Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2004, pages 65-67

Other People’s Mail

Some letters by or to other people are as informative for our readers as anything we might write ourselves.

Fulfilling Osama’s Dream

To Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 5, 2004

We invaded Iraq because of the threat from their weapons of mass destruction. But no such weapons have been found, and even if something is discovered buried in the desert it will be hard to argue it was a threat.

Well then, the real reason was to end the filling of mass graves. But now the residents of Fallujah are burying their dead in the soccer field.

OK, at least there won’t be any more torture chambers in Iraq. But wait, there are.

Before George W. Bush fulfills Osama bin Laden’s fondest dream and gets us into an all-out war with the entire Islamic world, can we please get some adults in charge?

Fred Koster, Seattle, WA

Anger Greets New Iraq Flag

To The Independent, April 29, 2004

The unveiling of the new Iraqi flag by the Iraqi Governing Council is very disappointing for many Iraqis, including myself. The vastly growing rejection of the new flag across Iraq is completely understandable, since the design lacks consideration of the country’s history and heritage.

What angers many is the decision of an unelected body, such as the IGC, to change the Iraqi flag at a time when many other pressing issues need to be addressed. The new Iraqi flag should be designed and selected by a fully elected and representative government, including consultations with the Iraqi people.

Mohammed Al-Hilli, Wembley, London, England

Occupation Generates Hatred in the Middle East

To the Billings Gazette, May 2, 2004

Senators have written us on more than one occasion that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Now, there are two—Israel and the United States—each one brutally occupying someone else’s land. And we ask, why do they hate us? Why, indeed? What has happened to our country?

Vince and Louise Larsen, Billings, MT

U.S. Torture Predates Iraq

To The Independent, May 7, 2004

Amidst all the comment and outrage expressed about the torture of prisoners in Iraq by American personnel, there can have been few more flagrantly dishonest than the assurance by the U.S. president that such behavior was not the American way. Had Mr. Bush forgotten about the role of the “School of the Americas” in training the repressive regimes of Central America in all manner of torture and counterinsurgency methods?

Frank Campbell, Southampton, UK

Abu Ghraib Abuse Not Surprising

To The Christian Science Monitor, May 11, 2004

Regarding Larry Seaquist’s May 5 Opinion piece, “U.S. military’s bad-guy dragnet—a terrible way to win a war”: When the U.S. signed the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, it did so with the qualification that purely psychological torture did not count. Posing naked people in degrading positions and confining people to three-foot-tall boxes: These are not considered torture under official U.S. policy (except, of course, when Americans are the victims of foreign torture). Torture—by the international definition—is routine in the custody of Americans, and nothing that has happened in Abu Ghraib is new, surprising, or uncommon.

The fault lies with a Senate that would not ratify the unedited Convention against Torture, and with the voters.

David S. Zink, Menlo Park, CA

Picture of Horror a Lasting Image

To the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 5, 2004

The grim specter of a hooded prisoner standing precariously on a box with electric wires draped from both hands is a picture of the American judicial process under George W. Bush. In its more than 200-year history, the United States has never sunk so low.

The figure of the Iraqi man draped in sackcloth and striking a Christ-like pose will forever remain the one lasting image of Bush’s ill-fated Iraq crusade.

God help us, because no one in the White House will.

Mike Whitney, Snohomish, WA

Bush Response Inadequate

To The Christian Science Monitor, May 14, 2004

Your May 7 editorial “Mea Culpas Over Iraq Abuses,” praising President Bush for nearly apologizing for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses, makes two serious mistakes.

First, by suggesting that these atrocities are “slip-ups,” you have minimized the unthinkable wrongs done to a group of human beings, and the dire consequences that will surely follow for American interests around the world. Worldwide images of the “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” as described in the military’s own study by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, should be strenuously denounced as wrong and immoral, not treated as some minor issue in Bush’s re-election campaign.

Second, why don’t you ask tougher questions of our commander in chief? It appears he was informed of these atrocities in January, and the full Taguba report was available to him in late February. You could ask: Why didn’t he take action earlier, demanding swift public trials and appropriate punishment for the perpetrators and those responsible up the chain of command? Does Bush understand that his reaction is seen by many, especially in the Arab world, as too little, too late?

