The senior press historian brought to a climax his presentation of the American press freedom concept by announcing: Here we achieved the Founding Fathers’ dream of the open marketplace of ideas.
I told him: That was in the glorious past, when an enlightening and critical press was the public watchdog on the government. Today, it is more like the supermarket of ideas, where most thoughts are manufactured, packaged and shelved.
The professor was proud of having over 1,300 newspapers in America, but those and hundreds of radio and TV stations are mostly owned by five mega corporations. The few remaining independent papers are a rare species, threatened with extinction.
How can you maintain a true form of press freedom if everything is for sale? How can you provide enlightenment if market forces decide your form and direction? How can you be a dedicated watchdog if your eyes are constantly on the beef, and your leash is in the beef industry’s hands?
You can tell me it is not my business, if it was not America. From Hollywood movies to network sitcoms, from print news to sound bites, and from New York Times to CNN, the American media rules. They set trends and standards, educate and train, and preach the rest of us on democracy, ethics and freedom. This gives them the unique universal position of leading or misleading, and upgrading or downgrading the message and the messenger.
So, when The Washington Post and The New York Times that published the Pentagon papers, unfolded the Watergate scandal and brought the downfall of a powerful president uncritically buy this administration’s justification for the Iraq war, we have to worry. When most American papers refuse to publish a review of a best-seller book from an American president, Jimmy Carter, and his article defending himself against an Israeli smearing campaign, we have to worry. And when the open and free market of ideas fails to face off a lobby dedicated to promoting a foreign country’s interests over America’s, we have to worry.
A Pulitzer Prize winner once explained his anti-Arab, pro-Israel position saying he had a constituency to cater for. Israel’s powerful friends can hurt you, he revealed. Arabs, on the other hand, can only send angry messages, he could live with that. Thomas Friedman changed after his visit to Saudi Arabia, and was kind enough to say a few nice things about its leadership. It didn’t take long to hear from the lobby, it seems. Today, he never makes any criticism of Israel, but hardly a week passes without a jab at the evil Arabs.
The Op-Ed editors of an independent major city newspaper were telling visiting Arab reporters how free they were to take the public’s side in any fight. No government or business interests could influence the editorial policies of their paper, they assured us.
I asked them squarely: Are you free enough to criticize Israel? They said yes. But, later, one editor took me aside and told me a story. Once, Israel was misbehaving in a way that cannot be defended or ignored. Its army was bombarding the Palestinian town of Jenin in 2002, and innocent civilians were killed everyday. The editor wrote a mild criticism of Israel, balanced with a criticism of the Palestinian authorities. The next couple of days, a few Arabs wrote praising the balance and many Jews wrote criticizing the stand. All lived in the paper’s city area.
Two weeks later a flood of letters came from outside the city and state with strong criticism. They all carried the same language or text. At the same time, many individuals and corporations canceled their subscriptions and advertisements. They cited this particular article and accused the paper of anti-Semitism. Some threatened lawsuits. This was the last article of its kind, the editor said. “Our survival at the end of the day is more important to our shareholders and staff than the survival of the Palestinians.”
Another case in point, an American TV producer interviewed by an Arab radio was asked to explain the overwhelming support for Israel in the US Congress. He said: You need millions of dollars to run for Congress, and the Israeli lobby will make or break you depending on your loyalty, not to your country but to theirs. If you beat your competitor in pledging your undying loyalty to the Holy Cow, Israel, you win their steadfast support. Later, they watch you like a hawk and judge you on your voting record. One mistake and you are down with a scandal or in the next election. Therefore, the American explained, most elected politicians and lawmakers are in the lobby’s pocket. The interview was translated by an Israeli Arab-media watch group, an article was written about it in a pro-Israel paper, and the torture campaign began! In a few weeks the pressure was too much for his employers to bear and he had to resign.
We, in the Arab world, never claim to have true free press, but American media brag about it. Freedom of the press, you say? Tell me about it, America!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
You Break It, You Own It, America!
From the US Congress Press Gallery, I listened to an American president, George W. Bush, deliver the State of the Union address, his third to the nation. I watched as he spoke the reactions of his listeners on both sides of the isle. Democrats and Republicans were showing their agreement and disagreement in body language from standing ovations to head shaking and smirking.
