A necessary evil
By
Salama A Salama
While questions begin to be raised among the American public regarding the administration's policies towards Iraq, Israel, its dealing with European allies and the type of democracy the US has stated it wants to see in the Middle East -- all of which have grown out of its "war on terror" for which Al-Qa'eda was the putative excuse -- supporters of American policy within the Arab media continue to propagate the idea that it is the existing Arab order that is to blame for the emergence of figures such as Bin Laden.
Yet in reality Bin Laden was, and continues to be, a necessity for Washington. His existence is crucial for the US, and for Washington's media advocates, for a variety of political and strategic reasons. The US remains the only beneficiary of the fact that Bin Laden remains at large: US President George W Bush was, after all, able to mobilise public support for the neo-conservatives' disastrous foreign policy adventures under the banner of eradicating terrorism and attacking radical Islamists.
The US played the Bin Laden card to justify its war against Afghanistan, in which far more innocent civilians were killed than Al-Qa'eda members. The US then adopted a policy of preemptive strikes in its war on Iraq, the pretext being the eradication of terrorist bases and their possible access to weapons of mass destruction, while the real reason is the continued desire by Washington to establish a military presence capable of controlling Iraqi oil supplies.
According to political commentator Maureen Dowd "the US pretence that Iraq is cooperating with Al-Qa'eda has in fact caused some Al-Qa'eda elements to infiltrate Iraq of late."
Most advocates of American policy in the Arab media have no problem with the Palestinians and Arabs surrendering to peace maps drawn up by the US to further Israeli interests, nor with Washington's manipulation of the war on Iraq to serve its own interests. There is apparently no shame in mouthing Israeli-American statements condemning the killing of Israeli civilians while ignoring the murder of innocent Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military, which far outnumbers that of Israelis. These cloned commentators voice support for the destruction of Palestinian resistance groups because in their view these organisations are terrorist, and Yasser Arafat a carbon copy of Bin Laden.
When it comes to the issue of human rights -- on which the US issues annual reports -- foregrounding Bin Laden is essential in justifying the imprisonment of suspects without trial, and outside international law, at Guantanemo, and in discriminating against thousands of American Muslims, restricting their movement and conducting racial profiles. Not a week passes without the US Attorney-General John Ashcroft uncovering new evidence of conspiracies being plotted by Bin Laden and Al-Qa'eda against US interests. These justify the exercising of emergency laws to arrest tens of people and interrogating them.
In the absence of Bin Laden and Al-Qa'eda the US loses any raison d'etre for its increasingly entrenched military presence in the Gulf. The fight against terror -- which is used to pressure Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Palestinian resistance and assorted Arab countries -- becomes nothing but hot air. Bush would lose his electoral base -- those fundamentalist Christians whose agenda ties in neatly with Zionism -- and the mask would slip on an increasingly dark chapter in American history. This is something the neo-conservatives do not want to happen. Neither do their supporters in the Arab media.