Dan Herr, Strasburg, PA

U.S. Opposed Prison Inspections

To the International Herald Tribune, May 20, 2004

I could not agree more with the editorial that says that the United States is long overdue for an independent prison-inspection system, such as the one existing in Europe, called the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (“The dark side of America,” May 18). The irony is that when the United Nations embarked on a process of creating a worldwide system of inspections, modeled precisely after the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the United States fought the initiative tooth and nail, aided by Libya and Saudi Arabia. When the proposal—weakened largely by U.S. efforts—came for a vote at the United Nations in 2002, after 10 years of negotiations, the United States repeatedly showed its opposition. In the end, a strong majority vote created the U.N. mechanism. To be covered by the prison inspections, however, the United States would need to ratify the protocol to the Convention Against Torture. In doing so, the United States could show the world that it is serious about combating torture in its prisons.

Joanna Weschler, U.N. advocacy director, Human Rights Watch, New York, NY,

Wrong Timing

To The Independent, May 21, 2004

Michael Howard says, in your columns, that it is time for the government to be open about its disagreements with the U.S. (“Tony Blair must be more honest over Iraq,” 20 May.) He is right that we should not be afraid to stand up to Mr. Bush; but lamentably wrong about the timing.

The time when the prime minister should have stood up to Bush, and when the Tories were just as silent as Labor, was when the “war on terror” was first declared. That was the time to say: no military support until the U.S. recognizes the International Criminal Court, and subjects U.S. forces to its jurisdiction; no military support without a binding commitment that any prisoners taken would be treated according to international law, and tried by an international court; no support unless the U.S. honors the commitments it has made, such as the Kyoto Protocol, and stops supporting Israel in that country’s flagrant disregard for international law; and no support for any action without the explicit support of the U.N. Security Council.

If Britain had stood up to the U.S. when it counted, there might have been no Guantanamo Bay, no abuse of prisoners in Iraq, possibly even no Iraq war. At least, it would have been clear that Mr. Bush was on his own. Through their silence, then, both Mr. Blair and Mr. Howard are guilty of complicity in all these appalling crimes.

Jeremy Hicks, Hampshire, UK

Media Should Not Censor Photos

To The New York Times, May 12, 2004

How many photos of abused prisoners should the news media publish? All of them! Otherwise, how can viewers and readers assess the gravity of the situation?

The pictures are the story. Editorial censorship lends itself to a political agenda more easily than providing the public full access to information.

Jean Martin, Heyworth, IL

Stats Misrepresent the Facts

To Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 29, 2004

The Saturday Associated Press article “Sharon changes stance on Arafat” states that in 3 1/2 years of conflict, more than 900 Israelis were killed, and yet states that “Israel has killed scores of militants.”

This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

The latest tally I have seen is that 944 Israelis have been killed, and 2,820 Palestinians have been killed since Ariel Sharon started this round of killing by making it a point to travel to the Temple on the Mount on a Muslim holy day. That’s a 3-to-1 kill ratio, pretty good odds.

If you are going to print articles with body counts, please make them accurate.

Jackie Devincent, Seattle, WA

Contemptible U.S. Reaction

To The Independent, May 20, 2004

The American response to the latest rampage of the Israeli armed forces in Gaza is so inadequate as to be almost as contemptible as the action itself. After tanks and bulldozers had terrorized the inhabitants of Rafah, leaving up to 20 dead and dozens of houses demolished, Condoleezza Rice announced that the administration had told the Israelis “that some of their actions don’t create the best atmosphere.” The previous day, Colin Powell had said merely that “we don’t think that is productive.”

What are the options open to the Palestinians, faced as they are with illegal military occupation over 37 years which amounts to annexation of their ever-shrinking share of the former Palestine? They can roll over and accept their fate as a subject people, or they can resist; and is such resistance not entirely justifiable? It is strange that it should be called “terrorism” when it is they who are being terrorized. They can oppose tanks with Kalashnikovs and do so, but that inevitably results in more Palestinian dead than Israelis.

Harvey Quilliam, Merseyside, UK

Blaming the Victims

To the San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2004

As I read the articles on the illegal actions taken by the Israeli government in Gaza, and in particular in Rafah camp, I expect the usual excuse for human rights violations—blaming the victims of occupation for the brutalities of occupation. We need to be reminded that long before the intifada and long before “suicide bombers,” the Israeli government systematically expropriated land from the Palestinians, demolishing homes and destroying their agricultural lands.

