Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Despair compounded —Kamran Shafi

If there is an award for a government that has made its people the most enemies in the shortest possible time, to Dubya’s government it belongs

First off, and despite the fact that I am not a religious man, I would be most upset if a Muslim yahoo had desecrated the Torah or the Bible or the Vedas or Zend Avista or the Granth Sahib — any holy book for that matter. Let’s get on with it then:

“I am asking all our friends around the world to reject incitement to violence by those who would mis-characterise our intentions” — US Secretary of State, Ms Condoleezza Rice (aka The Warrior Princess in Dubya’s zoo, aka The White House), speaking before the Senate Appropriations Committee where she was appearing in an unrelated matter. She also said, “Disrespect for the Holy Quran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States.” She did not apologise, however.

Really, the arrogance; the unspeakable ignorance and the earth-shaking self-righteousness leaves you stunned. “Mischaracterise”, did she say? How can anyone, particularly in the Muslim world mischaracterise the Quran Sharif being flushed down the toilet, or mischaracterise very credible allegations to the effect that, at any rate, it was ‘placed’ in the toilets at the US Military Prison in Guantanamo Bay? What is there to “mischaracterise”?

Were the yahoos who desecrated the Quran, or those who were accused of desecrating it, US military personnel or were they not? Neither is this the first time that the US military has been accused of such beastly behaviour: disrespect for the Quran has been used before now as a tactic to ‘soften’ the inmates at Guantanamo and the other prisons being run by the US Department of Defence where the torturers of the government of the great United States of America have shown themselves to be as cruel and uncivilised and brutal and small-minded as those of any tin-pot dictatorship.

Why, in this same space, more than a year ago, I had written about these same tactics being used in Guantanamo quoting from stories broken by that same American press that broke the present one. Stories about the Quran being flung about by the yahoos-in-US-Army-uniform, and about it being placed (not then flushed down the hole) in toilets to rattle the prisoners. And about prisoners who had just gone through painstaking ablutions for prayers being smeared with what their women jailors (they couldn’t have been soldiers) called their own menstrual blood. And the women jailors (they couldn’t have been soldiers), stripped down to their bras and panties sitting in prisoner’s laps, most of them devout Muslims, to make them uncomfortable at the touch of women who were not their wives.

What has the United States government done about these charges, allegations, call them what you will, in more than a year? Absolutely, precisely nothing. And Ms Rice has the gall to say that disrespect for the Holy Quran will never be tolerated by the United States! If not prosecuting any of the yahoos who did what they did months ago is not toleration what is?

More importantly, how is it possible that this kind of behaviour by high-profile guards, sorry yahoos, in the most high-profile prison was not cleared by those at the very top of the heap? Surely the strongest, most efficient, and bestest armed forces in the entire world have a command and control system second to none too? So how come people like the arrogant Donald (‘Stuff Happens’) Rumsfeld did not know what was going on in the most important (and infamous) prison in his command? Or are the stories of him being completely out of touch with reality really true?

Really, this present lot and their neo-con ideologues who hold the good people of the United States by the throat take the cake for making such a hash of things that they have made a truly great country truly reviled the world over. If there is an award for a government that has made its people the most enemies in the shortest possible time, to Dubya’s government it belongs.

It is also rather late in the day for Newsweek, which broke the story of the Quran’s desecration this time around, to make a half-hearted retraction that doesn’t sound very convincing anyway. It not only seems like one made under great duress, Newsweek doesn’t completely retract the story either.

While it says: “We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst”, it insists that the abuse claim was true in substance, citing several Guantanamo prisoners who say US officials repeatedly dishonoured the Quran (Declan Walsh’s report in The Guardian of May 18, 2005).

Neither is the US government alone in making a bad situation worse. See what Hamid Karzai, the “popularly elected” president of Afghanistan who is so popular he has to be guarded by American bodyguards, has to say: “I tell you — these demonstrations and the noises were not over Quran abuse at Guantanamo — it was against the solidarity of the world with Afghanistan. Especially as Afghanistan wants to have strategic links with the world, with the NATO and with the United States. It was against our programme that we’ve done (sic) for bringing in the Taliban, who are the sons of this soil. The activities of past days (sic) were to undermine Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections — but they’ve (using a Bushism!) mistook — the elections will take place in this country”. I ask you!

And so, while the American government’s misplaced and over-inflated ego and its brazen quest for world dominance pushes those of us who are America’s friends to the very edge of despair, it gives its enemies great heart — it’s unwise and imprudent actions playing directly into their hands.

Bushism of the Week: “The important question is, how many hands have I shaked?” — President George W Bush, answering a question about why he hasn’t spent more time in New Hampshire; The New York Times; October 23, 1999.

Kamran Shafi is a freelance columnist


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-5-2005_pg3_6