-Caveat Lector- >From http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/PressReview/10_10_02/PR2.htm
Attack on US troops: foretaste of things to come? While Arab newspapers give an account of speculation that the two young Kuwaitis who attacked US Marines on military exercises in the emirate may have been acting for Al- Qaeda, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai al- Aam quotes relatives as saying that they appear to have been motivated by the Bush administration�s support for Israel. Newspapers highlight the Kuwaiti government�s vehement condemnation of the incident and acting ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed�s appeal to Kuwaitis to �be aware of the gravity of what is happening, and appreciate the sensitivity and repercussions of the situation and the country�s higher interests.� Sheikh Sabah warned that the perpetrators of the attack were trying to harm Kuwait, and vowed that the emirate would not rest until it had apprehended and held to account �all those who stand behind this matter.� Offering his condolences to Washington, Sheikh Sabah stressed that the attack on Failaka Island, some 20 kilometers off the Kuwaiti coast in which the two assailants were shot dead by US forces after killing one Marine and wounding another was unprecedented in Kuwait. He said the incident would not hurt Kuwait�s relations with the US, but rather strengthen their partnership and their resolve to confront shared enemies, adding that Kuwaitis �have not forgotten that American blood was spilled on their soil during its liberation.� Papers report that both of the attackers identified by the Kuwaiti authorities as Anas al- Kandari, 21, and his cousin Jasem al-Hajeri, 28 had previously been to Afghanistan (Hajeri also fought with Muslim volunteers in Bosnia), fuelling speculation that they may have been Al- Qaeda operatives. But Al-Rai al-Aam says Kandari returned from Afghanistan two weeks before Sept. 11, and was subjected to �precautionary� interrogation by the Kuwaiti security agencies before obtaining permission to reregister in college. It quotes Kandari�s brother, Abdullah, as saying that he and Hajeri, who quit his job at the Oil Ministry last year, started making regular trips to Failaka Island two weeks ago, though their families had no idea what they were up to. But Abdullah said both had recently become increasingly infuriated at the US. �On the day before yesterday, Kuwait TV was showing on the 9pm news scenes of the Israeli massacres in Khan Younis, and Anas exclaimed: �God is gracious, oh Americans! We�re coming to slaughter you like you slaughter us,�� Abdullah said. Kandari�s mother told Al-Rai al-Aam her son had fasted for two days before the attack, and in previous days had repeatedly asked her to give him her blessings. �He used to be pained by the horrific sights of what was happening to the Palestinians at the hands of the Zionists, and he always used to say it is the Americans who feed this criminality,� she said. Other family members said Kandari left behind a will explaining his behavior, �mostly focusing on what is happening in Palestine and what Muslims are subjected to in many parts of the world,� and bequeathing his money and belongings to �the mujahideen.� He had dropped his younger siblings off at school on the morning before the incident, �and kissed them as though it were the hour of parting,� one said. The pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi sees the attack on American troops in Kuwait as a reflection of how much public attitudes to America have changed in the emirate that, following the ejection of Iraqi forces by US troops in 1991, became renowned as by far the most outwardly pro- American in the region. The paper reports that prior to the shock of the Iraqi invasion, a whole range of Islamist and pan-Arab nationalist movements found receptive audiences in Kuwait, and its relatively free press echoed their disenchantment with Washington�s anti-Arab and pro-Israel policies. �Now it appears that Kuwait�s Arab and Muslim roots are beginning to sprout again, breaking through a thick layer of phony infatuation with the Americans which some deluded Kuwaiti circles tried to use to distort the country�s image and isolate it from its Islamic and Arab milieu,� it says. That was noticeable when Al-Rai al-Aam conducted an opinion poll last month, which revealed that 74 percent of Kuwaitis consider Osama bin Laden to be a hero, and share his view of America�s policies, Al-Quds al- Arabi recalls. The anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attitudes adopted by Washington since Sept. 11 have fueled a radical change in Kuwaiti public opinion, as has Washington�s �blind support� for Israel and its brutal actions in occupied Palestine, it says. �The Bush administration, which is busy beating the war drums against Iraq and massing its forces and mighty military machine as a prelude to occupying it and seizing its oil resources, will not pause to consider the meaning of this attack on its forces by two Kuwaiti citizens,� the paper predicts. �It will not draw lessons from it, just as it failed to draw them from the events of Sept. 11. Yet the attack on Failaka, coinciding with the attack on the French tanker off the southern coast of Yemen, is just a foretaste of how things could be in the region if war were to erupt and US forces were to begin their blitzkrieg on Iraq. �If the peaceable people of Kuwait have had their fill and can stomach no more of America�s bloodthirsty policies, how about the other Arab peoples in countries like Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Egypt and occupied Palestine?