Shockwaves
Rime Allaf, July 1, 2004
This was to have been the month when the White House launched its Greater Middle East initiative, a scheme for wide democratic reform. Instead, Washington stands accused in the Arab world of a string of horrific abuses and insults.
Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq.
The leaked photographs showing scenes of sadistic physical and psychological abuse inflicted on Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the notorious prison where Saddam Hussein’s jailers preceded US forces, will have long-term negative repercussions on American designs for the Arab world, and Arabs’ perception of the United States.
While it was known that the rules of the Geneva Convention were being routinely flouted by Americans in Iraq, as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported months ago, the graphic pictures revealed the extent of these serious violations of international humanitarian law.
They were supplemented by even more explicit descriptions of the prisoners’ ordeals, including a comprehensive report by US General Antonio Taguba, and Seymour Hersh’s extensive investigative reporting in The New Yorker.
Of course, most Arabs are well aware that torture is frequent in numerous duplicates of Abu Ghraib throughout the region. This is why people privately scorned hypocritical condemnations by Arab regimes, many of which prudently chose to avoid this golden opportunity to blame the US, thus averting immediate comparisons with their own liberal human rights interpretations.
While Arabs have come to expect only the worst from their own governments, many had still dared to hope that some of America’s slogans would eventually materialise. For all their scepticism about promises of freedom and democracy, which most didn’t really imagine could actually result from the occupation, they had believed that Americans would at least be more humane, if only marginally. The photographs have served to substantiate to Arabs the persistent suspicion that there is little difference between their regimes and the US government.
Humiliated
One doesn’t need to be an expert to understand that Iraqis and Arabs are nevertheless incensed and humiliated by these events. The shockwaves came not so much from the fact that there was torture – which most imagined was happening anyway – but from its nature, and from the evident relish of its executors.
Even the appalling image of a dead Iraqi man wrapped in cellophane had less effect than those of smiling Americans with naked Iraqi men facing growling dogs, forced to simulate sexual positions, laying on the floor bridled by the neck, at the feet of a nonchalant female soldier holding the leash.
It is the contempt on the abusers’ faces, their air of superiority and invulnerability, that will represent the attitude of America as a whole towards the Arab world. The soldiers giving a thumbs-up behind a human pyramid of naked, hooded men serve as a potent image of Washington’s current depiction: a power that takes pleasure in defeating and humiliating weaker, oriental nations. As simplistic as it may seem, this perception is gaining ground, adding to the belief that there is underlying racism against Arabs and Muslims in the occupiers’ minds.
Systematic
This is the issue at the core of the problem: most people in the region do not believe these incidents are isolated. They have been bracing themselves for much worse to come, even before US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed that there were hundreds of other photographs and even videos, those that President George Bush claimed sickened him just before he praised the secretary for doing a superb job.
There is a widespread conviction, not yet fully substantiated but assumed logical, that the abuse was systematic, intended, and dictated by the highest echelons of the US government – by Rumsfeld himself, in fact, thought to have encouraged harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay and consequently in Iraq.
Worse still, rumours have begun to surface of sexual abuse of Iraqi women. Confirmation of this would result in even more fury. There is also a growing belief that British forces have been just as spiteful and cruel, and that details of abuses will eventually surface, especially after reports by Amnesty International that at least 37 Iraqis were wrongfully killed by British troops.
By mistake
All this is dangerously interpreted as stemming from ingrained racism that has continued to grow since the days of imperialism and colonialism, reaching a pinnacle after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.
While the concept of torture could theoretically be placed in a political context for most Arabs, only bigotry and prejudice seem to explain these cruel events. Their sole purpose appears to have been the most extreme form of humiliation, rather than the pursuit of information from prisoners – most of whom were innocent anyway.
The ICRC has quoted military intelligence officers as saying that seventy to ninety percent of Iraqi prisoners had been arrested by mistake. In other words, the vast majority of inmates have committed no crime worthy of internment and punishment, let alone cruelty and sadism.
Patronising
Western media may have also acted patronisingly, inadvertently perhaps, by over-analysing the pictures’ effect on the Arab and Muslim world. Arabs were going to be more insulted than others by the nudity, by the sexual insinuations, by the leashes, by the dogs, and by the fact that a woman was the one torturing them, reporters said.
Imagining that only Arabs would feel insulted by these appalling actions, while other people would take it more in their stride, is in itself offensive for many Arabs, who feel the acts would and should be considered horrific anywhere in the world. This cultural explanation is ultimately harming America and Britain even more: if the abusers knew Arabs would feel particularly degraded, it is thought, then their cruelty was even more reprehensible and clearly resulted from racism.
With Americans divided as to whether Rumsfeld should resign or be fired, or whether the responsibility for these atrocities rests solely with the perpetrators, Iraqis and Arabs are observing America with increased mistrust and despair. For them, it doesn’t seem to matter who ends up paying the price or who falls on his sword, if anyone does.
Arabs are used to seeing the criminals of their various regimes remain in positions of power, while lower officials get blamed for whatever crime the regimes are pretending to punish. Seeing this in the US will only be an additional point of comparison. But in a democracy, guilty parties either resign or are fired, and are held accountable for their actions – or so Arabs thought.
Held responsible
While the actions and faces of Abu Ghraib will be remembered forever, the buck will not stop there. It is clearly Bush, his administration and the entire American forces that will be held responsible and accountable not only for what happened at the jail, but for all other acts of violence and commotion. After every act of terrorism in Iraq – including the one that killed and maimed hundreds of civilians during the Ashoura festival – Iraqis have blamed the Americans, not the perpetrators.
