January 16, 2006
A strategic view from Peshawar
It is generally difficult for those without Arabic, Urdu or Pashtoo language skills to guage public opinion the swath of the greater Middle East that represents the heartland of political Islam. But for those English-speakers curious about the Islamist worldview, and especially that of Al Qaeda and its Afghan and Pakistani sympathizers, there is hope in the form of Pakistan's Peshawar-based Frontier Post. Like any newspaper, it reflects the attitudes and values of its readers, who happen to also represent the regional constituency most sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.
The Frontier Post has recently run an editorial about US involvement in the region, titled "How the US views India and Pakistan?" The question mark seems to be a pure formality, since the author, Mohammad Jamil, prefers the declarative mode, and hammers in his points with authority. He sees the US manipulating India against Pakistan, in effect betraying Pakistan, loyal ally in the Cold War struggle in Afghanistan and in the War on Terror. Indeed, far from commited enmity, the piece strikes a tone of hurt betrayal.
Jamil writes about the indignities and double-dealings Pakistan has suffered at the hands of the US:
Anyhow, the way the US has treated a friend that stood by its allies for about half-a-century, got dismembered as a result of its involvement in military pacts, and even risked its very existence by becoming the frontline state against another super power during the Afghan crisis is deplorable. By entering into strategic partnership with India, the US leadership has not only disappointed Pakistan but also spawned despondency in Kashmir, as the Kashmiris always considered the US a country that stood for the right of self-determination of the suppressed nations.
It is surprising to note the double speak of the US administration. On the one hand it acknowledges Pakistan’s prodigious role in the war on terror but on the other it shows lack of trust when US-led forces enter Pakistan in hot pursuit of Al Qaeda operatives or Taliban remnants. Recently, when Washington was lauding President Pervez Musharraf’s determination against terrorism, and Pakistan forces’ action against terrorists in a briefing, eighteen people were killed and many injured in powerful explosions destroying one house and damaging other hutments in Bajaur Tribal Agency near Peshawar reportedly by the US-led allied forces.
It appears that even in Al Qaeda's backyard, it is specific policy positions and behavior - like Friday's missile strike - that motivate hostility, moreso than ideological or religious hatred.
Posted 04:25 PM | Comments (0)
American rocket strike in Pakistan draws fire
On Friday, January 13th an unmanned Predator drone fired a number of Hellfire rockets into a house in Damadola village, in the Bajaur region near the Afghan border. The target was Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command of Al Qaeda and, since Osama bin Laden ceased issuing statements last year, the public face of the extremist movement. The CIA was working off of intelligence indicating that Zawahiri would be having dinner at the house. This information proved inaccurate, and no major Al Qaeda figure has been identified among the 18 dead, which include women and children, although some reports suggest that up to 11 may have been lower-ranking Islamic militants.
Pakistan has reacted with shock and anger. In the border provinces, protests sprung up the day after the attack, spreading to major Pakistani cities - Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar - by Monday. In the Western press, the Guardian has published a fairly comprehensive overview of the attacks and the reaction. The largest crowds assembled in Karachi, where 10,000 people marched shouting slogans against the US and Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf. DAWN, a Pakistani newspaper, gives approximate turnout at protests across the country.
While the largest crowds were in Karachi, the most strident were in Peshawar, the main city of the fiercely Islamic and anti-American North-West Frontier Province. The local Frontier Post reports that those rallies were organized by an Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami. Party leaders pledged themselves to Jihad against the US, advocated the partition of the US into 52 successor states (on the model of the former Soviet Union), and bemoaned the fact that Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons has failed to deter American strikes inside the country.
Posted 03:58 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2005
Yellowcake, again
A new episode in the Yellowcake case. Today La Repubblica runs an interview with Alain Chouet, French 007 till 2002. The interview controverts the Italian government reconstruction in four essential points:
1. Rocco Martino, the fake Italian 007, did not work for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité extérieure), as the Italian government stated.
2. CIA gets the fake documents about the Niger Yellocake in June 2002. That is, when the Italian magazine Panorama gives the fake documents to the American Embassy in Rome in August 2002, CIA already has the documents.
3. As opposed to what stated by the Italian government, the DGSE did not pass the documents to Washington. On the contrary, Washington passed the documents to the DGSE asking to verify them. The DGSE informs Washington that the documents are false since July 2002.
4. Rocco Martino gets in touch with the DGSE only in the summer of 2002, not before.
If what stated by Alain Chouet is true, as it seems to be so far, La Repubblica gets another scoop about the Yellowcake.
Posted 04:15 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2005
Yellowcake timeline
Joshua Marshall posted a detailed timeline of the "yellocake case" on his website.
You can also send additions and corrections to the timeline by sending an email to talk@talkingpointsmemo.com
October 15, 2001:US intelligence agencies receive reports from the Italian intelligence service SISMI of a supposed agreement between Iraq and Niger for the sale of yellowcake uranium. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research considers the report “highly suspect” because the French control Niger ’s uranium industry. The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Energy consider a uranium deal “possible.”
October 18, 2001:
The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research issues a report stating that there is no corroborative evidence that there was any agreement on uranium transfer between Iraq and Niger, or that any uranium was actually transferred.
February 5, 2002:
The CIA’s Directorate of Operations–the clandestine branch that employed Valerie Wilson–issues a second report including “verbatim text” of an agreement for the sale of 500 tons of uranium yellowcake per year that was supposedly signed July 5-6, 2000.
[...]
Posted 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2005
Italian Yellowcake
On the Italian newspapers much has been made about the “yellowcake case”.
On the 24th of October the national daily newspaper La Repubblica, a strong Berlusconi opponent, published an investigation revealing that the SISMI (the Italian intelligence agency) made a strong contribution to the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The article accuses the Italian spymaster, General Nicolo Pollari, of knowingly passing forged documents to the United States suggesting that Saddam Hussein had been seeking uranium in Niger, claims that helped justify the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. La Repubblica also reported that General Pollari had acted at the behest of Mr. Berlusconi, who was said to be eager to help President Bush in the search for weapons in Iraq.
On the 27th of October the Italian Government categorically denied any involvement in the Niger Fraud, denying any "direct or indirect involvement in the packaging and delivery of the false dossier on Niger's uranium". But nobody seems to really believe that and the debate is still heated in Italy, even after Pollari’s hearing in Rome on the 3rd of November.
While La Repubblica is keeping investigating on the SISMI contribution to the Iraqi war, other right-wing newspapers and blogs are trying to emphasize the errors and the contradictions of its investigation.
In order to have a complete and objective overview of the case, you can look at the Italian blog Paferrobyday.
Posted 05:23 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2005
Burning Bodies: Another Abu Ghraib?
While it has become almost gospel in the Muslim world that American troops are culturally insensitive, news that US troops in Afghanistan burned the corpses of enemy combatants does not portend good things.
The background here is that an Australian news service broadcast footage depicting burning corpses atop hills near the village of Gondaz, north of Kandahar, all of whom were allegedly killed by US soldiers the night before.
The footage shows flames emanating from bodies with members of the 173rd Airborne Division looking on impassively. According to Aljazeera, the following was declared:
You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burnt. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be.
and
You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion, and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are.
This is explosive in a variety of ways: The bodies were left out for 24 hours, contrary to standard burial practices in Islam, and further desecration of bodies (burning, westerly positioning of a cadaver) is perceived as apostasy...but generally only if you're a talib, in the estimation of contemporary Muslim luminaries.
It is clear that this footage has the potential to engender even stronger anti-American feelings, in Afghanistan as well as Iraq and the Middle East as a whole, but the desecration of American security workers in Falluja brings into question a glaring problem: When does religious doctrine become convenient for political ends? Ulterior motives would seem to abound.
A good primer on this issue can be seen here, and if the rhetoric of these clerics is salient, it stands to reason that this could initiate a new cycle of violence epitomized by new forms of symbolic resistance.
One desecration begets another in this formula.
Posted 02:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
Public opposed to extending Japan's mission in Iraq: poll
From Mainichi Shimbun
A whopping 77 percent of pollees were opposed to an extension of Japan's noncombatant mission in Iraq while 18 percent were in favor, a Mainichi weekend poll has found.
In December last year when Japan decided to extend the dispatch of the Self-Defense Force (SDF) to Iraq by one year, 62 percent of pollees opposed the move while 31 percent were in favor. The SDF mission expires on Dec. 14 this year.
Several Japanese politicians even from the ruling coalition say the dispatch of the SDF should be reconsidered if British and Australian forces withdraw from the country in May 2006.
The Mainichi polled 1,068 people on Saturday and Sunday and found that 66 percent of pollees who support the ruling Liberal Democratic Party were in opposition to extending the SDF dispatch.
More than 80 percent of those who support the Democratic Party of Japan, Japanese Communist Party or Social Democratic Party were opposed to the extension.
Posted 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
About “the nature of Anti-Americanism”
Anti-Americanism is but a part of the question of “perceptions of the U.S. in the world” that we are trying to tackle here. One of the most common views seems to be that people tend to make a distinction between the Administration, the country, the values, and the people.
A recent essay written by UC-Berkeley Professor Emeritus—Raymond K. Kent--, and published on a liberal Canadian website—Global Research-- takes a provocative position: anti-Americanism is shifting from targeting the Administration to targeting the American people, at least in the Islamic “street.”
In The Nature of Anti-Americanism is Changing, And it is Fifteen Minutes to Midnight, Prof. Kent seeks to address the two following questions:
"(a)Should the U.S. dominate the world, through a combination of Geo-politics, militarism and hard-ball diplomacy focusing, basically, on obedience to its will?(b)Can it succeed, as the "Indispensable Nation," in shaping and re-shaping other societies and their governments to "make the world safe for Democracy?"
The conclusion, which should become clear in the ensuing pages, is that, so far, the answer to both questions has been " yes." The thesis presented in the text is that our Machiavellians, who promote (without admitting) the pseudo-science of "Geo-politics," and Imperialism of "free trade," "human rights" and spread of Democracy as "rule by the people,"(demos from Greek), are actually self-defeating and suicidal, for the nation as a whole, with or without "Home Security." The immortal words of Lee Hamilton, after the 9/11 Report, "we (just) did not get it," apply equally to both questions posed. Articulated by "the street" in countries with Islam as the state religion, a silent and sullen hate is mutating in the most dangerous sense. Instead of being directed primarily at one or another U.S. Administration or individual occupants of the White House, as used to be the case not long ago, its emerging target today is the American People."
This is not necessarily what appears in some of the surveys mentioned in this blog—see this entry about Europe and the German Marshall Fund—or that one about Latin America and the Chilean social-science institute FLACSO, but it certainly deserves a good debate.
What do you think?
Posted 06:57 AM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2005
Karen Hughes Mid-East Tour: A Failure of Public Diplomacy
A number of papers are carrying stories related to Karen Hughes’, the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, recently concluded tour of the Middle East. She stopped in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia where she met with groups screened to be as receptive as possible to her pro-America, pro-Bush message. Even under these carefully massaged conditions, the trip has caused more harm than good for the image of the US in the Middle East. While the Egyptian leg of the trip, by all accounts, went over passably well, even the Bush-loyalist Weekly Standard acknowledged that her attempt to stand up for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia backfired:
Student after student stepped to the microphones in the hall. Peering out from behind their abayas, they denounced the portrayal in the American news media of Saudi women as powerless and abused.
"We are not oppressed. We are not prisoners in our own homes," said one student. "We are all pretty happy." She demanded to know why Americans have such a negative view of the way Saudi women are treated.
