“It looks beautiful from the outside. A Crusader castle islovely. But when you’re inside and its cold and damp and you can’t seeout, you just have to peer through these loopholes, arrow slits…I couldonly see a mosque and a little bit of the river. That’s all. And that’sall the crusaders saw of the land they were occupying. And that’s nowhappening to the Americans in Iraq. They sit in this little Green Zone,which is where the Republican Palace was, where the American and Britishembassies are and where all the American-appointed Iraqi’s are, surroundedby palisades of pre-pressed concrete, the nearest we’ve got to the Crusadercastle. And they peer out through the machine gun openings and they see astreet outside. That is Baghdad. That is there connection with the landthey occupy. And all these new positions, Kandahar airport in Afghanistan,the huge American base outside Falluja, the Green Zone inside Baghdad, aremassive Crusader compounds…”Robert Fisk as interviewed by David Barsamian