There is
considerable controversy surrounding the death of Nicholas Berg but
that is not the point his father Michael has been making since his
son's tragic death in Iraq. How he died is not important. What is
important is that policies to end life in Iraq have been made. Nick
Berg was one of their victims. Ahmad, the eight year old Iraqi who
was shot by US troops, was another and so are most of the more than
800 US troops who died in Iraq after May 2003, and the Iraqis and
Americans who will die before this wretched occupation and incessant
exercise to kill come to an end.
Policies to end life in Palestine have been made. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most enduring in the present
times but the easiest to understand-it's a conflict over Palestinian
land. For 56 years Palestinians have been living one step ahead of
Israeli bulldozers devouring their land. The attempt to de-create
Palestine is followed almost daily by attempts to de-create
Palestinians. In the past four years alone more than 3,000
Palestinians were wiped out, three times as many Israelis. Over
25,000 Palestinians were injured or maimed for life, five times as
many Israelis. What do Palestinians want? "First the (Israeli) army
must get out of our territory", said Zacharia Zubeidi, commander of
the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin. "If Israel leaves
Jenin altogether, and does not come back, doesn't bring in tanks and
kill us every day, there's no need even to raise up weapons."
Policies to end life in the Middle East have been made by many Arab
governments. Yes, they have killed their own people in streets,
dungeons or inside their own homes because they don't want to share
power. Policies to suppress the universal rights of human beings
abound. Many are based on emergency laws that permit the detention
of any suspect indefinitely. Some died in prison without charge or a
visit from their wives or children. Some died even as the official
press criticised Americans for torturing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib.
Policies to stifle democracy and free speech are being made even
today to enforce suppressive and cruel past policies but no one
should be fooled into believing the ruler's justification for all
this killing and suppression. The collective branding of the
opposition has changed but the aim has not. Arabs who called for
reform were branded pro colonialists and thrown in prison. Later it
was fashionable to brand them "communists" then "Islamic
fundamentalists" and now "terrorists". This is the most vile of all
labelling. It allows innocent people to be shot on sight. It denies
them legal rights. It impounds their money. It cancels the rights of
every dissident and permits arrests and torture en mass and the
screening of dead faces of so called "terrorists" on state
television. It encourages these governments to hunt or try to kidnap
dissidents anywhere.
The war against terrorism is being used as a tool to scare whole
nations into paying blood and treasure to support expansionist
policies. "Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the
invasion of Iraq last year the most plainly dishonest was his effort
to link his war of choice (on Iraq) with the battle against
terrorists worldwide," The New York Times said. "There are two
unpleasant alternatives: either Mr. Bush knew he was not telling the
truth, or he has a capacity for politically motivated self-deception
that is terrifying in the post-9/11 world."
After inflaming it, most tyrants are joining this war on terrorism.
For many Middle East governments this is now a lucrative business.
They get free weapons, police training, international legitimacy and
a free hand to do whatever they please. What a change three or four
years can make. In the mid 1990s a strange phenomenon emerged.
Tolerance, the soul of democracy, permitted true Islam to be
peacefully preached in mainly Christian capitals like London and
Paris without fear of intimidation from rulers of Islamic capitals.
British and French Ministers and members of parliament were telling
Arab ambassadors they can't buy into the claim that all Arab
dissidents are Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists. Not anymore.
Excesses were allowed by Muslim extremists with doubtful credentials
to stir Islamophobia in London and Paris. "The perception that our
government is pandering to the neoconservatives of America has given
rise to the belief that all Muslims are implicated in the
aggression," Labour peer Baroness Uddin said. "Each of us is
constantly being asked to apologise for acts of terror that befall
the world." Almost suddenly elected presidents, prime ministers and
tyrants are speaking with one voice that echoes Bush's famous war
cry after 9/11:You are either with us or against us.
More than 75 percent of Arabs -225 million- were born under
tyrannical regimes. Tens of thousands of young men and women were
detained over the years many on the strength of suspicion or rumours
or "re-emption", to borrow a term we have been hearing recently from
Washington and London. Thousands died in prisons under torture many
times more cruel than that meted by American soldiers in Iraq's
prisons. Thousands of Arabs suffered permanent psychological or
physical damage and many took their own life to escape the
suffering. Like Jewish settlers who invoke God to justify armed
robbery of Palestinian territories, and like Bush who invokes
freedom and democracy to justify invading Iraq, Arab tyrannical
rulers have hid their crimes behind lofty cause - fighting
imperialism, fighting Israel, defending the Arab nation's honour and
other nonsense.