The Washington Post reports that her stop in Turkey likewise failed to impress – there she was met with condemnation for the Iraq occupation:
"This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero," said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan suggests that the whole trip may have been as badly conceived as it was badly executed, beginning with the selection of Hughes as an envoy. Illustrating his point, he comes up with a Muslim version of her:
Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented "Good morning."
He goes on to point out that while Middle Eastern audiences raise substantive issues relating to American policy (the war in Iraq, for instance), Hughes is reduced to mouthing sugary slogans, emphasizing her motherhood and love of children. This whole approach of public diplomacy embraces the idea that what is necessary to repair the image of America in the Muslim world is not a revision of policy, but a better marketing campaign. If that’s the case, as dubious as it seems, the US should start looking for a better PR hack.
Posted 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2005
Muslim views of the US: Anger or merely disapproval?
A web-only article at the New Republic challenges the widely-perceived notion that the Muslim world is fiercely hostile towards, rather than just displeased with, the United States. It traces that perception back to the hardest data available, the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, observing:
Evidently few reporters took the time to read the fine print in the [March 2004 survey, "A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher; Muslim Anger Persists."] If they did, they would have found that the poll provided absolutely no evidence to support the charge that "Muslim anger persists." In fact, the word "anger" did not appear in a single poll question. Muslims did give high "unfavorable" ratings to the United States, but there is considerable difference between viewing something unfavorably and being angry at it. (Think of broccoli or Britney Spears.) Pew evidently recognized how problematic this was; in the 2005 version of the Global Attitudes Survey, released in June, references to such sensationalist (and unsubstantiated) terms as "anger" were nowhere to be found. But the damage was already done.
The report further notes that Muslim publics are more accepting of US global leadership than European ones, and that in all Muslim countries but Turkey approval of the US occupation of Iraq had upticked slightly since the previous year. It concludes by noting that there have been few sizeable anti-American protests in 2005, and, tellingly, McDonalds' is reporting sizeable profits throughout the region. But perhaps just as disapproval may not mean anger, so love of the Big Mac may not equal love of Uncle Sam.
Posted 03:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
Interview with Al Jazeera Host YUSUF AL-QARADAWI
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential contemporary Muslim scholars, reaches millions each week with his show televized on Al-Jazeera. Der Spiegel talks with him about terrorism, USA and West modernity.
"SPIEGEL: Your eminence, you are considered one of the most influential contemporary Muslim scholars, but even your word is not unconditional. Does Islam need an uncontested spiritual leader -- a Muslim pope?
Qaradawi: Most Muslims would like such a central authority, to avoid constant debate over contradictory and extremist scholarly opinions. But we don't have a pope; we have the Ulama, the association of scholars. To protect the unity of Islam, we urgently need to reach a consensus on the great questions of our time: terror, occupation, and resistance. We took a first step in July 2004, with the foundation of a world union of Muslim legal scholars. I was elected chairman, and my deputies are a Sunni, a Shiite, and an Ibadit (a branch of Islam found mainly in Oman). We thank God for this success.
SPIEGEL: Yet no one in the Islamic world hinders men like Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- bin Laden's lieutenant in Iraq -- from setting themselves up as imams and preaching hate.
Qaradawi: A person can't just call himself an imam or a mufti and hand out fatwas according to whim. For this position there are clear prerequisites regarding professional experience, academic background and character.
SPIEGEL: People like bin Laden or Al-Zarqawi don't tend to worry about that. Nevertheless they have a huge influence on Islam's image.
Qaradawi: The vast majority of Muslim scholars have condemned Bin Laden's deeds; only a small minority stand behind him. What helps his reputation even more than scholarly opinion is the injustice that befalls Muslims every day -- above all in Palestine. You underestimate this in the West: The one-sidedness of American support for Israel has devastating consequences."
Continue reading the interview.
See also Islam on line, Al-Qaradawi's web site.
Posted 10:45 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2005
Face-saving solutions
From Gulfnews:
"Allied troops will stay in Iraq as long as the Iraqi government needs them, chant George W. Bush and Tony Blair, stubbornly singing from the same tired old hymn sheet.
And despite all evidence to the contrary, they are still trying to hammer home to their respective publics the myth of Iraq's sovereignty along with the good works their helmeted legions are supposedly accomplishing there.
In their fantastical universe, Iraq's cobbled together constitution viewed by most as a recipe for civil war could be a face-saver that will clear the way for an exit-plan."
Continue reading the article.
Posted 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
Israel to Bush Administration: "Do you care?"
Is Washington still Israel's best friend?
"With this president," noted one Israeli diplomat this week, "you have to pay attention to every word in his speeches. This is a president who doesn't talk off the cuff on foreign policy issues. He does not write speeches himself; he does not add and subtract paragraphs. Every word is weighed 10 times before they put it into a speech. And if it is uttered, it is a sign that the administration means it."
Shmuel Rosner at Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper quotes the above diplomat in an article pondering whether the Bush Administration still holds Israel's interests in as high an esteem as past days.
"But what exactly does the administration mean, in Iraq, in Syria and in Palestine?" Rosner wonders. "This does not always have a good answer." Washington is a mystery to Israel, he opines, and lately with Katrina and Iraq occupying most of the Bush Administration's attention span, Israel has not been catered to the way they're used to.
"In how many arenas can the administration act simultaneously? Will Katrina guzzle all the resources, both financial and political, and will the other issues be neglected for a while? Are Iraq and Katrina all there is? Will there be any time and energy left for us? Israelis and others are asking this. "
Rosner remembers the previous administration:
The senior officials at the State Department are not "friends of Israel," as were some of their predecessors, for example in the Clinton administration (Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross). Rice's aides, Robert Zolick, Nicholas Burns, David Welch - all of them are polite professionals, but they have no special feelings toward Israel. Including negative ones. "
By Shmuel Rosner
Last Update: 20/09/2005 15:30
WASHINGTON - On a warm Tuesday night, about 200 guests gathered at the residence of the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon, to partake of miniature egg rolls, chicken skewers and wine. At first they crowded into the living room and later, when they wanted to breathe, they went outside to crowd in the yard. Two cabinet secretaries were there, but not the most senior, and one friendly senator, a few former ambassadors and bureaucrats of various ranks. All of them came to say good-bye to Dick Jones, who is leaving here at the end of the week to serve as the United States' new ambassador in Israel.
The hosts evinced maturity and kept the speeches short: a few jokes, a few bits of advice, as is customary. Jones apologized that he would not remember everyone he had met that night. An appropriate apology; it is likely he will not remember any of them.
It was a strange and laden foreign relations week in America. Hundreds of leaders of countries are gathering in New York and many of them are also dropping in for talks in the capital. The president is making time for the president of Iraq and the prime minister of Israel. The secretary of state hasn't been seen in Washington for a week now; she is busy with meetings in New York. All her aides are with her there too - therefore they did not come to bid farewell to Jones properly at Ayalon's residence.
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But all this is happening outside the range of reception of the general public, which is zapping between New Orleans and Capitol Hill - between the president's efforts to repair the damage caused by Katrina and the efforts of the candidate for chief justice of the Supreme Court to maneuver between the landmines that are hiding in the hearing being held for him in the Senate. In the meantime, big things are happening: a failure in the compromise efforts at the United Nations, which have engendered a lukewarm document for the leaders to sign, and the president's warning to Syria at a joint press conference with the Iraqi president, and then his speech in New York, only hours after another fatal attack in Baghdad.
"With this president," noted one Israeli diplomat this week, "you have to pay attention to every word in his speeches. This is a president who doesn't talk off the cuff on foreign policy issues. He does not write speeches himself; he does not add and subtract paragraphs. Every word is weighed 10 times before they put it into a speech. And if it is uttered, it is a sign that the administration means it."
Washington, a mystery
But what exactly does the administration mean, in Iraq, in Syria and in Palestine? This does not always have a good answer. The question of the division of attention engages everyone who is dealing with these issues and the observers who are looking for keys to understanding these things. In how many arenas can the administration act simultaneously? Will Katrina guzzle all the resources, both financial and political, and will the other issues be neglected for a while? Are Iraq and Katrina all there is? Will there be any time and energy left for us? Israelis and others are asking this. Delegations that are coming to hear and try to understand. Indeed, this week Eival Giladi, who is close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's adviser Dov Weissglas, popped over to Washington for a couple of days this week. The deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry, Yoram Ben Ze'ev, has also come here for meetings. Next week he will be joined by the director general, Ron Prosor. And of course, there is the prime minister's large delegation in New York.
Soon everyone will know Dick Jones, the new ambassador, whose appointment they are now trying to analyze. He's a no-nonsense person, they say. He has rich experience in the Middle East - in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iraq - but not in Israel. "He isn't one of those people who has a million friends among us, like some of the previous ambassadors," says a new acquaintance. This means - a professional official, unbiased, sometimes blunt. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to put in the forward position facing Sharon; someone who will not be frightened by him, who will get things done unsentimentally.
Altogether, say senior people in Israel, an interesting phenomenon is being noted in the relations between Israel and the administration of President George W. Bush. There is a lot of understanding, a lot of support, there aren't any large disagreements, but - and at certain moments this can be an important "but" - the administration officials don't have many sentiments about us. The senior officials at the State Department are not "friends of Israel," as were some of their predecessors, for example in the Clinton administration (Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross). Rice's aides, Robert Zolick, Nicholas Burns, David Welch - all of them are polite professionals, but they have no special feelings toward Israel. Including negative ones. The new ambassador Jones fits into this pattern well.
A sensitive and volatile issue is lurking here. Anti-Semites will find in it proof for their argument that Jews should not be appointed to key positions. However, says a senior security person, look at how much damage was caused to us by Israel's friend Doug Feith in the big Pentagon war against Israeli-Chinese relations. "Anyone who believes Israel has a real strategic role, that it can bring real benefit to the United States," he says, "has to welcome officials with a matter-of-fact approach."
Posted 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2005
Two parallel world bodies?
A view from Paresh of the National Herald (New Delhi).
Posted 06:07 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2005
It's Occupation, not Islamic Fundamentalism
Italian newspapers are reporting today that the suspect held on suspicion of planting one of the failed July 21 London bombs said he and fellow bombers were motivated by the war in Iraq to carry out the attacks.
Thus coming from the words of one of the alleged bombers himself, suspicions that these attacks were spawned from the UK's involvement in the Iraq occupation are justified.
One man knows more about suicide bombings than any other Americans. Robert Pape, Asosciate Professor at the University on Chicago and author of a book on suicide attacks "Dying to Win," has the world's largest database of suicide bombers and their demographics. His findings indicate that the the most prevalant American perception about suicide attackers and their motivations are way off.
His conclusions, as expressed in an interview by Scott McConnell of the American Conservative on July 18 (below), clear up many of these misperceptions. Here are some, summarized or paraphrased:
(from an interview with Robert Pape, used without permission of the author/interviewer)
- Suicide attacks are largely associated with Islamic fundamentalism, when in fact the leader in the world's suicide bombings are the Tamil Tigers in their conflict with the Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Palestinians learned of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.
- The main objective, in more than 95 percent of all incidents, has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw its occupation or military forces from the region considered by the attackers to be their homeland. Not Islamic fundamentalism.
- Because suicide attacks are mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force can only be expected to increase the number of suicide attackers.
- The evidence shows that the presence of American troops clearly trumps the idea of a cultural hatred of the West or the idea of democracy when it comes to the reasons for suicide attackers to act.
- Iraq never had a suicide attack before American troops invaded.
- "If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people-three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia-with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran." Sudan, too, has an extremely Islamic fundamentalist government but there has never been an al-Quaeda suicide attacker from Sudan.
- Two thirds of the suicide attacks from 1995 to 2004 are from countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990, and not from Islamic fundamentalist countries.
- History shows that once occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of attackers, they often stop, and often on a dime.
