Fisk and FM 3-24

Since September 11, he has been dreadfully pessimistic, predicting that the West was about to bring total disaster upon its own head. In short, he is that most valuable resource, a journalist whose judgments are not just mistaken, but reliably mistaken. If ever Fisk predicts that the Americans will walk it, that will be the time to put on the tin hat.

-- Simon Hoggart, The Guardian, 2001

The American reaction will be to use massive firepower, which will destroy the neighbourhood that is being 'protected'.

-- Robert Fisk (quoting an, as usual, anonymous source with "deep knowledge of General Petraeus's plans"), The Independent, 2007

Just for kicks, check out what Robert Fisk wrote last year about FM 3-24 and the impossibility of bringing any kind of stability to Baghdad. Fisk is supposedly reporting on the new American counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24, but there is no evidence to suggest he actually read the manual. (We're guessing the excerpts at the bottom were added by an editor in London.) Ah, but who is Fisky to let "facts" and "research" get in the way of a good narrative: The Americans, true colonial monsters, will attempt to divide and rule Baghdad and will fail, choking on their own blood in the process. There, that's more along the lines of what the Indy's readership expects.