Monday, June 13, 2005

Is Robert Fisk losing his mind? He ended his dispatch today with this: "On Friday night, I drove up for dinner with Walid Jumblatt in his Druze castle at Mukhatara. There was fine wine and the best salads and the funniest of conversations..." What on earth is that? This really reminds me of Geraldo's reporting from the Middle East in years past. And in the article, Fisk has nothing to say except to reproduce to us rumors that Jumblat has been peddling for weeks. Oddly, Fisk may be so out of materials that he even reproduced the silliest and least credible accounts that are regularly published (and mostly later denied) in the most tabloidish and sensational Arab newsapaper, As-Siyasah, whose editor, Ahmad Jarallah, has a hard time completing a meaningful sentence. Now Fisk repeats Jumblat's allegations that Rustum Ghazalah returned to Lebanon. The question is: why would he return to Lebanon. Does Syria not have plenty of agents in Lebanon (Lebanese and Syrians with Lebanese citizenships) to do the job for it? The other day, a Lebanese TV station showed how a person was harrassed because he was suspected of being...a Syrian. This is the new Lebanon. And how will the new UN team verify the presence or absence of Syrian agents (not to be confused with Israeli, US, Egyptian, Libyans, Jordanian, Saudi, etc agents)? How dumb is that? Robert Fisk now serves as a platform for Hariri, Political inc and Jumblat. Shame. This is a man that I have admired for years, and avidly read his dispatches from the Middle East. On Jumblat: now that he secured his parliamentary seats, don't be surprised if he shows up soon in Damascus.