I've been thinking about getting a job thinking, too...
| Isn't that what programmers do? Ditto analysts, of course... |
...British journalistwho is invariably on the other side of any question. The logic of his prose is so shaky, the ideas so predictable, that he has given his name to the process of mocking a piece of poorly reasoned hackery. He was once beaten up by an Islamic mob and decided they had every right to thump him because he was so Western...
who is the Middle East correspondent of the British daily The Independent,
... still...
for the image that he portrayed of Syrian political prisons in an article published on Sunday, 2 September, titled 'Syria's road from jihad to prison'.
Yassin accused Fisk, who visited Syria this week, of being "indoctrinated"; his article portrays the intelligence officers at one of Syria's most notorious military prison as friendly, agreeing to leave Fisk alone with the prisoners, who Fisk describes as "Islamic jihadists."
"All of them. They hate me. But they have every right to."
"Fisk reflected this view of the political prisons because he was just too embedded in the events, and couldn't see the wider vision; he was indoctrinated," Yassin told Ahram Online from Syria.
"I'm not indoctrinated. Ace reporters like me report the facts. We gotta get the facts someplace. I get them from the Syrian Ministry of Information."
Yassin, who spent 16 years in military prisons in Syria, says that Fisk's description is not related to the facts on the ground.
"Yeah, but he's a jailbird. How can you trust what he's got to say?"
"He visited a prison where all the detainees he met were cut-thoat jihadists who came to Syria from Algeria and Turkey to make big kabooms, and when intelligence agencies arrest them, they do not torture them as we may expect. One of them told Fisk that he's fine, and thanks god for that; another one said that he was tortured for only one day," commented Yassin.
"Well, shucks. What's one day of having your testicles crushed?"
"The detainees are Salafist jihadists and yet the officer leaves Fisk alone to interview them freely." Yassin added, marking the friendly behaviour that Fisk asserted he witnessed from the guards.
"There's nobody friendlier than a Syrian prison guard!"
"Personally, I was tossed in the calaboose
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
for 16 years, for minor charges. The imprisonment conditions were worse; no Western or local journalist could ever have visited me nor any human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
activists. This applies to everyone who was jugged during the revolution, the thing that Fisk never revealed," Saleh argued.
"He probably deserved it..."
The only explanation of the access Fisk got to the prisons is that the Syrian regime guaranteed that Fisk isn't going to reflect this negative image, and made their arrangements with Fisk, who has allowed himself to be misled, according to Saleh.
Robert thought the Talibs were pretty fine, and that al-Qaeda should be left alone. Sammy was great as President-for-Life of Iraq. Pick a dictator and Robert was fine with him.
Saleh, 51, is a Syrian thinker,
I guess I should enroll in thinking school...
writer and former political prisoner, and spent 16 years in the Syrian regime's prisons during the 1980s and 1990s. He is a regular contributor to various Arabic newspapers and periodicals, including a weekly column in Al-Hayat newspaper.
"Well, that explains it. He's been beaten up by Syrian prison guards, maybe, for a day or two. I've been beaten up by a mob of indignant Afghans. And I work for the Independent. He doesn't."
He published two books after he was released from prison in 1997, 'Syria from the shadow: Glimpses inside the black box' and 'Myths of the others: Criticising contemporary Islam and criticising its criticism.' His latest book, released last July, titled 'Salvation boys: 16 years in Syrian prisons', narrates his time in detention in Syria.
But probably Robert didn't use that as a source...