The most dividing issue, of course, was Iraq. Questions asked these days include: Whose fault it was? Who voted for the war and against it? What to do about it? Will sending more troops pacify Iraq and speed up the eventual withdrawal, or complicate the problem and increase the American casualties and expenses?
Who voted for and against the resolution authorizing the Iraq war is relevant for three reasons: 1. The Democrat win in the November Congress elections showed how important the Iraq issue is to voters, and how alarmed the public perception of the situation is and its low-grade evaluation of government performance. 2. An earlier than usual run for 2008 presidential election brought candidates carrying anti-escalation or anti-war message. 3. The new Congress is overwhelmingly against the administration decision to send 21,500 extra troops to Iraq.
As I told the intellectuals I met in a Washington press visit organized by the National Democratic Institute, the State of the Union address should not be confined to the American audience. The whole world is interested in what the emperor has to say since the US empire is the co-author of world geopolitical map and modern history after World War II, especially since becoming the world’s solo “mover and shaker” following the sudden demise of the Soviet Union. Still, this world-police president is not talking to us in his most comprehensive and all-important speech of the year.
The Democrats, too, fail in addressing our concerns. In his response to the State of the Union address, Sen. Jim Webb, who has the credibility of being a veteran with a son-solider in Baghdad, spoke eloquently about how America should pull out instead of escalating its military presence in Iraq. He counted the human and material costs. But they were all American. Like the president, and almost every decision-maker I read and listened to during this visit, it was all about their troops and dollars.
The deafening silence in this wild and loud circus is about Iraqi fatalities and cost. Hundreds are killed daily because of this unnecessary war, billions of dollars in collateral damage and lost revenues are incurred weekly, and a whole country is slipping into the Dark-Age tunnel of civil war. Still no politician in America seems to care about these losses.
The excuse I was given? Americans don’t care! When you ask what the loss of the Vietnam War was, they’d say 50,000. Those are their dead but no mention of the three million Vietnamese killed by those 50,000 and their mates.
Most Americans today believe the war on Iraq was a disastrous mistake. That is the opposite of their position before and after the fall of Baghdad. Even then, the causalities and collateral damage were huge but on the Iraqi side only. Now, after years of fighting back, the Iraqis, like the Vietnamese and Afghans before them, are turning the gun barrel against the invaders. Yes, their losses are much greater, but at least the occupiers are feeling the heat, too.
I am always happy when people finally come to their senses, but why now and how? Many Americans still believe US propaganda that it invaded Iraq to search and destroy nuclear weapons, topple a dictator and spread freedom and democracy. When things went sour, they believed it was all others’ mistakes — neighbors and Iraqis. “We didn’t know this was a nation of killers,” an American friend complained. “You people are used to killing each other for ages! We came with an open hand and heart, but you don’t deserve our kindness! You don’t deserve our help! We are out of here”
I remind these people of an old American rule: If you break it, you own it! You go riding and shooting in a china shop, hang the manger, dismiss the staff, insist on running the business your way, but when everything goes banana you blame it on everyone and everything but yourself, then run!
Iraq was one piece before you rode in, Mr. Cowboy. Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Jews lived side by side in harmony for centuries. Anything that happened during your occupation is your responsibility. The Ottoman Empire ruled Iraq for four hundred years — in peace. In four years, you managed to turn it into a slaughterhouse. So, don’t tell me now it is “them,” because even if it was, under the Geneva Conventions, it is your job, as an occupying power, to provide security and maintain law and order in the territories under your rule — no excuses accepted.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Blaming Religions for the Crimes of the Religious!
I was leaving the US Congress after a discussion about President Bush’s State of the Union address, which I had the privilege of attending the previous night, when I saw her.
She was a beautiful, lovely lady in her early 60s and looked great in her elegant, black and red European-style dress. So was her husband in his classic black suit and red-ribboned hat.
I asked if they would kindly take a group photo with me and a couple of fellow Arab journalists invited by the National Democratic Institute to attend the 110th Congress convention. They happily obliged. Then the lady recognized me. As it turned out, she read and wrote me frequently for years.
After some hesitation, she revealed her screen name. I was surprised! This cute sweet heart was one of my harshest critics who wrote so many anti-Islam, anti-Arab and anti-Saudi comments. I often thought she was actually a man. Women, I reasoned, were not capable of such hate, anger and foul words.
