27 March

By Daniel Kimmage

Britain's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" (pan-Arab, Saudi-owned): Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid warns the Arab media against falling into the delusions and deceptions of 1967.

     "The media of 1967, when radio commentators and newspapers inflated heroic exploits and concealed the truth of defeats, became the laughingstock of the world. Today the Arab media, with its penchant for haste, obvious exaggeration, generous promises of victory, and desire to feed the masses stories that have no relation to what is happening on the ground, is back to its old tricks.... What happened during the Gulf War in 1991 cannot have faded from memory so quickly. The promises of politicians and Arab media figures who supported Saddam paved the way for popular disappointment. Before the war, Arabs friendly to the regime in Baghdad inundated the region with promises of a big war. It was to be another Vietnam, with the invaders returning [home] with tens of thousands in body bags. The Gulf would run red with blood. We were deluged with news of popular support the world over. Then, it all ended suddenly with the signing of the Safwan agreement. Iraq shocked millions with a complete capitulation....

     "...The media need not outdo the Ministry of Information in propaganda, nor outpace the army in declaring victory. The greatest service it can offer the public is to offer them the truth."

Saudi Arabia's "Al-Watan": Sulayman al-Uqayli expresses doubt about British and American credibility as concerns possible discoveries of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

     "Another tragic absurdity is that they [coalition forces] leaked to the media reports that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Najaf. When the press besieged officials, they denied the accuracy of these reports...because they had been asked to provide proof. The question that begs to be asked is: If this is the credibility of the Anglo-American coalition,... who can guarantee that they will not move weapons of mass destruction to Iraqi soil and then claim that they belong to the Iraqi regime?"

Lebanon's "Al-Safir": Wisam Sa'ada examines popular unrest in Jordan with an eye to links between the war in Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

     "The attackers eyes are on a popular uprising in Basra. Iraqis' eyes are on a no less popular uprising in Amman....

     "More than 50 dead from cluster bombs in Basra last Saturday, more than 600 dead in Najaf two days ago, dozens killed in the Baghdad market yesterday [26 March], dozens dead at the entrance to Nasiriyah the day before yesterday... And we are still at the beginning of the war. We have not yet seen all of the American-British horror. This war did not merely lose its moral legitimacy before it began. Its slogan has become: 'One massacre is not enough.' The American president and British prime minister cannot sleep unless they learn that a new massacre has occurred. They are 'liberating' Iraq with massacres, just as the Ba'ath regime took control of it with massacres."

Egypt's "Al-Ahram: Al-Sayyid Yasin likens the current war to Napoleon's campaign in Egypt in 1798.

     "We need a historian like Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, whose powerful words recorded the French campaign Napoleon led against Egypt. That campaign began with brochures for the Egyptian people claiming that Napoleon came to defend Islam and urging them to welcome invading French forces!

     "The historian who will record the American-Iraqi war must note the historical similarity between Napoleon's claims and those of the American secretary of defense, with his obsession with the technology of mass destruction and its ability to decide conflicts, and his fixation on lunatic ideas of necessary and absolute American hegemony over the world. It is [U.S. Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld who called on individual Iraqis -- as though he were making a trivial, superficial request -- to stay home so that American forces could occupy their country without losses. He has also issued a naive appeal to Iraqi military leaders, officers, and soldiers to come forward -- honorably! -- and surrender to invading forces. He promises them great rewards, chief among them that America will give them a role in ruling Iraq after the removal of the country's current political regime."