn of "The Wall Street Journal" typified what Western journalists had become. By absolving the Afghans who resented the American presence in their country, Fisk, according to Steyn, had by association absolved the men who'd crashed airliners into the World Trade Centre on 2001-09-11. Fisk had been among the few writers who'd tried to explain what feelings might have led to such an act, while condemning it as a crime against humanity. Readers and other journalists didn't want explanations, they wanted revenge. The cost of that vengeance, Fisk contends, is the killing and maiming of thousands of innocent civilians - far more than died in the collapsing towers.

Fisk is clear on the fallacies and fabrications underlying the "Bush Crusade" into Iraq. He's even more vivid on its likely enduring results. The Iraqis, once victims of a Baath Party rule he vigorously condemns, now suffer a foreign occupation they neither wished nor will tolerate. He describes how manipulation of the words "terror" and "terrorist" has given the United States and Britain their excuse to commandeer the rich oil reserves under Iraq's deserts. By describing anybody who opposes their intrusion as "terrorist", in the same way that Israel could label Palestinians objecting to the colonisation of their lands, any act of suppression in justified. If air strikes or tank attacks kill civilians, whether armed or not, the dead are quickly deemed "terrorists" - even the children whose mangled bodies are part of the "body count" no "coalition" official will make. The media, he argues, not only fails to challenge these tactics, but willingly adopts them into their own accounts, furthering the deception and transforming it into common language.

It is the accounts of these innocent dead that inflate this book - giving it the size bemoaned by some reviewers. That plaint can only remind one of the Director of the Vienna Opera on Mozart's work - "too many notes". Are there too many words in this book? What would you excise: Fisk's account of his father's impact on his life? The stories of the dead or wounded in the Middle East resulting from ideological conflicts or repressive governments? Should we not read of Israel's standing aside while refugees are slaughtered, or US jets razing Baghdad streets? There is clearly nothing here deserving deletion. Indeed, it is among the most important "must read" books to appear. Do so and learn what has been kept hidden. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I think this mammoth but absorbing book will eventually be regarded as the definitive journalistic work on recent Middle Eastern history and politics. In it, Fisk comes across more as a Wilfrid Owen of prose than some left-wing ideologue. What I also like about his writing is that it shows up all the main protagonists (Bush, Blair, Sharon, Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah,Islamic Jihad, Shin Bet, Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Khomeni and so on) for what they are or were: as bad as each other. And that's what infuriates the different supporters of this motley bunch, isn't it? Nobody gets to claim the moral high ground.

I'm close to halfway through this title. Although the page count is somewhat daunting, I have never picked it up and not become immediately engrossed.

Not a book for the faint-of-heart, as it describes many war scenes and tales of torture and mayhem. Perhaps the strongest parts of the book are when Fisk reports from his personal experiences in the Middle East. The writing is always superb, and my admiration for the writer grows by the page.

Robert Fisk's "Great War..." is one of the most informative books on recent (and not so recent) Middle East history. The firsthand accounts of the Iran-Iraq war and it's aftermath are especially chilling. This book should be required reading for those who brush off anything other than the very broken "Party Line" of US and Western "foreign policy". After reading this book, you will be struck dumb by the West's indifference to the value of a living, breathing human being.

Robert Fisk's book is big, 1.5 kg big. It is his meticulously researched, and detailed exposition of what make the Middle East the mess it is now, and which he has personally experienced in the last thirty years since first being posted to Beirut as the foreign correspondent for The Times in 1976.

Reading this book, and it weighs one and a half kilos, is like being personally beaten over the head with it by Robert Fisk himself - the message is persistent and insistent, and it is painful. Take that, John, and that and that, says Robert - that's what happens when we keeping meddling in the Middle East. OK? John, Get it?  -  ok, OK -  Robert, stop hitting me like that - ouch-  do it to Blair or Bush, please  - ouch -  I agree with you, I've got the message -  the Middle East is a mess - Western meddling over many years has made it much more of a mess - we should get out of the region and leave the Middle East to sort its mess itself, if it can. OK. OK. Thank you, Robert. 

I read the book over several weeks, it is not one continuous narrative, it moves from place to place and back and forward in time in succeeding chapters, so it is perfectly possible to dip into each chapter as a separate item, without compromising the book's intention or worth. Although I have made fun about the size of this magnum opus, unlike most long books which are merely discursive or self-indulgent, the size is a logical and necessary result of the sheer amount of evidence presented in regard to the misfortunes of this region, and which in turn brings this book its irresistible force. As one reads, it becomes ever harder to argue against Robert Fisk's compelling and insistent premise, that the Middle East is a mess because, starting with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the West's relationship with the Middle East has been one characterised by generations of meddling, betrayals, hypocrisy, aggression, war, arrogance, racism, greed and disdain. In country after country, year after year, generation after generation, this same imperialistic ethos is inflicted on those unfortunate citizens, it doesn't seem to matter if it is America, Britain, France or Russia doing the dirty, the methods are the same, the results the same. I doubt if any ordinary, but humane and sympathetic person, who's lifetime of experience is rooted in the ordinary matters of everyday life, its generally mild trials and tribulations but its mostly simple and contented existence, could, having read to the end of this book, come away from the experience without feelings of sadness, revulsion, anger, impotence, and shame. Shame from the fact that it is, in great measure, our greed for the land and for the oil resources of the Middle East, that has brought this area of the world to its present pass.