As the Israelis escalate the violence against Palestinian children, women and men, it is fitting that people in the United States demand an end to the billions of our tax dollars that go to Israel every year so that it can continue to steal land from the Palestinians and to attempt to drive the Palestinians off the land.

Carla Schick, Oakland, CA

Call Israel to Account

To The Independent, May 22, 2004

The thousands of Palestinians made homeless in Rafah this week only add to those already impoverished by the Israeli occupation. The Israeli policy of house demolition (almost 3,000 in the last three years) has been condemned by Amnesty International in a report released on Tuesday.

The firing of tank shells into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators marks a worrying new line in the violence being inflicted on unarmed and innocent civilians.

How much more suffering and violation of human rights will there be before Israel is held to account? The British government must recognize its responsibility to act, together with the EU, to invoke articles within treaties such as the Association Agreement with Israel that govern human rights and democratic principles.

As development and human rights NGOs working in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we condemn this breach of international law. It’s time to move beyond words to mitigate further needless suffering.

SULIEMAN MLEAHAT, Programme Manager, Education Action International; CAMERON BOWLES, Director, Education Action International; CHRIS BEER, Director, Y Care International; JANE CARTER, Chief Executive, International Service; LOUISE RICHARDS, Chief Executive, War on Want; BERNARD TRUDE, Executive Director, Healthlink Worldwide; ANDREW CHETLEY, Director, Exchange; CAROLINE QUTTENEH, Director, Welfare Association, London EC1

House Demolitions Are “War Crimes”

To The Independent, May 20, 2004

Donald Macintyre’s graphic report (May 19) mentions Amnesty International’s report on house demolition in Gaza. It is quite correct to classify house demolition in the occupied territories as a “war crime.” The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court classes extensive destruction of and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity, as a grave breach of Geneva Convention IV.

Israel has consistently used house demolition as a form of collective punishment, claiming that it is justified on grounds of security. Its defense lies in Regulation 119 of its domestic law, which states that demolition may take place of a house which has been used as a base for firing weapons from. It also makes numerous claims that the Geneva Convention does not apply. However, the application of domestic law does not override international law, as stated in the Tadic case in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, in the Krstic judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Bosnia, destruction of houses was taken as evidence of intent to commit genocide.

Is it not time that the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Convention, UK included, complied with Security Council Resolution 681, of 1990, which calls on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to ensure respect by Israel, the occupying power, for its obligations under the Geneva Convention?

Jackie Alsaid, Hampshire, UK

Sharon’s Policies Pervert Judaism

To The New York Times, May 21, 2004

The shocking images of those killed by Israeli forces in Rafah make me ask: When are American Jews going to speak out more vociferously against the brutality and injustice of the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank?

The occupation is fueling anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism around the world. And it creates hopelessness among the Palestinians, which in turn breeds more and more hatred.

The best ethical values of Judaism encourage us to promote tolerance and understanding and to stand up for social justice. The ugly policies of the right-wing government of Ariel Sharon toward the Palestinians are perverting the deepest ideals of Judaism.

David Loewenstein, Madison, WI

A Celebration for Whom?

To The New York Times, May 25, 2004

I am confused by David Brooks’s ending his May 22 column with a “giddy” declaration that Israel’s unilateral actions will “lead to less death.”

Less death for whom? Certainly not the Palestinians, who have incurred debilitating losses in the last two weeks. As an American witnessing the destruction in Rafah, I think it’s extremely disturbing how out of touch we Americans are. Spend one night in Gaza, and see a house demolition or have your heart stop, as mine did, because of an attack that hit too close to home.

Unilateral actions that give security to one side and allow it to fill its nightclubs are not a solution, certainly not when you see Palestinian children go to school red-eyed and trembling because they fear that the next house to be hit will be theirs, with them still inside. There is absolutely nothing to be giddy about.

