Not long ago Asharq Al-Awsat’s correspondent in Washington quoted an unnamed White House official as accusing the Arab world of being “a society that glorifies a culture of death.”
On another front, not a single prominent American official, whether Defense Secretary Rumsfeld or Secretary of State Colin Powell or any of their aides has expressed approval of the Arab media’s use of the terms “martyr” and “martyrdom.” Even the use of the term “resistance” has become taboo in the eyes of the American administration because anyone who dares resist the Zionist occupation of Palestine or the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan must be a retarded bloodthirsty, death-seeking criminal terrorist and a deviant who abhors freedom and democracy.
No one has questioned these officials as to what word they apply to their own fallen soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq and the rest of the world. Why do they glorify them, bestowing on them the title of hero, describing them as patriots, decorating their coffins with the highest medals of honor and erecting memorials to them?
Why indeed were the poor men sent to the fields of death in the first place in spite of the condemnation of the whole world, in contravention of all international laws and without a mandate from the United Nations?
What of the tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans who were appallingly killed at the hands of these forces, their bodies torn apart by bombs from planes, their heads crushed under tanks and armored vehicles? How many women, children and elderly were among those killed? How many were civilians unable even to use a weapon? Are we to call our dead terrorist criminals and murderers who abhor civilization and freedom and are anti-democratic? Do those distant leaders want us to consider them insects, whose lives and souls are worthless, their families not worthy of being consoled?
What does Rumsfeld expect a Palestinian, whether male or female, whose parents have been killed, brothers imprisoned, home bulldozed, land stolen and family made homeless by the Zionist occupation, to do? A Palestinian who has been besieged and humiliated in the heart of his or her village? Can any Palestinian be expected to accept all this and then crawl on his knees holding up a white flag, to kiss Sharon’s boots and pledge allegiance to Israel?
What of Guantanamo and those imprisoned there? Living under conditions even animals would run away from, deprived of all human rights and protection of the law! Is that not a criminal abduction and the illegal imprisonment of hostages? Are such things the actions of the world’s greatest democracy?
Perhaps the prisoners at Guantanamo, no matter what the misery they endure, are better off than the thousands of Arabs and Muslims who have been kidnapped and are being kept isolated in secret prisons, administered either directly by American security and intelligence services or on their behalf? No one knows the names of those prisoners; no one has seen their faces and no doubt hundreds of them have perished as a result of torture.
It is at once laughable but also sad — the American administration accusing the Arab media of bias, describing Arab coverage of the daily massacres in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan as lacking in objectivity, of being devoid of truth and an incitement to murder!
Has anyone questioned Rumsfeld or Powell as to what their forces, their planes and their armored vehicles are doing? Are they planting flowers and orchards? Are they rebuilding what they themselves destroy or supervise the plunder? Are they building universities and hospitals or are they opening jails and detention camps? How many have been killed by their forces, planes and armored vehicles in the city of Fallujah alone, in retaliation for four Americans killed there?
Has anyone questioned the American media and its coverage of events? Its relentless assaults on Arabs and Muslims? Could the American administration apply the same criteria of objectivity, impartiality and integrity to its own media? Could a single Arab government dare ask the American administration to pressure the American media and guide its coverage of Arab and Islamic affairs, as the Americans ceaselessly demand of the Arab and Islamic governments with regard to their own media? Why does the American administration ask Arab governments to control their media and not demand the same of the British, Israeli, Chinese, Russian and European governments whose media is heavily critical of American policy in a manner that is more credible, deeper and more far-reaching?
Everyone around the world, even the Americans themselves, is sick of the duplicity of the current administration, its arrogance, its lies and its hypocrisy. We hope not to have to gaze upon these same faces after the coming presidential elections, no matter what the position of a new incumbent in the White House may be.