We were thrilled to meet each other in such fashion, and the couple invited me to lunch a day later. I went. And, as I told a concerned American friend later, it was a clash of civilizations!
I found that she is a computer consultant and an intellectual who speaks five European languages. Born in France to a Christian family, she became an opponent of organized religions in her 20s.
She never liked Arabs and Muslims. “Americans and Europeans,” she claimed, “fear Islam, because they know it for what it is: A religion of violence. Your Qur’an and the Prophet instruct you to hate and kill us. I can show you hundreds of passages where you were told to kill, kill, kill non-Muslims!”
It amazed me that she looked like she did believe that. How many would agree with her, I wondered. I knew if I just denied her accusation, she won’t be convinced. And since she is scientific, I decided to use mathematical logic instead.
What is the percentage of devout Muslims, I asked. “Most! You are a dangerously religious people,” she answered.
If so, I reasoned, then most of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are potential killers.
Just imagine a billion of snipers, mujahedeen and suicide bombers scattered everywhere including here in America, where eight millions Muslims reside — excluding visitors like me. If that was the case, how come your world is not on fire?
She retorted: Then explain why Muslims have killed more people than any followers of any religion in history?
I told her that I don’t blame religions or prophets for the misdeeds of their followers. Otherwise, we would blame Christianity for the millions the Crusaders killed for centuries in the name of Jesus, or the bloody religious wars in Europe, or the Catholic mass killing of Muslims and Jews in Spain during the Inquisition, or the colonizers’ heinous crimes in a world they called primitive and in need of the light of Christianity.
In the last century only, Christian armies caused the death of tens of millions, fifty millions of them in World War II alone. In Ireland and Spain, Christian sects have been killing each others for ages, often in the name of God. In America, radical Christians have hanged and burned natives, blacks and Jews since the discovery of America to recent days.
In Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been killed.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush called his war a crusade, and claimed that he received his directions directly from God. The Evangelical-Zionist alliance that pushed the war agenda are Christians and Jews. Some of US allies in this war showed similar religious motivations and hate for Islam, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silivio Berlusconi.
Muslims did similar killing in the name of Allah in past centuries and today. Sometimes it is legitimate resistance to occupation and other times for political gains under religious banners. Still, even our extremists dare not blame Christianity or any other religion for the crimes of its followers.
It is part of our religion to believe in Christianity and Judaism, Jesus and Moses, the Bible and Torah. On the other hand, your radicals blame Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Qur’an for the criminality of a few thousands out of 1.3 billion Muslims. It is just not right, not logical and not fair.
My friend wasn’t moved much. But at least I was still welcome as a friend, and not feared as a potential killer!
She was a beautiful, lovely lady in her early 60s and looked great in her elegant, black and red European-style dress. So was her husband in his classic black suit and red-ribboned hat.
I asked if they would kindly take a group photo with me and a couple of fellow Arab journalists invited by the National Democratic Institute to attend the 110th Congress convention. They happily obliged. Then the lady recognized me. As it turned out, she read and wrote me frequently for years.
After some hesitation, she revealed her screen name. I was surprised! This cute sweet heart was one of my harshest critics who wrote so many anti-Islam, anti-Arab and anti-Saudi comments. I often thought she was actually a man. Women, I reasoned, were not capable of such hate, anger and foul words.
We were thrilled to meet each other in such fashion, and the couple invited me to lunch a day later. I went. And, as I told a concerned American friend later, it was a clash of civilizations!
I found that she is a computer consultant and an intellectual who speaks five European languages. Born in France to a Christian family, she became an opponent of organized religions in her 20s.
She never liked Arabs and Muslims. “Americans and Europeans,” she claimed, “fear Islam, because they know it for what it is: A religion of violence. Your Qur’an and the Prophet instruct you to hate and kill us. I can show you hundreds of passages where you were told to kill, kill, kill non-Muslims!”
It amazed me that she looked like she did believe that. How many would agree with her, I wondered. I knew if I just denied her accusation, she won’t be convinced. And since she is scientific, I decided to use mathematical logic instead.
What is the percentage of devout Muslims, I asked. “Most! You are a dangerously religious people,” she answered.
If so, I reasoned, then most of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are potential killers.
