Robert Fisk gives a brilliant lecture in Boston on Iraq, US/UK foreign policy and many things in between. He really is a great speaker and watching this makes me feel guilty that his book is still sitting, unread, on my bedside shelf.
There's a fantastic audience participation section where he gets the audience to fill in the blank as he retells the history of the British invasion and occupation of Iraq in the 1920s. I'm really curious whether the current generation of war-mongers know their history and are deliberately copying it or if the same ideas - from "they will greet us with flowers, to "we cannot leave or there will be civil war", to abuse of prisoners are just what comes naturally to imperial powers. The parallels are amazing, right down to the siege of Falujah in retaliation for the killing of invaders.
He also does a great job slagging off the L.A. and N.Y. Times' journalism. Despite the seriousness of the subject, the talk is actually quite funny and entertaining. Sadly he does not like "the Google" :( .
The link above is to Google video's copy (which is downloadable - yay! - it's also available on youtube, not downloadable and butchered into segments of less than 10 minutes - boo!). You can find an MP3 on this page which is the official page hosted by the organisers of the talk.
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