Abductingreality

By Salama A Salama

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The number of foreign hostages abducted in Iraq has been rising alarmingly, something that can only compound the fear and disappointment of the West, perpetuating the image of Muslims as backward extremists with no sense of values. The rising numbers serve simply to reinforce the accusations of terrorism, murder and brutality that are levelled at Arabs the world over.

Yet it would be a ludicrous simplification to view these abductions as somehow separate from the reality that has given rise to such actions, i.e. the daily horror through which Iraqis must live. With hundreds of innocent civilians killed, the arbitrary bombardment of anything and everything that moves on land and complete disregard for the lives, let alone the property, of ordinary Iraqis, the conflict that rages in Iraq is far, far away from the kind of clear-cut conflict in which one might expect international conventions to be respected by both sides. In comparison to Washington's brutal deployment of its hi-tech military machine -- the use of cluster bombs, for example -- the taking of hostages becomes little more than a sideshow, a distraction from the "terrorist" acts that are America's own breaches of legitimate practice.

To point this out is not to condone such kidnappings. It is, rather, to attempt to rectify a series of increasingly prevalent misconceptions, an attitude that makes light of the life and dignity of Arabs and Muslims while not only defending, but respecting and even sanctifying the blatantly unlawful actions of thousands of foreign mercenaries and occupiers come to impose by force conditions that the Iraqi people reject, their pretext being that people's liberation. There could be no worse self-deprecation on the part of an Arab commentator than thinking these abductions are motivated by greed or, even worse, the result of inborn Arab brutality.

The reality of the European and American "contractors and civilian workers" accompanying the allied forces was exposed recently in The Economist, which published a detailed report on the situation in Iraq. It is these civilians, numbering some 15,000, who are subject to abduction, and they belong to specialised security companies which train them as military affiliates -- guards, drivers, caravan caterers; far from innocent civilians, they are very elaborately armed, and they operate in quasi-military frameworks. Unlike organised army members, moreover, these alleged civilians are not subject to the rule of military or civilian law; and more often than not it is they who commit acts of brutality against unarmed Iraqis.

The Economist points out that there are loopholes in international conventions that allow these people to circumvent trial or punishment. While providing for civilians who accompany military forces, the Geneva Conventions say nothing about such armed and trained forces. One wonders about the degree of defeatism and false nobility that comes up in dealings with the Other -- abduction is far from being an Arab invention, and war imposes its own rules and laws, whether humane or brutal.