The Logic of Suicide Terrorism: It's the Occupation, Not the Fundamentalism
By Scott McConnell
American Conservative
July 18, 2005
Last month, Scott McConnell caught up with Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, whose book on suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, is beginning to receive wide notice. Pape has found that the most common American perceptions about who the terrorists are and what motivates them are off by a wide margin. In his office is the world's largest database of information about suicide terrorists, rows and rows of manila folders containing articles and biographical snippets in dozens of languages compiled by Pape and teams of graduate students, a trove of data that has been sorted and analyzed and which underscores the great need for reappraising the Bush administration's current strategy. Below are excerpts from a conversation with the man who knows more about suicide terrorists than any other American.
The American Conservative: Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research went into it, and what your findings were?
Robert Pape: Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources-Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others-so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.
This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.
TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?
RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign-over 95 percent of all the incidents-has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bush's policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don't have to fight them here.
RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.
Since 1990, the United States has stationed tens of thousands of ground troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the main mobilization appeal of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. People who make the argument that it is a good thing to have them attacking us over there are missing that suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life.
TAC: If we were to back up a little bit before the invasion of Iraq to what happened before 9/11, what was the nature of the agitprop that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were putting out to attract people?
RP: Osama bin Laden's speeches and sermons run 40 and 50 pages long. They begin by calling tremendous attention to the presence of tens of thousands of American combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula.
In 1996, he went on to say that there was a grand plan by the United
States-that the Americans were going to use combat forces to conquer Iraq, break it into three pieces, give a piece of it to Israel so that Israel could enlarge its country, and then do the same thing to Saudi Arabia. As you can see, we are fulfilling his prediction, which is of tremendous help in his mobilization appeals.
TAC: The fact that we had troops stationed on the Arabian Peninsula was not a very live issue in American debate at all. How many Saudis and other people in the Gulf were conscious of it?
RP: We would like to think that if we could keep a low profile with our troops that it would be okay to station them in foreign countries. The truth is, we did keep a fairly low profile. We did try to keep them away from Saudi society in general, but the key issue with American troops is their actual combat power. Tens of thousands of American combat troops, married with air power, is a tremendously powerful tool.
Now, of course, today we have 150,000 troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and we are more in control of the Arabian Peninsula than ever before.
TAC: If you were to break down causal factors, how much weight would you put on a cultural rejection of the West and how much weight on the presence of American troops on Muslim territory?
RP: The evidence shows that the presence of American troops is clearly the pivotal factor driving suicide terrorism.
If Islamic fundamentalism were the pivotal factor, then we should see some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world, like Iran, which has 70 million people-three times the population of Iraq and three times the population of Saudi Arabia-with some of the most active groups in suicide terrorism against the United States. However, there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Iran, and we have no evidence that there are any suicide terrorists in Iraq from Iran.
Sudan is a country of 21 million people. Its government is extremely Islamic fundamentalist. The ideology of Sudan was so congenial to Osama bin Laden that he spent three years in Sudan in the 1990s. Yet there has never been an al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from Sudan.
I have the first complete set of data on every al-Qaeda suicide terrorist from 1995 to early 2004, and they are not from some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world. Two thirds are from the countries where the United States has stationed heavy combat troops since 1990.
Another point in this regard is Iraq itself. Before our invasion, Iraq never had a suicide-terrorist attack in its history. Never. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has been escalating rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.
TAC: So your assessment is that there are more suicide terrorists or
potential suicide terrorists today than there were in March 2003?
RP: I have collected demographic data from around the world on the 462
suicide terrorists since 1980 who completed the mission, actually killed themselves. This information tells us that most are walk-in volunteers. Very few are criminals. Few are actually longtime members of a terrorist group. For most suicide terrorists, their first experience with violence is their very own suicide-terrorist attack.
There is no evidence there were any suicide-terrorist organizations lying in wait in Iraq before our invasion. What is happening is that the suicide terrorists have been produced by the invasion.
TAC: Do we know who is committing suicide terrorism in Iraq? Are they
primarily Iraqis or walk-ins from other countries in the region?
RP: Our best information at the moment is that the Iraqi suicide terrorists are coming from two groups-Iraqi Sunnis and Saudis-the two populations most vulnerable to transformation by the presence of large American combat troops on the Arabian Peninsula. This is perfectly consistent with the strategic logic of suicide terrorism.
TAC: Does al-Qaeda have the capacity to launch attacks on the United States, or are they too tied down in Iraq? Or have they made a strategic decision not to attack the United States, and if so, why?
RP: Al-Qaeda appears to have made a deliberate decision not to attack the United States in the short term. We know this not only from the pattern of their attacks but because we have an actual al-Qaeda planning document found by Norwegian intelligence. The document says that al-Qaeda should not try to attack the continent of the United States in the short term but instead should focus its energies on hitting America's allies in order to try to split the coalition.
What the document then goes on to do is analyze whether they should hit Britain, Poland, or Spain. It concludes that they should hit Spain just before the March 2004 elections because, and I am quoting almost verbatim: Spain could not withstand two, maximum three, blows before withdrawing from the coalition, and then others would fall like dominoes.
That is exactly what happened. Six months after the document was produced, al-Qaeda attacked Spain in Madrid. That caused Spain to withdraw from the coalition. Others have followed. So al-Qaeda certainly has demonstrated the capacity to attack and in fact they have done over 15 suicide-terrorist attacks since 2002, more than all the years before 9/11 combined. Al-Qaeda is not weaker now. Al-Qaeda is stronger.
TAC: What would constitute a victory in the War on Terror or at least an improvement in the American situation?
RP: For us, victory means not sacrificing any of our vital interests while also not having Americans vulnerable to suicide-terrorist attacks. In the case of the Persian Gulf, that means we should pursue a strategy that secures our interest in oil but does not encourage the rise of a new generation of suicide terrorists.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, the United States secured its interest in oil without stationing a single combat soldier on the Arabian Peninsula. Instead, we formed an alliance with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which we can now do again. We relied on numerous aircraft carriers off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and naval air power now is more effective not less. We also built numerous military bases so that we could move large numbers of ground forces to the region quickly if a crisis emerged.
That strategy, called "offshore balancing," worked splendidly against Saddam Hussein in 1990 and is again our best strategy to secure our interest in oil while preventing the rise of more suicide terrorists.
TAC: Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders also talked about the
"Crusaders-Zionist alliance," and I wonder if that, even if we weren't in Iraq, would not foster suicide terrorism. Even if the policy had helped bring about a Palestinian state, I don't think that would appease the more hardcore opponents of Israel.
RP: I not only study the patterns of where suicide terrorism has occurred but also where it hasn't occurred. Not every foreign occupation has produced suicide terrorism. Why do some and not others? Here is where religion matters, but not quite in the way most people think. In virtually every instance where an occupation has produced a suicide-terrorist campaign, there has been a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied community. That is true not only in places such as Lebanon and in Iraq today but also in Sri Lanka, where it is the Sinhala Buddhists who are having a dispute with the Hindu Tamils.
When there is a religious difference between the occupier and the occupied, that enables terrorist leaders to demonize the occupier in especially vicious ways. Now, that still requires the occupier to be there. Absent the presence of foreign troops, Osama bin Laden could make his arguments but there wouldn't be much reality behind them. The reason that it is so difficult for us to dispute those arguments is because we really do have tens of thousands of combat soldiers sitting on the Arabian Peninsula.
TAC: Has the next generation of anti-American suicide terrorists already been created? Is it too late to wind this down, even assuming your analysis is correct and we could de-occupy Iraq?
RP: Many people worry that once a large number of suicide terrorists have acted that it is impossible to wind it down. The history of the last 20 years, however, shows the opposite. Once the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland territory of the terrorists, they often stop-and often on a dime.
In Lebanon, for instance, there were 41 suicide-terrorist attacks from 1982 to 1986, and after the U.S. withdrew its forces, France withdrew its forces, and then Israel withdrew to just that six-mile buffer zone of Lebanon, they virtually ceased. They didn't completely stop, but there was no campaign of suicide terrorism. Once Israel withdrew from the vast bulk of Lebanese territory, the suicide terrorists did not follow Israel to Tel Aviv.
This is also the pattern of the second Intifada with the Palestinians. As Israel is at least promising to withdraw from Palestinian-controlled territory (in addition to some other factors), there has been a decline of that ferocious suicide-terrorist campaign. This is just more evidence that withdrawal of military forces really does diminish the ability of the terrorist leaders to recruit more suicide terrorists.
That doesn't mean that the existing suicide terrorists will not want to keep going. I am not saying that Osama bin Laden would turn over a new leaf and suddenly vote for George Bush. There will be a tiny number of people who are still committed to the cause, but the real issue is not whether Osama bin Laden exists. It is whether anybody listens to him. That is what needs to come to an end for Americans to be safe from suicide terrorism.
TAC: There have been many kinds of non-Islamic suicide terrorists, but have there been Christian suicide terrorists?
RP: Not from Christian groups per se, but in Lebanon in the 1980s, of those suicide attackers, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were Communists and Socialists. Three were Christians.
TAC: Has the IRA used suicide terrorism?
RP: The IRA did not. There were IRA members willing to commit suicide-the famous hunger strike was in 1981. What is missing in the IRA case is not the willingness to commit suicide, to kill themselves, but the lack of a suicide-terrorist attack where they try to kill others.
If you look at the pattern of violence in the IRA, almost all of the killing is front-loaded to the 1970s and then trails off rather dramatically as you get through the mid-1980s through the 1990s. There is a good reason for that, which is that the British government, starting in the mid-1980s, began to make numerous concessions to the IRA on the basis of its ordinary violence. In fact, there were secret negotiations in the 1980s, which then led to public negotiations, which then led to the Good Friday Accords. If you look at the pattern of the IRA, this is a case where they actually got virtually everything that they wanted through ordinary violence.
The purpose of a suicide-terrorist attack is not to die. It is the kill, to inflict the maximum number of casualties on the target society in order to compel that target society to put pressure on its government to change policy. If the government is already changing policy, then the whole point of suicide terrorism, at least the way it has been used for the last 25 years, doesn't come up.
TAC: Are you aware of any different strategic decision made by al-Qaeda to change from attacking American troops or ships stationed at or near the Gulf to attacking American civilians in the United States?
RP: I wish I could say yes because that would then make the people reading this a lot more comfortable.
The fact is not only in the case of al-Qaeda, but in suicide-terrorist
campaigns in general, we don't see much evidence that suicide-terrorist groups adhere to a norm of attacking military targets in some circumstances and civilians in others.
In fact, we often see that suicide-terrorist groups routinely attack both civilian and military targets, and often the military targets are off-duty policemen who are unsuspecting. They are not really prepared for battle.
The reasons for the target selection of suicide terrorists appear to be much more based on operational rather than normative criteria. They appear to be looking for the targets where they can maximize the number of casualties.
In the case of the West Bank, for instance, there is a pattern where Hamas and Islamic Jihad use ordinary guerrilla attacks, not suicide attacks, mainly to attack settlers. They use suicide attacks to penetrate into Israel proper. Over 75 percent of all the suicide attacks in the second Intifada were against Israel proper and only 25 percent on the West Bank itself.
TAC: What do you think the chances are of a weapon of mass destruction being used in an American city?
RP: I think it depends not exclusively, but heavily, on how long our combat forces remain in the Persian Gulf. The central motive for anti-American terrorism, suicide terrorism, and catastrophic terrorism is response to foreign occupation, the presence of our troops. The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack.
Posted 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
A British MP who does not bow before the US Senate
George Galloway’s declarations to the U.S. Senate committee on Foreign Affairs are everywhere in the U.S. media (see here and here).
