Baseball strike takes precedence over Iraq

To my surprise, the lead headlines last Saturday in the country's two leading newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, announced in bold type that a baseball strike has been averted.

The news overshadowed the countless reports about the preparations in the country to mark the first anniversary of the horrific events of last September 11 and the divisive debate here about the chances of an American war to overthrow Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

The surprising lead stories reminded me of an incident on my first day going to work at the Chicago Sun-Times in August 1968. As I stood at the station apprehensively waiting for the approaching "L" - the elevated subway - a fellow passenger quickly bought the Sun-Times from a nearby vendor and joined us for the 20-minute ride.

To my amazement, the well-dressed fellow passenger immediately turned to the back page of the paper where the sports news are published.

I couldn't believe my eyes, especially as Chicago was hosting that night the Democratic National Convention for the nomination of the party's presidential candidate - an event that was later marred by widespread riots.

Having grown up in the Middle East, or Beirut to be precise, I couldn't imagine anything more important than the political events. How lucky, I thought, that Americans are very much preoccupied with sporting news, and are not taken by political developments as is the case in the Middle East.

In my years hence, I have seen this episode repeated many a time and my thinking has always been that this is one attestation to the good-naturedness of Americans, who cannot be troubled or concerned by more worldly events. But this self-centeredness has come at a high price after 9/11.

The year since last September, America has changed or, as others have put it, the terrorist attack itself on New York, Washington and the fields of Pennsylvania has changed America, in few respects to the better.

President George W. Bush, much as he tried to protect the diversity in American society by visiting mosques and meeting with Americans of Arab origin or of the Muslim faith, missed the point when he wondered aloud, "Why do they hate us."

Never in the field of human conflict, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, has the cause of a few maligned so many. Arabs and Muslims are paying very high price for their ignoble act.

The Arabs and Muslims alike have tried to rectify the deteriorating situation but without much success. On the other hand, the Bush administration and the American public at large has failed to live up to the expectations of those who have come to live her and appreciate things American.

An attempt to get college students to learn about Islam has been nicked by a prominent Colorado college and an invitation to an American-educated Palestinian leader, Hanan Ashrawi, to come here for various lectures during this all-important season has created an uproar with some elements of the American Jewish community.

These are but few examples. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, warns that the American-led war on terrorism "faces the real risk of being hijacked by foreign governments with repressive agendas.

In an impressive Op-Ed article in the New York Times, Brzezinski echoes Arab pleas for appreciation of their grievances: "To win the war on terrorism, one must ... set two goals: first to destroy the terrorists and, second, to begin a political effort that focuses on the conditions that brought about their emergence."

He continued: "The rather narrow, almost one dimensional definition of the terrorist threat favoured by the Bush administration poses the special risk that foreign powers will also seize upon the word "terrorism" to promote their own agendas, as President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India and President Jiang Zemin of China are doing. For each of them, the disembodied American definition of the terrorist challenge has been both expedient and convenient.

"When speaking to Americans, neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Sharon can hardly utter a sentence without the 'T' word in it in order to transform America's struggle against terrorism into a joint struggle against their particular Muslim neighbours.

"Mr. Putin clearly sees an opportunity to deflect Islamic hostility away from Russia despite Russian crimes in Chechnya and earlier in Afghanistan. Mr. Sharon would welcome a deterioration in the United States relations with Saudi Arabia and perhaps American military action against Iraq while gaining a free hand to suppress the Palestinians."

He underlined "the simple fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific political antecedent ... That is true of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Muslims in Kashmir and so forth."

Isn't it high time that Americans, as their sports coaches often say, "listen up"?