www.counterpunch.org/fiskbeaten.html
Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power. Note: CounterPunch has fallen victim to the @home bankruptcy, leaving us without internet access since Friday. Things may not be entirely back to speed for another week. Ashcroft 21 Military Tribunals George Naggiar 22 Occupation as Terrorism Hugo von Sponek and Denis Halliday 23 Iraq the Hostage Nation David Vest 24 The Coen Brothers' Minstrel Show Alexander Cockburn 25 Sharon or Arafat: Who's the Terrorist? December 6, 2001 CounterPunch Wire 26 Hampshire College the First to Condemn the War Robert Jensen 27 University Teaching After September 11 Jack McCarthy 28 Does Tom Friedman Read the New York Times? Sam and Leila Bahour 29 The Psychology of a Suicide Attacker December 5, 2001 Edward Hammond 30 The Only Real Way to Prevent Biowarfare Harvey Wasserman 31 Atomic Treason in the House Carl Estabrook 32 America's Israel Don Williams 33 Questions Barbara Walters Didn't Ask George Bush Cockburn/St. Clair 34 Liberals Hail War as Return of Big Government Robert Fisk 35 The Last Colonial War? Bahour/Dahan 36 It's About the Occupation December 4, 2001 Dave Marsh 37 A Plea for Byron Parker Rep. Ron Paul 38 Keep Your Eye on the Target Susan Herman 39 Ashcroft and the Patriot Act Tariq Ali 40 The Afghan King and the Nazis November 30, 2001 Jordan Green 41 Disappeared in the Southland Willliam Blum 42 Rebuilding Afghanistan? November 29, 2001 Phillip Cryan 43 Defining Terrorism Robert Fisk 44 We Are the War Criminals Now November 28, 2001 Tom Turnipseed 45 A Continuum of Terror Patrick Cockburn 46 Tribal Council: Don't Blame It All on Taliban Robert Fisk 47 At Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres Harry Browne 48 The Bill of Rights: They Threw It All Away Sunil Sharma 49 Suffer Palestine's Children November 27, 2001 Paul Coggins 50 Kafka and the Patriot Act Tariq Ali 51 Tigris and Euprhates November 26, 2001 Robert Fisk 52 Blood and Tears in Kandahar Jeffrey St. Thatcher Jiang Zemin Tells Bush: Nuke 'Em Search CounterPunch Read 63 Whiteout and Find Out How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden 64 Whiteout: CIA, Drugs & the Press by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. We said "Salaam aleikum" -- peace be upon you -- then the first pebbles flew past my face. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face and head. I couldn't see for the blood pouring down my forehead and swamping my eyes. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Some of the Afghans in the little village had been there for years, others had arrived -- desperate and angry and mourning their slaughtered loved ones -- over the past two weeks. A bad time, just before the Iftar, the end of the daily fast of Ramadan. But what happened to us was symbolic of the hatred and fury and hypocrisy of this filthy war, a growing band of destitute Afghan men, young and old, who saw foreigners -- enemies -- in their midst and tried to destroy at least one of them. Many of these Afghans, so we were to learn, were outraged by what they had seen on television of the Mazar-i-Sharif massacres, of the prisoners killed with their hands tied behind their backs. A villager later told one of our drivers that they had seen the videotape of CIA officers "Mike" and "Dave" threatening death to a kneeling prisoner at Mazar. They were uneducated -- I doubt if many could read -- but you don't have to have a schooling to respond to the death of loved ones under a B-52's bombs. The first we knew that something was wrong was when the car stopped in the middle of the narrow, crowded street. A film of white steam was rising from the bonnet of our jeep, a constant shriek of car horns and buses and trucks and rickshaws protesting at the road-block we had created. All four of us got out of the car and pushed it to the side of the road. I muttered something to Justin about this being "a bad place to break down". Kila Abdulla was home to thousands of Afghan refugees, the poor and huddled masses that the war has produced in Pakistan. Amanullah went off to find another car -- there is only one thing worse than a crowd of angry men and that's a crowd of angry men after dark -- and Justin and I smiled at the initially friendly crowd that had already gathered round our steaming vehicle. I shook a lot of hands -- perhaps I should have thought of Mr Bush -- and uttered a lot of "Salaam aleikums". The crowd grew larger and I suggested to Justin that we move away from the jeep, walk into the open road. A child had flicked his finger hard against my wrist and I persuaded myself that it was an accident, a childish moment of contempt. Then a pebble whisked past my head and bounced off Justin's shoulder. His eyes spoke of concern and I remember how I breathed in. It contained my passport, credit cards, money, diary, contacts book, mobile phone. Justin and I crossed the road and someone punched me in the back. How do you walk out of a dream when the characters suddenly turn hostile? I saw one of the men who had been all smiles when we shook hands. Some of the smaller boys were still laughing but their grins were transforming into something else. The respected foreigner -- the man who had been all "salaam aleikum" a few minutes ago -- was upset, frightened, on the run. Justin was being pushed around and, in the middle of the road, we noticed a bus driver waving us to his vehicle. Fayyaz, still by the car, unable to understand why we had walked away, could no longer see us. As I put my foot on the step three men grabbed the strap of my bag and wrenched me back on to the road. That's when the first mighty crack descended on my head. I almost fell down under the blow, my ears singing with the impact. I had expected this, though not so painful or hard, not so immediate. There were two more blows, one on the back of my shoulder, a powerful fist that sent me crashing against the side of the bus while still clutching Justin's hand. The passengers were looking out at me and then at Justin. I cried out "Help me Justin", and Justin -- who was doing more than any human could do by clinging to my ever loosening grip asked me -- over the screams of the crowd -- what I wanted him to do. There were two more cracks on my head, one on each side and for some odd reason, part of my memory -- some small crack in my brain -- registered a moment at school, at a primary school called the Cedars in Maidstone more than 50 years ago when a tall boy building sandcastles in the playground had hit me on the head. I had a memory of the blow smelling, as if it had affected my nose. The next blow came from a man I saw carrying a big stone in his right hand. He brought it down on my forehead with tremendous force and something hot and liquid splashed down my face and lips and chin. Another teenager grabbed my bag yet again and I was left clinging to the strap, looking up suddenly and realising there must have been 60 men in front of me, howling. The only thing that shocked me was my own physical sense of collapse, my growing awareness of the liquid beginning to cover me. For a second, I caught a glimpse of something terrible, a nightmare face -- my own -- reflected in the window of the bus, streaked in blood, my hands drenched in the stuff like Lady Macbeth, slopping down my pullover and the collar of my shirt until my back was wet and my bag dripping with crimson and vague splashes suddenly appearing on my trousers. The more I bled, the more the crowd gathered and beat me with their fists. Pebbles and small stones began to bounce off my head and shoulders. My head was suddenly struck by stones on both sides at the same time -- not thrown stones but stones in the palms of men who were using them to try and crack my skull. Then a fist punched me in the face, splintering my glasses on my nose, another hand grabbed at the spare pair of spectacles round my neck and r...
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