In some Arab countries tens of millions of people are living in
medieval fiefdoms dedicated to the prosperity of a small number of
corrupt politicians, generals, princes and sheikhs. Members of royal
families have multiplied and so did their expenses. They need a
bigger share of the economy while the share of entire populations
has contracted. In some countries there are no decent jobs for
anybody who defies governments. In other supposedly wealthy
countries they are no jobs. Most of the 225 million young Arabs
under 36 have no hope in the present so they have no hope in the
future. M ore often than not, young men are turning to Jihad as a
short cut to Heaven to escape their hell on Earth.
Arabs are not fooled by their rulers and the Americans should not be
either. Rulers who are looked in the eye by Bush and "inspired" to
tell journalists waiting outside the audience room they support
Bush's policies in the Middle East, are the same rulers who go back
and declare that American policies in the region will create
hundreds of Bin Ladens. The rulers who claim publicly they are
against the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, are the same
rulers who send generals to the Occupied Territories to coordinate
with their Israeli counterparts policies aimed at more suppression
of Palestinians once Israelis move out if they move out. Rightly,
Palestinians are demanding a homeland in the West Bank and Gaza but
the world should know Egypt and Jordan denied Palestinians a state
when they controlled the West Bank and Gaza for close to 20 years.
Western leaders meet too many Arab rulers but that does not mean all
Arabs are corrupt. Western leaders discuss "bilateral issues" with
visiting Arab rulers but that does not mean all Arab are illiterate.
Fifty years of failed American policies in the Middle East is not
the outcome of failed dialogue with Arabs but successful dialogue
with the rulers. They stir the anger of the populace against US and
Israeli policies with one jaw and feed American intelligence with
mischievous claims about dissidents at home with another. For the
past 50 years this has been a win-win situation for Arab rulers.
They get American help to fight the opposition at home, and they
channel the people's anger away from them towards the US.
There is a stirring in the Arab street and the rulers are becoming
aware of the dangers ahead. "Make your choice before it is too late
for all of us," they warn the US and other Western powers. "It is
either us or the Taliban. It is either I or Bin Laden. It is either
dissidents killed or jailed or terrorists bent on murdering Westerns
in streets and housing compounds. When they hear the word
"democracy" they have a different answer. "Look at Turkey and pay
heed," they say. "You either support my government or support a
parliament that is certainly to vote against your policies every
time a motion is introduced."
Bush made his choice and the Middle East has neither security nor
democracy nor any hope of either in the foreseeable future. Not
content with a poor attempt to re-write the present, he is involved
in another poor attempt to re-write the past so it may fit in his
grand design for Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. He
would like to claim a monopoly on freedom and democracy but the
monopoly he seeks in Iraq is the monopoly on exercising violence.
Only a fool may think he can support dictators and democracy at the
same time. Only a fool may think he can can call for freedom and
allow rulers to stifle freedom. Only a fool can call for peace in
the Middle East and work hard to create violence.
Bush and Blair may look at the Middle East and see a nightmare but
neither will admit his responsibility for the creation of the
nightmare. Neither will admit he made a mistake by invading Iraq.
Bush has not regretted publicly the outrageous support he gave
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and the outrageous addition to
the injustices suffered by Palestinians by denying more than four
million exiles the right to return home. Blair was Labour's asset.
He is now a liability but he would rather remove Labour from power
than remove himself. Journalists who questioned the war and the
torture lost their jobs but not the politicians who sent soldiers to
their death. Bush is blaming the CIA, Ahmad Chalabi and the "enemies
of freedom" for the disastrous situation in Iraq but, like Blair,
the wants to steady the course of a ship that long lost its rudder.
Accountability has been substituted for denial, truth for spin and
resolution for fudging. Spin doctors and public relations stunt
engineers rule supreme in the echelons of western power. They never
had it so good. Bush reiterates the word freedom so often one is
forgiven for thinking it is a copyrighted American invention.
Somebody ought to remind Bush the Statue of Liberty is a French gift
and the Middle East had more freedom before his tanks rolled into
Iraq not less. The Middle East had democracy and free speech before
Bush was born but the Israeli-Arab conflict killed the experiment
because democracy is dissent and dissent is not tolerated by nations
under attack. The Americans, of all nations, should know this.
Fifteen months into this wretched occupation of Iraq, Arabs are
still trying to understand what are Bush's real intentions in their
region. He is not a great communicator but Blair is, and he, more
than Bush, should take most of the responsibility for selling a
doubtful audience his false reasons for war. He should say the truth
but every time he opens his mouth he gives the people of the Middle
East a headache. This prime minister continues to believe in himself
even though most do not believe in him. He believes he is right when
most believe he is wrong. He has concealed his real role well but
people are pointing at him and say: There goes the dean of all
Neocons. As somebody who reads books rather than depend on short
sessions of briefings by the converted, Blair should have realised
that empires belong to past era of history; that sooner or later the
violence he and Bush sent to the Middle East will met by even more
violence once the shock is absorbed and the real intentions
understood.