Comments in the foreign media abound like this one found in the Deccan Herald (“An institution that has completed 50 glorious years of chronicling the joys and sorrows of the people of Karnataka, India and the world.”):
The US Senate hearings are dignified affairs and those called, appear before it with great reverence. It can affect the careers of politicians and administration officials. Even a foreign head of state such as Afghanistan’s Hameed Karzai, sat below the level of his US interrogators and answered questions politely.Mr Galloway is made of sterner stuff, having survived the rough and tumble of British politics. At the end of the hearing, his accusers didn’t know what hit them. The piece of political theatre witnessed in a dignified chamber of Capitol Hill proved that there is one thing that the British still do well.
Posted 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2005
Anti-U.S. protests all over the Muslim world after incident in Guantanamo
Flags burned, protests, people in the streets. Anger against the U.S. is back again.
Everything started when Newsweek reported in its May 9 edition that investigators at the prison of Guantanamo "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet".
All this fueled by new allegations of sexual abuse and degrading treatment of the prisoners.
The result?
In Afghanistan, violent anti-U.S. protest caused the death of sixteen Afghans and about 100 were injured.
In Lebanon, the Hezbollah denounced the act, describing it as the U.S. targeting again the Muslim nation without any respect for sacred symbols.
The Lybian leader Moammar Kadhafi warned of the consequences of his terrible event.
Thousands took to the streets in Palestine, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Many leaders of diverse organizations across the Muslim world asked the United States to apologize to Muslims for the desecration of the Koran. An Afghan newspaper said Saturday that the incident "has only strengthened the hands of fanatics and undermined efforts to build democracy".
U.S. officials launched an investigation and said disrespect for the Koran would not be tolerated.
In the Jakarta Post: Guantanamo case angers RI Muslims
In The Washington Post: Pentagon Probes Detainee Reports Of Koran Dumping
Posted 01:29 AM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2005
Islam and the U.S., again
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an entry on the conference "Democracy and global Islam" organized by the IGS and other institutions at UC Berkeley, that gathered a number of experts, academics and government officials.
During this day-long conference, among other interesting themes, Bruce Cain, Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, challenged speakers at one of the panels on the influence of social problems in European countries -mostly the conflicts due to religious differences- on America. "Is the U.S. paying the price for cultural problems lived by Europeans?"
Gunter Mulack, a high official from Germany, responsible for dialogue with the Muslim community, disagreed. For him, it is true that Europeans have lived a number of issued related to the Muslim community but "as Europeans, we believe in soft power", he said.
Mr. Mulack explained that for him, U.S. foreign policy created problems and "injustice, very much felt in the Muslim world". "The decision to occupy Iraq and the way the war was conducted in Afghanistan created a huge feeling of humiliation for Muslims".
Humiliation creates frustration. Frustration creates rejection. But surprisingly, the rejection in this case is only about one aspect of the U.S.: its politics. "The Americans are responsible for the outcomes of their own policy" said Mr. Mulack.
French scholar Olivier Roy replied saying that "radicalisation is a result of deculturation, not of the policy in the Middle-East". But for Mark Levine, Professor at UC Davis, Muslims' attitude towards America is to be seen beyond cliches and stereotypes. What was interesting for him was to see how Muslims around the world adapt the American culture to their everyday. Who would guess for exemple that on "Mecca Avenue" in Damas, you would see a huge advertisement for TV show "Sex and the city"?
Posted 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2005
Impressions from the field
The conference "Democracy and global Islam" organized by a group of institutions at UC Berkeley drew a number of speakers, among which, Nadia Yassine, the spokesperson of Islamist movement Al Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity) from Morocco. Yassine, who describes herself as somebody who "works in the field" says that many factors are responsible for the anti-American feelings in the Arab world. "The double-standard policy of the U.S. towards Israel is condemned by the population of Arab countries who see the Palestinian suffer from occupation. Globalization created an ocean of exclusion and the mass-media creates frustration among the youth who watches all day long programs showing the "West" and its "marvels".
For Yassine, the Gulf war increased the hatred among illiterate people who just see civilians being killed and homes destroyed. For Ali Ferdowski, the chair department of History and Political Science at Notre Dame de Namur, "Arabs' sympathy for other Arabs who suffer is natural. It's a matter of history and memory".
Speakers at the conference talked about elements encouraging radicalism but also suggested education as one of the most effective ways to counter fight extremism.
"The best way to exacerbate anti-American feelings is the "Nescafe democracy" imported and quickly made, says Nadia Yassine, who adds that the democratization of Arab countries along with a better-thought U.S. foreign policy could change a lot...
Posted 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2005
Palestine, Israel and the U.S.
A poll published on the website of Qatari channel Al Jazeera shows that 84 percent of 17461 online voters think there is a contradiction between America's support for the road map and its support for the Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories.
The poll speaks for itself and reflects a majority of the Arab public opinion that feels like a dichotomy between the speech and the acts of the American administration on the Palestine issue. Arabs often talk about the financial support the US gives Israel. For them, the money goes directly to finance the destruction of Palestinian homes and the killing of Palestinian civilians.
The last illustration was this morning with the destruction of two houses in the town of Anata. Aljazeera's bureau chief in Palestine, Walid al-Umari, reported that 18 people found themselves without shelter after this destruction.
Although Israelis said that they had to demolish the houses because they didn't have a license, the general reaction is anger. If we tell ourselves that, since 2001, about 675 Palestinian homes have been razed, it gives an idea of the accumulation of anger on the Arabs' side. The killing of civilians is another painful issue.
One thing is for sure: the success of the application of the road map and the role played by the U.S. will have a great influence on how America is perceived in the Arab world.
Posted 02:01 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Ideological warfare and Anti-Americanism
The respected and conservative Heritage Foundation just published a very interesting research paper on anti-Americanism (with considerations on why and how the United States should fight it) that includes a worrisome confusion.
At the core of this paper, one finds the idea that: “ideological warfare can be highly successful.” Efforts to counter anti-Americanism during the Cold War were effective. They “took a sabbatical” in the nineties though, and it’s time to get back to them through a set of means that is outlined in the document.
Helle Dale, the author, explains that one should not mix up anti-Americanism as it can be found in France (as well as in Europe “thanks to the BBC”) and the Al Qaeda type. The difference being “lethality.” After all:
[…] dislike of the United States will not cause France to declare war on the United States, or vice versa.
This is a useful contribution that analysts won’t miss.
To deal with serious anti-Americanism, Helle Dale, who is Deputy Director of the Heritage Foundation, proposes a strategy that includes, among other points, holding “foreign governments accountable for their support of anti-American propaganda,” investing money in “free media” and “revitalizing the Voice of America,” as well as seizing “opportunities” like stepping up aid to “tsunami-stricken areas of South Asia.”
All this belongs to what a serious conservative institution is expected to say.
The confusion
The confusing issue though lies in the definition of the less threatening form of anti-Americanism.
For instance, anti-Americanism in France can indeed be a heavy inconvenience for traveling Americans, who may find themselves on the defensive regarding whether or not they support the Bush Administration's policies.
Delle consciously assimilates critiques to the Bush Administration and anti-Americanism. This is dangerous.
If anti-Americanism does exist in Europe and can lead to unpleasant moments for tourists (see this note). That’s not the whole picture. WorldAndUs has recently published an illuminating testimony of a University of California student in France that expresses critical nuances and contradictions that one should try to understand.
Extracts:
The French will make the distinction that their perceived animosity towards Americans (their so-called anti-Americanism) is directed, for the most part, at the Bush administration. […]
On the whole the French public is kind and respective to Americans living in their country. […] they loathe our president yet love our culture.
Conservatives like to assimilate any critique of George Bush and its policies to anti-Americanism. What might be good tactics internally might prove misleading when they try to understand the rest of the world and build a strategy to confront anti-American sentiments.
Many foreigners may value America without thinking that what is American is necessarily good. They observe a certain distance, they value their differences, and they may formulate criticisms without being anti-American.
This might be true even in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Criticism of George Bush, the U.S. Government, and even America, does not an anti-American make.
Posted 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2005
Texas summit seen from Arabs' side
Arabs follow very closely every move made by the American administration to find a solution to the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Saudi daily Asharq Al Awsat (the Middle-East) based in London describes it as "the most complicated of all conflicts". But above all, it's a huge political project and if Bush succeeds in it, it will guarantee him posterity.
For the moment, the U.S president faces a lot of doubts from the Palestinian side.
Ariel Sharon's visit to the retreat in Texas was special, although it was his 11th meeting with George Bush, because this time, the U.S. president's tone was different, praising Israel's first minister to not expand the Jewish settlements.
This time, George Bush seemed willing to keep his promises now that the field is better prepared.
So the negotiations started and the argues as well. It will be hard to convince those who say that Bush, who asks today the Israelis to stop the expansion of West Bank Jewish settlements, is the one who allowed these same settlements in the past and said these territories are part of Israel. But for Asharq Al Awsat's editorialist, the Palestinians should wait for the propositions from both sides instead of already arguing and refusing.
The U.S administration obviously wants a solution in the Middle-East and this solution will be found only if the Palestinians cooperate. If they do, there will finally be peace in a region devastated by the conflict and Washington will have realized an additional step in fighting instability and terrorism in the region.
Posted 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
UNDP Criticism of Arabs Countries, America, and Israel
Last week the United Nations Development Program issued its third out of four reports on the human development in the Arab countries: Towards Freedom in the Arab World. The previous reports have gained much attention because of their criticism of lack of development in the Arab world. “What distinguishes this report is its courage and its impartiality,” said Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher, representing the government of Jordan at the launch event on April 5th in Jordan.
The executive summary of the report starts out with the somewhat provoking statement that “The Arab world finds itself at a historical crossroad. Caught between oppression at home and violation from abroad, Arabs are increasingly excluded from determining their own future.”
In Deadline Tuesday April 5th Danish journalist Anders Jerichow from Politiken explains: “Half a year ago the report should have been published, but the US tried to withhold it because it criticized the war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians. However, Egypt together with other Arab countries also tried to prevent the publishing because of criticism of these Arab regimes". The irony is that neither side can now convincingly claim that the report is one-sided. Further, the report is written by a distinguished panel of Arab experts and intellectuals with wide recognition in the Arab world. This fact makes it more likely that Arab critics will dare to use this report for challenging opressive regimes.
The report underscores the following immediate needs for reform in the Arab world:
1) Total respect for the key freedoms of opinion, expression and association; 2) Ending all types of marginalization and discrimination against social groups and minorities; 3) Guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary and ending reliance on military tribunals and other ‘exceptional’ courts; 4) Abolishing the ‘states of emergency’ that have become permanent features of governance in the region.Further the report claims that:
The continued occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel, the US-led occupation of Iraq and the escalation of terrorism adversely influenced Arab human development.As a result of the invasion of their country, the Iraqi people have emerged from the grip of a despotic regime that violated their basic rights and freedoms, only to fall under a foreign occupation that increased human suffering. A scientific study estimated the number of deaths associated with the invasion and the accompanying violence at around 100,000 Iraqis. Thousands of Iraqis were imprisoned and tortured. Prisoners, mostly civilians, were subjected to inhumane and immoral treatment in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons. Such mistreatment is a clear breach of the Geneva Conventions.
The occupation forces struggled to restore basic facilities but were unable to bring electricity, water and telephone services back to their pre-war levels. A US report showed that, by the end of October 2004, the occupation authority had spent only US$ 1.3 billion on reconstruction out of the US$ 18.4 billion allocated for this purpose by the US Congress, i.e. less than 7 per cent.
