The smart connection

As the American saying goes: "Everything in Texas is big", nowadays everything from America is smart. Smart engagement in the Middle East, even before the Bush administration came to power, left the Palestinians and Israelis to sort out their problems by themselves limiting the U.S. role to the mission of messenger, sometimes pressurising the Palestinians to meet Israeli demands.

Smart sanctions on Iraq, proposed by the Americans and set by the British, did not succeed. On September 11 all of America's smartness was tested in a dreadful attack on New York and Washington that took thousands of innocent lives. Smart intelligence and security systems were triggered to reveal the mystery of what happened and what took all of them by surprise.

The smart building up of previous information, most of it as a result of security cooperation with Middle Eastern countries, resulted in the accusing of Osama bin Laden of being the mastermind of the attacks. Smart ideologue Tony Blair compiled all these information in a smart document - published in the Evening Standard - confirming bin Laden and his group's involvement in attacks.

Smart investigations accumulated many leads, from the Arabic handwritten document belonging to the alleged hijackers to the full account of their last night in bars with prostitutes.

Smart strategists in think tanks across the Atlantic advised of the urgent need to demonstrate military might, and pull the entire world in a coalition against terrorism. Middle Eastern regimes, once again, are not smart enough to join, thus unleashing a potent storm bound to destabilise them.

A lot of articles in the American press are now checking how democratic and modern these regimes are. The focus is on Riyadh and Cairo. The Washington Post, carried an editorial on October 12 extending the overused notion that September 11 "changed everything" to cover the 'moderate' regime in Egypt that insists on linking Arab-Israeli conflict to the current situation.

Smart missiles are suspected of downing a few civilian jets over the Atlantic, shortly after taking off from JFK airport. The latest of which was the Egypt Air one with all its passengers and crew killed.

Years before, a smart missile from an American smart source in the Gulf shot an Iranian Airline jet killing all on board.

Smart bombs and cruise missiles targeted an air shelter in Amreiya in Iraq killing scores of civilians and are thought to have set ablaze some oil wells in Kuwait in 1991. And now, smart weapons are looking for bin Laden and Taliban fighters in the villages of Afghanistan. How smart all these discourses are is a matter of question.

I do not think anybody, not only in the Arab or Muslim world, but even in U.S. or Great Britain can buy the attitude of Bush and Blair in the war of words. Explaining Islam, and differentiating between true Muslims and extremists, is not acceptable when it comes from European foreigners.

It is the job of Muslim Ulema or scholars. What is going on in the attempt to appease Muslim populations of the world is seen by the majority of Muslims as another bin Laden-type attempt to twist religion to serve definite goals.

The same applies to the sudden interest in alleviating Palestinian suffering and curbing Israeli aggression. Smart soft tones from London and Washington referring to a Palestinian state, reminds everybody in the region of the same attitude after the Gulf War in 1991. No wonder then if people equated British and American statements about the Arab Israeli conflict with that of bin Laden.

Far smarter, it seems the British and the Americans are in a rush to slip into the ground of those they are fighting and engage in a long vicious cycle of revenge and counter revenge. Each side is betting on winning the sympathy of the world, or the world as he sees it.

Smart media, and propaganda tools, are essential in this exchange. Americans, and to some extent the British, managed to get their main news outlets to self-censor their coverage of the war against terrorism. And President Bush's decision to limit the number of representatives who have access to classified information was mocked as a means by the White House to cover the truth about these information, as it's already second-class...ified.

Smart moves to face rising racism in the West against Arabs and Muslims is actually awakening a deeper sentiment accumulated over a long time. Bias and stereotyping of Arabs in particular has long been an established trend in Western thought.

Orientalists, and their oriental culprits, played a great role in deepening this in the minds of the Western public. Of course Arabs and Muslims also share responsibility for they did not make genuine attempts to divert this trend.

But this not a time of cool debate on whose responsibility it is. It is war now, and what happened in New York and Washington should not be allowed to happen again anywhere. Whether bombing Afghanistan, or even eliminating it altogether from the face of the earth, will achieve this goal, is questionable.

The most important is to root the real cause of breeding terrorists, whether they're bin Laden's type or others. This can't be done by propaganda, but by genuine tolerance and justice.

I do not think the Americans and the British have convinced the majority that they are genuinely after the human values of justice, democracy, freedom, tolerance, etc., that they are preaching. It seems to be smart arrogance, playing into the hands of fanatics and extremists.

Others may pretend to believe one as one is powerful, but they will never respect one genuinely. One may force others to come to one's terms, but will never win their sincerity. Ridding the world of terrorism can't be through oppression and fear.

The spectre is being widened not limited. I remember a colleague who used to comment, sarcastically, on globalisation as "a way for the Americans to get 35c of each dollar spent by anybody anywhere in the world".

If he were to comment now, I suppose he would add: "they are now planning to get 45c, by imposing another 10c on every inhabitant of the earth as a contribution to the global effort to combat terrorism". What a smart world!


Ahmed Mustafa is an Arab journalist based in Dubai.