In a December, 2005 interview with rabble.ca, Robert Fisk, author of Pity the Nation, described war as the “total failure of the human spirit.” He also takes exception to the kid-glove treatment that most media outlets give the atrocities, desensitizing all of us towards supporting such terror.

“Look across daily newspapers in the United States and the coverage of the Middle East is lamentable and incomprehensible. There are semantics introduced to avoid controversy, mostly controversy from Israeli supporters. Colonies become “neighbourhoods,” occupied becomes “disputed,” a wall turns into a “fence” magically — I mean I hope my house isn’t made of fences…Why is it an American journalist in Beirut or Cairo or Damascus who knows what’s going on and has feelings about it, instead of saying what he thinks — and after all, the readers want to know what he thinks, they’re paying for the newspaper which is paying him — he rings up some … [at some think tank] in Washington who maybe has never even been to the city, to get a quote?”

Yeah, that about sums it up.