Abu Ghraib: Inexplicable Arab Silence, Linda S. Heard

Abu Ghraib: Inexplicable Arab Silence

Linda S. Heard

Arab News

CAIRO, 4 May 2004 — With cruel and disgusting pictures of Iraq prisoners splashed over our front pages and across TV screens, we are told there is outrage in the Arab world. Those photographs taken in Abu Ghraib prison — infamous during Saddam’s tenure — are so abhorrent many of the Arabs I’ve spoken with cannot even bear to look at them. But where is the outrage? Where are the cries of fury from Arab leaders as opposed to comparatively mild rebukes?

Do those photographs give those who have thrown in their lot with the United States pause for thought?

How do they feel about seeing their Arab brethren naked and hooded while cigarette puffing, grinning female soldiers gleefully pose for snaps to show the boys back home? Do those who handed over great swathes of their country to American troops ever doubt the wisdom of their actions?

The truth is we don’t know because they aren’t saying.

So how about the American public? How do they feel when they hear of their nation’s finest placing electrodes on the flesh of hooded prisoners, setting attack dogs on them, spraying them with acid and forcing them into humiliating and degrading sexual poses? Not much apparently. Their media doesn’t want to offend the sensibilities of American women and children and apart from CBS and a few others, have virtually buried the story.

Instead, their outrage is reserved for flag-draped caskets returning home and the deaths of four “civilian contractors” aka Blackwater mercenaries. Their anger centers on the sight of the Iraqi former Republican Guard — dressed in his old uniform complete with jaunty cap — who walzed into Fallujah, given the key of the town by the retreating Marines.

He’s already upset those who contend they still lead the show by announcing an absence of foreign fighters in that beleaguered town — a statement which flies in the face of their propaganda pundits. “What next?” ask the offended American public. “Will Saddam be returned to his palace?”

Frankly, as we see these days, there is little difference between Saddam’s brutality and the callous way the “coalition of the billing” is treating the Iraqi people. As their invading armies thundered in under the false pretext that Iraq had WMD — stopping now and again for a photo-op with smiling children — some Iraqis felt there were better days to come. Once “Shock and Awe” resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands was over, they promised democracy and freedom, free speech and security. Iraq was to be a shining example of the neocon vision: A greater Middle East. But have they delivered?

They’ve toppled Saddam’s statues, taken his head off the Iraqi currency and come up with a new flag, strangely reminiscent of Israel’s.

They’ve brought in miniature armies of overpaid soldiers of fortune, US administration crony companies and oil wallahs. They’ve flown in Iraqi exiles, many of whom having been living in luxury courtesy of the American taxpayer for decades, to form a puppet council and planned the world’s biggest US Embassy to be presided over by John D. Negroponte, whose murky reputation in Honduras goes before him. They’ve closed down Iraqi newspapers; threatened Arabic networks for reporting the facts on the ground and managed to unite the Sunni and Shiite communities as never before against a common enemy.

They killed over 600 in Fallujah, including women and children, obstructed the injured from receiving medical care and leveled schools and homes. In short, they have thrust Iraq into misery and chaos with seeming impunity.

As I wait for the inevitable e-mails accusing me of concentrating on the negative or failing to point out a solution, I will say this: I am personally sickened by the behavior of American and British troops in Iraq apparently with the compliance of Military Intelligence. The solution is simple. The coalition of the billing should get out before it does any more damage to a proud and noble people whose history stretches back to the beginning of time when we in Britain were still painting ourselves blue and the US didn’t exist.

Instead, the entire fiasco should be handed over to the United Nations to sort out and put into the capable hands of Lakhdar Brahimi who at least has the guts to speak out, even if his criticisms of Israel did cause the everdiplomatic Kofi Annan some embarrassment. Once this is done, the world — and especially the Arab world — should rally round with cash, expertise and moral support. Together, they should truly forge a free and democratic Iraq. They should fire the council flunkies and ask the Iraqi people who they trust to lead.

Arab leaders should put pressure on the US and Britain in any way they can to hand over the reins. The neoimperialists have had their turn. The task should now be left to those with courage and a sincere vision, rather than long-held political agendas and a thirst for both oil and global hegemony. The game is up and the players should admit it before they slink off and lick their wounds. The so-called Western civilizations have lost the moral high ground — if they, indeed, ever had it — and it’s time for curtains to fall on the last act.

In the final analysis this isn’t only about the suffering of the Iraqi people. It is also about us. Who we truly are and what we represent.

Are we Americans and Britons, as citizens of occupying nations, prepared to sit back and accept the killing, torture and humiliation of those in our care? Or do we stand up to be counted and call a spade a spade? Our silence could mean our hands are just as dirtied.

Our silence plays into the hands of religious fanatics who wish us harm, serving as a recruitment tool. Now is the time for all decent and compassionate people to speak up. Surely, enough is enough!

— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs and welcomes feedback at morgandewales@yahoo.co.uk

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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