Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk appears in Chomsky’s argument as a journalist whose reporting bears on two contested questions after the September 11 attacks: what Osama bin Laden said he wanted, and how much the available evidence established about his responsibility. Fisk’s role is not to settle those questions for Chomsky, but to make careful distinctions possible between reported statements, plausible involvement, and proven guilt.

Reporting on Bin Laden

Chomsky points to Fisk’s detailed interviews with bin Laden as a source on the anger directed at the United States across the Middle East. As Chomsky recounts Fisk’s reporting, that anger concerned the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, U.S. support for atrocities against Palestinians, and the American role in the destruction of Iraqi civil society. It was not confined to the poor or to one political constituency: Chomsky says the feeling crossed class lines and spanned the political spectrum.

Fisk’s interviews also inform Chomsky’s caution about attributing an exceptionally sophisticated operation to bin Laden personally. Chomsky notes that people familiar with the subject doubted that bin Laden could have planned such an operation from a cave in Afghanistan. He nevertheless considers the involvement of bin Laden’s network plausible, while stressing that such networks are decentralized, lack a strict hierarchy, and communicate only to a limited extent. In that setting, bin Laden’s assertion that he knew nothing about the operation could not simply be dismissed as impossible.

Chomsky contrasts the grievances Fisk reports with explanations that he considers self-flattering fantasies about globalization, cultural hegemony, or the defense of the oppressed. He says bin Laden’s concerns, as conveyed in his public statements and widely circulated tapes, centered instead on what he regarded as corrupt, repressive, insufficiently Islamic Middle Eastern regimes and on support for Muslims fighting what he called infidels in various regions. Fisk’s reporting thus serves as a check against interpreting the attacks through motives that the reported statements do not support.

Evidence and Public Credibility

Fisk also enters Chomsky’s discussion of the evidence offered publicly against bin Laden. On October 5, British Prime Minister Tony Blair presented a written case assembled from Western intelligence agencies and declared that there was no longer any possible doubt about the responsibility of bin Laden and the Taliban. Chomsky argues that the published material was strikingly inconsistent: only a few items related to the September 11 attacks, and he doubts that the material would have been treated as adequate evidence against Western state criminals or their clients.

Chomsky reports that Fisk immediately observed that the documents were unlikely to convince people in the Middle East. That judgment is central to the distinction the passage draws between an accusation endorsed by governments and evidence that can persuade an audience beyond those governments. Chomsky suggests that official and institutional reasons could lead governments to follow the case despite this credibility gap, while the public presentation of the documents helped Blair and other officials assure the world that the case was clear and convincing.

Across these references, Fisk is presented as a witness to what bin Laden said and as a critic of the persuasive force of the evidence made public against him—not as a source who conclusively establishes either operational responsibility or innocence. His significance in Chomsky’s account lies in keeping those questions separate: reported motive is not proof of planning, plausible network involvement is not individual culpability, and an official assertion of certainty is not the same as evidence accepted by its intended audience.