by Jack Dresser, Ph.D.
Capt., Medical Service Corps, USAR (1962-65)

Islamic anger at cartoons — an overreaction?

Two weeks ago I discussed the illegality of our invasions and occupations of two Islamic countries under both international law and the United States Constitution, which is never mentioned in the American press. I described our use of depleted uranium warheads, which explode into radioactive dust making the entire region unsafe for habitation for this and hundreds of future generations. This, and four other internationally prohibited weapons used by the United States military in Iraq, is also never mentioned by our press. Maybe that’s why Arabs and other Muslims are outraged enough to overreact to cartoons.

Or maybe they’re outraged because the American press faithfully reports some 2,300 American deaths but fails to even mention, much less responsibly report, the Iraqi deaths which according to the most reliable estimates may be 100 times that number - almost entirely civilians and Iraqis legally entitled to defend their country against our illegal invasion and occupation. Americans don’t seem to care. Iraqi lives don’t matter. Anything America does must be Right, even if it’s wrong by international law, American law, and civilized standards of decency.

Or maybe they resent our claim that Israel is the only democracy in the region, while we have systematically supported autocratic Islamic rulers against democratic movements by their own peoples. Regimes that suppress opposition and violate human rights have been installed and protected by the CIA, as well as more overt assistance, throughout the Islamic world from Indonesia to the Persian Gulf. The reason is as obvious as their disclaimers are disingenuous. Autocrats are much easier than democracies for American corporations - especially oil and weapons companies - to do profitable business with. This includes Saddam, who was brought to power by the CIA and armed by the Reagan administration throughout the 1980s.
 

This U.S. policy extends back as far as 1953 (under, yes, the venerated Eisenhower), when the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, was deposed by a CIA-orchestrated coup for daring to nationalize Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (later BP) that was taking 85 percent of Iranian oil profits. The United States then restored Riza Shah Pahlavi to power, who renegotiated the oil contracts to assure 40 percent of Iranian oil to U.S. companies. The Shah remained a repressive and hated dictator for 25 years until overthrown in 1979 by a popular revolution co-opted at the end by Islamic fundamentalists. The U.S. destroyed Iranian democracy a half century ago, from which it has never recovered.

Or perhaps Muslims are angry because we armed and trained Osama bin Laden and the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, armed and provided nuclear technology to Iran under the Shah, secretly armed both Iraq and Iran during their 8-year war that killed 650,000 Muslims in a cynical manipulation that looked suspiciously genocidal, and then turned around to use the weaponry and technology we provided as an excuse to condemn, attack and depose the recipients.

Due to their control over much of the world’s hydrocarbon resources and access routes, Islamic countries have become battlegrounds in the continuous state of war promoted by the grandiose imperial fantasies of the neo-conservatives and needed to feed our massive, voracious military-industrial complex.

Or maybe Muslims are angry because the American press recently showed endless tearful interviews of Israelis forced to leave Gaza, without mentioning that the properties they were leaving had been confiscated from Palestinians in 1967 in an illegal war of aggression by Israel, followed by an illegal occupation, followed by illegal movement of Israelis into those occupied lands, producing almost a million Palestinian refugees, half of whom continue to live in United Nations refugee camps and none of whom I recall seeing in tearful American news interviews.

Or maybe they’re still angry because, after World War II, the West decided to reduce Palestinian lands under the post-WWI British mandate from 93 to 43 percent Arab ownership to create a Jewish homeland as compensation for the Holocaust committed not by Arabs but by Germany. When the Arabs refused to agree, Jewish forces with U.S. support simply seized the land identified - and much more - to establish the state of Israel on 78 percent of mandate Palestine.

Or maybe they’re angry because the U.S. has vetoed 32 U.N. resolutions since 1982 condemning Israel’s violations of international law - more vetoes than exercised by all other permanent Security Council members combined.

Or maybe they’re angry that U.S. diplomatic and military help has allowed Israel to move some half million settlers into some 300 communities in the occupied territories in flagrant defiance of international law and numerous U.N. resolutions of condemnation.

Or maybe they’re angry that the U.S. press faithfully reports all Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel but only a tiny fraction of Israel’s high-tech terrorism against the Palestinians, which are far, far more efficient in their killing power and infrastructure destruction, and result in far more numerous deaths.

And this weaponry largely comes from us, representing two-thirds of our aid to Israel, which receives about 30 percent of our total foreign aid. Among all U.S. aid recipients, only Israel receives theirs unconditionally with no accountability requirements. Thus, Israel is able to use our tax dollars to oppress and tyrannize the Palestinian population, build a massive wall across land they illegally occupy, and ignore American and international demands that they desist. Why don’t we at least reduce their allowance when they defy these demands? Curious Muslim minds want to know.

Maybe Muslims are angry because this U.S. aid to Israel (about $15 million a day), with a per capita GDP of $17,500 and unemployment under 9 percent, is 65 times greater than our aid to Palestinian NGOs (about $230,000 a day), while Palestine has a per capita GDP of about $1,000 and an unemployment rate between 25 and 30 percent. Our aid to the affluent state of Israel - our largest single aid recipient - equals or exceeds our aid to all of Africa and the Caribbean, where aid is actually - and desperately - needed.

And maybe Muslims are angry because anyone in America pointing to these facts, or raising the delicate issue of Palestinian rights under international law, or suggesting that Israel’s $3 billion direct annual allowance from U.S. taxpayers and $2 billion in U.S. loan guarantees might be made contingent upon compliance with some 70 U.N. resolutions the U.S. didn’t veto that they have ignored, is howled into silence as “anti-Semitic.”

Armed resistance to the invasions and occupations of both Iraq and Palestine do not reflect the perverse hostilities of the “Islamic mind,” but their legal right by consensus of the civilized world embodied in international law.

And the Palestinian guerilla resistance is finally paying off (as will Iraq’s). New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently returned from Israel and reported on NPR’s “Fresh Air” that Israelis are terrified of suicide bombings and ready to withdraw from (most of) the occupied territories and (largely) comply with the 1993 Oslo agreement in exchange for peace and safety. This is confirmed by their recent election, as well as a January 2005 survey of Israeli citizens (see my Nov. 9, 2005 column in the Springfield News, reprinted in the January/February, 2006 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs).

Israel could have done this 13 years ago. How many lives and how much misery might have been spared had our press honestly reported the facts, from which the American conscience might well have risen up and stopped our support for Israeli outrages? And why have we been kept in the dark? The widely discussed paper recently published by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer blames the AIPAC-led Israel lobby. But we should also follow the money. Israel has provided a generous and dependable market for our massive weapons industry, which has fattened itself for decades on the bodies of Palestinians.

Jack Dresser, Ph.D., is a research scientist who lives in east Springfield. He can be reached c/o The News, 1887 Laura St., Springfield, OR 97477.
originally published on April 7, 2006
 

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Copyright 2006 Jack Dresser, Ph.D.