So, will this report make a difference? Personally, I think it might. The report comes at a critical time, where many people around the world are discussing whether a Spring of Democracy is taking place throughout the Middle East - a claim that needs to be nuanced with an assessment of the actual state of affairs. The report stresses many important steps that need to be taken by Arab countries in order to legitimize their rule. However, by criticizing Western action as well as Arab lack of willingness to reform, this report gains important legitimacy.
For many years the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been used in the Arab discourse as an excuse for not initiating reforms. On the other hand, the fact that this conflict has not been solved has created mistrust and accuses of Western double standards and hypocrisy. Hopefully, this report will help both sides of the conflict to look inward instead of just blaming the lack of development on the other part.
Posted 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2005
COMMON THREADS: Democracy Blowback?
The potential for blowback from the Bush Administration’s new democracy initiatives are surfacing as the Middle and Near East enters a critical historic juncture. On the one hand, the Iraqi parliament’s selection of a Kurd as President and a Shi’ite Muslim leader as Prime Minister can only create relief, mixed with discomfort, among those who opposed the invasion of Iraq. The war may have been brutal, ill-thought out, launched on misleading grounds, and conducted under newly heightened levels of information control, but it is hard to argue with the creation of something resembling representative government for the first time in the country’s history. The elevation into power of two groups long repressed by the Hussein regime and which together represent the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s population is a truly historic event.
But before the United States rests too long on this comforting development, cues from a more democratic Iraq and elsewhere in the region suggest potential trouble ahead, as reported on this site. Democracy can deliver surprises. A government dominated by Shi’ites, closely allied with Iran—one of the Bush Administration’s topmost ‘rogue nations—and Kurds, fierce enemies of America’s close ally Turkey—may yet have many opportunities to turn against American interests. “Are we (Americans and Europeans) ready to accept the results of democratic elections if they imply the victory of Islamists?” asks Najla Bembarek, reporting on a statement by the French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine to Le Monde. Clues that a divide between the American desire for democracy and the democratically expressed desire of the region’s new democrats are beginning to emerge not only in Iraq.
As Lubna Takruri points out the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz last week admonished the United States to steer clear of overly aggressive lobbying for democracy in Arab countries for fear of derailing the efforts through too close an association with U.S. interests. “While the Bush administration's rhetoric has hoped to equate democracy with the American way in the minds of the world, many Arab countries are leaning toward democracy on their own, as long as it doesn't mean pro-Americanism,” Takruri writes.
She quotes Ha’aretz: “To attain public legitimacy, it appears that each of these movements needs an anti-American slogan in addition to the pro-democracy slogan.”
While President Bush pushes for elections in Lebanon independent of the Syrians —which indeed would be a welcome development—cautionary notes about the U.S. democracy offensive are registering as far afield as Australia--about as distant from the roiling tensions of the Mid East as you can get. Federico Rampini reports that a majority of Australian citizens register U.S. foreign policy as a bigger threat to world peace than Islamic fundamentalism.
Ironically, it may be the Middle East, now considered a showcase for the democracy offensive of the Bush Administration, that could end up being the place where the inspirational ideas of democracy are ultimately decoupled from their historic source, the United States.
Posted 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2005
Iraqis between hate and gratitude
“Tens of thousands of followers of a rebel Shi'ite cleric have marched in Baghdad to denounce the U.S. presence in Iraq and demand a speedy trial of Saddam Hussein on the second anniversary of his overthrow.” That is how Reuters, and most western media, described the largest protest in Iraq since the January 30. Most of Arab media and Iraqi daily newspapers choose to underline the anti-American aspect of this demonstration and considered it as the prove that the anti-American sentiment is growing among all Iraqi people, chi’a and sunni, not only among Moqtada Sadr followers.
An article in Al Mada, an Iraqi newspaper, insists on the fact that people came from all over the country, on the call of many imams of mosques during the Friday prayer.
Another one quotes the president of Iraq’s Muslim Ulema Council, denouncing all forms of terrorism, the first one being the “terrorism of occupation forces”.
Al Sabah, the most read newspaper, said “Iraqi people urged for putting a timetable for the withdrawal of multi national forces and end the occupation”. Azzamman, the principal newspaper of Baghdad, is openly anti-American in its editorial, entitled “Two years after: Baghdad is an impregnable fortress”. Here are some extracts of it :
“No people can live under occupation particularly the Iraqis who, throughout ages, have fiercely resisted all forms of foreign presence on their soil(…) Two years since they landed here, there is deep frustration amongst Iraqis at the way they have dealt with Iraqi affairs. On arrival, the occupiers suspended the whole educational system, disbanded the army and turned a country of 24 million people, which had laid down the seeds of the world’s first civil society nearly 5,000 years ago, into a lawless and wild land(…)It is not surprising therefore to see Iraqis pointing the finger at the occupiers for almost all the ills they have come to suffer, including the deadliest of terror attacks. On this day, Iraqis of all hues and colors are called upon to close ranks to foil schemes being hatched to divide the nation across religious, ethnic and sectarian lines. Iraqis need to demonstrate to their occupiers that there is no way for them to advance their coups and conspiracies.”
In a former editorial, the newspaper has qualified the “U.S. ‘oppression’ harsher than Saddam Hussein’s”.
Arab media are not more lenient toward American presence in Iraq. Al Ahram weekly, an Egyptian newspaper, asks “have the two intervening years brought Iraqis freedom?” Here are some extracts of the answer of an Iraqi political scientist and a military expert:
“The occupation made things worse not better. The Iraqi leadership that came to form the ill-famed Interim Governing Council boosted the sense of ethnicity and sectarianism.”
“The decision to disband the Iraqi army, the Republican Guard, the police, and the security and intelligence services was not made at random. The decision was made on the very first day of occupation and it was an invitation to terrorists and to everyone with a grudge against the Americans to come to Iraq, so that Bush's war against terror may unfold in Iraq, away from America and its safety and security. Let the Iraqis die. Two years have passed since the occupation and no one knows how many Iraqis died’ (…) is occupation not terror? Among the definitions of terror approved by the Arab League and the UN is one that says that terror is the murder of civilians. Now the world can see US terror in action, but it does nothing about it. I do not blame the world for looking and doing nothing. The Arabs are not even looking, and when they look they do nothing.”
But not all Iraqi blame the United States for the chaos they are living in. Some try to understand what is happening to the Iraq post Saddam Hussein and take their responsibilities.
The Iraqi communist party weekly publication, Tarik Ach-chaab, analyses the “true face of what’s called the Iraqi resistance”. Instead of magnifying the resistance to the American occupation, like others, the newspaper says “a true resistance is a resistance that wants to put an end to the occupation not to give her a reason to stay longer, a resistance that builds, not destroy.”
Alrafidayn, a news website created by young Iraqis, explains that a year before American intervention in Iraq, Saddam Hussein allied with the salafist wahabist movement, letting the terrorist Abou Massab Zarkaoui settle in Iraq. Since the fall of the regime, this group is aiming to make foreign troops leave by committing terrorist acts. If the Americans withdraw, the chaos left behind will only benefit to them and they will control the country.
The journalist asks “what occupation are they talking about? The occupation officially ended with the UN resolution 1546. Why can’t we be grateful to the foreign troops who freed us from one of the worst regime humanity has seen?”
Posted 04:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 06, 2005
"Pro-Democracy, Anti-America"
In a rebuke to the notion that democracies are uniform and should get all along, Israel's Ha'Aretz writer Zvi Bar'el presents a piece examining the attempts - and sometimes movements - toward democracy in Middle Eastern and Arab countries: a place the U.S. is quick to jump in and take credit for.
While the Bush administration's rhetoric has hoped to equate democracy with the American way in the minds of the world, many Arab countries are leaning toward democracy on their own, as long as it doesn't mean pro-Americanism.
To attain public legitimacy, it appears that each of these movements needs an anti-American slogan in addition to the pro-democracy slogan.
Some Arab countries do want democracy, Bar'el says, but not always simply because of pressure from the United States. Reform movements have achieved much in recent years because protests and civil uproar have caused regimes like Egypt and Lebanon, he says, to listen up.
Without a local infrastructure of civil protest movements, the American administration could not have initiated the political protest.
He ends by implying the United States foreign policy is a naive attempt to get troublesome countries on some kind of the same system as the United States to cause a worldwide harmony of which America is the leader and teacher.
The expectation of congruency between democracy in Arab countries and an American approach may not be fulfilled. The expectation that an Arab democracy will be a magic recipe for supporting peace with Israel is even less likely to be realized. The home truth of supporters of occupation, from the Israeli right to American conservatives, that democracies do not go to war against each other, needs refining.
Pro-democracy and anti-U.S.
By Zvi Bar'el
Democracies can be the death of each other. The Arab failure to accept Israel has little to do with the absence of democracy.
Perhaps the president of Egypt would not have initiated the constitutional amendment permitting direct presidential elections had it not been for American pressure. He probably would not have released from prison the chairman of the al-Rad ("tomorrow") party either, had not Condoleezza Rice made the "administration's displeasure" clear to him. But without a local infrastructure of civil protest movements, the American administration could not have initiated the political protest.
Lebanon is an even clearer case of the administration hitching a ride on a local bandwagon. The grumbling against Syria that erupted after the Israel Defense Force's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 ripened into an almost nationwide protest, which the Lebanese call intifada, after the murder of Rafik Hariri.
Suddenly the paradox emerged. Apparently, nondemocratic regimes are more impressed by demonstrations and sometimes listen to public opinion more attentively than democratic states, which conduct their negotiations with parliamentary mediation.
The new regime the Americans have set up in Iraq, however, seems to be floundering. Two years after the beginning of the war, Iraq isn't managing to become a real state. Bickering among ethnic groups and the political divisiveness prevailing after the war are preventing even the appointment of a parliament chairman. The Kurdish district has become independent, and the "deocratic process" could breed a theocracy conceived in an American oven.
The sad part of all these examples - happily the United States is not involved in building the Palestinian democracy as well - is that the American adminstration and Bush in particular are perceived as a scourge. Reform movements in Egypt, Iran, Lebanon or Syria, whose members are ready to be killed for democracy in their country, go berserk the moment they are accused of receiving American funds or contributions.
To attain public legitimacy, it appears that each of these movements needs an anti-American slogan in addition to the pro-democracy slogan.
Egyptian sociologist and human rights activist Dr. Sa'ad Al-Din Ibrahim, who intends to contend for the office of president, is a case in point. Running with slogans similar to those of the Kafaya movement - the very symbol of objection to Mubarak's continued reign - and of the Muslim Brotherhood, he is considered a "traitor" because he has American citizenship.
The leaders of the opposition in Lebanon, who bring masses to the streets with the slogan for "liberty and democracy," are careful not to be identified as supporters of the United States. So are the reform activists in Iran.
The result borders on the absurd: To build a democracy in the Middle East, at least some reform movement leaders believe they must paint themselves with anti-American colors. One sign raised in the demonstration in Egypt said, "No to America, Yes to democracy."
The Druze leader Walid Junblatt, head of the opposition in Lebanon, called on the U.S. to stop interfering in his country's internal affairs. The active Palestinian democracy is adding Hamas and Islamic Jihad to its ranks and will not necessarily be pro-America.
The expectation of congruency between democracy in Arab countries and an American approach may not be fulfilled. The expectation that an Arab democracy will be a magic recipe for supporting peace with Israel is even less likely to be realized. The home truth of supporters of occupation, from the Israeli right to American conservatives, that democracies do not go to war against each other, needs refining.
Democracies can be the death of each other. The Arab failure to accept Israel has little to do with the absence of democracy. It has more to do with the region's shared history and especially with the continued occupation.
Posted 06:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2005
Conference on "Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism"
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, organizes a conference on "Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism: Causes and Remedies," to be held May 13-15, 2005, in Washington, D.C.
