12 May

By Daniel Kimmage

Jordan's "Al-Dustour": Usama al-Sharif examines the phenomenon of occupation.

     "What is happening in Baghdad and elsewhere is a result and consequence of the occupation. There is no contradiction in cholera poking its ugly head up from under the occupation's wing. Occupation, chaos, anarchy, pogrom, and cholera form a harmonious, rational context. The general is the military commander Baghdad has known in one form or another since the occupier arrived on the banks of the Tigris. The American tank at the end of the Al-Jumhuriyyah Bridge has finally become a part of the landscape. This is an occupation. We know better than others what this means. This is why the cries of Baghdad residents on our televisions mean so much and provoke so many thoughts and questions: Where has Iraq gone and will it return from captivity one day?"

Britain's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat": Ahmad al-Raba'i asks Arab aficionados of inflammatory rhetoric to leave the Iraqis alone to make their own decisions.

     "Some of the word profiteers in Arab countries are not content to speak of an 'immediate' withdrawal. They go farther, speaking of organizing an Iraqi 'resistance' against America. The most recent such proclamation came from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. They want to sell their words to the Iraqis. Most of them took part in the celebration of silence under the old regime, and even supported it. Despite the revelations of the regime's bloody atrocities, the terrifying mass graves, and prisons that stand out as innovators in the worldwide culture of violence, they still ask the Iraqis to die so that the spectacle can continue for viewers. They should leave the Iraqis alone to decide how and when foreign forces should withdraw."

Lebanon's "Al-Safir": Kamal al-Bakkari sees the ousted Iraqi regime as epitomizing the maladies of the Arab world.

     "The [Iraqi] regime announced that 'the armed tribes will repel the invading forces.' After all these decades of claims, the truth comes out -- a state that is actually nothing more than a gang of murderers and criminals against humanity. Out comes the truth of a 'civil society' that is actually a group of tribes and smaller tribes that only came together when they fell victim to a dictatorial regime that later proved to be made of paper.

     "The most familiar example of the city of repression, the city of the jungle, is the Arab city as exemplified by Baghdad. In this sense, the Arab city presents the richest example of the transformation of geography into an inimitable, unimaginable prison. We see a terrifying example of how a great history can be transformed into a false witness to veil and obscure. The Baghdad of historical greatness covered up the Baghdad of the prison, the terror, the inventor of death in all its most satanic forms."