Yasmin S. Khayal, Gaza City

Letter to Powell From Surprising Source

To Secretary of State Colin Powell:

I read with interest about your trip to Berlin to discuss racism against Jews. Of course, it made me remember that, some years ago, you refused to travel to South Africa to discuss racism against other folks, like Blacks. It certainly made me scratch my head. I seem to have a different fix on these things than our government does. I think that the real problem these days is not anti-Semitism but philo-Semitism. If we were not so darned attached to the Israelis, in particular, we would obviously not be in Iraq now, which we know has nothing to do with WMD, or 9/11, or even President Bush’s feelings about his dad. It has to do with the fact that Israel has long wished for the destruction of the country (at least after Egypt had been neutralized) that poses the greatest geopolitical challenge to it. It’s nice to do favors for friends and allies, of course, but all that blood and treasure—that was taking it a bit far.

If we didn’t have such a bad case of philo-Semitism, too, we wouldn’t tolerate having our reputation irremediably ruined as a democratic country that cares about international law by continuing to support Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. It’s true, of course, we tolerated the ethnic cleansing of the Tutsis by the Hutus, who aren’t even remotely Jewish, but the situations aren’t comparable. The whole world ignored that carnage, whereas most of the world understands that the Palestinians have been royally betrayed and international law sabotaged by U.S. support of Israeli colonialism. Moreover, when we let the Tutsis hang in the wind, we didn’t alienate 1.3 billion other Tutsis throughout the world, whereas we have certainly alienated 1.3 billion Muslims—the guys with the oil—with our support of Israel.

This is in our national interest? I think not—I think our infatuation with Israel has made us leave our senses. No doubt, Mr. Secretary, by now you are thinking that I am one of those people who you went to Berlin to talk about—but I’m not. I’m a Jew who has learned the true lesson of the Holocaust (which my parents narrowly escaped), which is that thinking that any people is superior and is therefore above international law is the ultimate foreign policy sin because it is an idea that will come back to bite us. I think our administration thinks that about the Israelis and that is why it tolerates Jim Crow in Jerusalem whereas it (and certainly you) would be horrified by it in Washington.

Please, Sir, remember where you come from when wearing your diplomatic uniform.

Miriam M. Reik, New York, NY

Islamic Call to Prayer Welcome

To The Christian Science Monitor, May 7, 2004

Regarding your April 30 article “A call to prayer—by loudspeaker”: I awoke this morning to the most melodious sound: the muezzin of the nearby mosque was calling the dawn prayer. His lilting voice made it seem the whole universe was inviting one to bask in its balance. Whenever I return to the U.S. from an Arab country, I miss the call to prayer, although Islam is not my religion. I hope the residents of Hamtramck, MI, will consider welcoming their neighbors’ practice of their faith. Residents might take note that “Allah” is the name of God in the Arabic version of the Bible; hence, if you are Christian or Jewish, Allah is your God. In Arab countries, church bells and the muezzin’s calls are harmonious neighbors—what a beautiful example to follow.

Annie C. Higgins, Damascus, Syria

Media Giants Control Information

To the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 7, 2004

Within days of each other, two corporations controlling large shares of the media and entertainment markets have provided a graphic demonstration of the threat facing freedom of speech and open communication in our country. The Sinclair Broadcasting Group chose to censor ABC’s “Nightline” by preventing last Friday’s show from being aired on its affiliate stations across the country. That show was dedicated to honoring fallen soldiers by reading their names and showing their pictures. Now, Miramax studios has been told by parent company Disney that it has decided to ban distribution of Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 911” because, according to a Disney executive, “It’s not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle.”

At a time when our administration is polarizing this country to the breaking point, loosening of FCC and other regulations is allowing a few corporations to control the content and availability of news and information; especially, it seems, when critical of the Bush administration. I hope others share my sense of foreboding about the increasing loss of the freedoms that are the lifeblood of this great democracy.

Robert McGrath, Seattle, WA

Library or Police State?

To The New York Times, May 19, 2004

Every visit to the Orange County Library reminds me why I hate the PATRIOT Act and how my right of privacy can be officially violated.

A big sign in black and white is posted at the book checkout desk reminding me that the Federal Bureau of Investigation can get a list of every book I’ve read and doesn’t have to tell me that it asked for my list.

A secret investigation.

This “police state” license of the PATRIOT Act could affect me, to the extent that my choice of reading material is adversely interpreted by law enforcement.

No, I do not feel more secure; I feel threatened, and more than a little terrorized whenever I see that sign at my library.

This is from a woman who tells her grandchildren, “My library card is my most valuable possession.”

Arlene Rosso-Baron, Orlando, FL