Middle East

From the March 2003 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 50, No. 3)

The Arab Press and the Pentagon

Misleading the World

Raghida Dergham, Al-Hayat (pan-Arab), London, England, Dec. 20, 2002

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld smiles at the start of the 39th International Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 8, 2003 (Photo: Frank Leonhardt/AFP).

The U.S. Defense Department under [Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, is not only full of dangerous militaristic nationalist extremism but of hatred for all those who are not in its ranks. The Pentagon is intent on using all means—including misinformation, bribery, and scaremongering—to push through its secret agenda under the banner “combating terrorism,” to the point of encouraging extremism.

The Defense Department claims it has proof that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, but it refuses to share it with the weapons inspectors. It claims it wants to influence Arab and Islamic opinion and that it wants democracy. But this department, which is charged with defending America and its values, has trampled on those very values and has exposed Americans to hatred abroad. It is a department driven by military arrogance, fundamentalism, hatred, bigotry, and incitement. It is crowding out the State Department in setting foreign policy, and it is betting on conspiring with or against several Arab and Islamic regimes to oppress peoples and impose military rule wherever it does not find the security situation to its liking. The Pentagon hawks have deep hatred for peoples and democracies. That’s what they have in common with despotic regimes.

Rumsfeld and his colleagues don’t care if the Arab and Islamic region is run entirely by generals or security agencies as long as their rule contains public opinion and prevents the people from protesting against American policies. These policies view Israel as America’s only viable ally in the region and reject the idea of being partners of both Israel and the Arabs at the same time.

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In this, the Pentagon considers itself pragmatic and realistic, especially since the [Mideast] “peace process” has failed and [former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon] Peres’ dream of harmonious living in the Middle East has dissipated.

The Defense Department has adopted the logic of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which is based on hatred, murder, starvation, division, and rejection of peace. In fact, it uses Palestinian extremism and suicide operations as a tool to justify anything while claiming to fight terrorism.

The Pentagon hawks and its boards of advisers—including [the chairman of its Defense Policy Board] Richard Perle—have a fanatical hatred for Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, and they are betting that Arab and Palestinian peoples and rulers will once again show that there’s nothing to fear from “Arab resistance.” So far they have been correct. Most Arab governments are responding to the Defense Department’s demands. The Arabs are accepting as their fate what the Pentagon decides. But this is wrong.

The Pentagon is fundamentally at odds with other governmental ministries in America, and it will have the last word only if we let it. The input of Arab peoples and governments can make a difference, as does the public opinion of non-Arab governments. Faced with no opposition to its policies and strategies, the Pentagon will use that silence and Arab cooperation in its media wars against Palestine, Iraq, and the entire Arab world.

At the beginning of 2002, Rumsfeld thought about setting up an office for feeding wrong and misleading information to the foreign media. But faced with the anger of President George W. Bush and of government and nongovernment organizations, Rumsfeld relented. Recently, however, it was reported that Rumsfeld has considered giving secret directions to the American military to undertake secret propaganda measures in order to influence the public and policymakers in friendly countries such as Germany and Pakistan, by funding schools, bribing journalists, and paying demonstrators. Both Rumsfeld and his “enemy,” [Secretary of State] Colin L. Powell, have failed to convince the Arab world of the U.S. pledge for democracy for one reason: The United States ignores its own unjust policy toward the Palestinians.

One of the reasons the U.S. administration was so keen to interrogate Iraqi scientists outside Iraq was that it needed to come up with the evidence against Iraq it claims it already has. All indications point to the fact that the Pentagon holds only circumstantial and undocumented evidence, which it has collected from Iraqi dissidents who have long left Iraq. The reason behind the frantic clamor for scientists is to save face by finding someone whose testimony could be used to justify a war with Iraq.

Half of the American people are asking for this kind of evidence. And as long as the Iraqi government obeys the United Nations inspectors, it will be difficult for the United States to declare that Iraq is in material breach of U.N. resolutions.

At the same time, there are foreign issues that could complicate the Pentagon’s plans for war. The Venezuelan crisis has an oil angle of extreme importance, since the United States needs oil from the world’s fifth-biggest exporter—Venezuela supplies 14 percent of America’s crude needs. And news about Iran’s development of an illegal nuclear capability could have American public opinion wondering if Iran is next after Iraq, or why Iraq and not Iran?

In addition, North Korea challenges not only American foreign policy but also the Bush doctrine, which calls for preventive strikes to prevent countries from possessing nuclear weapons. Another complicating factor is whether Americans are aware of the cost of a war with Iraq and of rebuilding the country to the point that Iraq would be able to export oil at levels that would cover the cost of rebuilding its infrastructure, while at the same time benefiting U.S. companies. But if Iraq is shown to have hidden weapons or banned programs, or if it doesn’t respond to all the U.N. inspectors’ demands, the American public will not hesitate to support a war. The Iraqi leadership has a chance to win over U.S. and world public opinion, while the Pentagon is faced with a battle to convince public opinion at home before continuing to mislead the world.

The author is Al-Hayat’s New York bureau chief.

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