Ayoon wa Azan (How Did We Get Here?)

Jihad Al Khazen     Al-Hayat     2003/11/3

Soldiers in bulldozers, with speakers blasting jazz music, up-rooted old palm trees and orange and lemon trees, implementing a new policy that consists of collective punishment of peasants who do not provide soldiers with information regarding armed people who intend to attack them.     

The reader must think that I am talking about the Palestinian territories, as the up-rooting of trees there is a daily practice; however, the reader is wrong, because I am quoting Patrick Cockburn, a renowned British journalist, whose report on the darkness in Iraq was published in the Independent, and it seemed to be addressing the occupied territories as I was reading it.

The American administration, which is allied with a war criminal such as Ariel Sharon, would never hesitate to use his means, though Israeli soldiers themselves, as well as some of the ministers have criticized these ways.   

How did we come to this? I am tired of discussing the lies made up to pave the way for war, and since the "end" of the war, which did not actually end on May 1, the way the American President said it did.

The President announced "victory" standing aboard the Abraham Lincoln (aircraft carrier). He spoke while standing before an enormous sign saying "Mission Accomplished."  However, the mission was not accomplished, and since May 1, more American soldiers have died than those who lost their lives during the actual war, knowing that they are still getting killed every day to the extent that the White House has lately denied having anything to do with the sign, and saying that the carrier's Marines made it because their mission was accomplished and they returned home. Nevertheless, the White House reckoned the very following day that it was its idea to hoist the banner, as it organized the celebration on the Lincoln.

All this is nothing but lies, and I shall continue, as a journalist, with the articles that American and British newspapers supporting the administration, and hence the war, come up with. I do not know how the press, dealing with educated readers from the industrial world, dares to distort the truth this way.

If I were to choose from the Daily Telegraph and the American Washington Times specific samples, I would pick the following:

*The hanging rope getting tight around Iran's neck (the newspaper is writing its wishes.)

* A warrant showing that Iraq and Iran called Osama bin Laden (obvious lying that remains a lie despite its reiteration."

* Tehran spreading its spies in Iraq (Who said that? The Mossad?)

* Iranian spies wandering in Britain to locate Jewish temples for Al Qaeda to attack. (This English headline is similar to the previous American one and they both reflect the unity of their sources and ideas.)

* Foreign religious combatants escalate a campaign of intelligent and ferocious terror. (How did any newspaper find out the day following the explosions in Baghdad that foreign radical religious militants had perpetrated them? This is intelligence information, or what is known as the black propaganda.)

*Syria and the new axis of evil. (If there is an axis of evil, it is amid the Jewish newspapers, the neo-conservatives in the American administration and the radical rightist research centers spreading their poison every day.)

Both newspapers are just an example, and they, alone, could not have achieved anything, but they still are part of a radical front that supports war on Palestinians one day, and on Iraq another day. When the Daily Mail addressed the day explosions took place in Baghdad, it said: 42 victims following Al Qaeda's attack against five locations in Baghdad. But how did the newspaper decide that Al Qaeda was behind these attacks? This is not journalism, as I find it to be a peculiar madness coming from newspapers that are supposed to be professionally developed.

The Mail On Sunday bid on everyone, as its petty reporter, Sarah Oliver, sent an article from Iraq saying that Iraqis are the greatest dodgers and thieves in the world and that they descend from a long breed of Ali Babas…

What would have happened had an Arab newspaper written something similar on Jews? The American embassy would interfere and threaten, as it is Israel's embassy after all, besides being that of the U.S. However, I did not hear that any American embassy objected to what the racist press writes, although the U.S. is the occupational authority, and is hence legally responsible for Iraq, whereas it is not responsible for Israel.

The only consolation in such a ferocious journalistic attack is that it does not stop at the Arab level. Senator Edward Kennedy had attacked Bush's policy towards Iraq, and the Washington Times did publish this attack, showing two days later a report entitled: "Pete Kennedy's Fall."

There are a thousand scandals that did not cause Pete Kennedy's fall, and Edward Kennedy himself did not sink in a lake. And yet, the Likudnik newspaper decided he had fallen because of a political stance.

The Torah says that a human being is molded with sin, and I find that the supporters of war on Iraq are molded with lies as well, which led us to this situation. I shall close with a web page called "The Price of War;" I had opened it last week and found that it was worth $82.213 billion. I reopened it the following day and saw that it had reached $82.400 billion. Today, it must have become $83 billion or more, as the number is rising like a mad taxi meter, which reminded me of a similar taxi meter in one of New Delhi's squares; it rose by thousands as I was observing it and I felt annoyed as if the figure concerned me.