30 March

By Daniel Kimmage

Qatar's "Al-Sharq": The editors decry attacks on civilians.

     "What is happening today in Iraq fully merits the term 'war crime,' committed in the name of 'Iraqi freedom.' We do not know what connection there is between 'freedom' and the targeting and killing of innocent people in apartment buildings. We had thought that those who wage war or perpetrate attacks while claiming to liberate a people would target military sites or the palaces of those who are said to imprison the people and deprive them of their freedom. Nothing of the sort has occurred. We have seen and heard attacks that have no relation to the freedom that the war's leaders have trumpeted to the world. This comes as no surprise if we consider that that decision to wage war emerged not from freedom, nor even from democracy. The master of the White House, who now aims to establish his hegemony over the world, turned his back on the wishes and desires of the international community and the security council."

Britain's "Al-Sharq al-Awsat" (pan-Arab, Saudi-owned): Ahmad al-Rab'i condemns the practice of using human shields.

     "The use of human shields is one of the ugliest aspects of warfare. It was clear from an interview that Abu Dhabi satellite television conducted with an Iraqi woman in Basra who had fled the bombing that this is common practice for the Ba'athists and the Saddam Fedayeen. The woman said that civilians tried unsuccessfully to convince the fighters not to set up barricades in residential areas. They refused and made the civilians a target for coalition forces. This policy proves their disdain for human life, and that what matters to them is to defend the regime even if all Iraq is reduced to rubble."

Britain's "Al-Hayat" (pan-Arab, Saudi-owned): Zuhayr Qusaybati wonders why anyone should be surprised at the advent of "martyrdom operations" in Iraq.

     "Even if the person who carried out the martyrdom operation in Najaf yesterday [29 March] was a Ba'ath Party member, did he sacrifice his life to save the party and regime, or his homeland? The Americans and the British do not know the answer, or they know it and are relishing deception just as they accuse Saddam of doing....

     "...The [Iraqi] people have been forced to choose between a huge prison and the guillotine of a treacherous executioner who comes to them on a warplane's wings and from the heart of an Arab country. Is it strange that they should choose martyrdom rather than be flayed for the sake of occupation and the battle with the regime?"