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  Zarqawi tape authentic, says Fisk

Windows Media Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper, and more than 30 years of reporting from the region makes him one of the most acute observers of the Arab world. He joins Lateline from Beirut to discuss the implications of the Zarqawi video.

Lateline- ABC - Australia - 04/26/06

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Zarqawi tape authentic, says Fisk

Reporter: Tony Jones

TONY JONES, LATELINE PRESENTER: Well, Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for 'The Independent' newspaper and more than 30 years of reporting from the region makes him one of the most acute observers of the Arab world. To discuss the implications of the al-Zarqawi video, he joins us now from Beirut. Thanks for being there, Robert Fisk. Do you have any doubt at all that these really are images of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?

ROBERT FISK, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: They do look like Zarqawi. I think it's pretty clear that he is alive, which I doubted for some time and that he, indeed, made this videotape. It clearly is a blow to the United States in the sense that they have several times claimed that they've killed him, which they obviously haven't done, and the tape is obviously new. But I think it is part of the bestialisation, if you like, of those people we want to hate, in the sense that I think individuals like Zarqawi or bin Laden don't actually matter. It's a bit like, you know, after you make a nuclear bomb, you go around arresting all the nuclear scientists and putting them in prison. It doesn't do any good. The nuclear bomb exists. Al-Qaeda exists. The organisation which bin Laden has created exists. So, the individuals per se don't actually matter anymore, but that's something which I think the Americans don't yet grasp.

TONY JONES: The last time we spoke, you did indeed think it very possible that he'd actually been killed and no-one knew where he was. So that's not so surprising.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah.

TONY JONES: You also thought he was a creature invented to fill the narrative gaps. In other words, a creature created, in a sense, by American propaganda. He's much more than that; isn't that evident from this video?

ROBERT FISK: Yeah. It is pretty clear. He does exist. He is still alive and that was him on the video. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I watched it several times over and am clearly of the mind that this is the man. What we do need to know, of course, is whether he has actually any real status over and above being a name al-Zarqawi. In other words, does he actually have any real status as a militant, as a resistant, as a rebel, whatever you like to use the word, terrorist, other than just being a person who is to be hated and to be bestialised in front of the television screens. The issue really is, I think, is this a person who is seriously an enemy of the "West" or is this just another person who is popping up on our screens to say this is the latest mad lunatic, the latest fanatic, the latest terrorist whom we have to be concerned about? That is the real issue, you see. Over and over again we've had this system where whereby we've had Ayatollah Khomeini and Gaddafi in Libya. We've had these extraordinary figures in the Middle East, like Nasser, for example, in Egypt in 1956 and people whom we are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate and who, ultimately, are just figureheads, who in the end are people who we just are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate. People who, at the end of the day, are not per se people who we need to worry about, people who, indeed --

TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, can I interrupt you there?

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, yeah.

TONY JONES: I'm surprised to hear you say some of these things because isn't it he himself who put these images on the Internet, including make a beast of himself by earlier putting on the Internet images of him with a mask on beheading Nicholas Berg, for example?

ROBERT FISK: Well, no. I mean, we don't know that that was Zarqawi. If indeed it was, then he is obviously the monstrous figure we make him out to be. At that time you'll remember the Americans said they believed the voice was that of Zarqawi, but we didn't have any evidence of the voice on the tape. You know, the issue is, are we in fact creating these creatures for ourselves to hate or are they creating themselves? In other words, are we being promoted by these people? Are these people being put before us as caricatures, if you like, to hate or are they people who are there to be hated by us in order to make the, you know, them and us, evil/good caricatures, which George W. Bush has laid out before us?

TONY JONES: But I mean -

ROBERT FISK: The real problem you know is - well, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second. The issue is whether we accept the issue of them and us - hatred and good, good and evil. Is this actually what the world is about or is it about something different? Is it about injustice and justice and cruelty and goodness in the Middle East, for example?

TONY JONES: Well, here's the problem. I mean, Osama bin Laden is clearly a man who -

ROBERT FISK: Yes, it is a problem for you, isn't it?

TONY JONES: It certainly is a problem for me. Osama bin Laden is a problem for me and, I imagine, the rest of the world.

ROBERT FISK: And for me, too, by the way. Yes, he's a problem for all of us.

TONY JONES: Musab al-Zarqawi seems to be in the same category. In fact, he's been adopted by Osama bin Laden in a famous communiqué he released on Al-Jazeera at the end of 2004. So they are at least connecting up with each other. They see in themselves kindred spirits, you know, one terrorist to another. I mean, shouldn't we be concerned about the fact that this man may well have blown up the UN building in 2003 and sent a truckload of bombs into a mosque in Baghdad? These figures are creating themselves. We're not creating them.

ROBERT FISK: No, that's absolutely correct and they want to create themselves and we help them create themselves. We help them do that. We help them do that. Every time we hold a press conference of the occupation powers, for example, in Iraq and say, "Mr Al-Zarqawi is to blame" , we help to do this. This is what we are doing and this is a big problem because we are helping to create the creatures of "evil".

TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, you wouldn't like us to ignore them, would you? We're journalists, we have to acknowledge their existence and dreadful things they have done. We can't just ignore the fact that they exist?

ROBERT FISK: No. Absolutely not. You're right.

TONY JONES: So, what do you conclude from that and in fact what do you conclude from whether this man has any influence within the insurgency?

ROBERT FISK: Look, look, look, look. Here 's what I conclude. I think these people are bad guys. OK, they are. There's no doubt about it. They are bad guys. But I also think that they register in the Arab world, in the Muslim world, they register a line that says, in effect, there is injustice in the Muslim world and I am speaking about that injustice and as long as we, the West, go along with that injustice, so these people will have a claim on the ideas and the minds of the people who listen to them. In other words, we, as Westerners, give them some credibility by not being fair in the Middle East and that is the problem. We're not fair, we are not just in the Middle East and as long as we're not going to be just, as long as we're not going to be fair, so unfortunately will these people have a say and a mind in the Middle Eastern people.

TONY JONES: OK, Robert Fisk. We thank you very much for taking the time to come in and talk to us again tonight.

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