Just imagine a billion of snipers, mujahedeen and suicide bombers scattered everywhere including here in America, where eight millions Muslims reside — excluding visitors like me. If that was the case, how come your world is not on fire?
She retorted: Then explain why Muslims have killed more people than any followers of any religion in history?
I told her that I don’t blame religions or prophets for the misdeeds of their followers. Otherwise, we would blame Christianity for the millions the Crusaders killed for centuries in the name of Jesus, or the bloody religious wars in Europe, or the Catholic mass killing of Muslims and Jews in Spain during the Inquisition, or the colonizers’ heinous crimes in a world they called primitive and in need of the light of Christianity.
In the last century only, Christian armies caused the death of tens of millions, fifty millions of them in World War II alone. In Ireland and Spain, Christian sects have been killing each others for ages, often in the name of God. In America, radical Christians have hanged and burned natives, blacks and Jews since the discovery of America to recent days.
In Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been killed.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush called his war a crusade, and claimed that he received his directions directly from God. The Evangelical-Zionist alliance that pushed the war agenda are Christians and Jews. Some of US allies in this war showed similar religious motivations and hate for Islam, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silivio Berlusconi.
Muslims did similar killing in the name of Allah in past centuries and today. Sometimes it is legitimate resistance to occupation and other times for political gains under religious banners. Still, even our extremists dare not blame Christianity or any other religion for the crimes of its followers.
It is part of our religion to believe in Christianity and Judaism, Jesus and Moses, the Bible and Torah. On the other hand, your radicals blame Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Qur’an for the criminality of a few thousands out of 1.3 billion Muslims. It is just not right, not logical and not fair.
My friend wasn’t moved much. But at least I was still welcome as a friend, and not feared as a potential killer!
Blaming Religions for the Crimes of the Religious!
I was leaving the US Congress after a discussion about President Bush’s State of the Union address, which I had the privilege of attending the previous night, when I saw her.
She was a beautiful, lovely lady in her early 60s and looked great in her elegant, black and red European-style dress. So was her husband in his classic black suit and red-ribboned hat.
I asked if they would kindly take a group photo with me and a couple of fellow Arab journalists invited by the National Democratic Institute to attend the 110th Congress convention. They happily obliged. Then the lady recognized me. As it turned out, she read and wrote me frequently for years.
After some hesitation, she revealed her screen name. I was surprised! This cute sweet heart was one of my harshest critics who wrote so many anti-Islam, anti-Arab and anti-Saudi comments. I often thought she was actually a man. Women, I reasoned, were not capable of such hate, anger and foul words.
We were thrilled to meet each other in such fashion, and the couple invited me to lunch a day later. I went. And, as I told a concerned American friend later, it was a clash of civilizations!
I found that she is a computer consultant and an intellectual who speaks five European languages. Born in France to a Christian family, she became an opponent of organized religions in her 20s.
She never liked Arabs and Muslims. “Americans and Europeans,” she claimed, “fear Islam, because they know it for what it is: A religion of violence. Your Qur’an and the Prophet instruct you to hate and kill us. I can show you hundreds of passages where you were told to kill, kill, kill non-Muslims!”
It amazed me that she looked like she did believe that. How many would agree with her, I wondered. I knew if I just denied her accusation, she won’t be convinced. And since she is scientific, I decided to use mathematical logic instead.
What is the percentage of devout Muslims, I asked. “Most! You are a dangerously religious people,” she answered.
If so, I reasoned, then most of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are potential killers.
Just imagine a billion of snipers, mujahedeen and suicide bombers scattered everywhere including here in America, where eight millions Muslims reside — excluding visitors like me. If that was the case, how come your world is not on fire?
She retorted: Then explain why Muslims have killed more people than any followers of any religion in history?
I told her that I don’t blame religions or prophets for the misdeeds of their followers. Otherwise, we would blame Christianity for the millions the Crusaders killed for centuries in the name of Jesus, or the bloody religious wars in Europe, or the Catholic mass killing of Muslims and Jews in Spain during the Inquisition, or the colonizers’ heinous crimes in a world they called primitive and in need of the light of Christianity.
