Veteran journalist Robert Fisk doesn't pull any punches when he talks about how to begin to achieve peace in the war ravaged Middle East. "The Western military must pull out from all the Muslim world," he told NZPA yesterday at his hotel in Wellington.
And he includes New Zealand's special forces, who are based in Afghanistan, in his statement.
"Heaven knows what they (the SAS) are doing and Afghanistan is a disaster anyway."
A spokesman for Defence Minister Phil Goff said no SAS troops had been in Afghanistan since 2006, though New Zealand military were still there as part of the provincial reconstruction team (PRT).
The PRT was involved in a number of activities, including supporting New Zealand aid projects in the province.
Fisk said New Zealand was under no threat from any country in the Middle East.
"There are no Syrian soldiers on the streets of Wellington. "(Western nations) have no business to be there, historically it is a disaster. We never have any business there, we're always going to the Middle East with huge armies.
"The Muslim armies came towards the West but that was in 732 - it was a long time ago."
Fisk, who has been based in Lebanon's capital Beirut for 32 years, has been in the country this week to promote his latest book The Age of the Warrior - a collection of selected writings from articles published in The Independent between 1997 and January 2008.
It was the first time he had put a collection of his articles together in the form of a book, and it was an emotional experience, he said.
"You forget a lot of things, because you're working hard and you're travelling all the time.
"When you put the book together you realise the people you are talking to and dealing with are going through an absolute hell-disaster and then you realise that is what the book is about.
"It's about suffering, pain, betrayal, rape, torture, massacre and invasion. And there were times when I had to break off and go for a walk along the beach."
Fisk said while he compiled the book he referred to the vast collection of material he had gathered during his three decades in the region.
"I've kept everything - every notebook, every picture I've taken, every propaganda leaflet dropped by an Israeli aircraft over Beirut, every press conference and every newspaper I've used."
Fisk had never been shy in bringing people's attention to what he believed was shoddy journalism - with the New York Times often in his firing line. He disapproved of embedded reporters and said foreign correspondents must not be afraid to write the truth about what they see in war zones.
"You must be objective, but you've got to be objective on the side of those who suffer - whoever they may be.
"When I go to New York and if I read the New York Times, its coverage of the Middle East is incomprehensible, because the language they use diminishes everything.
"The wall (between Israel and Palestine) becomes a fence and occupied territory becomes disputed territory - all so that nobody gets angry."
However, he conceded it was difficult for New Zealand, which doesn't have the breadth of foreign correspondents that bigger nations have, to receive quality reports about places like the Middle East.
"The problem you have in New Zealand is you're a very small country and you don't have the resources to staff foreign correspondents around the world.
"So you fall back on the agencies, and the agencies have the same kind of bland outlook like the New York Times.
"And at the end of the day, unfortunately, you are locked into that sort of journalism and it's not the fault of New Zealand journalism, it's just that you don't have the resources to break out of it." He pointed to the readership decline in a number of papers worldwide.
"If you write crap ordinary members of the public know it's crap and they don't want it."
He said he had built up a "depth of historic knowledge" about the Middle East.
"Not because I've learned it from reading books, but because I was there."
And after 30 years of studying the United States' Middle East policies, he predicted the upcoming American presidential election would not bring peace to the area, regardless of whether Barack Obama or John McCain won.
"Every time there's an American presidential election the Arabs say `Ah, maybe there'll be change in the Middle East. Maybe America will be fairer, maybe it will concern itself with the security of the Arabs as well as the Israelis'.
"And then afterwards there'll be a war in the Middle East and the President will call upon both sides to exercise restraint and there'll be billions of dollars of weapons sent to Israel to bomb Lebanon, or whoever they are bombing.
"My experience over 32 years is whoever's in the White House, the bombs go on falling. And they will."