Bush and Blair have given hundreds of thousands of Arabs the power
of violence and the Middle East -the crossroads of civilisations and
the birthplace of three religions- has been sent hurtling towards a
violent course the Middle East will suffer from for many years to
come. On average, it takes the Arab nation two years to stir against
foreign threats. This time it was much shorter. Iraqis were telling
each other they can't believe Bush is spending 150 billion dollars
and sacrificing the lives of several hundred soldiers to give Iraqis
democracy.
Like Arabs, Americans want peace and prosperity but Bush brought
them neither. "What Saddam did was awful, but what the Americans are
doing is worse," said Abu Ahmed, a laborer who lives with his wife
and four sons in a government-built apartment house in Baghdad.
"They say they are bringing us freedom. But this is what they
bring-destruction." The defeat in Iraq is a defeat for Bush's
hallucinations of grandeur not for America's noble ideals. And yes,
Iraqis saved Iraq and the Middle East from foolish designs of Bush
and Blair. One hopes the Americans will realise one day that those
Iraqi fighters saved the US from further disastrous conquests; that
the Middle East is home to millions who hate the policies of US
governments but it is also home to millions who look up to the US
and admire American values and respect for democracy.
What happens next is up to the US. No foreign power has been able to
control Iraq for long. The occupation is clearly the problem in Iraq
not the solution. The presence of US troops in Iraq does not mean
the US can take oil for free. They are prepared to pay for it. It
has no economic advantage because it caused the price of oil to
shoot up and costs of security to increase. It does not mean more
security for the US because the occupation is inviting growing
numbers of Jihadis from other Arab and Muslim countries. For the
first time in over 50 years secular Arab movements are joining
religious movements in the fight against the US occupation and the
evolvement of a Pan Arab, Pan Islamic liberation movement will
radically change the Middle East. Instead of firing the sparks of
democracy and freedom in the Middle East, the occupation of Iraq is
extinguishing both. Instead of driving Arabs to more secularism it
is reviving militant Islam and giving power to mullahs and imams and
other religious aspirants.
It is mind boggling to promote a convicted fraudster like Ahmad
Chalabi to be leader of Iraq. By the time the US administration
realised he will never be accepted by Iraqis as their president it
was too late, but the mistake was repeated by installing Ahmad
Chalabi mark II, the infamous Iyad Allawi. Rather than solving
Bush's problems in Iraq he will complicate them. If he invites the
coalition to kill more Iraqis the US will be blamed. And long after
Allawi resumed his comfortable exile in the UK, the US will continue
to be harassed by Iraqis who want revenge for the killing of loved
ones.
Bush did the Iraqis and all other Arabs a great favour by removing
Saddam Hussein but the heavy price the Iraqis paid has outweighed
the benefit. Bush could not even match Saddam in the provision of
security and electricity. The US soldiers who are supposed to
provide security for Iraq are over stretched. They can hardly
provide it for themselves. They don't feel good when they see Iraqis
dance around dead American bodies and they loathe their mission.
Once viewed with admiration and respect, US soldiers are viewed with
hatred and contempt and many American soldiers find it hard to
understand why they are being killed when their aim is to improve
the lots of those killing them but the true answer lies somewhere
else.
"Look at this," said Ghassan Abu Ahmed to an American reporter,
raising his hand in a sweeping gesture toward the tableau of
American military might. "This is freedom? It is crazy." The scene
warranted the comment. "A pair of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships
thumped back and forth overhead, scouring residential streets for
insurgents. Dun-colored Bradley Fighting Vehicles snorted and
wheeled around, their tracks gouging holes in the tarmac. A dozen
Humvees stood sentry, closing off the four-lane avenue to Iraqi
cars, while nervous American soldiers with M-16 automatic rifles
forbade local residents from approaching."
Sooner or later Saddam would have been assassinated and mutilated in
the street by angry crowds that meted the same justice on previous
prime ministers and heads of state before him. Fortunately he can't
live forever and the tails that will succeed him will be looking for
the head in vain. It is a desert justice that has caught up with
criminals for hundreds of years but dealing with the army of the
only super power in the world is another matter. Iraqis can resent,
fight and wait but the blood is boiling. "Once grateful to Americans
for ridding them of Saddam Hussein," the AP reported, "many in this
Baghdad slum have come to hate U.S. troops for bringing chaos — and
not much else — to their door. "It's like these tanks are rolling
over my own body," Habib said bitterly. "I don't care if the
fighting hurts our businesses as long as we don't see them in our
country."