� Writing in the Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, Hazem Saghiyeh sees the attack on US troops in Kuwait as a �small sample� of what could sweep the region in the wake of a strike on Iraq. This is a consequence of the �stagnation and fragmentation� that has afflicted Arab politics, he declares, which while largely homegrown, promises to have consequences that stand to be exacerbated by the policies and behavior of the United States. Not just in Palestine and Iraq, but throughout the Arab world from Kurdistan to Qatar, from Lebanon to Sudan, from Jordan to Yemen President George W. Bush�s America has gone directly or indirectly �on the offensive,� either trying to establish new political arrangements or setting the stage for new conflicts, he writes. Saghiyeh argues that given present political conditions in the Arab world, America�s aggressive pursuit of unilaterally enforced changes which has gone badly wrong and/or provoked undesirable backlashes in other places like Afghanistan and Bosnia is more likely to fuel divisions and trigger internecine conflicts than produce political reform. �The issue, therefore, goes further and is more serious than the question of how American forces will be received in Baghdad,� he writes. �Let us remember that Israeli forces yes, Israeli were greeted gleefully in South Lebanon in 1982. But it was not long after they were rid of the Palestinian fighters that the Southern Lebanese themselves turned into resistance fighters against the Israeli occupation.� In the Beirut daily As-Safir, Mustafa Husseini looks ahead to the consequences for Iraq of a prospective American invasion and says the Baghdad regime is unlikely to mount any �meaningful resistance� to an attack, and it is fantasy to expect there to be �popular resistance.� He writes that the energies of the Iraqi people have been sapped over the decades by successive �tyrannies,� be they the British-backed monarchy or the �revolutionary� regimes that succeeded it, which proved just as despotic and corrupt and set the stage for today�s one- man rule. Accordingly, in the aftermath of the American invasion, we are likely to witness a �race� for power between �traitors to the regime� and �traitors to the country.� The former are hidden within the regime, but are preparing to defect to its enemies and offer them their services. The latter, most of whose identities are known, live outside Iraq, where they have been �parading themselves like peacocks,� and �discussing their country�s future with its enemies while presuming to speak for it and for its people.� These two groups of opportunists are likely to dominate the scene until such time as the Iraqi people �regain their breath and recover their health,� Husseini suggests. �No one who wishes Iraq and its people well would want this state of affairs to last much. But it might,� he warns. In the interim, Iraq is likely to be ruled by a government that raises democratic slogans but practices �the democracy of exclusion rather than inclusion, and the democracy of forms, trappings and procedures rather than the democracy of empowerment.� In the meantime, the issue of reconstruction, a genuine enough priority, will be used to drain the country�s coffers and �drown it in debt,� even if the US offsets that by forcing Gulf states to write off the war reparations due to them from Iraq. In effect, the Americans will be seeking to �turn the �oil-for-food program� into the ruling regime in Baghdad,� Husseini says. The ultimate aim of the war on Iraq is just that, rather than �regime change� or the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. The objective is to deprive the country of the capacity to develop and advance, he says. And that is not specific to Iraq, but in line with the Bush administration�s overall worldview and its attitude to the global economy, in which the Third World constitutes an underclass that �must sell what it has in order to eat, while those who have nothing to sell can simply perish.� In stark contrast, a US-based Iraqi, writing for the Saudi-owned, London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, envisages his country turning into a �second Japan� under the benign auspices of the United States. Adel Awadh maintains that the reason why the buildup to Washington�s move to �uproot Saddam Hussein�s regime� has taken so long is not because the military preparations warrant the delay, but because of �the political, economic and cultural preparations for the post-Saddam era.� The US plans to establish a new democratic constitutional order in Iraq �in cooperation with whoever cooperates with it,� as well as new cultural and economic arrangements suited to the country�s ethnically and religiously diverse social structure. Once that is in place, there is nothing to prevent Iraq developing the same way Japan did after US forces occupied it following World War II. The country has a wealth of natural resources and human talent, and a long tradition of education and exposure to the West. If all these assets, which Saddam has devoted to military use, were channeled into civilian fields, Iraq could become the Arab world�s unrivaled economic powerhouse, according to Awadh. Moreover, unlike in Japan, it would not take nuclear bombs to uproot the militaristic regime and set the stage for the new order, he suggests. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; I don't believe everything I read or send (but that doesn't stop me from considering it; obviously SOMEBODY thinks it's important) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. 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