Fisk for free

Back and to the left is a left-wing Dutch blog that regularly carries links to anti-American stories in the world’s press.

Yesterday I found a link there to a story about Al-Jazeera by Robert Fisk. Normally you have to pay to read Fisk on-line, so I was surprised to find that the link led to what looks like Fisk’s article from Wednesday’s Independent.

I assume that either the Independent provides free access to Fisk's articles in rich text format or it’s been reproduced with the Independent’s permission.

Here’s the introduction to the article in the Independent.

A day after Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, claimed that the Arabic Al-Jazeera television channel was "inciting violence" and "endangering the lives of American troops" in Iraq, the station's Baghdad bureau chief has written a scathing reply

The reproduced article is here. It’s classic Fisk but a couple of lines really stand out.

Mr Wolfowitz, a right-wing ideologue, is one of the cabal that pushed the US into war

The US proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said he would shut newspapers or television stations guilty of "incitement to violence" - without explaining what this phrase means.

If anyone knows what the words “incitement”, “violence” and “to” mean, would you please let Fisk know.