George Bin Bush
By Salah Eissa *
The worst possible outcome of the international campaign against terrorism is that its participants may turn it into a religious war between Muslims and Christians. Nothing is worse than Bush's likening of the campaign to the Crusades and Berlusconi's extremist statements against Islam -- except Bin Laden's assertion that the battle at hand is a war between Muslims and infidels.
The exploitation of (religious or national) sanctity in implementing a political agenda is far from new. The Arabs are quite right in suspecting that the campaign is not, at bottom, about fighting terrorism but about strategic interests in Central Asia; and news of the deals cut by the US with Pakistan, Russia, China and other countries to ensure their participation in the American-led coalition is no longer secret. The Arabs, too, have a right to know what their reward for participating might be: although they share an interest in combating terrorism and are not sending troops, their role being limited to providing information, their participation remains indispensable in disproving the Taliban's claim that the US is waging war, not on terrorism, but on the Arabs and Islam.
Leaving aside the debate Bin Laden's recent statement has generated, it is important to remember two facts. First, the Taliban's version of Islam is unacceptable to the wide majority of Muslims. Second, it was not the suffering of Iraqis and Palestinians that was behind the (Bin Laden-led) bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan or the attempt on Mubarak's life in Addis Ababa.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is editor of Al-Qahira.
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