It takes a fool to launch a war but few wars are more foolish than
the Iraq war. What is needed now is a wise man to end it. Arabs
should not be forced to become enemies of the US. Americans are not
colonialists. The era of colonialism, like the era of empires, is
over. People in the Middle East will defend their homes. They will
reverse any foreign occupation. Anybody who thinks they can't should
read their history. All invasions since the 11th century ended up in
disasters but the Arabs have paid a heavy price and not just in
blood and treasure.
As Americans know all too well the truth is not the first victim of
wars but personal liberties. The Patriot Act is a very good example
but Arabs have hundreds of patriot acts intended to pry on private
liberties and freedoms of all types enacted in the name of fighting
Israel, imperialism and terrorists. Even the new Iraq has a new one
that will not produce a new Saddam Hussein in the end but a dictator
with another name. The Americans have 140,000 soldiers in Iraq and
they can bomb groups of people in cities like Fallujah without being
seen but they have very little political influence, and they will
have to accept what the turmoil in Iraq produces and try to make it
look good with the help of loyal and compliant media.
The Middle East needs not be the nightmare it is becoming. It needs
a vision to turn it into a dream. A dream of peace and prosperity
not of violence and occupation. A dream like that invoked by Martin
Luther King Jr. and re-invoked again by a father who has just lost a
child in horrific circumstances. "The people of America and the
world have told me that they have a dream and a vision," Michael
Berg said, "that dream is a dream of peace, a vision of all nations
living together in harmony and in love."
Bush has launched two wars in three years to take American liberty,
prosperity and democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq but he was
successful in neither and both countries continue to suffer from the
lack of security that both countries had before the invasions.
Afghanistan is poorer than during the rein of the Taliban and Iraqis
have joined the ranks of the poorest nations of the world. It boasts
the second largest proven oil reserves in the world but it's
bankrupt.
Both cases are the result of failure. Had the US spent a portion of
the money earmarked for war and counter terrorism on providing jobs
and improving living conditions, the insurgency in both countries
would have been limited and devoid of any substantial public
support. Had Bush admitted mistakes were made and tried to convince
Iraqis to embark on a fresh start things in that country may have
been different. Bush, instead, resorted to denial and wishful
thinking. All are wrong except him and his advisers. With such a
frame of mind all, on the contrary, seem to be correct.
"If we demonstrate an America that has a foreign policy that is
smarter, more engaged ... and more respectful of the world, we're
going to bring people to our side," John Kerry, the presidential
contender, said. "We're not only not going to put additional troops
there, that's the way to bring our troops home."
Iraq is less secure today than it was on the eve of the invasion and
terrorist groups are mushrooming rather than contracting yet the
official line from the White House is that "the U.S. and the world
are much safer now that the new Iraq is taking on terrorism and
marching toward democracy."
Lincoln Chafee, a moderate in the GOP, complained recently of the
continuing denial. "I feel there's been a whole host of mistakes,"
said Chafee, a moderate in the GOP. "Among them," the Senator said,
"was insufficient troop levels."
The US, Chafee Said, is spending $1 billion a week in Iraq yet he
has heard that electricity does not work in some places, some
schools are not open, and water treatment plants remain out of
commission. The senator said the country is more dangerous now than
when he visited in October.
Chafee, like many others, complained about the continuing noises
that threaten to enlarge the conflict in the Middle East to include
countries like Iran and Syria. Chafee thinks the Bush administration
needs to work more closely with Iran and Syria.
Afghanistan is yesterday's news and Iraq may start to disappear from
front pages and prime time news bulletins but the war on terrorism
has not been won. There are many reasons for that but one important
factor is that American policies in the Middle East are unjust and
they will continue to produce terrorists. No wonder many Middle East
analysts consider him a recruiter of terrorisms rather than a
terminator.
The Middle East would like to believe Bush when he speaks about
liberty and democracy but they can't. They want democracy but their
rulers are the second biggest obstacle to achieve this goal. The
first is the president of the US. "The tail does what the head tells
it to do," Middle East people say about the relationship between
their rulers and the president of the US. Only when the head decides
the Middle East will be safer in the hands of men and women who want
nothing more than to raise their children in peace and prosperity
the tails will wag in obedience. Like most Arabs, Michael Berg
wanted his son to live in peace and prosperity. He did not.
It's a shame he is not running for president so all children,
American, Arabs and Israelis, may enjoy peace and prosperity and not
suffer another hundred years of war and devastation.
* The writer is a novelist and historian and was co-founder of Sharq
Al Awsat and Al Hayat newspapers
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