CAIR writes:
This conference will explore the root causes behind the twin phenomena of Islamophobia and anti-Americanism. To tackle these important issues, we have assembled a group of leading experts, including university professors, authors, researchers, community activists, and faith-based leaders. The conference is expected to initiate serious dialogue on both issues and will also seek positive and practical solutions.
Posted 04:37 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2005
Demonstrations against the War in Iraq
Two years after the American-led invasion of Iraq, people from many parts of the world went to the streets protesting, but not in as large numbers as in 2003. The demonstrations in Europe were larger than in the United States, and the European protesters received much more media coverage too. The overall tendency – apart from in the U.S. – was that the largest demonstrations took place in countries involved in the war coalition.
Sunday March 20th The New York Times reports that “Beyond New York and San Francisco, protests unfolded in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Diego and what organizers said were 725 other cities and towns … Numbers were hard to gauge, but it seemed likely that tens of thousands took part across America”. Only late in the article by McFadden, the European demonstrations are mentioned:
In Europe, the gatherings were also modest compared to the 2003 protests. But 45,000 people marched in London in the day's largest protest. In Istanbul, Turkey, 15,000 demonstrated. In Spain, protests unfolded in nine cities, including Madrid and Barcelona. About 3,000 demonstrators halted traffic in Athens, and there were protests in Rome, Oslo, Stockholm and other cities.
In Denmark, 3-4,000 people gathered in Copenhagen, according to Berlingske Tidende. Denmark is participating in the war with close to 500 soldiers. Like in most other war coalition countries, the Danish presence in Iraq has been welcomed by the right wing parties and media, but criticized by the left wing parties and media. The disagreement about Iraq is on-going and was also obvious in the media’s coverage of the demonstrations. The conflict mainly regards when to withdraw the troops, where the left wing argues for a quick withdrawal.
The moderate/right wing newspapers embraced the Danish military effort: “Iraq is moving toward freedom and democracy. That is why we need to stay” and “the coalition must stay, not for symbolic reasons, and not for eternity, but in order to finish the job”, the editorial of Berlingske Tidende stated. “To set a date for a Danish withdrawal of troops would not only be naïve, but also a give-away to the terrorist forces trying to get us out”, said Jyllands-Posten.
The left wing newspaper Information is very critical to the war and the Danish participation in the occupation: “Silvio Berlusconi’s statement about a beginning Italian withdrawal was Thursday followed by the Bulgarian government’s decision about a downsizing and later possible withdrawal from the military operation. If they both leave, Blair and Fogh [the Danish prime minister] will be the only Europeans with troops in Iraq”. The editorial quotes a poll saying that 85 percent of the Iraqis want the US-led troops out as soon as possible, and continues: “The Americans have removed Hussein, but by their continued presence they infringe the Iraqis’ pride and are in the eyes of many actually causing the continued insurgency and terror”. And finally: “For the dead civilian Iraqis there is no doubt. Their human rights were definitively violated by an invading army with false reasons and mixed motives. That can never be called just”.
In the evening television news TV-Avisen, a Danish protester was asked “Do you think Bush is listening to your complaints?”, and the answer was a quick and obvious “no, of course not” followed by laughter. But the demonstrator hoped that his march against the war would make an impact on the Danish prime minister.
In my opinion, this last remark by the protester indicates an important aspect of the world-wide demonstrations. People are not necessarily protesting in order to make Bush change his mind, but to make their national government change policies toward Iraq. This might also explain why the demonstrations seem to be larger in countries with troops in Iraq. The implicit argument is that “the U.S. does not listen to us, so we can’t make Bush change his mind, but our own country should not be part of this unjust war, and that is why our troops should be withdrawn”. Or in other words, maybe the demonstrations were more directed towards participation in the war than they were directed towards the war as such?
Posted 09:25 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2005
Hitler's writing popular in Turkey, blamed for Anti-Americanism
Are the books people read indicative of the country's ideological and political persuasions? The Associated Press speculates whether the growing sales of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" is correlated to alleged anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in Turkey.
In the Jerusalem Post, ('Mein Kampf' interest blamed on xenophobia, media), the AP reports
New paperback versions of "Mein Kampf" have suddenly become top sellers in Turkey, raising questions about whether the sales reflect growing anti-Semitism and anti-American sentiment in this Muslim country, or if it's just curiosity and a cheap read.
Specifically, the attempt to draw a cause-and-effect relationship comes from Lina Filiba, executive vice president of Turkey's Jewish Community. He called the newfound popularity of Hitler's book "disturbing," but admitted to the fact that the book is also getting media attention and is low-priced to the curious masses.
He also linked the anti-semetic, anti-foreigner, and anti-American feelings to the December 17th decision by the European Union to open membership talks with Turkey.
In the Turkish online Zaman Times, however, the author points to the ambivalence of Turkish-American relations and sentiment within Turkey and its officials.
Lina Filiba, executive vice president of Turkey's Jewish Community, said on Friday that the new popularity of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" in Turkey is "disturbing," but added that price and curiosity due to prominent media attention were major factors.
New paperback versions of "Mein Kampf" have suddenly become top sellers in Turkey, raising questions about whether the sales reflect growing anti-Semitism and anti-American sentiment in this Muslim country, or if it's just curiosity and a cheap read.
Filiba said the sales were part of a "worrying trend" with anti-Semitic publications - such as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a 19th-century anti-Semitic tract - on sale even in bustling department stores.
"I think there's an increase in anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-foreigner feeling that have paralleled (the) December 17th decision by the European Union to open membership talks with Turkey, Filiba said.
The country's top seller, "Metal Storm," is a novel about a fictional war between Turkey and the United States. Conspiracy theory books are popular sellers and the press is extremely critical of the United States and Israel.
Posted 07:51 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
Pro- and anti-Syrian, but decidedly anti-American
Amid the chaos of anti-Syrian (and pro-Syrian)demonstrations in Beirut, protestors took their fist-shaking and chanting to the door of the United States Embassy, burning American and Israeli flags.
US government-funded Voice of America reports that a crowd including Hezbullah and pro-Syrian figures demanded the end of American meddling in Lebanese affairs and one speaker called for the removal of U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman.
Reuters reports that the demonstration was comprised of about 3,000 students and was organized by pro-Syrian people against the international presssure the U.S. put on Syrian forces to withdraw.
"Don't interfere, leave us alone, we don't want your fake democracy that we saw ... in Iraq ... through your massacres and human rights breaches there ... and in Palestine through your support to Israeli massacres," one speaker said at the rally.
During Tuesday's protests at the U.S. embassy, reports came of Syrian intelligence forces leaving Beirut. They are the last trace of Syria's military presence in Beirut.
The Lebanese Daily Star's coverage is Here .
Reuters:
BEIRUT, March 15 (Reuters) - Around 3,000 pro-Syrian students chanting "Death to America" marched on the U.S. embassy near Beirut on Tuesday, burning American and Israeli flags and denouncing what they said was U.S. interference in Lebanon.
Waving Lebanese flags, the crowd chanted: "Ambassador leave, keep our country free", in reference to Washington's envoy to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman.
The United States has led international pressure that forced Syria this month to announce a two-stage pullout from Lebanon.
"Don't interfere, leave us alone, we don't want your fake democracy that we saw ... in Iraq ... through your massacres and human rights breaches there ... and in Palestine through your support to Israeli massacres," one speaker said at the rally.
Scores of Lebanese soldiers and riot police, backed by armoured personnel carriers, had deployed around the embassy complex in Awkar, north of the capital, and put up metal barricades and barbed wire to keep the crowd away.
Soldiers had taken up positions on rooftops of surrounding buildings, but there were no clashes with protesters.
The march was organised by Syrian-backed political parties including the Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah guerrilla group.
It follows huge rival rallies over the past month by loyalists and opponents of Syria's dominant role in Lebanon.
"We are against the American onslaught on the region," said a protester who identified himself only as Haitham.
"We are against foreign interference," another student said.
Posted 06:04 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
Improving the image of the U.S. abroad
Karen Hughes’s nomination as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy shows President Bush’s interest for improving perceptions of the U.S. in the world, and the difficulties he is facing.
In an article published… by the Christian Science Monitor Linda Feldman writes:
The White House sought in its Monday announcement to highlight Hughes's foreign experience, such as accompanying Bush on foreign trips and working to promote women's rights in Afghanistan, but no one is pretending that foreign affairs is her forte. And two years after a US- dominated coalition invaded Iraq, hurting America's image throughout much of the world, Hughes will face a tougher audience than any in Texas or the bluest of blue Democratic states.
Her two predecessors in the post - advertising executive Charlotte Beers and Margaret Tutwiler, a onetime aide to former Secretary of State James Baker - both left with limited records of accomplishment.
But, analysts say, don't count out Hughes before she begins, particularly as recent elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories have given Bush's vision for Middle Eastern democracy a boost.
Skepticism exists on the conservative side too. For the Heritage Foundation, for example:
Instead of crafting campaign messages—for which she has a knack—Karen Hughes will have to leverage her influence with the President to clean up a botched merger at a time when challenges in foreign communication are the greatest since the beginning of the Cold War. Moreover, she will have to buck those in the Administration who think effective public diplomacy is repeating a slogan slowly and loudly enough until the audience “gets it.”
In fact the Heritage Foundation demands not less than a complete overhaul of Public Diplomacy. Among other advices it suggests that:
[...]she should urge the White House to establish a public diplomacy coordinator position at the National Security Council to put other agencies with missions like information warfare, media development, and foreign broadcasting in sync.
It would be interesting if that meant that conservatives open themselves to the very liberal notion of “Soft Power” promoted by Joseph Nye.
Reactions abroad (where Hughes is not really famous yet)are still slow to come, and came in a trickle.
“Propaganda War Gets a New General” is the title of a dispatch from Inter Press Service. IPS presents itself as “civil society's leading news agency, […] an independent voice from the South and for development, delving into globalization for the stories underneath. It’s headquarter is in Rome, Italy.
The story quotes an American Middle East specialist:
”You need someone who knows something serious about the Middle East publics and is willing to engage them on their terms,” Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan and an authority on the Middle East, told IPS.
”Ms. Hughes could be effective, but she needs to get good advice from non-toady Arabs and others. There is also the question of how much you can dress up the U.S. support for Israeli occupation and annexation of Muslim lands or the U.S. heavy-handedness in Iraq. PR without policy changes is most often not very effective.”
Posted 05:06 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2005
Survey on Arab Views of America
I recently came across a 2003 survey on Arab public opinion toward the United States. Shibley Telhami (Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution), prepared the survey for Zogby International, which interviewed 2,620 men and women in Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan. The study, “A View from the Arab World: A Survey in Five Countries”, was conducted between February 19 and March 11, 2003.
In a summary of the survey’s findings, Telhami reports:
On attitudes toward the U.S.
Very few people in the survey countries have a favorable opinion of the United States: Only 4% in Saudi Arabia, 6% in Morocco and Jordan, 13% in Egypt, and 32% in Lebanon.Most people say that their attitudes toward the U.S. are based on American policies, not on American values.
On U.S. policy abroad
On the issue of U.S. policy in Iraq, an overwhelming percentage feel that American policy is motivated mainly by oil and secondarily by U.S. support for Israel. Specifically,97% of Saudis, 91% of Lebanese, 87% of Jordanians, 93% of Moroccans and 77% of Egyptians feel that oil is an extremely important issue in motivating U.S. policy toward Iraq. More than three-quarters of Saudis and Jordanians say Israel is an extremely important issue in determining U.S. policy in Iraq, followed by 72% of Moroccans and over 50% of Egyptians and Lebanese.On the issue of U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli dispute, the majority feel that U.S. policy is motivated by support for Israel and oil. Nearly three-fourths of all respondents feel that both Israel and oil are extremely important factors in U.S. policy.