This is not to state, and Robert Fisk does not state this either, that there is no blame at all to people of this region themselves. The Armenian holocaust, for instance, which Robert Fisk covers, the cruelty and implacability of some strict Moslem codes, the tyranny of Sadam, the cruelty of the Algerian civil war, the low place of women, the backward looking nature of so much of their society. But it might help to remember that it was less than two generations ago that black people in America gained some measure of equality and respect, but even now can hardly be said to be equal, and it is not much over one lifetime ago that women got the vote, and that many of the measures that went to making working life tolerable in industrial society were only gained after much strife during the years of the recently completed last century. There is little in Moslem society that can't progress as we have, if we encourage it (and not by using a big stick).

But what we have done, and what Robert Fisk amply proves (except to the ignorant, who won't read this book anyway) is that we, as representatives of the Western advanced countries, and here I also include Russia, have caused such grief, misery, hardship, resentment and abiding hatred, that a small number of Moslems, and recall there are over one billion Moslems worldwide, have felt compelled to take up arms and struggle against their enemy. It has been Robert Fisk's task in this book to demonstrate to us, again and again, why it is a logical position for a moslem in these countries to see us as an enemy. As he says, treating the 11th September attacks as merely the murderous intent of a few mad and mindless extremists and terrorists, and not even attempting to examine an underlying cause, is like a policeman investigating a murder and not being interested in the motive. There is no true understanding of the nature of extremism without this intellectual exercise being undertaken. Bush, Blair and Howard have not bothered to do this. The media too have not bothered to do this, even though it is their duty to do so. The result of this is that we are locked in a perpetual war with no possibility of it ending, just as Israel and Palestine have been locked in their conflict for the last fifty years.

I am not here going to attempt any sort of resumé of the book, you must read it yourself. But it is worth mentioning that Robert Fisk starts with the First World War, and his father's place in this, and the visits that he took to the cemeteries of northern France and Belgium, taking young Robert with him. On the back of one of Robert Fisk's fathers medals, was inscribed what is now the title of the book. He also shows how much the present problems in the Middle East relate to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and the imperial ambitions of France, the UK and other powers in this region. One of the recurring themes of this book is how history keeps repeating itself, with the same tragic consequences. Robert Fisk quotes part of a proclamation by FS Maude, Lt. General in the Commanding British Forces in Iraq in 1917. "But you, the people of Baghdad, are not to understand that it is the wish of the British Government to impose upon you alien institutions. The British army came in peace, all 600,000 of them, but were to find Iraq a quagmire, in exactly the same way as the Anglo-American invasion of 2003 have now found. Laurence of Arabia said this in 1920 "The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient then the public knows.....We are not far from disaster. . Unchanged, these words would now apply eighty-five years later. It has been Robert Fisk's mission to lift the veil of deceit that now applies in Iraq and the other unfortunate countries of the Middle East. In this he amply succeeds.

Robert Fisk is one of my heros. His book merely confirms this status. Robert Fisk has over the years been to every trouble-spot in the Middle East, and other Moslem countries - so he has personal and distressing experience of the Lebanon, where he has lived for most of the last thirty years, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, Jordan, Syria and elsewhere. He has seen more death and destruction in his life than would have many soldiers in combat. Yet he seems to have had the mental toughness to deal with this; he mostly allows the description of the horrors he has witnessed speak to us through his words, and he sets them against a background of mayhem that arises from our intrusions and aggression, much more so than it is merely something tragic and cruel arising from the problems of Moslem society itself . When the generals talk of "colateral damage", Fisk talks of dismembered bodies, eyeless children and limbless victims, many of whom he names. However, I think it would be true to say that the polemical nature of this book becomes more apparent with each passing page, that the anger, the frustration and the horror become a more obvious part of the writing. The increasingly wearying despair that Robert Fisk develops is reflected in the reader's mood, because this book is not an easy read, it is indeed thoroughly depressing.

In the Iran-Iraq war (when the west supported Sadam Hussein, remember), over a million died. 500,000 Iraqi children died during the Iraq sanctions, 100,000 have died since the start of the Iraq war. Over 2,000 US servicemen and women have died. Over 200 billion dollars have been squandered on this pointless and illegal war, and still Bush wants more. This book is Robert Fisk's testament. He is a truly brave and humane person. I have been listening to Robert for some years, I just wish those in power in the West would have done the same.