Throughout the Arab world, Bush’s clumsy communication attempts were met with disdain for the most part. What was said was completely overshadowed by what he did not say: in his interviews on Al Arabiya and Al Hurra, during the first week of May, the apology never came, making a bad situation even worse. Instead of immediately taking responsibility, Bush lectured Arabs on the need to understand America’s actions.
The reluctant attempt to show regret only came a day later, possibly inspired by Arab fury at his unrepentant stance, when Bush told Jordan’s King Abdullah that he was sorry for the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, but he seemed to be addressing American voters instead. This was not a proper apology, of course; nor was it interpreted as one by most Arabs, who were still trying to understand how America could be so condescending.
Arab anger has steadily increased with subsequent statements from the administration, including Rumsfeld’s cheeky declaration in front of cheering US troops in Iraq that he was a survivor, and Secretary of State Colin Powell’s mild admonition for Israel’s continued demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza as counter-productive, but not illegal or inhumane.
It is essential to continue viewing events in Iraq within a regional context, a framework the US has ignored at its own peril, and to appreciate the glaringly obvious comparisons Arabs are drawing with Israel’s hated occupation of Palestine, and with their own governments’ practices. Americans fear a Vietnam quagmire, but it is not that precedent that strikes chords in the Middle East, where the only reference necessary is in their own backyard, something which should worry Washington very much.
It is Bush and his administration, and the American people, who really need to understand the lasting effects of malicious actions on the perception of America in the Arab world, from the Abu Ghraib disaster to the violent repression of resistance to occupation and the imposition of collective punishment in both Iraq and Palestine.
Fiascos
The atrocities, for all their horror, are only one episode in a string of fiascos and bungled actions. In the last few months, Americans have managed to enrage most Iraqis by imposing a siege on the city of Fallujah, bombing it indiscriminately, and even with a single missile killing forty people as they prayed in a mosque.
Hundreds of Iraqis have perished in the last two months, and thousands have begun to join forces in a spontaneous insurgency cutting across all factions of society. This has emboldened radicals like Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shi’a cleric wanted dead or alive by the US, whose vociferous supporters actually grew in number. In Fallujah, in particular, Americans seem to have created a unified Iraqi society which put its differences aside and jointly opposed the occupation.
Americans are not thinking about the fury they are unleashing in the Arab world with every bombing and shelling, and each time they refer to Iraqis as thugs and terrorists. The shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf has already been damaged by bullets; even if it turns out that they came from Sadr’s militiamen, Iraqis will blame the Americans, who are apparently oblivious to the dire consequences of further damaging such holy sites.
The adoption of a new Iraqi flag without consultation was not only thought to come at a very unsuitable time, but also to be too evocative of the Israeli flag. This doesn’t play well when rumours continue that Israel is involved in the American occupation, and benefiting financially from it.
Washington was warned repeatedly by countless experts about the folly of its enterprise, especially in the light of mounting resentment at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. For Arabs, Bush’s shocking repudiation of international law, his disavowal of Palestinians’ right of return and his approval of permanent Israeli settlements on the West Bank – all part of Sharon’s so-called unilateral disengagement plan – complete the true picture of America’s intentions.
Back burner
Even the issue of reform now seems sidelined. While Arab governments had objected to the entire message being imposed from outside, their people merely resented the messenger’s double standards. The Greater Middle East initiative, due to be unveiled this month, was always understood as being pursued purely in America’s own interests, with little regard for the well-being of Arabs, although the latter still pushed the reform agenda they had started in the first place.
With each passing day, Bush is helping Arab regimes maintain their stronghold, as people decide that stability is better than chaos, even if that chaos follows the removal of the dictators and rulers they so hate. The deteriorating situation has put real talk of reform on the back burner, to the exasperation of patriotic reformers now being accused of pro-Americanism when it is least popular.
As US forces were fighting Iraqis in Fallujah and Najaf, Israeli troops were decimating homes in Gaza, letting bulldozers loose on Palestinians and raining missiles down on them. Arabs are having difficulty distinguishing between the pictures in Palestine and Iraq.
Iraq is buckling under violence and anarchy which occupying forces are unable to control. The Iraqi Governing Council, considered by most – even by pro-invasion Iraqis – to be a puppet government, is unwilling to criticise America and incapable of convincing Iraqis of its autonomy as the planned handover of sovereignty – no matter how cosmetic – approaches. The assassination of Council leader Ezzedine Salim shows that the US can’t even guarantee its own allies’ security.
Erratic behaviour by occupying forces, after the obvious poor planning for the post-invasion period, only adds to the confusion. After a year of de-Ba’athification, Ambassador Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, suddenly allowed the recruitment of Ba’athists and the reintegration of army officers, indicating to Iraqis that America doesn’t quite know what to do.
Bush’s mismanagement of the Abu Ghraib episode promises to keep the resentment burning for years to come, especially as US government reactions seem to be completely geared towards internal damage control, with little apparent concern over how Iraqis and Arabs are viewing events.
To re-establish a semblance of trust with Arabs and Iraqis, whose cooperation is a prerequisite for resolving the turmoil, the US must start addressing the legitimate concerns of the people of the region, and delivering on the promises it has made – both in Iraq and Palestine. Internationalising the reconstruction of Iraq, imposing international law on all countries in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, and returning Iraq to its citizens intact are the first steps America needs to take. Especially if it intends to win its self-styled battle of hearts and minds.