On leaders
Outside leaders admired most:
Jacques Chirac was often mentioned as one of the most admired leaders.Figures (past/present) admired most:
Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, who died in 1970, ranked first in all five countries.
Nelson Mandela ranked second in most countries.
Click here to access the full report on Arab views of America.
Posted 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2005
Elation and bafflement in Italy
The liberation of Italian Journalist Giuliana Sgrena by her Iraqi kidnappers and the accidental killing of secret service agent Nicola Calipari triggered emotions that might influence the perception of the US in that country.
The titles of two of the most important Italian newspapers are revealing.
The middle of the road Corriere della Sera highlights the fact that the US have declared it was “a mistake”.
The more liberal La Repubblica writes that Calipari was killed by “friendly fire from the USA.” (The screenshots were taken slightly before 8 AM local time on Saturday March 5th).
In the following hours, a significant place has been given to Bush’s phone call to Berlusconi, and to the accidental nature of Calipari’s death.
Nevertheless, the whole sequence might have an impact on perceptions of the US in this European country whose government is a close ally of George Bush while the population does not favor the war in Iraq.
Posted 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2005
Turkey - Can public opinion affect the relations between two states?
It is tempting to say “no”, and this might be taken as a satisfying answer in traditional circles. In today’s world though, with the growing impact of democracies, and the emergence of everyday more powerful civil societies it looks insufficient and potentially dangerous.
Let’s take the case of Turkey on the basis of a fascinating story published yesterday by the Turkish Daily News about the tensions between Ankara and Washington.
Turkish public opinion is not favorable explains TDN. Iraq is a great cause of concern.
[...] religious Turks, […] are infuriated by what they see as the persecution of Sunnis in Iraq. Secular Turks, for their part, are frustrated by what they perceive as American efforts to pave the way to the creation of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
As usual, it can take some exacerbated forms:
Some eccentric Turkish newspaper reports even blamed the United States for the tsunami that hit southern Asia late last year, killing more than 250,000 people. Accusations ranged from "causing the tsunami with a secret nuclear test" to deliberately failing to inform the region's people in time.
Also, Turkey's new best-selling novel, “Metal Storm,” although it is pure fiction, highlights the deep fear and anger that many Turks feel toward the United States. The book is about a U.S. invasion of Turkey in 2007.
100,000 copies of “Metal Storm” have been sold since its publication in December. It strikes a chord with Turkish fears, and is said to be cautiously read by political and military leaders (according to this story published in Middle East Times.)
Could all this alter the relation between Ankara and Washington? TDN is very ambiguous about that.
Nothing seems to have changed behind the scene except for some tension at the beginning of each bilateral meeting. The “fundamental of ties between Ankara and Washington remain unchanged” in particular in the military cooperation field.
This is traditional diplomacy in tense situation. And a Turkish Foreign Ministry official went further when, according to TDN, he commented that:
“The anti-American sentiment in the Turkish public opinion has very limited leverage on the government. Has anyone ever seen a fundamental change in historic ties between two states because of negative public sentiment?”
In fact US officials seem to have a different view and they let it be known. They complain about the media, and, according to TDN:
remarks by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy […] made a major impact in Ankara. “It's crucial,” said Feith, “that the appreciation of our relationships extend beyond government officials down to the public in general, because otherwise the relationship is really not sustainable ... We hope that officials in our partner countries are going to be devoting the kind of effort to building popular support for the relationship that we build in our own country.”
Feith’s understanding of how a government should deal with public opinion may be a subject of interesting controversies, but it clearly reveals that the US administration is paying attention to anti-Bush, and anti-American sentiments in the world.
Politicians, diplomats and scholars who see the world in terms of Realpolitik may still believe that public opinion does not matter much in state to state relations. They cannot ignore the fact that it is a cause of serious concern for the most powerful of them.
The US government is learning that even with unchallenged military power it cannot ignore the feelings of the people abroad. That is becoming a fact of international relations that everybody will have to adjust to. And we might discover on the way that civil society is becoming a major actor of foreign relations.
Posted 04:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
The Economist (Part I): Special Report on Anti-Americanism
This week's print issue of the Economist (Feb. 19-25, 2005) has a three-page analysis of world perceptions of America and Americans, in the aftermath of two recent polls (one conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, previously discussed here; and another from the BBC). The article is premium content, but the site sometimes runs free-access days sponsored by advertisers (as is the case today, Feb. 22). In any case, it's an intelligent, well-written analysis of the current state of anti-Americanism around the globe -- well worth locating in print if you can’t get it online. (Excerpts inside.)
Though anti-Americanism spans the globe, the phenomenon is not everywhere the same. It mutates according to local conditions, and it is seldom straightforward.
No wonder. Most people's feelings about America are complicated. "America," after all, is shorthand for many other terms: the Bush administration, a Republican-dominated Congress, Hollywood, a source of investment, a place to go to study, a land of economic opportunity, a big regional power, the big world power, a particular policy, the memory of something once done by the United States, a set of political values based on freedom, democracy and economic liberalism, and so on. It is easy to be for some of these and against others, and some may wax or wane in importance according to time, circumstance, propaganda or wishful thinking. So it should be no surprise that some people can hold two apparently contradictory views of America at once. The incandescent third-world demonstrator, shrieking "Down with America!" in one breath and "Can you get me a green card?" in the next, has become a commonplace.
The piece begins with France, which it calls "the locus classicus of anti-Americanism." One source of anti-Americanism here, the author writes, is
the rivalry between France and America, based on their remarkably similar self-images; the two countries both think they invented the rights of man, have a unique calling to spread liberty round the world and hold a variety of other attributes that make them utterly and admirably exceptional. Jealousy also plays a part ... French anti-Americanism tends to rise when France has just suffered a setback of some kind, whether a defeat at the hands of the Germans, a drubbing in Algeria or the breakdown of the Fourth Republic.
The author then goes through many of the world's nations, from Angola to Vietnam, examining the state of anti-Americanism and identifying underlying causes in each:
In Iran, for example, anti-Americanism is a tool exploited by the regime "to divert attention from its many failures."
In Indonesia, it’s "largely an armchair affair."
The piece concludes by pointing out that recent polls show anti-Americanism in many cases may have much to do with the reelection of George W. Bush and policies specific to the current administration, then saying:
That is the, perhaps short-term, view of some non-Americans. It is accompanied by another view, increasingly common among pundits, which holds that America is losing its allure as a model society. Whereas much of the rest of the world once looked to the United States as a beacon, it is argued, non-Americans are now turning away. Democrats in Europe and elsewhere who once thought religiosity, a belief in capital punishment and rank hostility to the United Nations were intermittent or diminishing features of the United States now see them as rising and perhaps permanent. Such feelings have been fortified by Mr Bush’s doctrine of preventive war, Guantánamo, opposition to the world criminal court and a host of other international agreements. One way or another, it is said, people are turning off America, not so much to hate it as to look for other examples to follow—even Europe’s. If true, that could be even more insulting to Americans than the rise in the familiar anti-Americanism of yesteryear.
Posted 02:08 PM | Comments (1)
February 21, 2005
Bush and Chirac prefer Syria
On the very day in which both Presidents were expected to meet Le Monde, the French Daily published a long, and useful article summarizing the history of the relationships between George Bush and Jacques Chirac.
French have tried to mend fences for a while. The White House has more recently decided that in order to improve the relationship with Europe, it needed to make a gesture towards Chirac.
By temperament both men could find common ground, but the French President has to learn not to constantly remind his counterpart that he has been in politics for 50 years. The “been there, done that” approach is not the best way to please the confident most powerful man in the world.
Bush and Chirac are not coming together out of love, but obviously out of reason. The best advice given to them was not to talk about Iraq.
From the result of their meeting it appears they get along much better when dealing with Lebanon, and Syria.
Bush, Chirac sourire de rigueur
LE MONDE | 21.02.05 | 15h08
D'Abidjan à Bagdad en passant par Paris, les dessous de la nouvelle donne franco-américaine.
Juin 2004 : à la veille du soixantième l'anniversaire du débarquement allié en Normandie, George W. Bush, qui dit apprécier qu'on lui parle franchement comme le fait Jacques Chirac, promet d'inviter son homologue français à "venir voir les vaches" dans son ranch de Crawford (Texas). Aujourd'hui, si George Bush n'a pas encore mis à exécution sa promesse de présenter les vaches américaines au président français, leur rencontre de Bruxelles, lundi 21 février, semble ouvrir un nouveau chapitre dans les relations entre les deux hommes.
Certes, il y a déjà eu, depuis l'intervention en Irak au printemps 2003, des poignées de main et des sourires en public et on a toujours affirmé, de part et d'autre, que les désaccords d'un moment n'entamaient en rien "l'amitié séculaire entre les deux pays". Les retrouvailles de Bruxelles suscitent ainsi un certain sentiment de "déjà vu", teinté de scepticisme.
C'est que l'on ne passe pas aussi aisément de l'incitation au "french-bashing" (le dénigrement antifrançais, en vogue ces dernières années aux Etats-Unis) à la familiarité affichée avec celui qui fut parfois considéré, à la Maison Blanche, comme un traître, en tout cas comme le plus gênant des alliés européens. Il y faut quelques préalables. Le principal ? La décision prise à Washington de changer de politique envers l'Europe. Cela passe par un réchauffement avec Paris, à la faveur du réexamen général qui a eu lieu à Washington au début du second mandat présidentiel. Le dîner de Bruxelles, lundi 21 février, devrait donc être, cette fois pour de bon, la première page du "nouveau chapitre" franco-américain.
La cordialité enveloppante de Jacques Chirac est tout à fait capable de surmonter les désaccords du moment et de s'abattre sur le président américain. Si les plaisanteries un peu lourdes de celui-ci font moyennement rire à l'Elysée, Jacques Chirac montre qu'il ne déteste pas le côté texan de son homologue. "La relation Bush-Chirac n'est pas si mauvaise, confirme un conseiller de la Maison Blanche. Ils ont tous les deux le contact facile. Mais dès qu'ils parlaient de l'Irak, ça tournait à la catastrophe."
Du côté américain, on espérait que le président français saurait trouver le ton adéquat. "Chirac a un côté "je connais le dossier, cela fait cinquante ans que je fais ce métier" qui est agaçant, confie un responsable américain. Il faut trouver moyen de faire comprendre ça à Bush sans avoir l'air de le lui dire." Le changement de disposition de l'un envers l'autre est beaucoup plus le fait de Washington que celui de Paris. Car il y a longtemps que la France cherche à renouer une coopération utile avec Washington et elle y est d'ailleurs parvenue, de façon sectorielle, sur de nombreux dossiers d'intérêt commun.
Reste à évacuer de la relation, sinon la méfiance, du moins la défiance, à la purger des séquelles revanchistes, à éviter les escarmouches à propos de l'Irak. L'important effort consenti par la France au sujet de la dette irakienne est aujourd'hui reconnu par les Américains, qui ont cessé de lui réclamer un engagement militaire. Les élections du 30 janvier en Irak, même si elles n'ont pas marqué la fin de l'histoire, ont aidé à "remettre le compteur à zéro" sur ce sujet-là, note un diplomate français
Ce qui a évolué, ce ne sont pas les convictions politiques des deux présidents, leurs conceptions antagoniques des relations internationales. "Sur le fond, la politique n'a pas changé, confirme un responsable français, ce sont les circonstances qui ont changé." George Bush a été réélu, en novembre 2004, pour quatre ans. Sa politique a été largement validée par ses concitoyens, et il y croit. Il n'y a donc pas de raison qu'il en change et il faudra bien faire avec. Mais il ne lui donne plus le tour guerrier qu'elle avait pris lors du premier mandat. Il entend la mener par d'autres moyens, notamment, si l'on en juge par ses déclarations récentes, par la concertation avec l'Union européenne.