Who will ever forget Robert Fisk's trenchant reports from Baghdad in the weeks leading up to the war and especially those in the first hours, days of the invasion? This reporting was courageous, first rate, and historic. Where would our knowledge of what was going on on the ground have been without these ground zero communications in those crucial hours of destiny? For this service alone, the book deserves our attention.
For better or worse, few of us have the time to embark on such a demanding venture as reading this work presents - the life of a man, the blood of nations, the biography of large scale populations, and the fate of moral values. Perhaps, we all should stop and read it. What could be more critical to our lives that what is in this text? What is presented is the ultimate examination of the continued brutality of our ongoing assault on life. I cannot second guess Fisk - as others have done in their reviews. I wasn't there. He was. What I do know is that no one writing about the war has spent as much time on the ground in as many crucial situations - and few have such an elevated perspective.
From the writing angle - one might wish the book was in several volumes - a procedure which might have tightened up some of the sprawling narrative. But this story has emerged as the central narrative of our time, and attempts to delimit it, in retrospect, seem artificial and paltry. And no English speaking journalist is in a better position to relate it than Fisk.
And what is the content of this narrative? The horror - the horror which Fisk (who really is a primary standard bearer for integrity in journalism today) presents in meticulous detail.
And why? What is shown here again and again is the brutality and madness of policies which utterly ignore the sanctity of human life - itself the pretense of civilization - and it's disregard, the grist of the hypocrasies of those who claim to base those policies on ideologies of human betterment.
Fisk shows us with his usual adroit and accurate reading of events - the madness which is threatening the survival of humankind - not merely 'civilization' - and to his argument, gives us a massive 30 year historical justification in first-hand witness.
Thus the book is signal - the most important work on the Middle East. Why? Nowhere else available is such an extensive first hand account combined with such a passionate and humane account of the ideological underpinnings of events - too horrible for most of to contemplate, no less to reflect on, analyse, distill, and report at the highest levels of insight and dignity. An achievement of Golgothan proportions.

Robert Fisk's latest book The Great War for Civilisation" is 1038 pages of fine print. The UK version is a monumental 1300 pages. It takes dedication and strong reading glasses. I'm on page 700 and here's the way it looks so far.

It's a shocking book and sure to become a classic in a category all its own. Fisk is a seasoned journalist who knows how to tell a story. I share his viewpoints so it's hard for me to put the book down. Yet at the same time, the gruesome nature of much of the tale makes me wonder why I continue. He's seen war for thirty years in the Middle East and it seems to have pushed him very close to the edge.

The book is a long tortuous wailing rant against war and human depravity. It's not so much anti-Arab or anti-Israeli as it is anti-war, anti government and more generically, anti-ideology of any sort with ample passages substantiating his ample doubts about humanity in general.

It's a turgid and oppressive examination of the limits of human depravity that seems to conclude there are none. Unbelievably horrible stories followed by even more excruciatingly grotesque ones. After 700 pages there is no end in sight. One wonders why they read on but there is a morbid fascination with a narrative that is so close to the momentous events shaping our times.

He's not talking about an aberrant depraved mass murderer. He's talking about a depraved civilisation. He's talking about our government and all governments in the Middle East and all those governments that effect the Middle East. It's about the people that run them and the people that suffer from it all.

And suffer they do, children, women, old men, young men. Gas attacks, rape, disembowelment, beheadings and unimaginable torture. With excrutiating agony of detail he again and again asks himself how people can do these things but, he never finds an answer.

It's a magisterial exegisis that leaves one feeling like they have been run over and ground into the dust. Its reminiscent of the James Agee and Walker Evans classic "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men". Fisk is not the meticulous documentarian that Agee was but the sheer length and literal weight of his book, as well as its oppressive contents, gives one the same numbing sense of ennuie, heaviness and unremitting weariness.

He knows the big players. He seems to be on first name basis with the likes of Osama bin Ladin and Yassar Arafat. But he gives equal dignity, and often more dignity, to refugees, distraught mothers, embittered fathers, grieving sons, all the human detritus of incessant warfare.

He's been at it a long time, knows a lot of people, and took copious notes. His massive storehouse of facts is hard to argue with. His outrage and blatancy will be easy to dismiss by most Americans who like a more santized "balanced" view of history. Brits in general, like to be blunt more than Americans. I doubt that Hollywood will want to make a movie of it.

I've been reading Robert Fisk for a while. This is a great culmination of his work. I can say a lot, but a recent Salon.com review entitled "Blood and betrayal" does it best. Some say he is only a propagandist; I say he is a counter to the existing propaganda that you can read anywhere and everywhere. This creates balance; you have to read Robert Fisk if you want to consider yourself well informed. The Salon review puts it best: "Fairness [contrasted with objectiveness], however, is quite another matter -- it is indispensable to a journalist. And like him or not, Fisk is fair. He presents both sides. Whether he believes both sides is something else entirely."

I feel this is an unbiased book and its a must read for those who want to 'see the other side of the story', or to really know the truth. I did not know about the Armenian Holocaust during world war I. Also only after reading the book, did i realize the background of the Iran-Iraq war. Its a serious book, its emotionally disturbing and i would say many a times was painful for me. May I suggest to read the book with an open mind and then watch the 'news' about the middle east ( I am NOT from the Middle east) then you would appreciate the essence of the conflict which has been going on, has resulted in 9/11 and currently is threatening world peace.