In the last century only, Christian armies caused the death of tens of millions, fifty millions of them in World War II alone. In Ireland and Spain, Christian sects have been killing each others for ages, often in the name of God. In America, radical Christians have hanged and burned natives, blacks and Jews since the discovery of America to recent days.
In Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been killed.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush called his war a crusade, and claimed that he received his directions directly from God. The Evangelical-Zionist alliance that pushed the war agenda are Christians and Jews. Some of US allies in this war showed similar religious motivations and hate for Islam, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silivio Berlusconi.
Muslims did similar killing in the name of Allah in past centuries and today. Sometimes it is legitimate resistance to occupation and other times for political gains under religious banners. Still, even our extremists dare not blame Christianity or any other religion for the crimes of its followers.
It is part of our religion to believe in Christianity and Judaism, Jesus and Moses, the Bible and Torah. On the other hand, your radicals blame Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Qur’an for the criminality of a few thousands out of 1.3 billion Muslims. It is just not right, not logical and not fair.
My friend wasn’t moved much. But at least I was still welcome as a friend, and not feared as a potential killer!
She was a beautiful, lovely lady in her early 60s and looked great in her elegant, black and red European-style dress. So was her husband in his classic black suit and red-ribboned hat.
I asked if they would kindly take a group photo with me and a couple of fellow Arab journalists invited by the National Democratic Institute to attend the 110th Congress convention. They happily obliged. Then the lady recognized me. As it turned out, she read and wrote me frequently for years.
After some hesitation, she revealed her screen name. I was surprised! This cute sweet heart was one of my harshest critics who wrote so many anti-Islam, anti-Arab and anti-Saudi comments. I often thought she was actually a man. Women, I reasoned, were not capable of such hate, anger and foul words.
We were thrilled to meet each other in such fashion, and the couple invited me to lunch a day later. I went. And, as I told a concerned American friend later, it was a clash of civilizations!
I found that she is a computer consultant and an intellectual who speaks five European languages. Born in France to a Christian family, she became an opponent of organized religions in her 20s.
She never liked Arabs and Muslims. “Americans and Europeans,” she claimed, “fear Islam, because they know it for what it is: A religion of violence. Your Qur’an and the Prophet instruct you to hate and kill us. I can show you hundreds of passages where you were told to kill, kill, kill non-Muslims!”
It amazed me that she looked like she did believe that. How many would agree with her, I wondered. I knew if I just denied her accusation, she won’t be convinced. And since she is scientific, I decided to use mathematical logic instead.
What is the percentage of devout Muslims, I asked. “Most! You are a dangerously religious people,” she answered.
If so, I reasoned, then most of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are potential killers.
Just imagine a billion of snipers, mujahedeen and suicide bombers scattered everywhere including here in America, where eight millions Muslims reside — excluding visitors like me. If that was the case, how come your world is not on fire?
She retorted: Then explain why Muslims have killed more people than any followers of any religion in history?
I told her that I don’t blame religions or prophets for the misdeeds of their followers. Otherwise, we would blame Christianity for the millions the Crusaders killed for centuries in the name of Jesus, or the bloody religious wars in Europe, or the Catholic mass killing of Muslims and Jews in Spain during the Inquisition, or the colonizers’ heinous crimes in a world they called primitive and in need of the light of Christianity.
In the last century only, Christian armies caused the death of tens of millions, fifty millions of them in World War II alone. In Ireland and Spain, Christian sects have been killing each others for ages, often in the name of God. In America, radical Christians have hanged and burned natives, blacks and Jews since the discovery of America to recent days.
In Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been killed.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush called his war a crusade, and claimed that he received his directions directly from God. The Evangelical-Zionist alliance that pushed the war agenda are Christians and Jews. Some of US allies in this war showed similar religious motivations and hate for Islam, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silivio Berlusconi.
Muslims did similar killing in the name of Allah in past centuries and today. Sometimes it is legitimate resistance to occupation and other times for political gains under religious banners. Still, even our extremists dare not blame Christianity or any other religion for the crimes of its followers.
It is part of our religion to believe in Christianity and Judaism, Jesus and Moses, the Bible and Torah. On the other hand, your radicals blame Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Qur’an for the criminality of a few thousands out of 1.3 billion Muslims. It is just not right, not logical and not fair.
My friend wasn’t moved much. But at least I was still welcome as a friend, and not feared as a potential killer!
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