Ce qui a changé, c'est aussi la situation au Proche-Orient depuis la mort de Yasser Arafat, le 11 novembre 2004, et la nécessité d'un consensus euro-américain (car, entre Européens, il existe) pour faire fructifier les perspectives ainsi ouvertes. "Dans la relation franco-américaine, le cercle rouge, c'est le Proche-Orient, assure un diplomate français, c'est le baromètre, ce qui fait basculer dans un sens ou dans l'autre."
Parallèlement, l'affaire iranienne est devenue un sujet grandissant de préoccupation commune. Les Européens tentent d'obtenir, par les voies de la diplomatie, un renoncement de Téhéran à l'arme nucléaire. George Bush a répété qu'il "encourage" cette démarche des Européens, mais il ne s'y est pas associé. Selon un expert français, cette distance, maintenue par les Etats-Unis pour sous-entendre qu'ils ne s'interdisent pas de recourir à d'autres moyens contre Téhéran, "est surtout publicitaire". La démarche européenne, selon lui, rend service aux Américains, dans la mesure où, pour l'instant, ils n'ont pas de stratégie de rechange, en tout cas "pas d'option militaire sur l'Iran". Selon d'autres experts, George Bush attendrait de ses rencontres avec les Européens qu'ils se disent disposés à porter le sujet au Conseil de sécurité en vue de sanctions contre l'Iran, et la France aurait fait savoir qu'elle y était prête.
Sur ces sujets, Paris ne joue pas une partition différente de celle des autres Européens. En outre, la France a pris seule, ces dernières années, diverses initiatives pour lesquelles elle a sollicité et obtenu l'appui des Etats-Unis et qui prouvent que tout n'était pas brisé dans cette relation bilatérale, même aux pires moments. Il y eut l'affaire haïtienne, en avril 2004, une opération expédiée en moins de deux semaines pour forcer au départ le président Aristide.
Ce "coup" a été monté conjointement par le ministre français des affaires étrangères, Dominique de Villepin, et son homologue américain, Colin Powell, à l'initiative du premier. Mais, un mois plus tard, M. de Villepin quittait le quai d'Orsay pour le ministère de l'intérieur. A-t-il fait les frais d'une volonté d'apaisement qui déjà existait à Paris, bien qu'en étant partisan ? Aux Etats-Unis, il avait rang de vedette mais, hormis au secrétariat d'Etat, plutôt en tant qu'ennemi numéro un. Côté français, on dément que son départ ait obéi à une exigence américaine, mais "c'est peut-être la conclusion que nous en avons tirée tout seuls", dit un responsable français.
La crise ivoirienne, en novembre 2004, est l'un des autres terrains où la France a trouvé l'appui américain. Sur place, l'ambassadeur des Etats Unis à Abidjan a toujours refusé de se prêter au jeu que tentaient de lui faire jouer les partisans du président ivoirien Laurent Gbagbo sur le thème de "vive l'Amérique, à bas la France".
A l'ONU, la France attendra, il est vrai, pendant des mois, une décision du Conseil de sécurité pour l'envoi de Casques bleus en Côte d'Ivoire, ce que certains interpréteront comme une forme de revanchisme de Washington. Les Français jurent, à l'inverse, qu'il ne s'agissait que de problèmes budgétaires au Congrès et font valoir que le soutien américain à la politique française en Côte d'Ivoire a été à plusieurs reprises clairement réitéré.
La coopération franco-américaine s'est développée dans d'autres domaines : la lutte contre le terrorisme ; l'opération menée conjointement en Afghanistan ; ou, encore, l'action entreprise de concert au Conseil de sécurité à propos du Liban et qu'a relancé dernièrement l'assassinat de Rafic Hariri, l'homme d'affaire et ancien premier ministre libanais, tué à Beyrouth le 14 février. "Cela remonte à deux ans, à la déception qu'a été pour nous Bachar El-Assad -le président syrien-", explique un responsable français. C'est en juin 2004, a précisé George Bush, que Jacques Chirac évoque avec lui l'idée d'une résolution de l'ONU pour demander le départ des troupes syriennes du Liban. Les Américains, eux, cherchaient depuis des mois à mobiliser le Conseil de sécurité contre la Syrie, moins pour défendre le processus politique au Liban qu'en raison du soutien de Damas au Hezbollah (mouvement chiite pro-syrien) et de son manque de zèle contre l'insurrection irakienne. Les intérêts différents des deux pays se croisent et la résolution 1559, demandant le retrait des troupes syriennes, est adoptée en septembre 2004. George Bush est alors en pleine période électorale. De part et d'autre, on observe une sorte de pacte de non-agression, en attendant les résultats.
Depuis le début 2004, Paris réfléchit à un "recadrage" de sa politique en direction de Washington, qui puisse servir en cas de victoire ou de défaite de Bush à la présidentielle. Premier temps fort : l'anniversaire du Débarquement en juin. Jacques Chirac organise une mise en scène solennelle en Normandie, en hommage à l'acte fondateur de l'Alliance atlantique. Ce n'est pas sans arrière-pensée : s'il apparaît que quelqu'un a "trahi", ce sera Bush. C'est bien ce que pense le public français, mais pas les Américains, auxquels George Bush destine la plupart de ses propos au cours de la conférence de presse qu'il donne avec Jacques Chirac à l'Elysée. Le président américain ne songe qu'au rendez-vous avec ses électeurs, cinq mois plus tard.
En dépit de la volonté française de recentrage sur les "fondamentaux" de l'Alliance, l'Irak continue d'empoisonner l'atmosphère. Les revers américains dans ce pays ont, à ce moment-là, l'allure d'une catastrophe, aggravée par le scandale des tortures infligées par des soldats américains à des détenus irakiens, une affaire révélée par la presse américaine en mai 2004. Les Français s'obligent à ne pas faire remarquer qu'ils avaient raison dès le début, mais ils persistent à penser - et à dire - que la seule chance de sortir du chaos passe par le retrait des forces étrangères. En juin 2004, lors du sommet du G8 de Sea Island (Etats-Unis), puis à celui de l'OTAN, à Istanbul, le président français apparaît, une fois encore, comme le détracteur quasi systématique de son homologue américain.
Pourtant, le 20 août, le conseiller diplomatique de Jacques Chirac, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, rencontre Condoleezza Rice à Washington. "Nous avions analysé très tôt la situation, nous voulions envoyer un signal", commente un haut fonctionnaire. Le candidat démocrate John Kerry a refait son retard dans les sondages, mais les Français tiennent à faire savoir que, contrairement aux apparences, ils ne misent pas tout sur une victoire démocrate. Un autre temps fort de la stratégie française sera le discours prononcé par Jacques Chirac devant l'Institut d'études stratégiques (IISS) de Londres, en novembre, dans lequel le président énoncera sa doctrine en faisant une large part à un renforcement de l'Alliance atlantique.
Tout cela, à divers titres, a préparé la rencontre du 21 février à Bruxelles. Les responsables français veulent croire à la détente mais ils sont circonspects. Par moments, en effet, la crise a été sévère. Au point que certains Américains, estimant qu'elle allait trop loin, tentèrent d'intercéder, comme le sénateur démocrate Joseph Biden, qui a ses entrées à l'Elysée et à la Maison Blanche. Le Nouvel Observateur du 17 février a rapporté sa tentative de médiation, en décembre 2003, et le malentendu auquel elle avait donné lieu, le sénateur ayant cru comprendre que M. Chirac n'était "pas opposé à une mission militaire de l'OTAN en Irak".
Peu après, le Pentagone excluait des contrats pour la reconstruction de l'Irak les entreprises des pays n'ayant pas participé à la coalition. Effet de cette mesure ou pas, le président français, pendant des mois, s'est bagarré contre toute implantation de l'OTAN en Irak et, plus généralement, dans ce que les Américains appellent le "Grand Moyen-Orient".
Après le 2 novembre 2004, Chirac envoie une lettre de félicitations à George Bush, mais ne trouve pas le temps de lui téléphoner. Le 6 novembre, la Maison Blanche s'impatiente. Dan Fried, le conseiller pour l'Europe, appelle Jean David Levitte, l'ambassadeur de France à Washington. "Le président Bush souhaite appeler votre président." Avec un art consommé de la diplomatie, l'ambassadeur répond : "On vient de m'appeler de l'Elysée pour la même chose." Fin de la période acrimonieuse. Le 1er février, George Bush prend son téléphone pour commenter, avec M. Chirac, les élections de la veille en Irak. Le dîner à Bruxelles est annoncé quelques jours plus tard.
Corinne Lesnes et Claire Tréan
• ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 22.02.05
Posted 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2005
Why many Iranians are pro-Americans and pro-Bush
Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman, and many others keep saying that pro-American feelings are very strong in Iran. A presidential Poll organized by the BBC last year even showed that 52% of Iranians favored Bush over Kerry.
There are many reasons to these feelings that differ from perceptions elsewhere in the world: access to satellite television, opposition to the anti-American regime, and support for a peaceful transition in Iran by Republicans, among others.
They are well explained in an entry titled “Persians Push for Bush” published on two Iranian opposition sites (Regime Change Iran, and Persian Journal.
Posted 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
Why many Iranians are pro-Americans and pro-Bush
Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman, and many others keep saying that pro-American feelings are very strong in Iran. A presidential Poll organized by the BBC last year even showed that 52% of Iranians favored Bush over Kerry.
There are many reasons to these feelings that differ from perceptions elsewhere in the world: access to satellite television, opposition to the anti-American regime, and support for a peaceful transition in Iran by Republicans, among others.
They are well explained in an entry titled “Persians Push for Bush” published on two Iranian opposition sites (Regime Change Iran, and Persian Journal.
Posted 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2005
Anti-U.S. Rally in Tehran
Is the phrase "Death to America" more nuanced than it seems?
Last week, the NewsHour's Margaret Warner spoke with reporter Elizabeth Farnsworth (streaming video and audio clips also available), who reported on a rally in Tehran to protest the United States' attitude toward nuclear development in Iran. At the protest, Iranian president Mohammad Khatami delivered a " blistering warning to the U.S.," saying "Iran will turn into a burning hell for the aggressors if, God forbid, there were an aggression."
Despite snowy conditions, Iranians (encouraged by the government) turned out in the thousands to express their anger at Washington. Farnsworth said:
[W]e were sounded by people chanting, "Death to America, death to America." One man said, "Look at all the people coming. This is their revolution. Our fathers started and our children will follow with this revolution."
"Death to America." The sentiment contained therein couldn't be any clearer, right?
Well, maybe not. At the end of her report, Farnsworth described what happened when the cameras and microphones were turned off:
People surrounded us at one point, maybe twenty or thirty people as we were walking in, and chanted and yelled. And, you know, there were effigies of Uncle Sam and there was a lot of passion. But when that was all over, several people would sort of smile and say, "welcome" and "hello" and "where are you from?"
And one man said, "You know, we're saying death to America, but we're not really against Americans," he said, "we're really just against the CIA" and he was smiling at us as he said this.
It would be interesting to be able to quantify how much this sentiment is shared on the streets of the Arab world. My guess is that most Americans, seeing footage like this, would readily think "Gosh, they sure hate us." But if this report is to be believed, fiery slogans like this can often be hyperbolic, a rhetorical way of calling attention to policy disagreements -- and not sincere calls for the slaughter of U.S. citizens.
Posted 04:16 PM | Comments (0)